Tudor Angel

The angel originally was dressed in a shapeless ivory crushed velvet dress with a cheap lace overlay. I decided that that was not an appropriate outfit for our Christmas angel.
I chopped off the dress, and was left with the plastic cone that allowed her to be placed over the top of the tree. Looks like a farthingale! I padded out her torso slightly with batting prior to dressing her.
I made a square-necked smock that just followed the edge of the porcelain bustline. It has tiny gathers at the wrists. Then, I made a kirtle from a scrap of fabric that I found. I drafted the top by tracing against her body, and then sewed it onto her along the side edges. The skirt was then draped over the cone and stitched onto the bodice section. Small undersleeves have puffs along the lower edge. The jewels along the kirtle neckline were custom-made from gold-painted spacer beads and small glass rhinestones. These are glued to the kirtle.
To get the correct shape for the gown bodice, skirt and sleeves, I actually used the pattern from The Tudor Tailor. The scale of the pattern in the book was nearly perfect - I just had to enlarge it about 10%. The structure of the gown is completely correct - with a front opening, spiral laced bodice, attached sleeves with large lined turnbacks, a placard and a cartridge-pleated skirt.
Here's the back, with the long train. You can't really see the cartridge pleats very well, with the angel wings attached, but you can tell by the volume of the skirt that they are there.
The final step, of course, was to add the jewelry that every Tudor lady wears. The necklaces and girdle are made of white seed beads alternating with gold crimp beads. The central pendant is a gold earring, with the post removed. A real Tudor lady would have a French or gable hood. I haven't decided whether my angel needs one.