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.