Hi All, On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 04:50, Kate M Bunting wrote: > We've debated this topic more than once and the general consensus seems to > be that chemises/shifts before the 18th century had stitched-down gathers, > not drawstrings.
I'm well behind and paying only another flying visit, but for what _might_ be another take on gathered chemise necklines, have a look at Raphael's "La Donna Velata" (http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/r/raphael/5roma/3/03velata.html - click image for larger version). Are the black bows with aglets functional or purely decorative? Ten years ago I made a version of this assuming the bow laces were functional and that they served to gather the camisa neckline. Using very fine fabric, separate gathering cords for the front, back and shoulders, and the tightest channel I could sew for the laces [*] I managed to make something that captured the "look". It's quite possibly a fake, but if so it's a good enough fake that it made me wonder whether this might have been the way the gathering was achieved, even if it was then secured to a woven band. Cheers, Jennifer [*] The channel was made by finishing the neck edge with a casing the height of the gathering cord + ruffle, threading the gathering cord, tamping the cord down against the seam and then sewing the second seam to separate the channel from the ruffle. I was doing a proof-of-concept garment, so I used a tubular cord (piping cord) to give something to push against and a zipper foot to push against it to get the gathering channel snug to the cord. The combination of the very fine fabric and the firm fit of the laces in their channels means you get a fairly stable, very finely-pleated effect with a small ruffle above the gathering. The four laces mean there are stop-points at the front and back of the armpits, controlling any tendency for the fullness to gravity-feed to the centre front and back. I think this technique is a definite improvement on using a single line of stitching to gather the neck seam, which tends to lead to a very floppy ruffle. I'm in two minds about whether it's an improvement on actually pleating to a band, although to my eye it gives the effect I see in the painting of being more pleat-like than usual gathering but less regimented than actual pleating. It's also _much_ simpler and quicker, and makes the garment adjustable to suit different necklines (or bodies). Discussion welcome. I realise the orthodoxy these days is that necklines of this time weren't gathered, but this variant makes me wonder. And I've now written a footnote longer than my main message. <grin> JLG -- Jennifer Geard _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
