A Little Vindication Goes A Long Way

me, Thursday night

It has not been an agreeable week; and as predicted in last week's update, the most I have been able to handle was making up the cloth buttons for a late period jerkin my ronin-sister made for my dashing consort the other year (which, mind you, is a perfectly useful task I wanted to clear off the plate; it's just maybe not in the top ten of priorities right now[1]).  

Ninya and her repro BPJ[3]

It can be comforting and/or therapeutic to watch other people struggling as well; so it was nice to learn this week that a) there's this new BBC mini-series, "A Stitch in Time", in which the presenter (a fashion historian) works with Ninya Mikhaila (yes, that Ninya) to re-create historical clothing; and b) they did the Black Prince's jupon in one of the episodes.  So I threw that up on the YouTubes while doing buttons; and my expectation of either interesting education or cathartic shrieking angrily at the teevee was vastly exceeded by learning that their process for figuring out the quilting, and then doing the quilting, was pretty much EXACTLY WHAT I DID FOR THE POURPOINT.  I mean, even the swatches are the same[2].  Now, let it be said, our panel of local experts are challenging some of their conclusions; and the objections seem cogent, and entirely worth the debate; but whatever the ultimate truth is for this garment, I cannot properly express how much of a boost it is for my mental state to find that the Actual Academic Professionals started & ended from the same place that I did. 

Though it would've saved me a lot of drama and trauma if they'd done it a couple years earlier.

I am sufficiently re-energized that I'm going to knuckle down and cut out my consort's 14th c. shirt today.  It isn't quite the most urgent priority either (I have to get my project management class together, and do some Pennsic camp admin crap), but it shouldn't take me long, and then I have something I can just pick up and mindlessly seam for the next several evenings.



[1] particularly when we realized last night that he has grown a bit too prosperous for the garment at present
[2] well, they didn't have to go through the cotton batting stage, but.
[3] Another blogger went to an exhibition of the Stitch in Time clothes; better photos here