A Little Flat Cap Fail

Immediately after my previous update, I took action on my determination stated therein to make something tangible as a break from trying to digest vast quantities of information.  So, I dug out the flat cap pieces I cut out A YEAR AGO ahem and looked to see where I was at: which was, I had the fashion fabric (black wool) pieces and nothing else.  And indeed, now I think on it, where I'd gotten stuck previously was over-thinking what I should line it with.  Hello, own worst enemy.

It seems that silk linings for flat caps go pretty far down the social scale, so I dug out some scraps from my Extremely Purple Gamurra to use.  (This is not really an appropriate period choice, as the silk is a slubby dupione and the purple is way too optically bright, but I don't have any more appropriate scraps and I'm not cutting into virgin silk for a first-try project.  Also, S. likes purple.)  I cut out the matching lining pieces and started assembling.  The Tudor Tailor pattern is pretty straightforward and by the end of that day I had the crown basted and gathered and the hatband & lining attached on their appropriate sides.

Gathered crown, sitting on top of the unattached
brim.  Did I mention the lining was VERY PURPLE?

The next step is to attach the brim, but I wasn't feeling happy about it.  The wool is a very light, loose twill, and the silk is stiff for its weight but is also very light, and it all felt like it was going to be super-floppy even by flat cap standards.  I thought it best to reinforce that a little, so I dug out more scraps--dark brown cotton canvas that was part of the interlining for my 16th c. gown--and interlined the brim.  

Protip:  Do not try and retro-fit this into a brim & lining you have already sewn together.  Just fucking unpick it and do it right.  It will take a fraction of the time.  ASK ME HOW I KNOW.  

Looks great, doesn't it? 

Finally all the hurdles were overcome and everything was attached and I had something that, by gum, rather looked like a flat cap!  I did my victory lap around the living room and then had the recipient try it on--whereupon it perched on top of his head like an oversized fascinator.  Somehow, in spite of careful measurements, it came out about 2.5" too small for his head.  This is far too typical in my life.

I put the thing aside in disgust for about a week and dove into some pourpoint research (more about which later) before finally gritting my teeth and unpicking the pieces to see what had gone wrong.  Upon extracting the hatband and ironing it out, I measured it and it actually is the right size for his head. I guess what's happening here is that the extra volume caused by the gathers turns the perfect-sized hatband into a too-small one.  I think I don't have any choice but to cut a larger hatband & lining; I hope I don't have to cut out a new brim as well.  

I had even more antipathy for the whole thing after this realization so I put it to the side again, and I've just been knitting for the past week (at least the damn sock is nearly done; just in time for summer, as anticipated).  My attention's also been sucked away by Pennsic work (I'm the land agent/general factotum for a camp of about 70 people) and for an event I'm helping run next month where I volunteered to teach yet another class I haven't actually prepared for.  And I'm about to go on vacation, which is full of yay!, but I'm feeling time slipping away and I'm not feeling good about that at all.

Elizabethan Working Clothes: Drinking From The Firehose

Gerald is also overwhelmed by the source material

I have spent the past week, in between other drama and tasks, accruing even more data (and Chrome tabs), and attempting to capture the portion that will be most helpful to self & audience in a Google Doc*.  At this stage, said doc is a mad combination of explicatory text and bulleted lists, but that's par for this part of the course; I will write out discussion points as I think of them, and the bullet lists are topics to cover when I have them figured out, ahem.   I also bought a bunch of cheapo muslin from Joann's yesterday (since I was out in the burbs anyways) since I figure there will probably be a lot of draping going on, and with a reasonable percentage chance of making a pig's ear of some of it, I don't want to be stopped dead in the middle of a roll for lack of materials.

This is all decent progress, but I'm feeling itchy; I want to stop thinking and start doing.  Conversely, I'm feeling unusual trepidation about starting, because I don't think I have all my ducks in a row yet.  Having been woken up at an ungodly hour for a Sunday anyways (thanks, shrieking children on the street at 6:30am) I took the opportunity offered by some quiet rainy morning time with coffee to graph out my thoughts.  And these are our concerns, Dude:

1. What changes do I need to make to a doublet so that it still looks like the garment we see represented in imagery, but has enough freedom of movement that a man can work a farm in it**?   I don't think that just making it bigger all around is the right answer.
1. Related issue: I'm still not sure how breeches will stay up at most guys' natural waist if they aren't attached to something.  
2. I'll need to line up one of my friends to fit me for my own dress.  I could base it more-or-less off my Florentine gown, but it's a different enough design that I'm going to need help for the last mile, and my peeps are covered in even more bees than I am right now.
3. Do I have the right fabric to use as showcase garments?  Do I have anything even semi-right?  How much should I compromise?  This isn't for professional use, this is to help people who don't know this stuff make OK choices--but shouldn't they have the opportunity to see what the gold standard is?  Should I kill myself (and wallet) trying to get super-period fabrics, like linen canvas and madder-dyed wool, or make do with what my audience is more likely to have access to?
4. How much detail should I include in the class?  I don't want people to drown in it, or be driven off by too much information, but I want it to be a solid and comprehensive platform for them to start from. Where do I draw the line?

Some of these have immediate solutions.  For #1, I'm going overcome my I Don't Want To Be A Bother and ask my expert tailor friends; and I'll also throw on Tudor Monastery Farm (which is a little early for this, but never mind) and see what I can observe.  For #2, I'll cut out a generous muslin bodice draft using the dimensions of my gown and find someone to pin it on me.  For #3, I'll turn out the stash today (stupid rainy day, we were going to go to the botanical garden and look at lilacs) and gather a pile of anything that's Plausible™, and compare it to the source material I have.  And for #4, I will have to come to terms with the fact that I may not get it right for the first iteration.  

Another possible angle is to take it slow with the main garments and work on the smaller and/or better-known technology.  Vide, planned outfits--

For him: shirt (use current one), separate falling collar that can be pinned or basted in, doublet, breeches, stockings (use one of current pair), jerkin possibly, hat

For me: smock***, bodies & petticoat, kirtle probably, stockings, coif, apron

I could work on my smock, coif, and apron; and his falling collar and hat (IT IS CUT OUT FOR FUCK'S SAKE! JUST DO IT!).  It all needs doing and none of it should require outside help.  (I also need to make a metric buttload of points for all his outfits, and I should figure out what my tech is going to be for this oh god aglets & get cracking on them.)

Welp, there's some action items.  On with the motley!

* My modus operandi for documentation is: 1) get all the text down in a Google Doc, for maximum flexibility; 2) import into Word or, better yet, Pages for image addition and manipulation; and then preserve that as the ur-copy and export to PDF which I upload back to Google so I can print it from anywhere.

** This is also a problem I want to attack for the 14th century--what changes do I need to make to a Gothic fitted dress so that it's easy to move in but still holds my bQQbies up?  My blue silk is almost there...but it's cut to the same pattern as my red wool, which fits very differently, and I do not know why.  But I really want a plain dress for kitchen or other scut-work.

*** I haven't made up my mind whether to do a low-cut smock & add a partlet, or a high-collared one and eschew it.  So that's another decision that I should stop putting off.