Catch-Up and Moving Forward

painted salon at Guédelon

Goodness, it's been awhile, hasn't it?  Yikes.

From the dyers' workshop:
dyes from dye-specific plants
(there's another bank with
dyes from wild plants)

Since my last confession, I have done some sporadic bursts of effort with a bunch of nothing in between; work was fairly crushing due to start of semester + opening a new building that my people and I had a huge amount of work to do with, so I was very lacking in spoons by the time I got home.  Oh yes and ALSO I WENT TO BURGUNDY ahem.  Very little to report there on the textile front, alas, but I have a lot of photos on Gallo-Roman stuffs and the various phat loot belonging to the Dukes of Burgundy.  Also!  More exciting!  We went to Guédelon Castle--you know, the one they've been building for over a decade using 13th century construction techniques?  It was amazing.  And it's not just the castle; they have a whole working village with all the crafters (woodworkers, tile makers, dyers, paint-makers, basket-weavers, and so on).  Everyone should go[1] and I would like to go back every couple of years to see how it's all changing.

a few Landsknecht layers 

That said, we were still on the hook for His current Majesty's outfit for Coronation; and I did not get to help with that as much as I would've liked to, as the construction timing peaked as we were leaving on holiday, but I did a deal of pad-stitching and layer-attaching.  It was fun and educational.  I also started pearling a set of sleeves for Her current Majesty, but I'm not really clear on the due date for those--originally they were for Coronation too, but the fabric didn't really go with their color scheme, so it's been de-prioritized.  I found I was really enjoying the work--a little fussy, but intensely satisfying; much like putting decorations on a wedding dress.  I should get it finished & out the door, though.  Stop starting, start finishing!

Therefore, of course, I have some new clothes to make on a deadline.

proof-of-concept

So, the good folk of Settmour Swamp are holding a 13th-century Welsh immersion event in a couple weeks. It's not like the typical SCA event where you've got an all-day thing with a mix of fighting outside, a mix of A&S inside, feast in the evening, maybe dancing after; the whole day is constructed around a theme, and they're doing their best to limit modernisms, right down to the hall being entirely candle-lit.  I am entirely in favor of this sort of thing, and we can go to it, so we are going; but of course I want us to be dressed appropriately.  Now it so happens I have a Norman-ish gown that will pass muster, which I thought I'd have to take in but apparently I already did that--way to go, Past Me!--so I'm just going to take a few minutes to sew some nice enameled plaques on the neck facing[2].  I have a snood that can pass as an early crespine in candlelight and some linen that can work as a barbette so I should be good to go.  However!  My dashing consort only has summer-weight, somewhat-later-feeling tunics (that is, they're tighter and shorter).  This fussed me and I intended to do something about it.

Gerald helping with fabric
selection, as usual

Work was immediately set back by me coming down with the office plague...which I am still suffering from, thanks so much...but I had energy ynogh this morning to start rooting through fabrics.  My ideal would be to make him a plain light wool under-gown (which he'd wear under any of his existing linen shirts) and then a heavier, more decorative (or decorated) wool over-gown, but the patron expressed a preference for a non-wool, launderable under-layer so he didn't have to wear a shirt as well. He chose a black (brown) (brownish black)[3] linen for the undergown, and a very nice if dark olive-ish green stippled wool for the overgown[4].  

Now, the cut of an earlier-period tunic-gown-thing is rather different from the bourgie 14th-century feel (rather shorter, and rather more loose in the torso) I have been going for with his current stuff, so I spent a lot of time today making him take things on and off (fnarr) and scribbling in my notebook and mumbling under my breath like a crazy person.  I'm still in that transitional place in my understanding of fit where I don't have the intuitive grasp of how changing the location of this seam has those repercussions, beyond the obvious, so it is a slow and painful process for everyone concerned.  I think I have zeroed in on the right starting math, though (these are all without seam allowance):

maaaaaath

• body pieces 23" wide and 56" long (or one piece folded in half if I can swing it; not sure I can)
• neckline I hope to make 6" wide with a slit; have to play with this
• sleeves 19" long, 26" wide at the body tapering to 10" wide at the cuff (yeah, it ought to be gusseted, but I'm in a hurry and we're doing trapezoids today)
• gores with whatever fits in leftovers, but they'll want to be about 36" long I figure; so probably about 15" wide at the bottom is fine? This doesn't need to be super-swirly.

And then, when it's time to make the over-gown, much the same but a little wider in the body and sleeves, much wider in the gores, and a keyhole neckline.  



[1] except for the well-actually people.  they can stay the hell home.
[2] I just wish I had time to ring them all with pearls.  *sob*
[3] this is the same linen I made his first Elizabethan suit out of and we continually argue over whether it is brown or black
[4] To be honest, together it all looks drab AF to me, but I'll see if I have any interesting silk I can quickly tart up the overgown with.