On Mon, 29 Aug 2005, Rose Amberwulf wrote: > My problem is with the front and back gores. I can get the top > point of them to sew into the dress properly. I finally figured out > how to do the side ones.
I'm going to hazard a guess that you meant to write "I can't get the top point..." since that's where a lot of people hang up. More about that in a minute. If you can get the top in place, it's routine work to then continue down the sides. Sometimes I do this. Alternatively, you can do the sides first, and then settle the top in place. I actually prefer this method. Crucial to making this work is to baste or pin both sides of the gore in place before sewing anything, being careful not to stretch the off-grain edges. I do this by folding the body piece on the center front slash, folding the gore and slipping it into the space that will receive it, smoothing everything out flat (all the raw edges stacked together) and carefully pinning or basting the two sets of edges while they're all neatly centered and piled up. Now, about that top point. Don't try to do it on the machine! Yes, it can be done, but it requires a lot of finagling and can cause a lot of frustration. Consider that the people who used this construction were working by hand -- this was never designed to be done by machine. It's much, much simpler by hand. If you do it by machine, you need to do a lot of marking of seam allowances and turning points and so forth. All very exact -- too much like machine quilting for my taste ;-) If I already have the sides in place, and just a couple of inches to settle at the top, I slip the garment over my ironing board face-up and lay the gore area flat, spreading the gore out, with the seam allowances from the side seams turned toward the gore. I fold the seam allowances on the gore point underneath and position it where I want it, and baste in place. Then I blindstitch around the point from the front, then sew the seam from the back to solidify it if necessary, then clip and finish the allowances from the back. If you want your point to be pointy, remember that your seam allowance on the body piece will dwindle to nothing at the very top. Don't try that on silk or linen! It works OK on a fulled wool. However, I'm not convinced that 13th c. people placed much value on a pointy gore point. On the Herjolfsnes garments (OK, they're 14th c.) the inset gores are distinctly rounded or flattened at the top -- this is much easier to do (though only if you're doing it by hand) and allows you to make a workable seam allowance over the entire point, with the body piece clipped in several spots around the "arch" shape of the point instead of just at the very top. On the linen shirt of St. Louis, I believe the gore top is pointy, but the attachment of the point is reinforced by thin strips that bind the long seams of the gores and extend beyond the gore point by an inch or two, crossing at the point. I should note that the handwork on that shirt is unbelievably delicate -- the stitching on the binding is so very small, and the seam allowances trimmed quite close (something that requires a fine linen with a high thread count). But clearly they felt they needed something to keep the point from tearing out at that spot, where the seam allowances would have been vanishingly small. Heather can probably speak more about the sewing methods here; she's the stitch expert ;-) A few more tips: If you are sewing the long seams (down the sides of the gore) by machine, make sure the top and bottom get pulled through at the same rate. If it's basted, there's no trouble. Sew both sides of the gore in the same direction (e.g. from top to bottom) with the stretchier edge on the top (yes, you'll end up sewing one of the seams from the left instead of the right). And don't cut the slash in the main piece quite as high as you think you'll need it; do that when you're setting the top point. > Would it help if I split the front and the back of the dress and > then add the gores? This seems more correct if I understand what I > have been reading from all of you who are more experienced about the > width of cloth during the 13th century period. My understanding is that although the cloth was narrow, the front and back tended to be made from a single width, so there's no seam down center front or back. This seems to be one of the crucial innovations of the 14th century fitting developments -- creation of a seam in center front (for a laced opening) and center back (to shape to the spine). Offhand I can't think of a single pre-14th c. example of a tunic or gown that shows a center front or back seam, though if there is one, I'm sure someone on this list will remember. Bear in mind that period fabric widths were typically sufficient to cover the *period* body with a single panel in front and a single panel in back, plus gores and gussets as needed. However, if you try to use a 22-inch width on a plus-size modern figure, it won't work -- you have to compromise on either a non-period width or a non-period construction. There's more support for having a two-piece gore. That's what shows up at Herjolfsnes and in the St. Louis shirt, among other extant pieces. Theoretically this would give you the chance to put the straight grain of each gore half against the straight grain of the slashes, and the stretchier angled grain in the center against its mate. That would help avoid the problem of slippage along the long seams, which can make the gore sit cockeyed. I don't know if that was done -- I'd have to get out my slides of the St. Louis shirt to see where the grain falls. Frankly, I think what's more important is not to make your gore too fat. If your gore pieces are relatively narrow, the angled edges tend not to be very far off the grain, and stretch doesn't become so much of an issue regardless of where the off-grain edge goes. --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
