Sunday, October 30, 2016

The Pourpoint Commission: The Road Goes Ever On




On this project, I keep thinking "ah! Now as soon as I do this one thing, I'll be ready to start for realsies."  And then I find six more things to sort under that one thing.  This is becoming uncomfortably like my day job.

For some reason, the cotton
fibers stuck immediately to the
green linen, mostly ignoring
the white.  Not important,
but interesting.
At the start of this past week, I had my new iron, I had my cotton tow (also my spine and my Orange Crush), and I figured we were rollin'.  I cut out two more 10" pieces of the linen and lining, and started pulling cotton out of the Giant Cotton Blob.  I did my best to floof it out (and can I just tell you, I now have a much better understanding of why it's called cotton candy) and then placed it on my swatch, sort of pushing and squidging it to make it look fairly evenly distributed.  It still had some clumps and valleys, as you see, but I didn't think that would be particularly significant.  (Spoilers: I was so very wrong.)  I knew I would need to baste in some fashion, but thought the chief worry was that the cotton would blorp out the sides of the swatch (spoilers: I was so very wrong, at least about that being the chief worry), so I basted a half-inch around the outside, making a kind of pillow-like entity.  At this point, I paused to weigh the piece, and went back and weighed the one I did with cotton batting[1]--there is .25 oz difference, for the record, which doesn't seem like much but is about a baseball-sized chunk of unfloofed raw cotton[2].  So it wasn't going to be the best comparison, but this would turn out to be the least of my problems.

It's a nice wee pillow. The
cats thought so too.
I took my quilting between in hand, threaded with some heavy linen thread I had hanging around, and started in.  Within three stitches I knew this was not going to work; the linen thread's way too heavy and coarse for this work.  Ctrl-Z!  The Black Prince's jupon was quilted in silk thread, so OK.  I dug up some silk twist, threaded that up, and started in.  This was going a little bit better, but I wasn't getting anything near the fineness of stitch I was looking for; Saint Janet doesn't mention the stitches-per-inch in her article, but it looks pretty fine on the photos, and modern quilters advise 6 for newbies, 10 for experts.  I was getting three.  And even those were pretty questionable; it isn't just the thickness of the padding to get through, but every time I hit a clump in the cotton, the needle just wasn't going through.  I tried finer needles, I tried my medieval replica needle (IT BENT. fjdkalfjdaldfj); nothing was improving the situation.

At this point I started whining on the Internets, as one does, and received counsel that instead of quilting by running stitch, I would be better served by stab stitch[3].  So I gave that a whirl, only to find, well, let's let the photos speak for themselves:

Front side: uneven but at
least straight lines




Back side: WAT

Because, see, there's nothing holding the top linen layer and the bottom linen layer in alignment with each other; the more so since there is additional play as a result of the padding; so they are migrating all over the place.  And lo, the light came on of OH THIS IS WHY THEY USED A FRAME IN PERIOD.  

Those medieval guys, ya know. Not stupid. Not stupid at all.

I took further counsel with Our Panel Of Experts and found they're both using the same PVC quilting frame for this purpose, and it breaks down tidily enough that it won't be an undue strain on the limited household Lebensraum, AND I think I can also use it in future for silk-painting banners; so this weekend I went out and got me one as well.  As well, I am kindly being delivered a bow this afternoon to try and bow the cotton, so hopefully I shall also have homogenous padding available by the end of the day.  I just have to think through how best to rig the swatch; probably will have to lace it in like you would for an embroidery piece.  (Another thing I've never actually done!  Yay!)


[1] yes, the smart thing would have been to weigh just the stuffings, but that would have required me to have thought of it before I quilted the first piece.
[2] Based on our kitchen digital scale, which only measures in .25oz increments in the first place, so it's not the best/most accurate measure for this purpose.  But there's a limit to how crazy Imma get here.
[3] For the non-textile peeps: Running stitch is the "normal" sewing stitch, where you push the needle up and down several times along your line before pulling the thread through; it is fast and efficient; the key here is that the needle goes through at an angle, which becomes mucky if your piece is thick.  Stab stitch is where you push the needle vertically down through the piece with one hand, and the other hand is below the piece to send the needle vertically back up.  It is SLOW.  I cannot sufficiently emphasize how slow it is.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

The Pourpoint Commission: Setbacks and Re-Orientation

here's me

With my usual timing, I came down ill last Wednesday and, for the following several days, wasn't up to anything but laying on the couch moaning.  Today I'm much more myself, but of course I am lacking an iron, which is, as project managers say, a blocker.  (Fun fact: you cannot get any iron at all with the "Get it Today!" button on Amazon.)  This will be rectified tomorrow, but I'm more than somewhat annoyed by losing most of a week of work.

On the bright side!  Things that have arrived include my 5lbs of raw cotton, and my ILL of Janet Arnold's article on the Black Prince's jupon!  Which is a downloadable PDF!  I NEVER HAVE TO GIVE IT BACK!  MOO HOO HA HA!

ahem

I haven't un-vacuum-sealed the cotton yet because I don't want to start getting fibers everywhere before I'm ready to address them, but I've torn into the article like a kid on Christmas morning.  Here are our takeaways (with the disclaimers that Saint Janet had to examine the garment through the conservation net, with the possible inaccuracies this introduces):

  • It has a linen lining, cotton wadding for padding, and the silk velvet (linen weft) fashion fabric (already appliquéd, as previously noted).
    • The fleurs-de-lis were done in the "part-of-the-ground-fabric" style of semy, rather than all as complete charges.  On the other hand, the leopards of the English arms were carefully sized for the space available in order to be entirely complete charges. Not relevant to today's project, but interesting to note for future reference.  
    • What is not clear to me is whether the silver label of cadency was just appliquéd on top of the ground devices. Seems like a hell of a waste of goldwork if it was, and a bunch of extra work if it wasn't.
  • As I'd theorized from looking at it, the quilting happened after the layers were assembled.
  • There's fragmentary linen binding around the neckline, with a few remaining thread bits to suggest there was velvet there too (but it's not clear from the article if, like the garment itself, this is the remaining linen warp of the velvet, or whether there was a linen layer and then a velvet layer over top of it).
  • The quilting seems to've been done with silk thread.
  • There was twisted red-and-blue silk cord lain over the seams joining the heraldic quarters.  Quaere: is this purely to ease the visual transition, or would it be something fun to do to ornament any seam?
  • She does talk about Red Charlie and Gold Charlie[1], but not at the comparison level I need, namely on the padding differences.  Though she does kindly include the quilting lines on each of them.
This is all very cool, though for the most part not immediately helpful on the how-to front, but for some reason I feel a greater level of confidence for having it in my pocket.  On the down side, I feel the chances of having the test linen garment done in two weeks are vanishingly small; so I expect my entry may end up being more about explorations on the padding/quilting front.  And that's OK too.


[1] this is how we are officially designating Charles VI's and Charles de Blois' pourpoints respectively.  Please take note for future correspondence.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

The Pourpoint Commission: Padding Your Answers

AAAAAA[3]

For once, I thought, I had a plan and a schedule and everything was going to proceed at a dignified, adulting sort of pace.


ha ha ha no


Operations began well enough; I went to a well-known quilting shop[1] downtown to pick up cotton batting, that being the stuffing substance recommended in the pattern for ordinary mortals; and the next night, I began making up my test swatch.


Here began quandaries.  First, how many layers of batting to use?  On the one hand, there needs to be a palpable amount, otherwise there's no percentage in bothering.  On the other, this is (again) a courtly garment, not military; it doesn't need the functionality of full-on padding; and though you'd want to look butch, you would not want to be so padded to look like the kid from A Christmas Story.  And, of course, the padding's missing from CdB, so we haven't much of a notion of how poofy it really was; and although (as seen in last week's manuscript image) the gentlemen of the time were often illustrated as having some serious chest padding going on, how much of that is artistic license[2]?



Le swatch
I thought I'd get around this problem by putting different amounts in half the swatch and seeing what I thought.  I started with two layers of batting on one side, and three on the other, which I found kinda...flat.  So I unpicked the two-layer side and added two more layers there, so I had a four-layer side and a three-layer side (that's what's in the photo).  And they both had a fair amount of body...but I really wasn't happy.  It was both too thick and too flat.  How can that be a thing?  Dither, dither, dither.


I posted this photo two posts ago but
now it's relevant
And then I started to think (a dangerous pastime).  It is known that they did not use cotton batting for this purpose medievally; I don't even know if they had anything similar to cotton batting.  If you look at the stuffing coming out of the Black Prince's jupon, you can see it more looks like an explosion of compressed cotton balls, or something; which makes sense as it's stuffed with cotton tow (basically, cotton that has been only minimally processed)--it has sure never been flattened and treated into sheets.  Shit gonna behave different, yo.  And yes, this is a military garment (if a fancy one); it may have been made differently than a court garment; but I'm inclined to think that if "this is how we stuff", then the difference is more likely to be in degree rather than in material.  

Naturally, the next question was "how's everyone else doing this?"  I spent an hour or so on the Googles, and based on the appearance of the pourpoints and jupons people are making (with one big exception, ahem), it looks like they've all stuck with cotton batting as well; they all have that flattened-out feel that my swatch does.  So, I could make at least the linen test version with my cotton batting; it's the Current Tech; but the more I thought about doing that, the more unhappy I became, because it just feels wrong.  Wrongity wrong wrong.  I don't want to make more wrong in the world.  And if I make the test garment out of wrong and go to make the real one out of right, then it isn't bloody much of a test garment, is it?  But I hadn't a clue where to get cotton tow; the big exception above was facilitated by a one-time gift of a bunch of it to FIT, which the school didn't want, and was fortuitously regifted by our international conspiracy.


I spent a day or two dithering, panicking, and freaking out on Facebook; thought maybe I could use wool roving or stuffing or something, and ordered a couple of swatches of the latter; contemplated making a surgical strike on Rhinebeck, which is this weekend, to buy vats of dirty sheep product; but was happily directed to a place (ironically, where I'd gotten wool swatches from) that sells raw cotton fiber by the sack.  Well OK then!  And 2nd-day delivery!  So that should show up at work tomorrow or the next day, and although I don't know I'll be ready to fit the client next Saturday (not even just the body pieces), I will be in a better position to make a better piece.


And then my iron melted.



[1] which is, very sadly, going out of business.  Go quickly and get some truly wonderful cotton prints.  I have 3.5 yds of a print of the ceiling of Grand Central Terminal, thank you very much. 

[2] I'm having some mental go-rounds on that same question regarding women's dresses and boob support.
[3] I found that image in a random Googling, and it's from the blog of a guy studying cotton production in China.  I feel like we all ought to go read it at some point. 

Sunday, October 9, 2016

The Pourpoint Commission: Getting The Show On The Road

Arthur and his knights (round table? see?)
wearing pourpoints.  I am slightly weirded
by Sir Eyes On My Tunic in the lower left.
BNF 343, 1380s.
I have previously alluded (for, like, the last several months) to a commission I have accepted, to make a pourpoint.  Here's where we actually talk about that shiznit.

For those of you coming in cold, a pourpoint is a men's garment of the mid-to-late 14th century. It developed from the padded tunic worn under armor; and as often happens, a military necessity created a fashion among men who wished to be seen as Manly Men.  The pourpoint is similar to the cote-hardie in that it's tightly-fitting (at least, in comparison to the fashions that preceded it) and short (often barely covering the rump), but it's padded/quilted, and the images you see in manuscripts make the gents look like pouter pigeons.  To make things a little more complicated, you could also have a padded martial garment of this general mode worn over your armor that was of expensive materials (this is where the Black Prince's jupon comes in; it is silk velvet with metal thread embroidery).  But, this particular commission is for a courtly, fashionable, not-worn-anywhere-near-armor pourpoint.

Charles de Blois'
pourpoint
Charles VI's pourpoint
There are two extant pourpoints kicking around; one that belonged to Charles de Blois, duke of Brittany (d. 1364) that lives in the Musée des Tissus in Lyon, and one attributed to Charles VI, king of France, that lives in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Chartres (which is child-sized, so is figured to date between 1370 and 1380).  These are both of costly silk lined with linen, and are similar in patterning.  Charles VI's garment is padded & quilted to hell and back; Charles de Blois' is not currently but looks like it may once have been.  

How do we (I) know this stuff? Happily for my sanity, I can once again stand on the shoulders of giants: Tasha Kelly of La Cotte Simple has studied the bejezus out of pourpoints and generously makes her findings available, including publishing a pattern for Charles de Blois' pourpoint.  So I picked that up first-off, and (after measuring my patron & establishing his general parameters) cut out a muslin that I fit at Pennsic.  I actually only cut out one arm to fit...and it was dumb of me, in retrospect, to do the left arm on a right-handed fighter.  But the subject seems reasonably proportionate, so I think we'll be OK.


Fitting the muslin (in
field conditions and 90deg
heat)
Although the actual commission is for a silk garment, I am not so foolish for lack of sense as to go merrily sailing in at flank speed when I've never done a padded or quilted item before.  Especially when the patron has purchased Sartor silk for it AFJDKLSJFKLDFJDF NO PRESSURE NOPE NOPE.  So, I am making a linen version first.  It'll be identical in all other respects, just made out of base(r) materials.  (This will also give me a ridiculous amount of practice on the goddamn buttons.)  I had been figuring on using cotton batting for both verisons, because it's easy to come by, but it looks as if you can get 100% wool batting more easily than I thought.  For a price, of course.  Hmm.  (Quaere: is modern wool batting going to be anything like what they used in period, anyways?)

The current milestones:
- Sat, Oct 22 (Winter Wolf event): Have the main body pieces quilted and basted together for fitting.  Hopefully at least one sleeve as well.
- Sat, Nov 12 (St. Elegius event): Linen version done, entered into the A&S competition.  This means also documentation written up, hey ho.

Presumably by that point I will also know whether I need to make adjustments before starting the Real Item; and I'll then plan out the rest of the work.  The patron has not expressed a desired delivery date, but I do not want to drag out the work, so I'll aim to have it done by Twelfth Night at the outside.

My immediate next steps are:

  • Wash the dark green linen I'm using for the test version
  • Unpick the muslin, iron it, incorporate with notations into a new pattern
  • Pick one of my various linens to use as its lining (at least they're all washed already)
  • Iron & cut out both linen layers
  • Get cotton batting
  • GET MOVIN' YO.



Thursday, October 6, 2016

London Arts Pilgrimage: There Were Some Embroideries

YAAAAASSSSS
As I mentioned previously, there's this little exhibit on at the V&A, and we put on our scallop shells and filled our scrips with travel rations and fared forth to see it.  If at all you can go, you should; and if you can't, you should still order the exhibition catalogue, which is entirely the bomb.  (Let me note, however, that the current sorry state of the pound sterling means that the catalogue is $45 if you buy it at the museum bookstore, and $75 if you get it from Amazon.  So if you go in person, you are SAVING MONEY.  Who loves you and is watching out for your well-being?  That's right.)

Anyways.


So yes, as anticipated, photography was strictly verboten.  The exhibition catalogue is almost good enough that it's OK, but I snuck the above photo of the Black Prince's jupon anyways, because it is THE BLACK PRINCE'S JUPON and I was never going to be that close to it again.  Regrettably, even with my nose pressed against the glass like a Dickensian street urchin outside a pudding shop, the net they've put over the garment to preserve it keeps you from seeing any additional construction detail...and it's so worn away there's not a lot left to see...but it was still a Religious Moment for me.  Fun fact: they clearly spent all this time and expense doing metal-work appliqué onto velvet...and then just ran the quilting channels right the hell over it.  Well OK then.


Wool intarsia seal bag with
embroidered border, c. 1280.
Westminster Abbey, WAM 1494
There are about 80 objects in the exhibition altogether, and a lot of them are the Greatest Hits of Religious Garments you'd expect, like the Syon Cope (which the light in its case wasn't working the day we went, heck of a job there, Brownie) and the Butler-Bowdon cope; but they did a great job rounding up what few surviving secular and semi-secular articles were out there.  So not only did I get to drool on the jupon, I also got to get real up-close and personal with the Cluny's horse trappings (and not just the usual big piece with the leopards of England on them, but some smaller scraps that still have their pearled bits intact!) and a royal seal bag that's of particular interest because it's wool appliqué with no metal-work, which is something we know existed but very little has survived (the Tristan Hanging is one, though it's onlaid rather than inlaid like this little guy) and a fascinating little heraldic number, now in the form of a burse (a case for carrying a cloth used in the Mass), showing a shield with the arms of Stafford impaled with the Woodstock differenced version of the royal arms (so it had something to do with the marriage of Edmund, Earl of Stafford, with Anne Plantagenet in 1398)--but what it was cut down from is entirely unclear.  The exhibition people think it's from a banner, but my reading this summer suggests that you never saw arms on a shield shape used on banners, so my money's on some kind of domestic textile.

Other Moments:
  • Beth's contention that half our problems recreating these works are because we can't get the fineness/tightness of linen that the originals were created on
    • likewise, silk twill, Y U NO
  • Unexpected couched-and-laidwork on the Clare Chasuble
  • Crawling on the floor in front of the Syon Cope to look at the stitchery around the hem in the reflected light from the video playing across the room
  • Being blinded by the 100% intact cloth-of-gold of the Fishmongers' Pall
  • PEARLS ON THINGS
  • Seeing the strong repetition of motifs; not just "it's a cope and it's gotta have the Annunciation on it and that means a lily in a pot", but the almost carbon-copy design details across the board
  • The interlace patterns on the Hólar Vestments, which really need to be turned into trim
And then there was everything else we looked at. Even after cherry-picking all their special stuff for the exhibition, the V&A has a ridiculous amount of textiles; and we spent some quality time in the Museum of London and the National Gallery too.  (And Buckingham Palace, but that was about QE2's Wardrobe Unlock'd, not QE1.)  I haven't started processing the photos with any seriousness yet, but here are a couple of teasers:
TIL tablet-woven edges are still
around in Elizabethan sweet-bags

Elizabethan blackwork handkerchief.
They must've had some serious
colds, is all I can say.



Silk fragment, Byzantine, 900-1100.
Shows noticeable design similarities
to Chinese-produced textiles