Stimpzilla's Renaissance Dress Blog

Mara's courtesan gown was shipped to her this week and she received it last Friday. The choice of the golden chemise was a wonderful one, though the fabrics required it to be entirely hand stitched. We wish we had seen her face when she opened the box. And for those of you who have been asking for pictures, we have promised some when she wears it the weekend next.

Our entire weekend has comprised of resorting all our fabrics into new and more organized containers in our lovely shelves. We are rather tired but, thankfully John Percy is strong. We should be finished with the trims on Tuesday. Then back to more renaissance gowns. However, tomorrow we shall rest and do very little if at all possible. Perhaps a game of cards would be nice, though we must admit we would rather cause some trouble, and see a good fight between Raleigh and whom ever gets in his way.

We have been working on Mara's courtesan gown. The skirt is finished the bodice is finished and the chemise is almost done. We are of a mind that it will all be completed on Monday, which is wonderful as we have more projects to work on.

Today was also our birthday, and we received many gifts. Lord Jim gave us poulaines from Bohemond the Bootmaker, for which we will now have to make an appropriate gown. He also gave us black mother of pearl, and bone dyed black (we have no idea whose bones they are but we don't much care) These gifts will be used to make the Damascus steel dagger he is making for us. We also received books from our father and brother.

And wondrous paintings of our little niece from our other brother.




AND...We got to see Star Wars! We are most happy!

Janna's gown is completed! It is off to California having a lovely ride with FeEx. We are very excited to see pictures of her wearing her new renaissance gown.

We also have been building new shelves this day. Everything went well so far and we are hoping to have them finished tomorrow. Then we can organize them on Monday. We would get poor John Percy to arrange all the trims and fabrics but we fear he has been in his cups lately and may not be able to tell greens from blues. So we will set him forth to sweeping and thread arranging instead.

Then Tuesday we shall begin Mara's courtesan gown. We are most excited about her gown and are once again awaited for fabrics from Africa. We are hoping that there are some spangles on the zardozi embroideries.

This week we have been working on Janna's Elizabethan gown. So far the overskirt is finished and the bodice, with the exception of the modesty panel. Tomorrow we will try to finish the underskirt and sleeves. The gown is a silk cross woven with purple and white, giving it a nice lilac appearance. The underskirt and sleeves are of a silk blend with a large pattern in varying shades of cream. The trim is a lilac pink with mint green. There will be a dress diary of the gown added to the site soon. (If the internet will cooperate long enough.)

The rest of the fabric for Mara's courtesan gown is on the way, and we are most excited to receive it. And best...this weekend we will be building a lovely shelving unit so things will be more organized. Very exciting, a place for everything and everything in it's place.

Well we have had a rather lovely weekend. The rains stopped, and the sun came out, though we managed to sleep half the day anyway. It is already the time of year to slather on sunscreen, or to have John Percy follow us about at all times with a large umbrella to avoid the effects of the sun.

We had decided to take as much of the weekend off as we have been quite busy and needed to recollect ourselves. Friday we went swimming, which was brilliant. Then a quick shower in the locker room caused quite a bit of excitement. While we are in the shower we keep a towel on a chair that is right next to the shower. As we were finishing up, a rather large amount of very young girls entered the locker room. They kept pulling back the curtain to see if any one was in the showers. We decided it was time to get out and went to grab for our towel. (We believe by now you are assuming the towel was missing, but this was not the case.) We grabbed the towel quickly and covered up. But apparently many of these young girls were astounded to see a grown woman leaving the shower undressed. One of these young women went to one of the Lifeguards to tell her there was a naked woman in the locker rooms. Apparently young women now days bathe with all of their clothing on, and simply walk about in the wet clothes till they dry. We are hopelessly out of fashion. We will have to learn to shower while dressed. Perhaps we can get John Percy to set up a fire for us when we are done so that out clothing will dry. We are still in a state of shock that a fashion trend such as this occurred without our knowledge. Perhaps we should spend less time gambling with Raleigh and more time gossiping with the younger ladies of the court.

We also managed to see Kingdom Of Heaven this weekend. A lovely way to pass the time. We were quite thrilled with everything but the details on a certain gambeson almost made us scream out loud with horror. We were however quite thrilled with everything else.

Well that stick in the mud The Marquess William Parr came by this afternoon for some tea. All we wanted was a bit of relaxing time and a bit of gossip. Instead, we had to listen to him go on and on about his sister Catherine...It would have been interesting but the woman has been dead for years, and anything that might have been of interest has been said by The Marquess over and over ad nausum. We suppose all was not lost as he brought one of his sister's gowns over for us to rework into a cloak. It is quite an exquisite piece of fabric and we are pleased enough with that. But God's blood the man is a bore!

The good news is that Lady Judy's renaissance gown should arrive at her home tomorrow and along with her Lord's doublet. And we shall be finishing up Bianica's Renaissance wedding gown tomorrow morning so we will be sending John Percy off to deliver it to her and see if there needs to be any final adjustments. We just have to hope he is not clumsy with the pins this time.

We are wondering, what the heck happened to the last post in the blog???? I has disappeared. We know, we posted it. It even appeared afterwards, we know because we always check. Yet...it's gone! Why the post is gone but not the screeching parrots we don't know. Certainly it would have been better if the parrots were gone!

Regardless of the crazy parrots, who incidentally, have started a war with the black crows in the neighboring tree, we are almost finished with Judy's green renaissance gown. Tomorrow we will hem the skirts and check for last minute details. We are loving the gown and very pleased to have made a green one again. We are also pleased because Lady Judy is a very nice person and we want her to look wonderful. And her Lord's doublet just needs two more buttons sewn on and we shall have finished it! Shipping shall commence Tuesday!

One a personal note, we have seen our little niece this weekend and she is perfect! We love her! And we got to see our other niece, whom we gave her first tiara, which she wore out all afternoon. Our nephew, Sir Fartsalot, made a love large rocket pillow. We will be discreet here and just say that the rocket pillow is reminiscent of a very large something else.