14th Century Gothic Fitted Gown

My Moy idea has amended itself into a gothic gown. No, not like the dreary Morticia Addams get-up you see in Hot Topic -- more like this. Though mine will have buttons at the front, not lacing, and sleeves buttoned to the elbows.

(<--- not me.)

(http://whitemountainarmoury.com/magdalena/images/large/plumcotefront.jpg)

The reason for the change is because of the Moy sleeve. The more I looked at it, the weirder it seemed, and my mind went round and round with different piecing ideas from the many images I looked at, so finally I went with my original inspiration: the grande assiette sleeved dress I first saw here: http://www.bettinaschreier.com/clothing/c_gr_as_dress.html

Bettina's stuff is just lovely, and inspires me to no end. What a talent she has! Go ahead; spend some time looking at her work. She's really doing it up right. And that tent! I can't wait to work on something like that for Dave and I.

(<--- also not me.)

The bin of yardage odds and ends I got at a yard sale for $5 is providing me with plenty of scraps to make mock-ups with. It's very freeing to be able to cut and trim and experiment without worrying about ruining my good fabric. Sure, the stuff is hideous and the colors are daunting at times, but I had to do four test sleeves to get the fit right and fit has nothing to do with color. And now I know when I cut out my sleeves, they will be just right.

This particular fabric (at left) is a nubby cotton blend of orange-ish gold and pink. It's really soft, for all it looks like a waiting room lounge. Dave actually likes it on me and said I should make a full-on dress from it. Uhm. No. It's ugly and frays like crazy.

(<--- yes, me!)

Want to see the fabrics? You know you do! Here's one of the gores. I put it in the sun so the colors would be more true. The navy blue wool is really dark. The gold linen lining is changeable in the light, sometimes it has almost a greenish cast to it. If you're old enough to remember Harvest Gold appliances in the 70's -- that's the color here.

And as I started stitching it together, all I could think of was this:

Oh well.