A "crowning" achivement!

[isabelladangelo]

Sorry for the pun but I couldn't help myself. The battery charger has been found! Woohoo! Now I can upload my pictures of my latest project. This one I'm really excited about.

This is Princess Elizabeth before she became Queen Elizabeth I while her brother, Edward, was on the throne. She's about 13 in this portrait. I simply love the color and the style. I've been looking for a year for the perfect fabrics (you wouldn't believe how hard goldenrod cut velvet is to find at a decent price!) and have finally found them.

Although I have made this style dress many times before, I had never attempted a french hood. They were a scary thing until yesterday. I finally attempted to hand sew my own french hood for this gown armed with a plastic canvas to make the hood stand up, the correct materials, and the french hood pattern from the Elizabethan Costume page. I also had a sharpie so I could trace and enlarge the pattern I had printed off on to the plastic canvas.

I decided on plastic canvas because a) it's easy to sew the beads on b) it's flexable but retains it's shape (unlike wires) and c) no one will know the differance by looking. It's a nice light weight comfortable alternative to attempting to bend old coat hangers into smooth round shapes.

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The first photo is of the plastic canvas and the red jacqaurd that I'm also using for the gown. The color is off. It's kinda a reddish pinkish madder color. It's the same as in the "real" gown in the portrait. The pattern shows up nicely in this photo though so that's why I used it.

All the pieces! The black velvet veil, the pieces to the coif, the gold trim, and the hood pieces itself. Since I couldn't find any two people to agree on how the hood was actually constructed, I developed my own way. I figured I'd make a normal every day coif (aka skull cap), attach the gold trim to the very edge of the cap, and then sew the hood on to the top of that. The coif fits on to the head so it adds stablity to the hood overall so it won't fall off or over, ect. I also ended up adding two ribbon ties that go back around the hair to help stablize it over all. That, and a couple of braids and I should be set!

This third picture is of the completed coif. I did all this by HAND. No machine at all was used. I also completed the entire project in four hours. This included sewing up the hem of the yard long veil. It probably wouldn't have even taken that long if I hadn't been also running around the house looking for chocolate or taking breaks to play with my pup, ect. Overall, I say this is really only a two hour project by hand. That includes the cutting out of the pieces.

This is simply the jacquard carefully handsewn over the plastic canvas after watching Black Adder II. The ends are sewn right sides together and then I flipped it the other way so that the stiching and raw edges would be seen from the right side. I did this so I'd have a seam to sew on to the coif and one for the veil. It worked out beautifully, no raw edges showing, as you can see in the last picture. Overall, this is really a simple project. Now, just to add the gems!

Comments

[sestree.livejournal.com]

How pretty. The plastic canvas is a great idea --- I'm pretty sure my grandmother used cotton or maybe regular canvas and starched it (with the old cook style starch) when she did the french hood for my cousin's wedding.

I'm looking forward to seeing the dress as well

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

I honestly was thinking of that but since I'm going to be outdoors mostly, exposed to the elements and the humidity, I was afraid it would "melt" like my Mickey Mouse hat did when I was seven and it rained at the electric parade. It was quite tragic to a seven year old and seered into my memory for life...
Now, if I was only doing indoor events, that would be totally doable. Actually, a couple of websites I came across suggested using buckham (duck/canvas fabric stiffended with glue) which is probably what they really did use. But, plastic canvas is waterproof so it can rain all it likes. Which, by murphy's law means it won't rain when I wear it. (I've become long winded since I wrote my thesis) :-)