Baby Ren Faire Costume Continues

A while back I shared some of my research on period appropriate renaissance faire costumes for children, specifically babies. I am really just doing my best guessing here as I am neither a historian nor an anthropologist, so don't come back and say how wrong I am.  This is just what I have been able to gather together, so yeah... Don't hate :-)  Anyway, disclaimers aside, I finally got started last night!  Its only been 4 months since my first post on that.  Sigh, lag time sucks. But I found a pattern I could adapt, and while this is not exactly what I had in my head, its what I can reasonably make in 2 weeks knowing that it will probably be worn twice at the most.  So I made some concessions on fancy-ness and decided to do something a bit more "mini me" since my husband really liked the idea of our son in the same fabric as him.

I had simplicity 5813 from a baptismal outfit I made for our godson, and I figured it would be perfect for adapting to the ren faire vibe.  I am using the dress (A/B) along with the slip which can be seen in the line art - the sleeveless thing, as well as the cap without a brim.  I am using the dress pattern as the gown and the slip pattern as the shift.  Of course, I had to make a lot of changes to make it period appropriate.

For starters, the dress opens in the back, but I wanted a Spanish surcoat sort of look for whatever reason, so I decided to make it open in the front and closed in the back.  This also follows my husband's doublet style, making it match him that much more. I decided to go with loops for the buttons in the front rather than making a placket, again to match my husband's doublet.  I also wanted long sleeves for the gown, but I decided to make them of another fabric and make them detachable since we are having such an awful heat wave here in Wisconsin.  I also cut the front and back of the bodice twice since I am leaving off the collar and need a way to finish the neck and armhole edges.  I will make one cut the facing and the other the fabric.  If this gets too thick, I may find a lighter fabric to line it, but for now, that's the idea.  For the shift, I decided to keep the extravagant length so it could be worn in future years, since our son cannot walk or crawl yet anyway and it is unlikely to bother him much.  It may be a pain to carry him with all that fabric hanging around, but its my own fault!  I also had to add sleeves to this, so I borrowed the sleeve pattern from the sweater and hopefully it will work out okay.  For the hems, I think I may take up some of the excess with the idea that it can be let down later.  I may not since he isn't crawling or walking like I said, but if it seems like WAY too much fabric, I have options at least.

Now for the I hopes.  I HOPE to make the sleeves detachable, but I also hope to make the sides and shoulders adjustable so he can wear this next year.  I am thinking that I will add eyelets to them both and leave a little pleat of slack in the side of the skirt so when cinched up tight you can't tell, but leave that bit of room to make it adjustable in the future.  It will only be adjustable to a point, of course, but it at least gives me the hope that this can be worn more than once!

Well, that is as far as I have gotten as of today, but I will keep you posted on how it turns out!  And I will learn from my mistakes at Easter and have frequent fittings with the model!

my heap of pattern pieces all cut out.  If little man takes a nap, I know what I am doing this afternoon!