Renassance Faire Costumes

I told myself I wasn’t going to make myself a costume for the Renaissance Faire this year…I should have known that I would disobey myself…

It started with my brother’s girlfriend commissioning a Ren Faire costume.  She wanted it purple and gold, and liked the look of an underbust corset and a layered skirt.  This is not historically correct, obviously, but more fantasy/medieval, in fact, they all are.  This is what I made her:

The night before the faire I added two strings of flowers- one on a hip and one off a shoulder.  I thought it needed just a bit extra.  But I forgot to take pictures of the flowers before she put it on.  You can see them in the picture with all of us though.

Then my brother needed a costume.  So I made him a black undershirt, embroidered leather bracers, and a leather jerkin.  The embroidery, for any who were wondering, says “strength, warrior, water, journey” in Viking runes.  He and I have been watching the show Vikings together, and I got inspired.

Then because I was so excited about them having new costumes, I decided to make myself one…and because I’m crazy I decided to embroider the corset AND try a new shaped corset. 

This is THE HARDEST corset I have EVER made.  Why?  Tabs.  I loathe tabs.  Edging those suckers was a NIGHTMARE.  I looked up tutorials to make it easier, and nope.  Big ol’ nope.  There is no such thing as “easier” when edging tabs.  Fuck tabs.

Anyway- here is the design:

The embroidery was the bit that took the longest.  I was embroidering my fingers off for about 4 days straight.  But finally, I was done.  And I added the white dupioni I had embroidered onto the iridescent mustard dupioni.  

*Drool*  Iridescent mustard dupioni.  I was going to make this costume green and gold…but then I saw the dupioni and just DIED.  I gave up on the green taffeta I had in my cart and bought the dupioni instead.  

The chemise is white muslin.  I added about 5 inches of green shantung to the bottom of the chemise just to make the costume a bit more exciting.  I was also going to embroider the shantung…but decided against it as I ran out of time.

Here is the finished costume on Melian (my dressform):

And here we are as a group!  The three costumes on the right are the ones I made.  We looked pretty bad-ass, if I do say so myself.