My Anne of Cleves folders are still consuming so much time, but in a way I’m getting a semi fast run through what I have and what I thought I have. But I also managed to get my Anne of Cleves frock out and pressed- thank goodness all my work on basting the layers has been worth it as the calico underlayer and velveteen do work together so very well. I also did a rough estimate as to whether I have enough of the Margaret cloth of gold for alllll the guarding. Now that’s tricky. I might have enough if I ignore what I know *should* happen with her skirt versus what extant garments tell us.

And that is to not waste precious materials where they won’t be seen. Take the Moritz von Saschen’s schaube:

Why yes I’ve covered that the guarding is all on the bias before, but here you can see that it ends about half way under the turned back collar/revers.

So I could just make the gown only able to be worn with the closure on my right and save three strips. And yes it’s that close.

If I cut it all on the bias I do get more. But the problem is each strip is a different width. I can sort of fake that with the narrower (neckline) but just folding a deeper allowance. But the widest strip is closest to the hem and the edge of the overlap is thus the longest continual piece. Okay I guess I can take my cue yet again from the extant and manuals and just do a lot of piecing especially where no one will see it.

But I want to follow the examples of the Moritz schaube and the Festkleid at the GNM which is to use cording at the edges.

But I think I need to really carefully just do teeny tiny seam allowances as that’s what it looks like. I might have just convinced myself it is on the bias. Though not true bias in places. I wish I was able to reverse engineer the pattern of the fabric to work out if it is on the bias or if the weave is what Bruyn captured. Bias really does off best bang for buck, I know this, I’ve written about this. I’m just nervous about cutting very neat strips and getting the edges sealed well enough that I can store the strips between rounds of hand sewing.

But I do need this made for my K’Zoo talk because so much of what I’m speaking about is in this technical side. I want to set up my other frocks in the background because while I’ll have all my files they are a great starter for questions, and they are in colour. So much of what I work with are old micro film images and text.