Pelican outfit #2 - Patterning the coat

Now I've determined I'm going to make a fitted coat in the Indian style, the trick is to pattern it. Given that patterning typically takes more than one person, and I am reasonably deficient in the sewing skills department I decided to hunt through the commercial patterns to see if there was anything I could adapt to suit my needs.

I came across two potentially viable options. The first seemed perfect for a Persian coat given that it was loosly fitted, with long sleeves and designed to clasp under the breast. Closer examination of the pattern though shows very little shaping in the design and the toile would be difficult to adjust to follow my curves. There isn't a bust line seam so any shaping would have to come from the side seams, which would just end up pulling on the clasp making the coat look ill fitting and me look too busty. I get that enough as it is.

 

Pattern number two is probably the jackpot. It has centre bust seams which I can use to fit the dress. It has an optional upright collar which can be seen in some of the Persian dress examples. The downside to this pattern is I'm going to have to design my own sleeve template because I do not want puffy shoulders. This is a major downside because sleeves have been my biggest fail in the past. The other adjustment I'll need to make to this pattern is flair it more over my hips and lengthen the design.

This pattern luckily comes with a "lengthen or shorten here" line along the waist so I have a good idea of where to start my flair from. For my first toile I used 90cm wide black, mid-weight cotton I had lying around. I don't tend to keep calico in my stash and I find black shows up chalk marks much better than most colours. The downside to black is the photos don't turn out all that well. I laid out the pattern pieces and continued the line of the final 25 cm of pattern down to the full length of the fabric. I then sewed the pieces together (minus the arms) with the widest stitch possible making sure I remembered not to double back on my stitches at the start and end.

To fit the pattern I pinned the front closed and pinched each seam around my waist and under my breasts and stuck a pin in. I used white chalk to mark the peak of my breasts, hips, bottom and my nautral waist. I then unpinned the front and chalked a line to connect the pins smoothly to the sewn seams retaining the points of flair around the hips and bust and smoothly curving into the waist. The waist came in about 6cm all up and the under-bust came in 3cm on each side. I also made sure to smoothly curve the side back seams up to my shoulder blades as I've been ruined outfits in the past by neglecting to fit the back right. The most important part of the fitting was getting the shoulders to sit right. Until I made a dress for Tamar's wedding I never realised that this was a thing. I guess I hadn't given much thought to the different shapes of shoulders given I'm usually wrestling with a non-standard bust to ribcage ratio.

Once I had the fitting lines, I sewed them up with a tighter stitch and trimmed away the excess fabric. Once I was sure I had the fit right, I unpicked the side seams so I could lay the dress flat and trace the neckline for the cloud collar.

During my first trial I decided that the coat was a little too tight around the upper thighs and if I make it any longer I may have trouble walking. The images of both the Indian and Persian coats show plenty of fabric in the skirt so I decided to make another toile with greater flair from the hips. This one I've made out of a dark blue brocade. It's not really a toile, more of an experimental garment. I'll trial a non-embroidered silk cloud collar on it and attempt to line it as well.

In the mean time, here's my first toile with my first attempt at a cloud collar pinned to it. The hem is a little jagged due to my ad-hoc lengthening method but I'm reasonably happy with the waist and chest fit. I'm pretty sure it won't pull on the buttons or clasps in a terrible way.

The collar didn't work as well as I planned so I decided to tackle the sleeves next. I ran out of scraps of black of an appropriate size so I used some maroon cotton I had left over from an experiment with Roman garb I did about 5 years ago. I used the maroon as sleeves and may use it to line the brocade test garment. Anyhoo, I'm not so good with sleeves as mentioned but I think I've worked out some of the secretes and I present my sleeve pattern. Please note this is a half sleeve pattern as the left side is designed to be placed along a fabric fold.

A is the crest of the shoulder. It is possible to the top line A-B more of a sinusoid (as shown in red). The greater the depth of the sinusoid, the greater the angle of the arm. If you do not have a sinusoid or a curve, the arm will sit square like the classic T-tunic shape. Most female garments have some sinusoid to the arm in modern clothing. Having the arm inset at an angle cuts down in excess fabric in the arm pit however it does mean if you need to lift your arms above that angle you'll be lifting the whole outfit. I especially hate this feature of womens reflective work shirts so I've decided to keep the curve to a minimum.

B is the armpit. You could use a rectangle and have a gore but since I have fabric to burn, little desire to sew more seams than necessary AND I know the Indian tailors of old were experts at seams and fitting, I've decided to go with a tapered shape.

The line A-B is the measured distance along the inside of the dress sleeve. I'll increase this distance slightly by adding the curve but that's negligible and will sort itself out during sewing.

A-C is the length of the sleeve. In this case the sleeve reaches to my inner elbow. This length seems to be a common feature in Indian art but was truthfully dictated by the size of the fabric scrap I used to trial the arms.

I couldn't complete the arms until the final cloud collar design had been appliqued on but here's how they turned out.

You can see the final shoulder seam is sitting too far below the point of my shoulder and there's excess fabric in my armpit. I should be able to resolve both of these problems by bringing the seam back to the point of the shoulder. I will experiment with this further on the blue brocade test dress.

In the mean time, now it's appliqued, I can probably do some cheater mc-fee modern finishing touches, like a sewn rolled hem on the sleeves, over locking on all the seams, a placket down the front and a commercial frog or three and turn this into a plain but nice modern summer coat.

Pot of the Week: Chinese and Persian inspired Iranian, 17th century

 Dish with Persian geometrical influence and Chinese motifs, 1640-1670, Iran. Fritware, underglaze painted in blue. Victoria and Albert Museum, item 890-1876.

Persian block printed scarf II

From closer examination of Persian head scarf images from the previous post, I think the argument for square / triangle is actually misdirected. If we examine no.5 from the previous post and assume a regular pattern in the fabric, the head scarf  is deliberately cut in more of a brontosaurus style, that is to say, skinny at the head/tail ends with a sort of Gaussian slope towards the wide center. The length of the tales appears to be a little over a quarter of the overall width. I propose the headscarf is cut more as a T shape:

Where A is the width of your head from temple to temple, B the measurement from your temple to your shoulder and C the measurement from your crown to your cervical vertebrae. So that's my next accessory project... after I finish moving house anyway.

Persian block printed head scarf.

 Some Persian head scarves, possibly block printed:

1                                                                                  2

   

 3                                                                  4

 

5

Head scarf examples. Patterns range from simple monotone, to complicated potential brocades or embroidery. All involve a triangular (or folded square) headscarf, draped over what appears to be a circular cap and braid case of a different fabric (often the same as the pants). Recently on the Persian Clothiers facebook group there was recent discussion on the shape of these headscarves. I propose that the contrasting colours on no. 2 & no. 4 (red & white / orange ) indicates a single layer whereas the two sided print and potential for two points on no. 5 suggest towards a double layer resulting from a square shape. The shape of no.'s 1 and 3 are indeterminate. No. 1 shows the same pattern on the underside, which may be a woven, reversible fabric or a doubled over square shape.

So I started with a square design because it's easier to measure and cut. I cut it out, block printed it with my quatra-heart stamp, ironed it and then machine sewed the hems.  As you can see below, the square is a little too small, too stiff and really the wrong shape. I also used an artifical silk scarf for the braid case and the cotton headscarf kept slipping off. Quite vexing.

 

Marshalling at November Crown, Stormhold, 2013.

Blue persian fabrics and ideas for block printing

Due to my, mostly, successful block printing experiment I've started looking into different patterns and styles of drape on Persian garb. Mostly in the Safavid period. I currently have a roll of light yellow linen and bright blue cotton / linen blend sitting around my house. I've never thought the bright blue would be suitable for more western European SCA garb, it's just too bright. However, the blues I've been finding in Persian manuscripts are beautifully bright. Before you comment to point it out, colour pallet available to painters is entirely different from that available to the dyers (and ceramic painters too). From this small collection of images, it appears that blue garb was usually accompanied by orange, red or other 'warm tones'.
I am going to have to think carefully about this garb choice. Artistically, the preferred depiction of women seems to be more willowy than modern paintings of this culture. I suspect I'm a little too buxom to wear under-dresses that gape between the breasts unless they're uncomfortably tight.

Detail from Wine drinking in a Spring Garden. Iran, 1430. Met Museum.

Detail from an illustrated and illuminated leaf from a manuscript of Firdausi’s Shahnameh: Bahram at the court of the Indian king Shangol, Persia, Safavid, Shiraz, 16th Century. From Sotheby's.

Woman with a spray of flowers ca. 1575, Safavid period, Iran
I got the idea for my first printing stamp from this image.

Mohammadi, Herat, circa 1565, Seated Princess. I don't know where it's located, but the link for the full images is here. I love the blue coat (entari?), the yellow dress, and the black under dress. And the image below is from the same site.

Detail of - Seated Princess has a cloud collar, an orange coat, a light blue dress and a dark blue underdress. Plate 57. Persia, Circa 1500, Collection of L. Cartier, Paris, France La Miniature En Orient by Ernst Kuhnel 1925  Attributed to Miraz Ali, 1540.

Lot 297 Sotheby's London UK. 04/30/1992
Detail of - Fariburz comes before Kay Khusrau enthroned within a draped chamber, three chained prisoners in foreground, hilly landscape under gold sky, an illustrated leaf from a manuscript of Firdausi's Shahnama copied by Salik ibn Sa'id for Sultan Ali Mirza of Gazan (reigned 1478 - 1504) Turkmen Court Style, dated 1494



See also:

• Persian embroidery a study in miniatures (some great images here)
• this guy has some great images and translations, even though the layout is jumbled and confusing at times, also, his main page clumsily sells carpets (he appears to be an expert) and has no link to the Persian miniatures. (he also has a bunch of Mumluk items)
• My growing Pinterest Persian board.

Block printing experiments

I made my first attempt at block printing today. I spent a bit of time over the last week browsing online how-to's and gathering images of period paintings and extant fabric samples. Here is a great video of block printing in Jaipur. The video starts with a multi-colour print using four speerate blocks and then demonstrates a great method for turning corners - using newspaper to make angles. It's also comforting to see that professions (who do this every day) sometimes misalign the blocks. This morning, I felt confident enough to make my own attempt on a scrap of pale yellow linen I had lying around.

From what I can gather, a lot of block printing is done using wooden or copper blocks like the one in the image above (grabbed from a random ebay auction). The blocks are crafted in such a way that the design will flow from each printed block. The raised section of the block is covered in fabric paint or dye from an ink pad and then the block is stamped onto the fabric.

For my first attempt I decided not to buy a block from ebay as I only wanted a small design. Also, alot of them seem to be discarded blocks from India and I would want a complete pattern. Instead, I crafted a mini-block using 'Make 'n' Bake', a mont marte femo knock off. I got the idea from aan article by Lindsay Boardman for a polymer clay cookie stamp. I took the idea and made a small quatra-heart pattern stamp. The hard part was getting the hearts flat. As you can see in the image above, when I defined the groove between the hearts, the bottom two buckled. I used Pebeo's Setacolour opaque for this first experiment. Mostly because I have a couple of pots sitting around my house from a previous abortive fabric painting attempt. I ended up painting the dye onto the stamp as I didn't have an ink pad and I wasn't going to be doing many stamps. It took me a while to master getting most of the design on the fabric. The left two stamps in the image below are the best print I achieved with the stamp alone. The print on the right I touched up with a paint brush.

I quite like this effect and will try it again to make a small Persian headscarf or possibly even a full tunic (if I get around to making more stamps). In the mean time, I'm going to look for a rubber stamp of two crossed quills. The type of rubber stamp Samantha used to use for her card embossing art. I suspect it may work well for a small block printing project.

Persian garb for Jour d'Honnuer (Krae Glas)

So having gotten the hard part of my first Persian outfit out of the way by simply buying the upper garments I now have to create a full outfit with them for this weekends do at Krae Glas.

As I see it, accessories make the outfit and a wonderful informative list by Baron Afrasiyab al- Isfahani has given me a good start.

My accessory list for the weekend:

prayer beads - check

necklace - thanks dash!

seal ring - check  (yay for family treasurers)

scarf - I may be able to rustle something up. I'm going to go with the fabric belt, and sew two strips of appropraite fabric together. That way when I twist them together the colours will be revealed.

shoes - conversation with louisa of st mons gave me the idea of fabric coating a pair of slip ons.

leggings / sock things - thanks Candice!

earrings - the goldish pirate hoops may work.

and finally, headwear which may or maynot happen. there's a _huge_ variety to pick from.