Foresleeves finished

Well progress is being made on the sewing front. I completed the foresleeves with beading, I have to make the silken poufs on the bottom edge of the foresleeves but that won't take long to attach those accents.

I have decided to kick off fall with a warm furry creation. No not a puppet but to start my royal purple velvet and ermine fur gown. Been chomping at the bit to sew this creation, I decided the 2 yards of ermine fur will be used on this gown alone.

In stead of making a dark twin gown, I found an artic fox faux variety that would work well with the black velvet gown. Its has some spots of black with gradual varations from light to dark, so it will look really cool against the richness of the black velvet. So it will have alook all its own instead of being a black version of the purple gown in my drawing.

Found a great Faux Furier online that sells quality faux fur that is pretty convincing to the real thing. Its just so much easier having faux fur sleeves that are sleek and easier the care for than real fur and much cheaper. The quality faux fur is more expensive per yard but for the proper look to the Tudor fur sleeves with correct depth and texture is its worth the money. Since I tend to buy just one yard at a time its not hard on the purse strings either.

You may ask why use 2 whole yards of fur for the sleeves on just one gown? Well it won't just be the sleeves. The purple velvet fabric I have is 45 inches wide and will be sort since I am 5'7". When its pleated to my bodice there will be ankles showing which will not do. I was deciding how to approach a lining on the bottom of the gown for the past week. My options are either strips of black velvet, stips of matching brocade, or strips of ermine fur. Well I decided on the fur but not to buy more. Just use the two yards I purchased.

This gown is meant to look very royal, so they would have used the fur and shown it off when ever possible. Since the ermine fur is 60 inch wide fabric, I am going to cut 2 inch strips and line the front and bottom edges of the skirt with ermine. Also linging the top bodice neckline of the gown with ermine too. Its going to be one striking and warm gown. My plans if all works well is to wear this to Fabric Fiber and Fighting. Which as this point is looking to be a cold event since its in the middle of November. Though that all depends on my work schedule if I will be able to go and do children's activities for this event. Guess we will see how it all works out. Hope things can get back to normal but will miss the overtime pay. Oh well guess you can't have your pie and eat it too.

Back to the future,

Maureen