A cute summer dress - Burda 6133

 Sometimes it's fun to just do something without a great plan or deadline. Since I have said that I will try to not buy any clothes this year and summer seems to be finally showing up I really wanted a new summer dress. My favorite dress of the last few summers is definitely too big now, I can wear it belted and I will see if I can take it in, so when I set out to buy wadding for project Toad in the only fairly local fabric store, I also decided to pick up something that would make a nice dress.

First I needed to find a pattern. I wanted a base pattern that wasn't too complicated, but still more interesting than just a sack with a belt. I also wanted a pattern that I could see myself modyfing and working with to make other dresses. In the end I went with Burda 6133. I liked the flare sleeves, but I could also see how I could change them for more regular sleeves. The panels in the skirt and the bodice also added interested and I could see how I could combine different fabrics for the bodice and the skirt for example.

I picked up the fabric in the store, and this is what really is the joy of physical shopping. I am normally not very fond of florals, but this was a more modern floral, and the colours matched my har perfectly.

The pattern was a dream to work with. Burda nowadays does a lot of its patterns as e-patterns, so I bought it and printed it. The pieces weren't terrible large, so I didn't have to tape too many pages together at ones, that also meant that it was fairly easy to place on the fabric and cut out as well. The only thing I will say about the pattern is that I didn't see, or I missed the notches for the front and back of the sleeve.

The fit of the pattern was interesting, especially for me that hasn't worked with a big pattern company pattern in a long time. I bought the pattern in the size that I have when buying clothes, which was the largest available for this pattern. Then I took a look at the measurments given, and according to them I should have a size 2-3 sizes bigger, my waist measuremnts was almost 10 cm larger than what was recommended on the pattern. commercial patterns have a lot of ease in them, and in the end the waist fit perfectly. The only thing is that it is slightly tight over the bust. For future use I will probably just use a slightly smaller seam allowance at the front bodice seam. I used 1,5 cm and 1 cm would probably have made it even better. One things about the pattern is that unlike all other commercial patterns I've worked with it didn't include any seam or hem allowances, so I had to add them in myself. For the length of the skirt I used the B length, but I added 4 cm, which made it end up somewhere between the A and B length.

The pattern was really easy to sew. I don't think I even looked at the pattern instructions. The most complicated thing is to install the invisible zipper in the back. The one thing I changed from the pattern was that I didn't close the slit in the front, instead kept it open, and I used bias tape as a hem facing instead of regular double folded hem. In all it took me one evening to cut out the pattern, both from paper and fabric, one day to sew the dress, I then had it hang over night before hemming the skirt and sleeves.

For once I actually took care to make sure that inside looked nice as well, normally I just zigzag the edges on the inside. I want this to stand up to a lot of wear and washing, so for this I encased all the seam allowances. Where I could I used french seams, which is starting to get a favorite seam of mine. It doesn't take much longer than first sewing the seam and then overcasting it, especially on straight seams, and almost all seams are straight on the pattern. Where I could I rolled the seam allowances up and sewed them so that now raw edges were visible.

All in all it was a fun and easy project I can definitely see myself using this pattern more and make dresses in different lengths and with different sleeves from it.

Toad hat covering

 The hats are of course not meant to be white, it was time for them to get a fabric covering. By now the hats had grown so large, both with the raising of the foam and the wadding, so I decided to make a new pattern for the fabric, rather than trying to use the old one.

I simply added a piece of pattern tissue on top of the hat and while feeling with my fingers where the seams were on the inside I traced it on the outside.

Here is a comparison of the original pattern for the foam, and the finished fabric pattern. It is pointier in the top where it will go together, while the bottom is more blunt since that will go to the head opening.

For fabric I used a sports lycra, the kind you use for swimwear. The fourway stretch is very forgiving, and I also liked the sheen of the fabric. When I cut the pieces I didn't add any seam allowance, but then when sewing them together I used 1,5 cm. This was perfect to make the fabric stretch over the hat and take away any bumps.

It still looks bumpy and and uneven here, but that is because I haven't closed the top. I can't do what until I have installed some way of helping with wearing the hat, and I can't do that without my husband since I need to fit that on him. Since I still haven't got the fabric for my own hat that means that I have to make a halt in this costume project. A good thing is that I could just eke out the hat pieces from just 1 m of fabric, so now I know how much I will have to order for myself, since the fabric is quite expensive and I can't see myself using it for anything else I don't want to buy extra fabric just in case.

Raising the hats

 So when I last posted about the Toad hats I had cut them in half because I wasn't happy with the proportions.

The original hats

To make the hats taller I added around 10 cm of a foam where I had cut them up. 

I didn't just glue a piece of foam in the gap, I glued the foam strip to a larger foam strip, and it is mostly that one that is glued to the inside of the hat that keeps the foam strong enough. An unexpected result of this extra piece was that it helped to make the hats more round.

I think the husband actually looks a bit scared of the hat.

The next step was to cover the hats in wadding, to hide all the ridges in the foam. I started with glueing the wadding sheet to the middle of the hat. I used wood glue for this, worked perfectly.

I then folded the fabric over the edges, and where there was extra fabric I pinched it, like when you make a fabric dart, and simply cut the excess fabric off.

With the increase in height and the extra wadding the hats are now quite heavy, so I've stalled the project. I need to come up with a good way of fitting the hats to our heads as comfortable and stable as possible, while also making sure that we don't stress the hats too much when wearing them, or taking them off.

And here are the hats in their current state.

I couldn't even fit the hat in the frame when I took a selfie.

Leksand medieval fair

 Over Ascension day it was the Medieval fair in Leksand and me and my 16th century group in Dalarna were there. For the first time my husband also joined us and slept in a tent. I didn't bring any new clothes, instead this year the focus was on getting the interior of the tent more practical.

This is one half of the tent. The new addition was that I had bought a big basket, where you could put your clothes when undressing, that way they were all in the same spot instead of being spread all over the floor.

The other part of the tent and I am so happy with my new pantry/food storage.

It started out as this bathroom shelf (Råggrund from IKEA). I then covered the sides in a linen curtain. In the shelves I could have everything in plastic containers with good lids to keep bugs and other stuff out. The top pegs in the corners also worked great to hang aprons and handkerchiefs from. It's not historically correct in any way, more of a LARP standard, but it worked and I'm happy with it. I can't do carpentry work, but I am good at assembing IKEA furniture and sewing, so I used the skills I have to make something that cleared up a lot of floor space in the tent and that felt a lot more hygienic.

I was so happy that my husband enjoyed the experience, and he said that he slept like a baby. One thing is sure as much as I like my friend Emma, who I usually share the bed with, it was nice to have a husband (and a lot of wool blankets) to snuggle up to when the temperature dropped to around 4 degrees in the night. The trick to keep the heat was one duvet, four wool blankets a hot water bottle between us, and to sleep in a modern but warm hoodie and flanell trousers set.

Much of my time was spent cooking food. I usually use Leksand to try some medieval recipes that I've made in my modern kitchen, before I make them in a larger scale in Visby. This time there were some success - my homemade gnocchi, chicken in cumin sauce and the fish stew, and some total failures - when I tried to make cheese with rennet and it refused to curdle. 

Keep an eye out on my historical food blog for more information about the food.