My Old Green Kirtle

This is my old green kirtle, made in early 2007 to wear underneath my Burgundian over gown. This dress is a pretty ubiquitous 15th century style. I have newer and better kirtles now, but Jocelyne makes this one look so good, so I thought I'd share! She's also wearing my velvet belt and my linen coif, both of which were made sometime around 2011-2012.

http://www.faerie-queen.com/green-kirtle/

Costumes For Sale!

In an effort to clean out my closet a bit, I'm doing a costume sale. This is round 1! I have some historical garb and some cosplay outfits for sale.

I just keep making new things, and I've reached maximum closet capacity. I don't wear all of these outfits anymore, so it's time to let someone else love them!

Historical: https://www.etsy.com/shop/fqcouture?section_id=13360643
Cosplay: https://www.etsy.com/shop/fqcouture?section_id=13360525

1490s Italian Renaissance Dress

I love the Italian Renaissance, especially 1490s fashion, but I'm sad to say I haven't done much costuming from that era. Well, let me just fix that! I was particularly inspired by the Girl With Cherries painting by Ambrogio di Predis from c.1491-5. As per my usual methods, I was not interested in making a direct copy of the dress in the painting but rather using it as my primary inspiration, with supporting evidence from other various period sources and other similar dresses.

I purchased nothing new for this dress! It was meant to be a quick fun project to use up some of my materials on hand and give me a new dress I can wear on an everyday basis that's not another gothic fitted gown. The outer gown is made of rough dupioni silk and lined in hemp. The under gown is actually a false gown! It's just a bodice and sleeves. It's a clever solution to many layers when you live in a hot climate. The under gown is made of green cotton velveteen and lined in linen. I already had a camicia! All of the eyelet holes were done by hand. I grumble about all the time it takes, but really, I just do them while catching up on tv shows at night, so it's not such a big deal!

More images are here on my website: http://www.faerie-queen.com/silk-and-velvet-italian-renaissance-dress/

Green and Brown Cotehardie

I made this cotehardie for my boyfriend. It's green and brown linen, fully lined. The fabric is all linen. The buttons and button holes are all done by hand. He's also wearing a coif and tights I made for him.

I have more images here: http://www.faerie-queen.com/early-15th-century-male-cotehardie/

Medieval Morgan Le Fey

I finally posted these images! Months ago, last summer in fact, my barony did an Arthurian Legends themed event. I decided to be Morgan Le Fey. I've been dabbling in alchemy, well, since before I was in the SCA. I only just decided to make it one of my historical art forms last year. Anyway, my vials were all filled with useful concoctions I've made, as well as some dried herbs.

The gown is late 14th / early 15th c, depending on the specific region and person. The way I've styled it here, I feel it takes on more of a 14th c. vibe. It's a linen cotehardie / kirtle / gothic fitted gown with buttons all the way down the front and on the sleeves in counterchange. The sleeves pin on.

More picture here: http://www.faerie-queen.com/morgan-le-fey/

Sideless Surcote

I recently made my first sideless surcote. This is patterned velvet with a skirt of black silk/rayon blend. It was pretty simple to make, and I would love to do more in the future. This style is based on late 14th century French sources.
In these pictures, I am wearing my surcote over a brocade/jacquard kirtle, with a horned veil headdress, all of which I also made, of course!

More pictures here: http://www.faerie-queen.com/black-sideless-surcote/
And you can see the kirtle here: http://www.faerie-queen.com/15th-century-brocade-kirtle/

Purple Velvet Cotehardie

This is a dress I made last year. I realized it was before I started this blog, and I wanted to share anyway. Plus, I only recently took fancy photos for my website. I wear it occasionally to court-like events, but I am choosing to share the fancy photos rather than the plain old event photos.
This is a cotehardie, late 14th century French style. It is made of velvet and fully lined in silk with matching silk sleeves, belt, and tressour crispinette (the hat). The buttons and button holes were all done by hand, and all the beading and trim was also applied by hand. I made the necklace too. Lots of work, totally worth it!

More images are here on my site: http://www.faerie-queen.com/purple-velvet-cotehardie/

Festival of the Rose

To honor our lovely Queen, our kingdom had a Festival of the Rose event. I dressed in Persian garb and performed a belly dance with some other ladies from my barony. It's been a while since I've worn any of my Persian garb, but it still fits...at least mostly! Here, I'm wearing a red silk coat over a purple linen layer over a sort of gauzy chiffon layer that I had used primarily for the cool Persian-y print. The salwar - which you can't really see underneath all the skirt volume - are light brown raw silk. My hat is wool and brocade. These pieces were all based on roughly 15th c. sources, though there really was little change in Persian garb during the middle ages.

I also entered my 1570s Venetian gown into the arts and sciences display. You've seen that one before, so I won't explain it again. (:

Queen's Champion

For our recent Queen's Champion tournament, I wore my 1495 Venetian gown. The dress has three layers: the camicia, gamurra, and giornea. My camicia is white linen, my gamurra is brocade, and my giornea is cotton velvet with hand-beaded details.

With Arianna! 

Coloring some scrolls.

Venetian Male Outfit Construction

Here are some progress pictures from the construction of my boyfriend's 1560s Venetian outfit.
I made his doublet from a new pattern, drafted on his body and based on some extant patterns from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion. His doublet is dupioni silk lined in black linen. The sleeves are brocade, and they attach with ribbon ties. For pants, he has the Venetian style in black linen.

To complete the ensemble, I made an overcoat / loose gown for him. The coat is made from the same velvet as my gown, and it is lined in black silk/rayon blend. I added faux fur trim to the front. The sleeves are slashed, and I made them by cutting strips of my velvet and silk and sewing them together. The undersleeves are brocade, made from the same pattern but without the slashing.

Viking Girl

I made this Viking dress a couple years ago, but I recently wore it to a Viking themed Yule, and I have some photos to share. This is actually only the second time I wore it because I broke one of my brooches, and it took me forever to get around to fixing it.
The underdress is made of linen, and the two outer layers are wool. The embroidery was done by hand while I was in grad school. I needed something to keep me busy during boring seminars!
Norse history is special to me because I'm half Swedish. While I haven't confirmed my lineage all the way to back to Viking times, I like to believe my ancestors were awesome Vikings.

Chopines

Chopines are these amazing platform shoes from the Italian Renaissance. They were quite helpful in keeping skirts out of dirty streets, and as with many things, they grew to become an elaborate fashion item.

I had wanted to make chopines for years, and finally, I got around to it! Oh, I had attempted it before. I tried wood blocks and found that my strength with tools was just not up to par. This time, I went with cork. You need high density cork for this project, and most of it comes in very large blocks that were out of my price range, though they are large enough for several pairs of chopines. I found that my feet were just small enough to fit yoga blocks, so I bought two of those. I began by patterning my shoes and tracing the pattern onto my cork blocks.

Next, I used a handheld power sander to achieve the 2-dimensional shape.

During the next step, I sanded to achieve a 3-dimensional shape. I used a low grit sandpaper to do the initial sanding and cutting away of material. Then I switched to a higher grit for fine sanding and evening things out.

The shoe covers were made of brocade. I patterned them with a lot of extra material, sewed them together, and attached them to the cork block base. I used cotton canvas as my insole.

For my soles, I cut black leather pieces and then attached them with nails. I added some trim to cover my edges and make the shoes look extra pretty. Tada!