patterning

I’ve been trying to tidy my life a bit by transferring fabric and card patterns to paper, but frankly some patterns need to be card. Like all those multi seamed bodysuit patterns, and the armour. I gave up half way through what are apparently my “full” sets of patterns that are not. Fem Shep is in three places (Turian bits, armour, bodysuit.)

So I decided to try and actually pattern today, my Cranach dress:

Again, it’s those multi-seams that is making life difficult.

In this case, the evidence of extant garments and patterns all use the same sleeve head which is a shallow sideways S. There are no all in one cuts with the body. And yet.. those do look like piped seams that follow up to the neck.

This is also why I have been redoing all my patterns. I put too much work into geometry of sleeves when they are all annoyingly based on the same basic set of patterns.

There is a totally fantastic long gown with puffed sleeves in the Swabach tailor’s manual. The piecing does support cutting panes separately at least which is enough. If this painting is based on a real garment Cranach could have used then I think I know how it would actually look vs idealisation.

The popped collar is also very annoying. It’s high enough that it collapses in simple layers. And I can’t get it the neckline to sit quite that far into my shoulder. So I am taking a break and looking into my stash for canvas and hair cloth and twill tape to figure out what I want to do.

I also am working on how to talk about historical fit and scale. Because it really is counter intuitive- and is part of why this dress in particular is annoying. There is a heck of a lot that connects 16thC tailor’s manuals to 19thC dress making. To the point I’m working on teaching some 19thC cut and fit (like the difference between American and “French” systems- hint they are totally different but not if we use modern interpretations.)

And I do really want to review and link more books in my database.