Cobbled Together Costumes (Renaissance Festival Edition)

If an opportunity arises to dress up, I take it.
After several years of having it in the back of our minds, my friends and I finally got around to going to the Ren Fest. And of course, we dressed up for it. Two days before we went, Erentry and I got together to figure out our costumes, consisting of skirts, peasant blouses, and lace-up bodices from previous costumes. Erentry got to work sewing pockets in to skirts.

I started looking at pictures of renaissance clothing.

Erentry got her costume all figured out. I decided to make myself a dress. Erentry went home. I pulled out a drape someone had given me.

In the back of my pattern dresser I found this pattern, McCalls 4696, that a friend gave me a while back. I used it to turn the drape into a dress, by sewing up the side seams and sewing on the sleeves, rather than lacing things in place, and adding a full pleated skirt.

I used a solid green drape, given to me by the same person as the patterned drape, for the sleeves.

From my stash I pulled a green sheet, given to me by Erentry's mom, and used it to line the dress.

Less than a day later I had a renaissance dress. Far from historically accurate, and with a 25 cent thrifted  zipper down the back, but a renaissance dress all the same. (That only cost me 25 cents!)

I pulled out an overdress I made a few years ago for a Halloween costume, and I was good to go! Well, except I still needed a headdress of some sort, as did Erentry. She also still needed an apron. And Tori? She still needed a complete costume. (Darned work, she hadn't been able to join us the night we planned out outfits)
So the night before we went, I cut myself a veil from an old bed skirt.

 For Erentry I cut a head kerchief from an old curtain and sewed up an apron to complete her outfit. It consisted of a colorful skirt, a peasant top and the lace-up bodice from my Japanese festival costume 3 years ago.

Then all that was left was Tori's costume. The morning of the Ren Fest she tried on outfit after outfit. Nothing was quite right. Then Erentry pulled an everyday shirt out of my closet and said, "This would be perfect with the maroon skirt!" (she's awesome at putting together costumes that way.) So we pulled the maroon skirt from the costume pile (my mom or grandma made it for me once upon a time, 8 - 10 years ago, and it had been worn for countless costumes since) Tori put on the shirt with the skirt, then added the under-bust corset/Swiss waist that I made for last year's Japanese festival. Perfect! All that was missing from her outfit was a head dress, so once we got to the festival, we kept our eyes open for one to buy.

This leather top hat was awesome, but maybe not quite right for this outfit, so it got left.

All lovely hats, but maybe not for what we need.

Ah ha! A tiara with rosebuds, perfect!

Now, onto enjoying the Festival!

We got to see Robin Hood and Little John meet on a log, and both get soaked.

Maid Marian got the crowd cheering during the fight.

We admired other people's outfits. I especially liked this one.

We wandered through shops, and I got a few new sewing project ideas.

These sweaters were fascinating, I may have to make one.

This one was Erentry's favorite. Now we just need to get our hands on an overlocker, so we can make one.

We got a few compliments on our outfits, and I managed to avoid taking anyone out with my hoop skirt.

Eventually (after seeing everything at least twice) it got chilly out so we headed home. Now I'm already planning more historically accurate costumes for next year! But for this year, I'm thinking we did pretty awesome with only two days preparation.