Saxon court gown

After trying all my old rayon brocade curtains with my teal cotton velvet to see which worked best together (and which I had enough of) I chose a cream damask. Unfotunately, while it was pretty, it was something about the combination that felt more modern pretty than period pretty.

While blue isn't the most common colour for an early 16th century German gown there are still many examples of blue gowns, so there I felt secure - I have written a blog post with lots of blue early 16th century German gowns. Most of these either have gold or red/pink borders, so I felt that the cream just needed something more to give it a more period look.

The woman to the left in this image from Das Sächsische Stammbuch by Lucas Cranach the Elder gave me the solution:

On both edges of her gold brocade borders there is a rose red ribbon/trim. You also find this on her sleeves and crisscrossed over her brustfleck.

So, having decided that I spent weeks trawling the internet for trim that wopuld look nice, but not cost an arm and a leg, since I would need over 25 metres of it. 

There was a deadline for this too, since I was going to have a rather big surgery done on the 15th of November, and would not be able to leave home to go shopping for over a month after that. I was beginning to despair. But then I remembered this trim from an earlier visit to Göteborgs Remfabrik, a factory museum that actually makes trim, on 19th century machines.

And now, 24 metres later, I have a skirt:

It is not attached to anything, I've only gathered it with a belt. On top of the thick medical corset/girdle thingie that I will have to wear day and night for three weeks after the surgery, and at lleast one more week during the day, to help my flesh bond with the titanium net that they put tehre to keep my intestines inside my diaphragm instead of outside.

It will probably take quite a while before I have any idea of how my waist, well, most of my torso, will look so I don't count on making the bodice before spring. But at least the skirt is finished. And it's not like I don't have a lot of other craft projects to work on.

I am very tired and can't sit up for long times, so hand sewign and some knitting is what I have been doing. The latter is, however, made more complicated by this little lady, who bites off my yarn.

She is now 13 weeks old.

We have also adopted another rescued kitten, who was born in teh wild, and is c. 16 weeks old. Shhe mostly hides in the bathroom, but has started to come out more and more, even when we are at home and awake.