Monday 3 August 2015

Heritage sneak peak

The original idea was a Moravian Wallachian folk costume shirt that could double as a Regency shirt and would involve this so far rather wonky embroidery...



... but seeing how long that's no doubt going to take and that I have other priorities than to spend the month of August embroidering, it got relegated to slow progress and the Silver Screen challenge (I do have a way to make it fit that, honestly).

The green stitches are me finally trying out the various stitches in the book on folk costume embroidery I bought years ago. The diagrams are rather confusing, but I think I've finally figured most of them out.
One of the things learned: Detached buttonhole stitch is called "stínek" in Czech; it's also the name for this, as it's used to connect two pieces of fabric. Based on that and a picture in the book, I'm assuming the name applies to the stitch because it was also used to connect two pieces of fabric.

* * *

What I turned to for this month is, instead, a Moravian Wallachian folk costume bodice.
Which will carry on to the later Sewing Secrets challenge with the addition of detachable sleeves to be turned into an approx. 1790s jacket/spencer (exact method of attachment to be determined). No, I don't think it's entirely accurate, but it's close enough and it works for me! If I'll be attending more of the Regency events, I'll need a spencer sooner or later, so why not kill two birds with one stone?


The pattern was derived from the kacabajka pattern, because I really do like killing two birds with one stone and using what I already have.

The fabric used to be a thrifted coat. It's only 80% wool, but how often would I find quite a lot of historically passable red wool fabric only for 50 CZK? I squeezed the whole of the body from the raglan sleeves. The new, curved sleeves will have to be cut from the body of the coat. Ah, the paradoxes of repurposing!

7 comments:

  1. What a lovely stitch, Hana! That looks charming, and well done.

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  2. Now that kind of ingenuity and determination to make something earn its keep and reuse what is available - THAT is the most historically accurate attitude you could possibly have!

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  3. Lovely embroidery, Hana. :) So excited to see the finished ensemble when it's done...

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  4. Thank you. I'm not sure I'll make it to full ensemble levels, although this particular folk costume is definitely much more user-friendly than others! I can imagine non-folk-costumey uses for most of the pieces; unfortunately, some pieces that would take it the whole way, not so much - pricey and specific.

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    1. :) Any small ensemble counts and the specific bits seem to be one of the downsides of folk costume everywhere. Some are expensive / hard to hunt down and not that well suited for another use. But I'm sure your result will be wonderful.

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