My lady wife Morgan Staghold kindly generated cutting diagrams for me for this project.  With 52 individual pieces out of the cream velveteen and another 52 pieces out fo the black velveteen, having a cutting diagram was crucial for the most efficient use of my fabric.  It should be noted, that the straight of the grain was always along the same side of the skirt pieces and the arm pieces so that I would always be sewing one straight of grain to one bias edge when assembling the garment.

Once the fashion fabric was cut, I started to assemble the skirt.  I started by sewing each of the skirt’s top pieces to the opposite color skirt’s bottom pieces.  The bottom edge of the skirt’s top piece had a convex curve; while the top edge of the bottom skirt piece had a concave curve.  Once each of these pairs was sewn together, I had to properly clip the seam to get it to press open properly.  Lacking a pin board, I pressed my velveteen pieces with the nap side on a scrap piece of velveteen facing the nap of my piece to help preserve the nap from being flattened when steamed/pressed.

Once I completed 24 of the ½ skirt panels, I needed to sew them into 12 skirt panels with the full counterchange.  This is where the shimmy shimmy that velveteen does when you sew it would be very damning.  I always sew very slowly on my machine, which helps minimize some of this.  But we are also joining one straight of grain edge to one bias edge with some stretch to it–especially the cream sections!  In addition, the top and bottom pieces are sewn together on a curved edge.

To help overcome all of these obstacles, I would match the two ½ skirt panels at the counterchange.  I would then sew from about ½-¾ inch above the counterchange going down to the bottom edge of the skirt, through the counterchange.  I would then open up my partially joined panels and check my corners.  If my corners were SPOT ON, then I would fold it back in half and flip it over and sew from the spot I started at to the top of the skirt panels; if my corners were NOT spot on, then I only had to rip out about 7 inches instead of the entire length of the skirt.  These seams were able to just be pressed open without any fancy clipping.

Now that I had 12 full skirt panels–each showing a full counterchange pattern– I cut my linings and flat-lined each of these panels to my lining.  I then repeated my steps from above to join each of the 12 panels into a full circle, this time made more complicated by the lining fabric, and by the ever-increasing size of the piece I was working on.  Once these seams were pressed open, I pinked and graded them to reduce bulk.  I would later overlay them with grosgrain ribbon which was only sewn to the lining fabric.  

The next portion to tackle was the sleeves.  The sleeves were roughly conical and only had 4 complete counterchanges, so 4 pieces of each color for each of the 2 sections– or 16 pieces per sleeve.  I assembled the sleeves in roughly the same manner as the skirt.  I sewed the sleeve tops to the bottoms.  Then sewed my ½ panels to each other, starting just above the counterchange and sewing to the cuff edge, checking my corners, and then sewing up to the armscye edge if all was good.  I did not flatline the sleeves at this point like I did the skirt.  The inner sleeves were going to be a red-on-red brocade. To help offset the inner sleeves, it was decided that I would line the sleeves with black and do a bag lining.  I got each sleeve into 2 pieces and then cut linings to match these.  I sewed the linings into the cone shapes and finished the fashion fabric cones as well.  Then I bag lined at the cuff edge and pressed that edge, leaving raw edges at the armscye edge.  

Once I had 2 sleeves, a front, and a back, I needed to turn that into a single shirt-like garment before I would attach the skirt.  I needed to figure out the set in sleeves and the neckline.  To do this, I had Vittoria’s help and Ludwig to drape on.  We started with turning the front and back plates and the sleeves inside out.  We pinned the shoulders up and cut a slightly small neck hole with a line of hand basting where the neckline would be.  This helped stabilize the curve until it could be finished.  Once the shoulders and neckline were established, the sleeves were set in.  The sleeves were pinned all the way around at the line they would be stitched at as well as hand-basted.  No bulk was cut away at this junction.   The side seams were pinned as well.  Once fitted, I took the pinned and basted mess home and sewed it up along the pin lines.  I did not remove bulk from the sleeves/shoulders.  I did finish the neckline with bias tape that was machine sewn to the outside, folded in, and hand-sewn to the lining.   

At the next fitting, the garment was tried on–right side out.  Once the fit was confirmed, bulk was removed in the shoulders and armscye to allow a nicer fit. 

To attach the skirt to the shirt portion, I started at a side seam.  I sewed from the middle of one of the black/cream stips that was lined together.  I would line up my counterchange with that of the skirt, sew from the center of the bodice piece to approximately halfway through the cream.  I would then figure out where the cream had to join with the next black edge to have the next 2 counterchanges line up with the skirt.  I would sew those remaining 7ish inches on the body panel, then sew that strip to the skirt, lining up my counterchanges.  I repeated this process all the way around the bodice–sew about 4 inches of skirt/body together->line up my counterchanges–>sew the 7ish inches of open body seam up–> sew another 4 inches of skirt/body together.  This allowed for my skirt-body counterchanges to be as close as possible to perfect; albeit, they were far less perfect than those of the skirt and the sleeves.

I then hemmed the skirt with bias tape, machine sewing it to the front, folding it under, and then hand-tacking it to the lining on the inside.  At this point, the checkerboard was done.  I only had my wife–Morgan Staghold– handy to model it.  I did still have the red-on-red brocade inner sleeves to make.

I, unfortunately, do not have a photo of Ludwig wearing the completed checkerboard at An Tir 12th Night 2023 for Vittoria’s Laurel Elevation.  He did promise to wear it for my display at Athenaeum in June.