I am SO close to being ALL done. ;o)

A bit of an explanation may be in order - My original plan had been to make the 4 levels, plus extra credit

1) - Gomlek
2) - Dress and Pants
3) - Entari (formal coat)
4) - Accessory (turns out to be a veil and cap)
5) - Kaftan

Well, I still want to make the Kaftan, but at the moment, it hates me.   I gave up fighting it last week and have been devoting my sewing time to the Entari. 

Here's a sleeve

and its reverse

I left the tassles on - may keep them, just for show

I am VERY excited to say that it is almost done.  I have to add under-arm gussets, adjust the lining at the hem and probably add the leftover trim somewhere.

But that, as they say, is that - the requirements of the Challenge will have been met.  ;o)

Now, since I still have some time between now and the end of the Challenge, I have some ideas

The outfit needs a sash desperately - I am still under budget and could weave something.  I have a Cintimani design in mind for my tablet loom.  I could sew something, but will only do that as a last resort

I could still finish the Kaftan, but I think it needs to be redesigned.  The triangles are driving me crazy.  I HATE the way they look and if I am going to handsew 96 of anything, I had better love the end product.

Level 4 is DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have spent hours (if not days) looking for examples of some sort of accessory that 1) I can make and 2) that I would want to wear.  (If you think a hennin is awkward and odd by modern standards, you should some of the Turkish headgear - omg)

Anyway - I finally decided on a cap and veil - just because they are only things I can bear to wear - I am just not a huge fan of medieval headgear.

The cool thing is that I learned to felt AND used some of our Husky's blown out coat to make the cap.   The *other* cool thing is the cap works very nicely underneath my coronet  ;o)

 

So, I bought the wool roving at some point (not really sure when) to test out spinning (can't stand it), looked up 'how to felt' as well as the history of felting online and mixed 1/3 Husky fur to 2/3 wool to felt a little cap.  Once the cap was constructed, I used an old football of mine to block into shape. (the test piece on the left is 100% Husky, just wanted to see what it is like)

We have so much fur just from the past year and 1/2 of puppy-dom, that I am very tempted to follow through on my standard threat and make a rug.  

After the Challenge was issued, I bought a couple of yards of handkerchief weight linen  - just in case I needed it as a 'fall-back' accessory.  I actually have enough to make 3 different veils, plus who knows what else.  As mentioned earlier I used linen thread pulled from said purchase to hem the veil - completely by hand.  *That* was an interesting endeavor, let me tell you.

I blame Rogue ;o)

for putting the cockamamie idea in my head of hemming my new linen veil with threads pulled from the leftover fabric.

Yes, I managed to do the whole thing, yes, it actually looks really good.   Still, how cracked of an idea is that?

I usually use a blind stitch to hem items by hand, but this linen is soooo fine that the blind stitch was leaving huge holes.  So I switched to a running stitch which worked really well.

Some good progress

I have made some very good progress on the entari - so much so that I am behind on my pictures.  ;o)

I had *just* barely enough silk for a complete lining - had to piece together 1 of the side gores, but the fabric didn't mind and it went together very well.

Here's a shapeless mass picture - taken so I could verify that the outfit would work

and another one with the lining sewn in.

this last one has the lining sewn in, the relocated trim pinned and the lining sleeves still attached.

I have decided to flip the sleeves - the silk is just too pretty to hide, but too light to function by itself.  So, I am going to make trumpet shaped sleeves with the silk showing off.  Will try to keep the upper arms narrow to go under the kaftan, but not too narrow to over the dress and gomlek.

I put the entire outfit on just a bit ago (no, you do not get to see yet) and was pleased.  It is incredibly heavy and WON'T be worn during most of the year (holy cow that's a lot of fabric).  But is coming together nicely.