I went ahead and ordered the boning for the farthingale this past week. I figured since it had been my birthday and I was forced to work a closing shift, I would go and buy myself a present :) I had read in The Tudor Tailor that farthingales used to be boned with reeds, and I wondered what that would be like. Their instructions called for soaking reeds in a bathtub overnight, then binding them into the desired shape and letting them dry. I was a little bit sceptical about the whole process, and about the finished product. From the instructions I knew I would need reeds in lengths up to 123", and knew I couldn't completely submerge something that long and strait in my bathtub. And what about the finished product? Baskets are made from reeds, and any of them I have handled have been rather rigid, and sometimes brittle. I didn't want a brittle hoop inside a farthingale: I'd never be able to get it through a modern door. And if I do end up wearing it to the ren faire, I don't want an overenthusiastic reveler to break my hoops if they happen to run into me. However, I thought for the price I would give them a try. I found them on http://www.grannd.com/ for $8.99 for 90 feet of 1/2 inch flat oval reeds. I knew they would probably come in sections ( I don't know of any reed that grows to 90 feet long), but wasn't sure of anything much beyond that. Just to be on the safe side, I ordered one roll of plastic covered hoop steel (12 yards for about $25) and figured that if the reeds didn't work out, I'd only be about $10 worse off, and the steel I already had could go into the top hoops while the proper crinoline steel would go into the bottom hoops to help keep the bottom from collapsing.
What came in the mail on friday was a total surprise (in a good way). After extricating the package from the very stubborn mailbox, I thought they must have shipped the steel and the reeds in separate packages: the one box was a fairly standard size but very light. When I opened it, I found the steel and the reeds, both wound in tight coils. I set the steel aside and gently opened the reeds, which did spring out a bit, but not terribly far and not with deadly force like spring steel. There were indeed several pieces present, but they were all fairly long: ranging in length from 68" to 160", very useable lengths for the farthingale. And, since they were already coiled, I just started measuring canes and putting them into appropriate channels in the farthingale. I didn't even bother to cut off the longer ones, simply slipping the extra length into the boning channels. They didn't have any splinters, but they had a certain roughness of the grain. This didn't impede my sliding them into the boning channels (except the two at the very bottom were a little hard to shift around), and seemed to keep them in place without drilling holes in them to tie them off. When I did get all of the hoops in, I found that they were a little too curled, and the hoops in the bottom were curling and warping quite badly. From my experience woodworking, I knew that wetting them would help them relax and straiten, so I sprayed the hooped farthingale with water, laid the whole thing on the floor with the hoops in concentric circles, and let it dry overnight.
In the morning, I found the farthingale just as I hoped it could be. The reeds had dried in the casings, and were now the right shape and rigid enough not to buckle under the garment's own weight, but still flexible enough to squeeze through a door. I put the underskirt over the farthingale and bumroll to see if it would collapse, since the underskirt is slightly heavy. It did not collapse. This bodes well for when I get the overskirt done. Yes, it does swing just like a regular hoopskirt, so I might have to rig up some sort of bloomers in case of high winds. Arnold pictures some portraits of women wearing an Elizabethan form of bloomers in her book, so that detail might have some historical accuracy, though I will have to look at the book again to figure out who was wearing them. This is what the front of the overskirt looks like over the fully boned farthingale, looking down. 
Progress on the overskirt has been rather slow, and so far pretty much as per the instructions. The trim on the front edges is taking a long time because, of course, I'm sewing it on by hand. I am sewing on two strips of 1" wide gold-tone trim, and I am sewing freshwater pearls in each of the spaces between them.
Also I am sewing lapis lazuli chips on each strip of trim. Each pearl and chip is individually knotted. It has taken me the amount of time it takes to watch Pride and Predjudice (Colin Firth version) twice to sew the trim and various stones on one side.
I am now working on the other side, and have the trim and pearls sewn down. Like the underskirt, I am not sewing pearls to the final 6 inches of the overskirt until I know how much to turn the hem up. The only other deviation from the instructions was in the cutting of the front panels: since the fabric was 54"wide, it did not have to be cut in two pieces. I simply lapped the small wing piece onto the main pattern piece and pinned it temporarily to obtain the full size pattern piece. I have done the cartridge pleating on one side as well, and am hopeful I can get the rest of the detail work done soon so I can put the whole skirt together.
Also last week I made the sleeves of the gown. Sometimes I will work on pieces of a project so that I will do a good job on the details earlier in the project while I'm still interested, and at the end I can put all the finished pieces together when I am really impatient to see the thing done. Since I didn't read the instructions really well, and since I had done things a little differently a the La Jolla playhouse, I deviated from the printed instructions just a bit. I used the green silk for the base of the sleeves with polyester organdy for the overlay, and then I cut a lining of that same cotton/poly broadcloth I used for the farthingale. I sandwiched all the layers together; broadcloth, then silk, then polyester, and serged it together on all sides. Using the layer of broadcloth as the base makes it a bit stronger, giving the sleeve a good base to sew the lines of trim on, as well as giving me a good canvas to mark out for the placement of the trim. I sewed the trim lines on by machine with a zigzag stitch, then put the pearls on by hand, individually knotted of course. I did not sew the six lines of trim to go over the puff, though, because I did not think the trim I had would look good. Once I had the puff on, I sewed 4 lines of czekosloviakian faceted glass beads on each puff, just to give them a little interest. I serged off the top edge of the sleeve, puff and all, so it will be easy to stitch into the armscye of the bodice. To finish the cuff of the sleeve, which I did not finish like the instructions said, I simply bound it off with a strip of white bias tape and cross-stitched it down. I hope when I make the cuff ruffs that I will be able to baste them temporarily to the ends of the sleeves onto that bias tape to keep the silk and organdy clean on the outside. I sewed a pearl to the end of the slit as well, to keep the stitches from pulling out.
Hopefully this coming week I will finish the overskirt and be able to attach it and the underskirt to the waistband, and make a start on the bodice. It will take a few days to cut and tip the bones once the bodice is assembled. I should find some thin wool flannel or the like to put between the bones and the silk so the bones won't show. And I am still having trouble finding the linen lawn that I'd like, though my boss at the fabric store says he'll try to find me something he can order for the store. We'll see what happens there.
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