Gilly Flower Reverse Leather Applique DoubletThis doublet is to be a a loose copy of a reverse leather applique doublet that is currently in the collection of the Museo Parmigianini. It is of unknown providence and mst likely was fashioned in the very early 1600's. The fabrics used are a black and purple heavy weight silk taffeta for the outer doublet. The reverse leather applique is from a hide we happened to have that would be considered yo be wine in colour.. The interior will have a layer of cotton canvas with boning slots. The final lining will be in linen, but we have as yet to decide on the colour. The doublet is patterned after Janet Arnold's description and research from The Patterns of Fashion. We have used the exact sleeve pattern. However we have gone ahead and used our own doublet pattern as it was already prepared and we know it fits well. |
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Gillyflower Leather Doublet June 19 thru 24.The actual physical work for the doublet began on June 19th, 2006. So far we have been working for two weeks straight. During the first week we made the tissues that have the design of the gillyflowers. That was a Monday. We had already prepared the basic deign over the weekend, so all that was left was hours of making the pattern repeat on the tissue that will become the top layer of our sewing pack. Tuesday, we experimented with sleeve patterns in the morning, and laid out the paper patterns on the leather in order to get the very most out of our hide. Then we began the sewing of the gilly flowers. The rest of the week becomes somthing of a blur. The sleeves are each made of two parts, and are the usual curved sleeves pattern used in this period. Happily the required very little changes from the orgional size. It would seem that the orgional owner was very simular in size to ourself. Sandwiching The Leather For Quilting We managed to sew all four of the sleeve parts by the end of the week. We made a sandwich for the quilting of the taffeta, the leather and the tissue. We used Sulky Temporary Adhesive to glue the layers together. We have mised feeling about this. It really isn't made for leather use but worked well enough However, we managed to use an entire can, in order to make things stick. And stick they did. (A normal quilter could use the can for several yers, so you know we were heading into some sort of agrivating situation down the line. The spray is a great product and it allows you to reposition whatever you are gluing. And the glue should disapper after 3-5 days. Our luck with it disapering was a little off. We had used so much in order to get it to work on materials it wasn't designed for. But it's non toxic, so it least that wasn't a problem. We laid the taffeta down first and then positioned the leather over the top. Then we used a heavy object in the center to weigh doen the leather. We pulled up the leather on the lower half, sprayed the leather, and then worked it down. The did the smae thig with the uppper part. This system worked fine. I would recomend pputting some newspapaer underneath for any overspary. The I repeated the same technique for the tissue paper on the top layer.. This did not want to stick very well without huge amounts of spray. The finish on the leather does not like the spray. We ended up up with some very difficult to remove areas as a result of this. And while we got better at judging the amounts used, we still had some sticky areas. The adhesive does clean up faily well with denatured alcohol. |
Sewing The Doublet Layers
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 We sat in a chair all day Sunday and into the evening, about eight hours worth of time, cutting the leather away. We had purchased the Ginger applique scissors with the bill blade. The are awful, cruel devices. The are badly weighted and have no padding where the fingers go. Ouch! After awhile we padded them carefully with quilter's batting and that helped quite a bit. If you do this make certain to avoid putting batting where the two handles meet or they will not close shut. By the end of Sunday evening my hand was on an ice bag but the first part of the first sleeve was finished. |
Cutting The Gillyflowers Reverse Leather Applique Doublet June 25 thru 30.All the paper is picked off, and we will probably do a bit of the cut work tonight if our hands can stand it. Now it is important to note that this began as an idea for something to do during hurricane season, when the electric goes out. We were fuzzy on whether or not we would actually do this project, but we were urged on by one of our clients. His name is Tim. We are not sure how much we like him any more. It's all his fault our hands hurt this much. We are tempted to sew three sleeves onto his doublet and just let him figure it out, as revenge. Well, really we wouldn't do that but we are sorley tempted. We have also realized that thee will be many button holes to sew, but right now we are trying hard to forget amout them. Next week atlast fabrics will be coming in and we will have to stop working on the doublet in order to finsh a gown and then we will need to start TIm's three armed doublet, with trunkhose. But until then we will keep cutting, and cutting till out little ands fall off. |
Cutting The Gillyflowers Reverse Leather Applique Doublet July 1 thru 7.The end result of our cutting "issues" is that we have almost no fabric stash becasue we must always cut the fabric LOL. So now you should see below pictures of the entire doublet cut, showing the reverse leather applique work. The doublet and sleeves are only pined together for the moment. |
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