It was one of those things that have been lurking at the back of my brain for ages, waiting for the right time to burst forth. While in London, I spent a lot of time on the Tube and it always amused me that Bermondsey was a stop on the Jubilee Line. I always envisioned getting off at that stop and arriving right in the middle of a 16th century party, as depicted in Joris Hoefnagel's painting Fete at Bermondsey. Of course, it would likely be a car park now, but hey, it was fun to day dream about it... Mostly I was just amused, in a typically Yankee way, that such a place actually existed at all. LOL.
So, having been parted from my fabric stash and sewing machine for 10 weeks I came home in desperate need of some sewing time. I had decided in England to do a dress based on one of the upper class women in the Hoefnagel portrait, and I had four yards of some gorgeous aubergine colored wool flannel that I knew would make a scrummy dress one day. I put two and two together and ended up with this dress. The black wool guards are applied by hand (actually a heck of a lot of this outfit was sewn by hand), and I had a lot of fun figuring out the shoulder treatment. I put the sleeves from my courtesan dress onto this one and made a forepart out of the remaining yarddage of black and gold silk damask. Eventually I'd like to replace the sleeves and forepart with a shot silk taffeta in either an orange or grass green. It sounds hiddeous, but trust me, it works. :)
