Dress Diary of The Red Houpelande

It's Thursday before a weekend event, and I decide I need a new dress for Saturday evening. "Hmm, I have that rich $18 a yard tomato red brocade that I bought to make a houpelande. I think I'll make it today." Words & thoughts of a deranged woman. Never mind that I still have to gather and make items for the thrown weapons range that I am also running at this event. Basically, I have 24 hours before I have to leave to get this done, pack, and to finish all my other projects.

Anyway, the quest begins. First, the fabric, (which I got on sale for ~$8 yard) needs to be cut. If you know me, I don't use patterns. I visualize then draw the pieces out. I decide to make the dress have a rounded neckline, and to go with a traditional houpelande instead of a Burgundian gown. (Mostly decided because I have no wonderful black fabric to trim the Burgundian.) There are so many variations on the houpelande, that you can really pick and choose your own style, and still have a historical accurate gown. This gown won't have the often seen high collar (it's still Sept & hot), but I'm thinking of a rounded butterfly collar. I also really love the belled trumpet sleeves, and I think I will have enough fabric to make them. I decide not to make the sleeves so long that they will touch the ground, for two reasons: one, I don't want to trip over them (I'm a klutz sometimes) and two, I'm not sure I will have enough fabric for both sleeves. I also plan to dag the edges to give them that medieval look. (Besides, I don't have anything in my wardrobe with dags yet.) I had thought about lining them with fur, but I like the dags better. Plus, I think that black lining showing through will create a nice effect. This gown would have been fashionable in the reigns of Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI (1399-1461) of England.

I estimate that I will need at least 7 yards to make the body of the dress. (You need about 4 times the length of the dress. Even more if you want a train.) The fabric is 60 inches wide, which makes it easier to get the full, rich look of the houplande. I suggest that you not use fabric less than 54 inches wide. I plan out my measurements, and decide that I am going to make a train of about 2 feet, so when I do the math, it will take about 7.5 yards complete the body with the train. (Length of back panels will be 72 inches.) I'll need another 2.3 yards for the sleeves. Here are my drawings for the pieces:

I thought I might as well start sewing the body together. I'm running out of time, and I'm really curious how this is going to look. It doesn't take much time to sew the 4 panels together, but the hard/time consuming parts are still ahead.

After I finish sewing the body, I cut the lining. I'm using just a plain, black cotton. I am also kind-of cheating, and plan to only line the bodice, not the skirt.(Ok, so I'm not really cheating.)

Next comes the sleeves. I finally decide on a width of 48 inches for the bottom of the sleeves. I had planned on making the each of the dags 3 inches wide, 2 inches deep, with a 3 inch gap between each dag. I'm being a good little girl and cutting the lining too. After I cut these out and start sewing, I realize something about dags that I should have thought of. I forgot to take in account the allowance when you cut, so the dags to gap ratio is not even. Oh well, learn from my mistakes & I'll remember next time.

On to making the collar. I decided not to make this dress with the high collar, but instead with a rounded butterfly of fur. Unfortunately, I don't have enough fur, so I have to make a field trip to get some. After get back, I proceed to draw out the design and cut the fur. Next I have to sew this to the dress, which is already lined, so I need to be careful. This goes really well, much better than what I thought. I'm pretty happy with the look of the fur collar.

I am running out of time for today, and still need to pack, gather and organize mine and my husbands stuff for the camping event, so I stop for today.

The only thing that is left is to hem the bottom of the skirt. This should be relatively easy, just a little time consuming. However, this my luck. With only a few hours left till we leave, my dress almost done, I sit down to hem and hopefully finish this last minute, crazy need of mine to make this dress. I start sewing, my machine messes up. I stop, rip out the thread, and try again. Same situation. ARGH!!! This goes on for about an hour, with me sewing a few inches, then the bobbin messing up. I try everything I can think of, including sewing it by hand, which I don't mind to do, but I'm almost out of time. Luckily I try my mom's old machine, which miraculously works and saves the day. I finished the dress with about 10 minutes to spare before we had to leave. I wore it the next day, while my friends called me a crazy person for even trying to start a huge project with hardly any time to work on it.

I'll try and post some pictures soon. I didn't take any pictures of the work in progress due to the time constraints.