We are assassins

They’re done! They’re finally done!

I’ll have more detailed write-ups for the AC II and Brotherhood outfits soon (the Revelations one is here ) but I’m so excited to be finished I wanted to share them now.

Next year I will start on the accessories.

Assassin’s Creed belongs to Ubisoft.

Chasing after the wind

The embroidery for my Assassin’s Creed II outfit has defeated me. I had planned to hand embroider the 18 cabbage and phoenix motifs as well as hand-couching the border trim.

Eight months after beginning the embroidery I had two and a half motifs done. As well as taking far too long, this embroidery wasn’t fun and the end result didn’t look much good. I decided it wasn’t worth the time and effort to make something I wasn’t going to be happy with.

I am going to paint the motifs on instead. I will cut stencils out of overhead transparencies and use white paint. These should be done very soon; indeed they're drying as I type.

I held on to my plan to couch the border trim for a bit longer, but again after getting a little done I found it didn’t have the affect I wanted.

I made a trip to Lincraft and came home with matching gold and silver braids.

I also needed a gold and black braid but one couldn’t be found so I bought a gold braid and some black crochet thread and threaded the black through by hand.

By the end of the day I had got three skirt pieces trimmed. It was so lovely to finally start making swift progress on this outfit.

I have also finished fraying the seam allowances under the red trim on the outer layer which means everything can start being sewn together.

Progress, progress, progress.

Assassin’s Creed belongs to Ubisoft.

Regency day dress II

For my second Jane Austen Festival I made myself a new day dress. I used the same Cut of Women’s Clothes pattern as I used for my mourning ball gown, this time adapting it for daywear.

Since I was so pleased with the piped neckline on my other day dress I decided to pipe the waist and neckline of this gown in a contrast fabric.  The bodice is lined.

The dress has two-layer sleeves: a puffed sleeve over a long sleeve.

Rather than being gathered all along the edge, the puffed sleeve is gathered to a point where there is a decorative self-covered button. I had never done self-covered buttons before, but I liked them quite a lot.

The long sleeve has a tie and a button.

The skirt is gathered to the bodice and the dress closes with more self-covered buttons.

The features of this dress make it more interesting that my other day dress and I like this one rather better; the fabric is less stiff which makes it nicer to wear. I wear this dress over my bodiced petticoat and a chemisette.

I trimmed a straw bonnet to wear with this dress. I had been planning to use some leftover fabric but I couldn’t make it look right. Also, using the same fabric would limit the bonnet to only being worn with one outfit which I didn’t really want.

Preliminary design.

Instead, I used cream satin trimmed with the same colour ribbon that I had used for the piping. The ribbon is box pleated and the satin is gathered. Inside, the bonnet is lined with a sturdier cream satin edged with blue lace.

A day (and a season of Burn Notice) later, I had a hand-trimmed bonnet. I finished at 2 in the morning