Isabel Maria enters her new wool gonete in the UFO Challenge.
Entered in the categories:
- Finally, knocked the bastard off! Most longed for project / most relief on completion
In Isabel Maria’s words:
Many, many years ago I embarked on a plan to create a capsule wardrobe, in Spanish style. The wardrobe would need to be suitable for the changeable weather and variety of activities at Canterbury Faire. It quickly became clear that I would need to explore non-Court styles (and perhaps even “earlier period” fashions) to get the flexibility I wanted. Over the years, new-to-me images and research have helped me to refine my ideas. With this ever evolving understanding, I have slowly added items as resources and distractions allow. (It has, of course, turned into a very long term project.)
One of the items I marked for construction was a gonete (doublet), as worn by a Castilian woman in this 1572 illustration. Already having several red skirts, a shirt with a ruffled wrist, and a large white veil, this gonete seemed suitable. The lack of sleeves would help keep me cool at CF, and it looked very comfortable. The sort of thing I could wear while potter around camp.
When was it started?
Some lovely, quite thin, black wool was purchased before the Canterbury Quakes and some nice, black linen lining fabric soon after. An opportunity presented itself, and I bought an even better lining fabric just before Covid. I did an initial toile, but the project never progressed beyond that.
Why did it stall?
It took some work to figure out why this project had stalled out, despite having all the materials. Over the years I have noticed that projects tend to stall when something isn’t ‘right’, but I haven’t figured out what is bothering me.
I played with adding decorative trims, and that helped. The black gimp braid and frogs are not shown in the original but I included them as the black decoration on black wool makes it feel more ‘finished’. This addition almost got me over the line, but not quite.
Then I looked at them in direct sunlight. The gorgeous fabric I loved was blue. BLUE! No wonder it wasn’t working. A quick rummage through my box of wool fabric, and I uncovered a suitably black remnant. It was a much better colour. But I still couldn’t make myself start.
Eventually I realised I did not like the gap between the waist tabs/skirts, as my skirt kept popping out the gap, in a rather unflattering manner, in my original toile. Once I decided to alter the tabs to reduce the centre front gap I could begin. (What a relief!)
Completion?
With re-fitting done in May, and construction begun in earnest during June, the garment was finally finished in October. (It could have been finished months earlier if I had not insisted on hand stitching every loop on the gimp braid.) I am looking forward to Canterbury Faire so I can finally wear this garment in the intended environment.
Read more about the UFO Challenge and the entry categories here.
