IRCC4 - Background

I've been a member of the SCA for twelve or so years now, and during the first ten years I never became interested in any particular time period. Partially this was because I first became interested in historical costuming and re-enactment via LARPing in the fairly serious "alternative medieval world" that was (and still is) the most common setting in Sweden, which was, while serious about things like materials and general shapes, not set in a specific time and place. But I've also always been interested in EVERYTHING and could never make my mind up about which time period I found the most interesting. This means I've made a LOT of four-main-pieces-plus-gores-and-sleeves dresses (at last count, including sewing for others and my first hideous experiments, I was at 26 of those dresses) in various materials and with various tweaks to change the pattern from 12th century to elven courtier to early 15th century to dwarven diplomat. This has at least made me reasonably well acquainted with the way fabric behaves and what my body looks like.

About five years ago I stumbled on this dress while traipsing around the internet for new costuming ideas. I fell instantly in love with the general look and shape and quickly made my mind up to try and recreate the dress. The result was my first Italian renaissance dress, mainly inspired by Florentine 1480s dresses. It looks kind of like this (ignore my extremely grumpy face and the so-and-so visibility of the dress)

The dress consists of a camicia made from cotton muslin (IKEA curtains, to be specific) a gamurra made from a green/bronze brocade of unidentified fiber composition, a giornea made from rayon velvet and poly-silk lining (which was HELL to work with), a beaded brown silk girdle, jewellery and a fabulous hat (which is actually a fifties hat found in a vintage store...) While making this dress I learned a few things:
1. Making very form fitting garments without darts is really hard when you've been blessed/cursed with boobs of epic proportions.
2. Poly-silk lining sucks.
3. I look really weird in a giornea.
4. In a dark feast-hall people WILL step on one's train, resulting in half-strangulation.
5. When wearing a hat, remember that you're about an inch taller, or you'll hit your head.
6. Try not to make dresses resting on the outer part of your shoulders. It's uncomfortable and it makes it hard to calculate the correct sleeve length.

After this dress, I've made a few 1510's dresses. What I've learned from them is mostly that while fully lined, cartridge pleated skirts look really cool, they weigh about a ton and that I can make the gowns without darts, but it takes at least an hour of fitting for every dress. Also, zibellinos freak people out and when I wear an enormous dark pink turban people think I have Voldemort on the back of my skull.

That being said, when I mustered up enough courage to sign up for the fourth Italian Renaissance Costuming Challenge it was that first 1480-1500 style I decided to revisit, with better materials and more knowledge and skills. My inspiration is collected here (as you can see, there's quite a few former entrants to past years IRCCs), but my primary inspiration is the frescoes in the Tornabouni chapel. After some deliberation and going through my stash, I've decided on an outfit based on Ludovica Tornabuoni's clothing in The Birth of The Virgin, with some tweaks and extras inspired by other contemporary sources.

The plan is to make a green silk gamurra and a yellow brocade overdress, open in the front, a linen camicia and however many accessories I can find time for. I plan to machine-sew all the internal seams, as I lack both the skill and patience required to hand sew entire garments. All visible stitching will be made by hand though. But first of all, I need to muster enough courage to cut into my green silk...