Started My Song Wardrobe

Actually, I started the wardrobe last year or whenever it was that I decided to turn the fabric (which I loved) from a skirt (which I hated) into a scrub top for my job. Here's a crummy photo of a wrinkled top. If you're curious about how come I would post a crummy photo of a wrinkled top, it's because it's the middle of the night and I am not going to iron it right now. Here you go:

Little did I know that I was making something I'd be able to use as part of a wardrobe I had no idea I was going to want. 

Took the waistband off the skirt and one of my scrub tops fit right onto it, one of the ones with just front and back pieces, so easy I can't believe I messed it up! See that little black edging down on the right hand corner? Yeah. I sewed the pieces together backwards so the back is inside out. LOL 

If I happen to get really ambitious one day I might take it apart and fix it, but what the heck. I've worn it that way for over a year now, off and on of course, not straight through for heaven's sake, and nobody's said anything about it except one lady and she thought it was so cool she told me how much she likes it. 

ANYWAY - the thing about that top is that it's 100% wool (supposed to dry clean it but I don't) and those black and red checks would have been perfectly acceptable for my time period; even the white thread is good! And the fact that the neck opening is too big so I have to pin it makes it even better, believe it or not Ripley. I did my homework and was going to make myself one for my wardrobe and realized HEY I already HAVE one!

So go ME!  

The other day I was fighting with some fabric I bought to make a cloak or something out of, at least a practice one. It's 100% cotton, not linen or wool, but I figured it would be fine because my characters would have traded for it (nice, having rich characters - they can get their hands on anything that was available in the world back then, just by telling a trader that they want it ... it might take a while, but they'll get it!). When I realized that this piece of fabric was exactly the size of the big plaids (more homework doing its job for me - those suckers were/are five feet by eighteen feet; my fabric's 60" wide and six yards long, PERFECT) I thought: good! I can practice getting it on right.

Well, that didn't work out so well for me and I lost the fight.

No, I didn't cuss out loud but I wanted to. 

Turns out I needn't have fought at all.

Nobody knows much of anything about tartans, plaids, belted kilts, or anything else so related, for my time period, except that they did indeed use checks and stripes and 'plaid design' fabrics. Plain colors, too. 

So I'm good to go on that count.  My characters generally use their 'plaids' to wrap up in like blankets, anyway, which has always been one of their uses. For anything else, I can do whatever I want.

It may not be right, but nobody can tell me it's wrong, either!

Besides, it's all for fun and illustration - I'm not doing technical re-enactments here, just playing a part.

If Mel could put kilts into a time when they hadn't been used yet I ought to be able to get away with this.

Back to my wardrobe.

I'm going to use that honkin' big hunk of fabric I was fighting with to make a pattern for a hooded cloak.  

Since I just made two, one for practice and one for somebody's Halloween costume, back in October and it's only January now, you'd think I'd be able to remember how it's done - and yes I do remember. It's pretty easy, although not as easy as the chiton dress I made today, or the pants, or the top for that matter. It's still darned easy, even with a lining in the hood. 

So I've got the top, the pants, a dress, and tomorrow will have a lightweight hooded cloak - and I can use it for a liner for the black and white checked one of heavier fabric that I just found again after I had forgotten I had it. It's been sitting around for years and I can't even remember what I was going to make out of it - a cape maybe - which is what it's going to be after all! Good grief. HOODUH THUNK!?! 

To give myself a break from sewing tomorrow, if I need breaks which I'm pretty sure I will, I can design some more accessories, and maybe even figure out something on the shoe thing.

When it comes to shoes it would probably be just fine for me to get a pair of leather thong style sandals. It's not like I'll have to wear this stuff when it's cold out (I hope) but just for the nice months of the year.

Although, come to think of it, those sheepskin boots for the Winter Solstice ceremony (outside) sound like something it would be worth making - and using!

And that's just about enough of that for this night. I was supposed to be going to sleep almost four hours ago already.