In April I was able to lead my team "Beauty and the Bees" to victory in the East Kingdom's Golden Seamstress competition.
More on that later - right now I'm uploading the pictures. Make your own narrative. It's like that picture book The Snowman. Only with the SCA and a lot of silly poses. **sorry guys. I added words! **
(And for those of you thinking me vain - Keziah was the Beauty)
Beauty and the Bees consisted of myself, Fortune St Keyne, Syele von Heidelberg (also our model), Simona bat Leon, Bianca Anguisolla, Gritta Vulselin, and Keziah Planchet.
We did a ton of prep for this event. We researched portraits, read dress diaries, timed ourselves sewing. I made excel spreadsheets of supplies and we divided the work into things we HAD to complete, things we wanted to complete, and bonus items. All of these are then divided into hand and machine categories and the fabrics, supplies, and notions needed for each item were listed out. Sometimes I realize I do have a lot more engineer in me than I think. If only WPI had a textiles department.
The Main Event was the dress, split into bodice, skirt, and sleeve tasks
Then the underthings: the petticoat which was cartridge pleated. The hemd or chemise which was smocked. Stockings and the shoes. We never got to the Lenburg style bra and underwear.
Then accessories: telerberet, goldhaube, collar necklace, and brustfleck.
We also made sure we brought comfortable chairs, snacks, water, and cups.
We were allowed to draft patterns ahead of time, so Keziah drafted the brustfleck embroidery pattern and I spent a night at Syele's house drafting out a pattern for the high necked gown were chose.
She did a mock up goldhaube and shoes as well. We each took copies of the patterns so there was less chance of forgetting them.
Quincey T. Pie, erstwhile adventure companion for Bianca and I came to the event.
We instituted the "Flower Crown of Shame" during the event.
You wore the crown if you made a mistake. Once someone else made a mistake, they wore the crown.
I wore it a lot.
Gritta is marking out the hemd. She smocked the hell out of that thing.
Keziah is a one woman embroidery MACHINE
Simona making bias tape. So much bias. From a deep green silk dupioni.
Bianca and Syele played out the main fabric, a russet orange velvet.
Clearly we were having too much fun.
German pin-up Syele
The pattern chalked out on black velvet for the brustfleck
Pearlin', pearlin', pearlin', BRUSTFLECK!
Bianca making all the tubes for the sleeves. This took hours longer than we thought it would.
Also Simona had 6 month old twins. And forgot her pump. So hard to get special permission to leave and get one. Lest she explode.
Such happy workers.
So pretty!
The bias gets applied to the bodice by hand.
The inspiration portrait for reference.
I regret only sleeping three hours
Sleeve assembly!
Gritta smocks and Bianca cartridge pleats.
We should have made Keziah sleep more.
Simona texting boys. Well. Her husband. We also were singing all sorts of show tunes.
Fitting the dress now that the skirt is pleated in. This is where progress pictures stop and we start to haul ass to the finish line. In the last seconds all of us were either stitching in the sleeves or holding the dress up for us.
Judges! Being judgey! Our display table.
Having an "I survived" Starbucks doubleshot
Costume change!
One of the other teams presenting. They hand stitched everything.
One of our accessories, the severed head of Holofernes
Syele fully dressed. Doesn't she look amazing?!?!
My one glaring mistake. Somehow a tube got crossed.
Just like the inspiration portrait!
And with Quincey!
I love this one!
Overall we won. We also won Baroness's Choice and these lovely silver bracelets with little silver oak leaves for BBM. Thank you to everyone who competed, judged, brought us food, and helped with the event.
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