FOUNDATIONS REVEALED COMPETITION ENTRY
Medb; The Warrior Queen Of Connaught
(click images to to enlarge)
Outline the story …
Táin Bó Cúailnge is the story of Queen Medb's raid into Ulster to obtain the Brown Bull of Cooley to win a competition with her husband over who was richer. Entry is inspired by the English translation by Thomas Kinsella.
My inspiration is taken from the first ch: Pillow Talk, were Medb describes herself as "superior in wealth and treasures" & "I by myself and alone break battles".
She is referred to as "the fair haired wolf queen" which led me to include embroidery of wolf heads along with Celtic knot-work hunting hounds. It is believed that if she was real then she would have lived around 50BCE, the Iron Age so I took a lot of inspiration from Iron Age clothing & Viking stylized embroidery (Morgan Donner's kirtle dress video was also a huge inspiration).
I wanted to use rich colours to help convey Medb's wealth & gold wire twisted into beads for the sleeves. Medb was a great warrior who enjoyed her wealth and power and ruled Connaught justly for many years, she was also the daughter of a faé/goddess which gave her connection to the lands she ruled & strengthened her claim to the throne of Connaught, meaning that while whomever she was married to was king (at least 5 that we know of) the sovereignty rested with her & she remained queen but her husband was no longer king once the marriage ended.
Outline the construction…
The outer garment is a rich blue cotton blend twill, trimmed with hand embroidered blue velvet. The sleeves were stitched by hand but the bodice & skirt was sewn with a machine due to time constraints. Most machine stitches were zigzag to help prevent fraying, combined with straight line stitches for my 2nd ever attempt at French seams on the bodice.
Pieces were made with a combination of draping on myself & transferring that to cloth pattern pieces. The sleeves were particularly difficult as I've never done any before & all patterns I could find had the seam closure under the arm so they have to be draped on myself multiple times for the correct fit & style. The 'How to Make a Fortuny Delphos Gown' article on Foundations Revealed was a huge help in figuring out how to achieve the look I wanted for the sleeves. I've also shared a link to the YouTube playlist that I created to help inspired & helped me.
The biggest difficulty for me was getting started, I was so scared about how it would turn out but overall while I see things that can be done better in future I'm overjoyed to have completed my very first costume.
I remember seeing progress pictures on Discord! The finished embroidery is gorgeous.
Thank you so much! I really enjoyed doing it a lot but it took ages. 😀
This is rich, beautiful and powerful. The sleeves I think are particularly striking, great work!
That is amazing to hear Bethany. The sleeves & embroidery are my favourite parts of it so I’m really delighted that you like them. 🙂
Such nice details! it looks good, you can be proud of you.
Thank you 😀
That embroidery is gorgeous! Such great details <3
Oh wow thank you Carolien! 😀
I LOVE THIS. I studied early Irish literature and mythology for my BA and Kinsella’s edition of the Táin basically lived in my schoolbag for 3 years. I love what you’ve done with this and all the hand detailing is beautiful. She looks powerful and fierce.
Oh wow Niamh! Thank you so much! You’re going to make me cry 😀
Lovely work. Your interpretation works well, and the embroidery is beautiful.
Thank you so much. 🙂
I’ll admit that I think the embroidery was definitely my most favourite aspect of it.
Nice job! Look at that embroidery!
A striking design that fits the inspiration so well. And that vivid blue!
Thank you Valerie 😀
That blue just grabbed me the minute I saw it. I’m an utter sucker for deep, vibrant colours.
This exceptionally well done. I love the embroidery and the thought that went in to the construction of this dress. Thank you!
Thank you so much Anna. 😀 Your words mean a lot and are a nice encouragement to keep going with trying to learn more sewing, crafting and embroidery (and anything else that seems interesting). 🙂