Thursday, February 26, 2015

Selected References - Paintings and Extant Garments

This is the first of 5 appendices from the documentation for my gold silk doublet, which competed at Kingdom A&S February 2015. After some consideration, I decided to simply pull all the pictures off. The links to where I got them are in the text.

Monday, February 23, 2015

Gold Silk Doublet - Documentation

Below is the text of the documentation I entered with my gold silk doublet. The photographic dress diary mentioned at the end is made up almost entirely of photos from my Flickr account. I'll post my appendices next, but I'll need to alter them. I'm comfortable that using most images in the printed documentation that sits on a table next to my entry should fall well within the boundaries of "fair use." I'm far less sure about re-distributing those images online, even as part of that same documentation, and I'll need to do some reading up on the matter to make sure I'm doing the right thing. No, I don't think anyone would send me a cease-and-desist letter or sue me if I included the images. But I know I would be frustrated if someone was using my pictures in a way I did not intend, so I'm trying to be considerate.

Friday, February 20, 2015

Gold Silk Doublet

Over the course of the past year I've been honing my skills in doublet tailoring. I made several doublets, and finally felt ready to completely hand-sew a doublet in all historically correct materials, to enter into competition at Kingdom Arts & Sciences. I bought the gold silk, linen canvas interlining, and handkerchief-weight linen lining all from Gray Lines Linen in New York. Then it sat in my house for nearly six months while I practiced on less precious material, improving my skills and perfecting the pattern. At the beginning of January, I knew I had to cut into it. It was time.

You'll find a photographic dress diary on my Flickr site, and I'll be posting more pictures, as well as my documentation and research, over the next few days.