1480s Florence – Saccoccia (purse/pouch)

Embellished Saccoccia – an Italian pocket/pouch

Since I’m a glutton for punishment, and was still waiting for my trim to arrive for my Italian Renaissance costume, I decided to make a Saccoccia to accompany my costume. Although all of the paintings I’ve looked at only show this pocket-pouch-bag after 1575, I wasn’t seeing a lot of other pouches or purses that appealed to me (that I could make in a short time period) from artwork from my desired time period. Although it’s possible that the Saccoccia is actually too late for my costume, I decided to make one anyways.

Cutting out all the pieces and pinning pieces for the Saccoccia – an Italian pocket/pouch

I started off with the pattern from “Adventures of a Wanna-be Seamstress”  and enlarged the print-off by 250% enlargement. I also printed off copies at 200% and 300% – but thought that the 250% seemed more appropriate for my proportions. (Someone smaller might be happier at 200%.) I know that I could have easily drawn out the pattern, but I was on the computer and had a printer… so why not! (The enlargements all printed off on 11×17 paper FYI)

How the layers of the Saccoccia are layered

I cut the pattern out twice from the gold/silver/black brocade (It’s a polyester 😦 ) I had made my over-dresss in, with the lining from scraps leftover from the gold silk under-dress that was actually currently in-progress (I needed to take a break from the hem that wouldn’t cooperate). I did the “box” to sew the lining to the fashion fabric for the slit, turned it (like making a bound buttonhole, but instead of a facing, the lining acts as the facing) and pressed it. Then I decided I wanted to have it fully-finished inside (no seam allowances inside) BUT I wanted to keep my lining-as-facing as a lining, so, leaving the top unstitched (since that will be enclosed in the waistband anyways) I layered the fashion fabric back, the front fashion + lining, and the lining, and sewed around the exterior. I was pretty tired at the time so kept thinking “this will work.. right?”. Yeah.. I machine stitched it, checked, and then serged… just because in my tired state I couldn’t be SURE it would work.

 

Saccoccia – an Italian pocket/pouch – turned the right way, and ready to embellish and band.

Hurrah – it did! Lining and body sewn in one, with no visible seam allowances inside the bag!

Now just to bind the top and add the waistband/strap – which will turn this from some random bag-kind-of-thing into a proper pocket/pouch.

I cut a long strip of the lining fabric, sewed it in the middle to the pouch, then folded it back and sewed the ends into two long tubes, turned them, and hand-stitched the back of the strip to the back of the pouch by hand to finish.

Nearly completed Saccoccia – an Italian pocket/pouch – Just need to press the straps!

Please visit the 1480s Florence category to see everything I’ve made for this costume!

Historical Sew Fortnightly

Inspiration image Woman at her Toilet – Alessandro Allori, dated 1575-1578 From modehistorique.com

Little by little I’m trying to work-back and cover some of the topics from the 2014 Historical Sew Fortnightly. I’m also trying to meet the challenges for the 2015 Historical Sew Monthly, but this one works well for one of the past challenges, so I’m going to assign this to:

Challenge: #10: Art – due Sun 1 June.  Make your own masterpiece based on a work of art.

My inspiration images can be seen in my previous post about Italian purses & pouches, along with this one, Woman at her Toilet.

Fabric: polyester-rayon brocade & 100% silk damask

Pattern: pattern from “Adventures of a Wanna-be Seamstress”

Year: 1575 onward.

Notions: thread, beads, metal links

How historically accurate is it? The fabric is totally off, but I think the shape is reasonable. I don’t know about the construction method; it works for me and made it much simpler that binding the edge, but most of the artwork from the period suggest that binding rather than embellishing would be more accurate.

Hours to complete:  Maybe 2 in total including embellishment?

First worn: 12th Night, January 2015

Total cost: All of the elements were leftover from other projects or projects related to the overall costume. To buy the supplies new (assuming you could buy just the amount required) would probably be a few dollars.

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