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.