Skip to main content

I Promised my Friends a Tutorial for Reinforced Eyelets

 Hello Beautiful Humans!

This week is a electronic gift to one of my friend's who recently had a birthday and asked me for a video tutorial a year ago on how I incorporate rings into my eyelets to reinforce my 16th century gowns. To give you some historical context, in the second half of the 15th century having elaborate lacing rings for your gown was very popular in Florence. By the 16th century the fashion had disappeared, but the fitted bodices of gowns continued. When Elenora di Toledo was burred, her funeral dress had small brass rings sewn into her eyelets. Exact sizing and details on this dress can be found in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 3. It makes since that over a 100 year period the rings would have transformed from a practical focal point into a discrete reinforcement method. I usually get my rings for lacing, awls, and other tools from Renaissance Fabrics You can also find awls, thread, chalk, etc at your local sewing store. This video will walk you through 3 different ways to sew in eyelets. The skills from each style will build on the previous style until you are finally making the ring enforced eyelets at the end. I love using these rings for any of my self supporting dresses. I've also found I don't need boning along my lacing strips, if I have reinforced the eyelets with rings already.




Step 1. Prep your Fabric with some basting stitches around where you will be sewing to make sure fabric does not shift and role on you.
Step 2. Mark your eyelet holes.
Step 3. Stab marking with your awl.
Step 4. If you are using a ring to reinforce your eyelet, do a few quick whip stitches around the ring and through the hole so you don't have to constantly hold the eyelet in place.
Step 5.Stitch around hole with even tension.
Step 6. Burry thread ends or bring thread over to your next eyelet.

Thank you to my friends in the Society for Creative Anachronism for your patience while I looked at all of the new shiny projects. While I do participate with the SCA, I do not speak for them as a whole. Please check out www.sca.org to find out more.
Happy Birthday my friend! I am excited to see your new dress with reinforced eyelets when we are back at in person events. Bisou Bisou, Maridith
Labels:

Comments

  1. JamesJanuary 21, 2022 at 2:56 PM

    This is a very useful post, I was looking for this info.Private Tutor Boca Raton thanks for sharing the great ideas...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pockets in the 16th Century?

So if you are new to my blog, Hello! I took July off to focus on work and realities of covid life. Thanks for hanging in there.  This week we are doing to cover 16th Soccocia and their role toward the origin of pockets. People need a place to carry and keep their small items as they walk around. In the middle ages you might have a pilgrim satchel or a belt pouch. Some women in the middle ages had the brilliant idea to stop wearing their money purses outside of their over gowns and instead would wear them between their kirtle/sottona layer and over gowns. This arrangement still gave you access to the purse, but made it harder for thieves to cut your purse strings and run.  Fast forward to the 16th century and we find the heirs to this practice in socaccia. We have some visual evidence of these in mid to late 16th century art out of Italy. This is a detail of Alessandro Allori's,  Woman at her toilet, ca 1575-78. Currently in Florence, Church of Santa Maria Novella, Gaddi Chapel.  J
1 comment
Read more

Two Tone Lucet Cording

  Hello Beautiful Humans! Today I have a brief tutorial for you on how I made the lucet lacings for my most recent renaissance dress. It is a craft that is hard to document in the 16th century, where I do most of my work, but I love how quickly this technique works up into fairly strong cording. This two tone technique is much stronger than a typical single strand lucet braid because of the extra cord running through the entire cord. I also love the possibilities for coordinating your laces to your outfits. My laces were made much longer than I needed them for this dress. Looking back I could have cut my lacing in half and been fine, but now I have all this extra if I should ever need it. Long laces also mean I can pre-lace myself into this dress with a spiral lace and then tighten it until I feel comfortable. For this particular style of lucet I used a hardwood lucet fork I purchased from an 18th century reenactor, a skein of DMC 6-strand embroidery floss, and a ball of size 10 cr
Post a Comment
Read more

Voided Velvet Sleeves from a Thrift Store Scarf

  Detachable sleeves are one of my favorite things to make for renaissance dresses, and always seem to be the last thing I think to make when I'm planning my outfits. These sleeves are made from thrift store fabric to mimic one possible way that "cut work sleeves" were made in the period. There are several theories, and my research has made me think that they all may have been in use at different points in time for different specific motifs. To make these sleeves I used a voided velvet scarf I found at my local thrift store and remnants of rayon velvet, silk shantung, and linen. Techniques I cover in the video include basting, hemming stitches, and how to easily sew with velvet. I completed the project using a mix of hand sewing and a modern sewing machine. I love wearing these Italian renaissance dresses at reenactment events or when I attend events for the Society of Creative Anachronism. Groups like this have helped me learn more about how period techniques and mate
Post a Comment
Read more