Friday, 3/5:
Rest is a part of work.
Also, I’ve been ignoring my chores. Got a bit more embroidery done.
Saturday, 3/6:
Finished the white pants excluding the hand finishing at the cuffs and the drawstring they need. It’s only my second time ever making pants and I’m surprised they came out so well. They’re simple drawstring pants tapered from the knee to ankle and they fit quite nicely although I did end up adding an extra gusset at the thighs so that I had more room for motion. Since they’re the base layer they’re fit quite close to the skin. I don’t think I’ll be doing a lot of kneeling or squatting in these pants but I’d rather be prepared.
Finished the blue pants, also excluding hand finishing at the cuffs and the drawstring. They fit nicely over the white pair which I was a bit worried about and didn’t need any other gussets.
Remade the taf’ja and still didn’t like it–although I’m relatively sure it’s correct. I think it sits a bit too close to a kippah for my brain to accept as well as just out of the norm to the modern eye. I’m going to do one more attempt at it with a completely new pattern and see if that evens things out.
Got the red wool sewn together for the kolpak. This is my first time making hats, as well as my first time working with real fur instead of poly. Disclaimer: I could be using the wrong term for this style of hat. It seems to apply to a wide assortment of hats from Poland to Kyrgyzstan, with or without brims or fur lining and trim.
I got half of the lining cut out from the rabbit fur, and the rest will have to be pieced together from the leftovers. I’ll be handsewing all of that since I don’t trust my machine to do it.
Overall I’m happy with all that I managed to do today. I only broke one sewing machine needle.
Sunday, 3/7:
Got my red shirt all put together. I changed the pattern a bit from the white shirt, so it’s more accurate than the white shirt is. It needs hand finishing at all the hems as well as embroidery. I’m not sure I’ll be able to finish all of the embroidery on time–right now I’m just trying to get all of the pieces together, and then we’ll see how much decoration I can get. I’m glad that I got to do this shirt twice as I got to change things and make them better and more streamlined in between the two.
Put the skullcap together once again. I’m still unhappy with it but I’m not going to change it again–this one is getting hemmed and decorated. After going back over my references for it I came to the conclusion that I don’t really like the hat in general, and it’s just out of my own modern sense of fashion and clothing. Although its purpose in this outfit is to get covered by another hat so it’s not too big of a deal if I think it’s silly.
Also cut out the zipun. I was a bit worried about the pattern, to be honest, but it fits together nicely and I got the grain of the velvet in the direction I want to. The zipun usurped the cvita as the nobleman’s coat sometime before the 17th century although they are similar in cut and function. I’m making mine out of a gold velvet to help break up all the red. It’s my first time working with velvet so we’re continuing the train of working with materials I’ve never touched before (and this is before the leather).
Posted 3/7 at 17:00 Local Time
Wow! This all looks fantastic. I’m very impressed with the amount of work you’ve done in such a short period of time.
Thank you! I’m very lucky that I can put a lot of my mundane life on hold for the month to get this all done. It’s been great having a project to work on again.