Pictures forthcoming

I haven't posted in a few weeks. Sending a big 'sorry' out to everyone who follows my posts.
But I've been busy-ish with crafty things since my last post, so I bet you'll forgive me.

I finished sewing the neck facing to my linen under-tunic and changed it to a square neckline to wear with my new Elizabethan type dress. I finished this at Crown Tournament minutes before my escort arrived at my campsite to take me to the opening procession. I still needed to finish he bottom hem, but that didn't need to be done right away since it is hidden under to outer layer. I also need to tack the extra sleeve length up into the inside of the sleeves before I can call it done.

I bought a lucet at Crown Tournament to make laces for the Elizabethan dress. This will replace the polyester ribbon I am currently using

I hemmed a square of what used to be a poly-cotton pillowcase to use as headkerchief.

I started cutting out a long grey/green linen tablecloth into a new under-tunic. This one is using the same generator that I used for my green cotton under-tunic, and is meant to replace said garment. My original cotton one has a irremovable stain at shin height, and I'd like to start moving away from using cotton.

And I've been drop spindling lots of wool. I need both mittens and socks before it gets cold again (not that it has warmed up yet.)

You will get pictures of these things soon. I promise to make this happen early next week, as I'm heading off tomorrow to June Faire for the weekend.

New Dress!

I had a spur of the moment wave of inspiration last night and made up a new dress for myself.
This one is an Elizabethan type, based on the corset pattern I drafted up in the last post. I settled on the gathered kirtle, purely out of need for fabric economy. I squeezed it out of about three yards of upholstery fabric I picked up at Wally World last year. I'll post more details on construction at some point when it is all finished up. You'll see in the pictures that I still need to hem this, and finish sewing the shoulder straps, and finish the side skirt opening.

I'm also going to modify my linen tunic to wear with this by cutting the neckline to a square.

A slideshow of pics of my new dress!

Lets forget about my confused tunic

Just for a little while we're forgetting about the tunic that was a simple men's, then wanted to be Irish, and now will be neither.
I've been working on something much more exciting. I'm trying an Elizabethan corset.
Why? Well because I really like the support of a bra, but I'm tired of wearing modern undergarments with my somewhat historical clothing. I realize this isn't the right undergarment for any of the clothing items I currently have, but maybe it will be eventually.
I have to say I have a huge crush on Drea Leed and her Elizabethan Costuming website (http://www.elizabethancostume.net/). Her website has a great generator for a corset pattern by your measurements, you put in your measurements here and get illustrated instructions that walk you through drafting out your own customized pattern.
So I am working on a modified mockup of the boned tabbed version. It will be faced and lined with fabric from a striped cotton bedsheet, though I do intend to wear this for awhile before I move on to a better constructed one it is still just a mockup.
This mockup will also serve another purpose. By making up the corset and noting any modifications I need to make, I will also be able to draft out a bodice pattern from the same lines that the corset pattern gives me.
I think I'm going to make the Gored Kirtle, but I might go with the Gathered Kirtle

Gored Kirtle from www.elizabethancostume.net

Boned Tabbed Corset from www.elizabethancostume.net

A Sideless Surcoat

And now we come to my last completed garment, my sideless surcoat.

This is probably the most appropriate outfit for me to be wearing with the hair style I have in my picture. I made up this in a few hours one day so that I'd have something 'nice' to wear. It only took 1.5 yards too! Or rather I was limited to the 1.5 yards of this fabric that I had available. I think I'm going to sew up a gothic fitted kirtle to wear as my standard layer under this. I have some woven silk fabric in mind for it in a deep red with black warp threads. It'll look dangerously regal, but the SCA doesn't have sumptuary laws for colors of garments.
If you want a better look at the fabric I used for this, look at the background I put up here! Thats the fabric I used. It's at least partially cotton, and likely 100% cotton, but it has a perfect look to it. Because I constructed this in a hurry, I used the sewing machine, but that allowed me to be super quick about it. I do need to go back and bind the inside seams, I left them unfinished to allow a little more ease over my hips and out of lack of time. This was also my first adventure in making bias tape, and even though it was a lot of work, I love the result. Bias tape is a dream to work with, it went around the curves of the arm holes like a dream. At some point I do need to take off the bias tape and re-apply it with hand stitches. I might adjust the shape to dip in narrower at the waist as well.

And now I'm at the end of my constructed garments. I think I'll give an update on my linen under-tunic next.

The overdue viking dress

What can I say? I'm horrible at keeping up with regular postings. So, without further ado here in my viking apron dress:

The style I chose for my dress is the tube dress that flares from the hips. I'd really love to make the other more accurate style of two overlapping free panels or of one long overlapping panel next time. This time I decided to stay with a well loved and prevalent method so that I could be ensured great results without making up a muslin. Here is a diagram of the cutting method I used:

This is a design by eqos on deviantart.com, http://eqos.deviantart.com

I cut this out of a cotton blanket that I picked up at a resale shop on the cheap. Cotton? You ask. Yes, but it looks like herringbone wool from a two foot distance. It's not until you get your eyes right in there all close and personal and maybe give it a good feel that you realize that it's not wool. I think this is going to make it a life saver during the three weeks in August that everyone tells me get extremely hot out here.

Two things I did just a little differently were that I decided to waste just a little fabric and eliminate the halved pieces. I just moved over my cutting diagram and made them whole. This is because I had more fabric than needed for this project, but not enough left over to make another project out of, I was going to have fabric waste either way. I also eliminated the bottom band to make this calf length after hemming. I might have lengthened the entire pattern by just a few inches instead, but I honestly can't remember. Instead of hemming the top edge I cut off the top band on the blanket and used that to finish my top edge. This keeps the top from stretching out and I think it gives it a very finished look.

The straps are pieces of the edge binding of the blanket. In the front are two short loops and coming from the back are two long loops. These are meant to be held together by big ornate shield brooches. These are something I am going to have to wait a bit for, but I should be able to find some through a SCA merchant at some event this summer. Something I did already own was a festoon of beads:

I made this at a workshop during an event from 18 gauge wire strung with glass and metal beads. The danglies might not be accurate.

For anyone looking for more inspiration, here is a handout that I found on the internet that gives more information and cutting diagrams and instructions for another version of the apron dress and for a better under-tunic.

Next up will be my sideless surcoat.

Blue wool tunic

Now, we're on to my blue wool tunic. This is on the very top of my repair pile, and has been for some time. One of the side seams has frayed and is becoming an ever larger hole. I just never seem inspired to do mending when there are shawls to knit, things to embroider, and bands to be tablet woven.

 

When I was collecting my materials for my under-tunic I was also checking around at resale shops for wool fabric, and I lucked out when I found some navy blue wool fabric. I pieced that together into this knee length version of my under-tunic with upholstery weight thread.

That got my through my first several events, and then when I wanted to embellish it a little more I bought several hanks of silk thread very cheaply on a now-defunct eBay store and embroidered a design onto my leftover cotton to tack onto the neck of my over-tunic. I wish I could find the design that inspired my embroidery, but I haven't been able to track it down. I do know that it was something that I originally traced off of my computer screen

Next up: A viking apron dress

Promised Pictures

Well, I borrowed a camera (a really really nice one with all kinds of shiny buttons and options menus!) and got some pictures of my outfits. The trouble is that I insisted on taking the pictures all by myself. This involved propping up the camera on a couple chair cushions and a binder on top of the table and using the timer. I was impatient with them too and only really took one take of each outfit.
I guess my main complaint is that the pictures are unflattering. I've gotten used to snapping lots of takes and coming out with some gems. But, without further delay, here is the start of my current garb pieces:

Please note that the hem isn't actually this uneven,
or maybe it is,
I guess I've changed bra cup sizes twice since I made this.

This is my basic layer. I made this my first freshman year at Michigan Technological University soon after I was introduced to SCA through the local branch, the Shire of Mistig Waetru. Since I was a starving college freshman I also had approximate budget of $10 including materials for an over-tunic layer. I went to the local wally world and bought 4 yards of mustard/golden yellow $1/yard cotton fabric, and a spool of thread. When I showed my shire my fabric the general consensus was that the color I had chosen made my coloring look absolutely sickly, so I threw my fabric into one of the dorm washers in the basement with a pack of greenish dye I bought for $1 on eBay and hoped for the best. The next day my fabric came out a beautiful sage green, albeit a little uneven (to this day if you look at my resulting tunic in the right sunlight you can see that one sleeve is a different shade than the body.) 
For construction I put my measurements into this Elizabethan smock generator, used the authentic pieced layout, and sewed it all together by hand using a running stitch with two back stitches every couple inches. The generator calls it an Elizabethan smock, but it is based on the timeless t-tunic, especially when I used a key-hole neck (circle with a 4-inch vertical slit in the front.)


Next up: My blue wool short tunic
(expect this posting tomorrow)

Well...no weekend plans after all

My weekend plans fell through...sigh. I was so excited about them too.

I did have three very productive days leading up to today though. On Wednesday I cut up a herringbone blanket to make a viking apron dress and (machine) pieced it together. I was able to finish hemming and sewing on the straps on Thursday morning. Right now it's just waiting to dry so that I can take lots of pictures of it. I also made a sideless surcoat on Thursday. The fabric that I have as my background here is what I used to make it. Pictures of this will also be forthcoming when my tunic is finished drying.

Today I was going to keep with the great progress I've been making on my to-do list but I guess I was a little clouded over by the failed weekend plans and still having a little personal pity party. Also, the back of my shoulders are all knotted up and sore/tingly. I guess I have less than perfect sewing posture. If it hasn't worked itself out by tomorrow I'm going to seriously make like a cat and work it out on a door frame. Or I could go find myself a rough tree and work it out like a bear.

I promise I'll get some pictures put up here of my outfits soon.

I haven't forgotten you, my dear blog

I haven't posted here in nearly a month! sigh
I just haven't made much progress on any crafting. Reading, yes, but not crafting. I guess after reading only about  three books in the past four years before I moved here my brain was starved. I have been hitting the books hard,  even if they are mostly mysteries/romances. To be fair, there have been a good number of non-fiction books that I've poured through as well.

My linen tunic is almost ready to be hemmed, something I hope to do in the next few days so that I can wear it this weekend. Because this weekend will be my first event of the season! Good thing no one saw the happy dance I did when everything fell into place for this, I think I might have gone and crawled under a rock out of embarrassment if anyone had seen me.

I have so much to do before this weekend, as I haven't really touched my old to-do list. This afternoon I did hoof it over to a resale shop and pick up some nice baskets to carry my stuff in. One is a nice little one with a linen liner already made for it, this one will house my sewing and embellishing kit. The other one is a large round one with a striped cotton lining. I think the larger one is made out of bamboo, but it looks better than a nylon duffel bag at any rate.

As far as things that absolutely need doing before the weekend, I absolutely need to:

• Mend my wool over-tunic and check over my green cotton under-tunic
• Finish sewing the trim onto my cape and finish the bottom edge
• Mend my shoes
• Make a favor, perhaps a tablet woven band
• Make bread late Thursday or -early- Friday (I'm thinking of making a stuffed focaccia with fresh mozarella/parmesan/basil leaves, and perhaps a loaf of seeded rye as well. 
• Filter a bit of my cordial and find a bottle for it

And some things I want to get done but aren't completely necessary:

• Fashion a sideless surcoat out of my gold brocade
• Make new herringbone blanket into a viking apron dress
• Cut apart new silk pillowcases and make headcoverings from them
• Make one of my muslins or a white sheet into a plain chemise (possible a laced fitted layer, in lieu of a modern bra or gothic fitted dress
• Quickly machine sew my blue or green linen into an under-tunic to wear with the viking apron dress

I hate to think of machine sewing medieval clothing, but I'm short on time. I guess I can always pick out he machine stitches after this weekend and re-do the seams by hand. I just don't think my green cotton under-tunic will look alright with a viking apron dress, and my new oatmeal colored linen garment is too short for this fashion.Maybe I can even whip up a quick machine pieced gothic fitted dress?

This is what I mean by a gothic fitted dress:

I've found it!

Harmonica music that is palatable.
I absolutely loathe Harmonica music.
I was listening along to a nice playlist of Accordion music and then I heard it...What? What is that? Noooo...No way...That couldn't be...Wow..That there is a harmonica...Damn.

This has nothing to do with anything medieval, both the Accordion and Harmonica are 19th century instruments, but I just had to share this.

My under-tunic has decided to be Irish

I think my linen under-tunic has decided to masquerade as an Irish léine.At least an interpretation of a léine.

I've found pictures of this type of sleeve that people have been making a léine with:

Since my sleeves are much too long for my arms, I think the pleats will work great. 

I do feel a bit badly about making a garment without clear documentation. I'd hate to perpetuate a long line of unfounded conjectures. 

I think I'm going to go through with this, and my next wool purchase will be for a Shinrone Gown. The Shinrone gown is an extant wool gown found in an Irish bog near Shinrone, Co. Tipperary, in the 19th century. It has been dated to the latter part of the 16th century. It is currently held in Dublin at the National Museum of Ireland. 

 

So, my dear readers, have you any evidence that validates the pleating of léine sleeves? Would it be too much of an evil to wear this conjectured garment? 

Thankful for audio-books

My library card finally arrived last week! Yay! The best thing about this library is that they have an online collection of downloadable books and audio-books. Listening to audio-books makes the cutting and sewing go much quicker.
The french seams make the construction take so much longer. On my past garments I have always just used a running stitch and reinforced stressed areas with a backstitch. For this garment I have been using a running stitch for the first pass of the french seam and then backstitching when the seam is turned on itself. That, along with using a double strand of thread throughout, should make this garment pretty darn durable.
So far, I have both sleeves stitched, the shoulder seams finished, and one gore partially installed. I would like to have all four gore pieces stitched in tonight. This means I could be on to the side seams tomorrow! I'll be only left with hemming in no time!

The linen is cut!

I cut into the linen last night. (eek!) I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the lessons I have learned from my muslins were all I needed to know.
I finally settled on making it a knee-length garment, in a men's style. It will have a rounded triangle neck, like that of the Skjoldehamn Tunic. I have made the triangle almost as wide as it is deep, so if I need to change the opening style to a keyhole, square, or rounded it is easy to accomplish at a later date. The sleeves will be uniform width along their length. I have left the sleeves too long for myself. Right now I am still debating whether to just turn back and tack down the excess length, or to leave them their full length and install a drawstring at the end. I decided to leave the length there at any rate, mostly so that this could be an actual men's garment someday. The triangles from along the sides of the fabric will form 4 gore pieces, while the triangles at the bottom of the fabric will form 4 more. The rectangle between the bottom of the dress and the gore triangles will be the sleeves.

No progress on the linen

I made up another muslin of the linen under-tunic last night.
Lets just say that there aren't any pictures.

I seriously thought I had more talent than this. I just keep making dumb mistakes, like not including enough ease for french seams. And trying to taper in the waist, without thinking about how I would fit it over my bust with no lacing opening. I think I just don't quite have enough fabric to do exactly what I want to do. Another half-yard and I'd have the perfect amount. I think I may just settle on making this a knee-length garment, in the style of men's tunics.

On another front,I have been researching more on the two Hans Holbein the Younger's paintings; "Lais of Corinth", and "Venus and Amor", painted 1524-1526.

HANS HOLBEIN - Venus and Amor, 1524

I have looked through countless databases of early 16th century portraits, but I have not been able to find very much evidence of this type of chest slashing. Holbein was visiting France during the time that these were painted. I was thinking perhaps he took inspiration from the clothing of the locality. I have found a different chest slashing in the portrait of Jeanne d'Halluin by Corneille de Lyon. She was a French Lady-in-Waiting to Catherine de Medici. 

CORNEILLE DE LYON - Jeanne d'Halluin, 1547-1557

I realize that both of the Holbein paintings are not actual portraits, and that they could very much have fantasy elements, but I would love to find contemporary evidence for this dress.

Does anyone know of any portraits that I could be missing?

New linen, and the beginning of a tunic.

I had planned to make an entry here last night, but then I got carried away in the sewing room and it was nearly 2AM when I emerged.
My friend gave me a cut of 60"x70" linen in a natural sand color. I know it's not quite enough for anything proper, but I have been working on piecing together something that resembles an under-tunic.

My new linen, a coarse woven sand color.

My current plan has me cutting the fabric along the length; into two 30"x70" rectangles. Since my bust is 42", I can easily center a 22" half measurement on the 30" width of the doubled fabric.
This is a very very crude drawing on my plan:

My very quick drawing on some scrap paper from the sewing room.

Notice the 16.5" mark on the sleeves, that is going to be a problem very soon. I wanted my sleeves to be cut 16.5" in total, that should make this measurement 8.25". Good thing I am making a muslin.

Here is me first noticing that the sleeves are wrong:

You would have thought that I'd notice this during marking.

This muslin is so riddled with errors, it's ridiculous.

Anyway, I'm off to go photograph some of the fitting problems, and draft up some changes. Maybe by the wee hours of tomorrow I'll actually have cut into my linen!

For the more immediate future

Before I get too distracted by my dreams, I need to think about the ever growing assortment of smaller projects that need my attention.
I'm in a sewing mood right now, but I'm also losing weight and planning on losing much more. I can't seem to convince myself to put too much work into an outfit that will look akin to a loose pillow sack in a few months. Regardless, I'm going to need garb for this upcoming season.

Here's my to-do list:

• Mend side seams on my wool over-tunic, bind or otherwise finish seams so they don't fray again.
• Check cotton under-tunic for weakened seams, try to get the paint stain out of the front bottom.
• Check resale shops for coats/purses to deconstruct for leather for shoes. 
• Find a decently passable spoon, stabber and possibly knife for feast.
• Find a basket to carry stuff in or make some sort of plausibly period bag.
• Figure out what the 'Abomination dress' wants to be. (Much more about this in another post.)
• Make sleeves from the burgundy silk table runner.
• Finish sewing tapestry trim onto cape, finish other edges.
• Make a clear plan for my pear-green linen and turquoise linen.
• Make new gold brocade into something, possibly a sideless surcoat.

I have so much to do! Plus, as soon as I find gainful employment I need to buy some lightest weight white linen to make a chemise and new headcoverings from. 

Parti dresses

JACOB CLAESZ - Portrait of a girl with a carnation, 1520-24

Today, the charity sewing club that I'm in went to the Puyallup Sewing and Stitchey Expo. We were there for about 3.5 hours and needed every bit of that time to see all of the vendors that were there. I came out with 1.75 yards of a gold brocade remnant fabric that was calling to me, a modern dress pattern, and an assorted bag of 50 zippers.

While I was standing at a table of books and drooling over some of them, parti-colored medieval clothing came up. My friend mentioned that she'd like to see some of the examples available in artwork. When I got home this evening I pulled up a couple of examples available on the Internet. I got ready to send them to her, but then thought of this blog. Parti-colored clothing would be a great post for here, so I set about working on this post.

So, how much did I know about parti-colored clothing when I started writing this?

Hmm...well, next to nothing. I knew parti-colored garments and accessories are commonly worn by people in the SCA. I had even seen a few examples in artwork, like the ones I pulled up. 

That means parti-colored garments are documented, peer-reviewed, and peer-supported. So, that's enough on that subject, right?

No, I want to dig into the little and not so little details. For me there is never 'enough' when it comes to medieval history. But I guess that's just my passion speaking. Makes me question my choice of college studies...

Anyhow, for anyone that wants to know, Here is some information on parti-colored garments, backed up by art. I will write my own research on this someday.

SIMONE MARTINI - Detail from 'Scenes from the life of St Martin',  St. Martin is Knighted, 1312-17

These dreams of mine

It seems a bit presumptuous to have two posts in one day, but I am very excited about getting this blog started and can't wait until tomorrow.

Like my first post said, I have big dreams for my future. I am merely in the pondering stages of most of my dreams, but I have moved on to planning a few of them.

My 'Grails'

• Eleanora di Toledo knitted silk stockings
• Queen Elizabeth effigy corset and/or Pfaltzgrafin pair of bodies
• Hans Holbein's Lais of Corinth dress/camica/snood/partlet (This will be my Kingdom A&S Championship entry one day)

HANS HOLBEIN - Lais of Corinth, 1526

So, what does anyone else think of this? Are my dreams too grandiose? Is is good to set my goals so high?

There is much more writing to come on all of these projects.

First post!

You know, I never really liked writing diaries much. I started a couple while growing up, but nothing ever came of them. This seems suspiciously like a diary of sorts.

So why am I doing this?
Well, I would like a record of my progress in the Arts and Sciences. I am a member of four years of the Society of Creative Anachronism. I've previously been too busy and in too small of a group to do very much. Sure, I have some basic garb and a few projects in progress, but I have much much bigger dreams. This is where I will write my plans and progress, my triumphs and failures, my questions and worries. I am hoping that at least a few people will pick up on reading my posts. I really would like to use this as a medium to pose questions and to receive feedback.