Green Damask Italian Ren Dress

Recently, while visiting an upholstery outlet store, I found a mint-green damask-like fabric in the remnant bin.  Each remnant was a few dollars and as each piece looked long enough to make a skirt I found all the pieces I could and made my purchase.  The fabric is thick but flows well.  The fiber content is unknown and it doesn’t breathe well but it was a very inexpensive way to experiment with new Italian Renaissance patterns.  I have the few pieces of burgundy that matched in pattern but there was not enough to utilize for a dress on it’s own so I’ve started with the mint-green.

Up until this point I have been using a skirt and an Elizabethan waistcoat as my fencing armor and while it works well, I would like something more “flashy” for some of the bigger tournaments.  While this fabric has not been tested for armor and I don’t plan on using this particular dress as armor, the design may follow through to become an armored dress someday.

A couple of my dearest friends helped me fit a toile of the bodice in February and I used the new fit for this project.  In looking towards making a dress into armor, I needed to look towards styles with sleeves that are sewn into the arms eye rather than tied in.  Additionally, I will need to fit a partlet to fit over the top of the bodice as I cannot armor above the bodice neckline without it looking really out of place.  For this project, here is the inspiration piece….



Given the high neckline of the chemise I figured this would provide additional projection once the partlet is added to this style. 

Here is a picture of me in the finished project



Not a bad facsimile if I do say so myself.  Now, here is how I went about it.

For the Chemise I went back to the pattern shown me when I first entered the SCA (Thank you Patrick!!!).  The front and back pieces are squares cut 54” long x 36” wide (this gives me a 3” or so hem at the bottom) for the chemise to be ankle length.  The two sleeves are squares cut 36'” long x 36” wide.  I know that seems like a lot of sleeve but it is what adds filling to the dress sleeves and my previous chemise sleeves have not been voluminous enough to puff appropriately for Italian Renaissance so I went long.  Fold each piece in half and cut off a triangle 12” on the long end at the 45 degree angle on the top corner of each piece where the pieces will form the shoulder seams.  Sew the front and back “corners” to each sleeve’s “corner”.  Fold the front and back to meet and sew the “T” formation you end up with to get your body and 2 sleeves.  Hem the bottom of the body.  Hem the bottom of each sleeve and then sew a channel a little higher in the sleeve for ribbon to gather the sleeves to your wrist (and form the illusion of pleats).  Make a small slit in the center front neckline (2” was what I did).  Gather the neckline into a neck band 4-5” bigger than your neck size to get the dropped neckline (don’t forget when cutting the neck band to add seam allowance). Add your button and buttonhole to the neckband and the chemise is done.

Now for the dress: 

I started with cutting my fashion fabric, lining and cotton duck (for interfacing) from my fitted toile bodice pattern.  The pattern is a front and back which allows for lacing up the sides so I can technically get in and out of the gown myself.

I attached the front to the interfacing and then sewed the front to the back at the shoulder seams.  Attach front to back at the shoulder seams for the lining.  Then, with wrong sides together, attach the lining to the outer at the neckline.  Turn right side out, clipping and applying iron as needed to flatten the neckline seam.  Turn the sides of the front so lining and outer fabric are right sides together and sew.  Do the same with the back.  At this point you should have a bodice that looks finished at the sides (ready for lacing) and neckline with raw arms eyes. 

Lower sleeve is achieved by measuring your wrist diameter and then the diameter of your arm just below the elbow.  Add 1-2” for seam allowance to each of those measurements and that is the width of the upper and lower edge of the fitted portion of the sleeve.  Measure the length of your lower arm (elbow to wrist) and add 1-2” for seam allowance and that is the length of the piece.  Use a ruler to connect the ends of the width and the length measurement at the center to get your pattern piece.  Sew the tube along the long side.

Upper sleeve is achieved by width of fabric (50” in my case) with the length being 1.5x the measurement of the point of your shoulder to below your elbow.  Sew the tube at the short edges. 

Pleat the puff into the fitted lower sleeve and then pleat it into the bodice attached to the outer.  Leave 1-2” of sleeve puff not sewn into the arms eye.  This allows the side of the bodice to open slightly for ease of putting on and then the extra pleats itself in when you lace the bodice shut.  Repeat for the other sleeve. 

I like a voluminous skirt so I opted for 2 panels to make up the front portion of the skirt and 2 panels to make up the back portion of the skirt.  At the side seams of the skirt I left 6” open at the top for getting in and out of the gown.  I pleated the back into the back of the bodice and the front of the skirt into the front of the bodice sewing the skirt to the outer/duck fabric first so I could finish by hand the interior seam so no machine stitching would be visible but I would have the strength of the machine stitching.  As you can see by the “dust line” my skirts were a little long so I’ll need to hem higher next time but this was a good length for “looking good”.

Side by side