Do you start with what you know or start with what you want?

And thats the question.

Right now I have several options ahead of me. I'm still laboring on the red linen drawers from the IRCC, but at least I'm now onto the second leg!! The blackwork is finished on the first one and WAHOOOOO! The funny part is, as soon as I put the new leg on the loom to start the pattern I was excited! Isn't that amusing?

So I was at an impasse. As I read my book I knew there were two things I was super interested in making. Both a simple farthingale and a high necked partlet.
I need both.

Which one do I start with though?

Note the color of the
guard over the bastoni -
Rather than being the tucked
fabric, its a different color/fabric

Its actually a lot
lighter than this

I've decided to do my farthingale out of the lilac linen/cotton I purchased to do my IRCC underskirt because frankly that's what I have on hand, and will do the Tape/Ribbon/Bias strips method rather than the measure and tuck. After reading extensively in my MaF, and a few website (Drea Leed mostly), I also pulled out my Alcega patterns and I have to agree with DL vs Janet Arnold -- the Alcega dress/skirt patterns are unusually long especially for the descriptions of the wearer. Although Janet Arnold hypothosized it was because, at least in this case, the skirt was measured up roughly 6 inches and then a 1 inch tuck/casing was created in which the bent would be threaded in. Then measure up about 6 inches and repeat. I think I might, in the future try this method rather than the other, as seen to the left.
Originally I toyed with the idea of adding some embroidery on the bands, to mimic that which would frame my Veste, but truth be told thats alot of embroidery for something that most likely will not be seen, unless its not on my body and on a table being judged :)

Notice the pattern
isn't present on the bands?

I'm also going to be using some hemp rope in my stash for the bents. I just don't  happen to have any reed bands, or whalebone on hand (Sal's kind of a crappy hunter that way :D) so I'll be using some hemp cording. After reading several several SEVERAL sites though, I'm going to wash the devil out of the hemp to get it to shrink as much as possible before hand to help with shrinkage.
Also I'm going to utilize a trick Bianca and I used when we originally made underskirts in 2007. Going to do the bottom band with a braided section of rope, just to see how it goes :)

You can find a pretty good in depth look at the farthingale here, and of course you can look at Drea Leed's take on things Here.

Now that we have that settled, I am ITCHING to make my stinking partlet! Its killing me. Thing is, it will need a super duper amount of work, and more importantly it has to be embroidered and sewn entirely by hand (its too delicate for me to trust with the machine). So the partlet on my entry portrait is just your average run of the mill filmy ruffled partlet, see above.

Problem is, whats so spectacular about that?!?!
Maitresse Jaqueline (probably spelt horribley wrong!) is also doing a super spiffy embroidered nifty partlet and has her documentation on her partlet blog entry.

We have tons of examples for partlets though the most famous one is below. EVERYONE seems to use this partlet as a jumping point and there are tons of examples of being done on blogs around the web. Since thats not my dress (and not really my style) I'm going to be using it as a guide though and have settled down between two different pattern ideas for the embroidery. Oh yes, it will have those pearls too!

First.. gotta get the drawers done!