Here We Are Again

I'm really crap at updating over the holidays, aren't I?  --Well, let's be honest; I don't tend to get a lot done over the holidays.  There's all the chaos and wharrgarbl of holiday prep and possibly travel, and usually I have managed to get sick at least once each season; and the truth is, as has been pointed out to me this year, in December my creative efforts seem to focus themselves entirely around the kitchen.  Which is fine!  But I should factor that into my expectations going forward.

All of the above things were true this holiday season as well, especially the getting-sick, but I did at least manage to do some work on my dashing consort's cote (doublet, thing).  I started with the pourpoint pattern, draped it on him, made adjustments, created an edited pattern from that, and then cut out & made up a linen version.  It's actually pretty good, I'm happy to say, but there were some weirdnesses going on in the back of the grande assiettes so I had to put it on hold until yesterday, when I could get some expert consultation.  This having been obtained (in the teeth of a threatened snow/ice/something-storm that did not in fact materialize), I am now at a decision point: do I cut the actual fabric on the fly, using the existing pattern and just changing some things here & there where it seems right, or do I make a follow-up pattern, baste it & fit it, to be sure?    

*points at above image*

I know the right thing to do, I'm just...I want to move forward already, argh.  But I'll hate myself forever if I cut the silk and screw it up, so I guess it's time for Second Pattern.  Grumble.

As regards the other tasks on the docket, I've procured his hose fabric[1] and silk to line my overgown, and made some pending executive decisions, and helped fit and/or counsel a few other people, and researched bycocket production so that if there's spare time (HAW HAW) we can do a workshop day for that[2].  So, things are still in pretty good shape here, in spite of the various setbacks and lost[3] time. I have to continue flogging myself along the path, though; I keep slipping into avoidance behavior.  This morning, I opened like seven genealogy research tabs before I slapped myself upside the head and was all NO THIS IS NOT OUR CURRENT JOB.  Stupid brain.


[1] An exquisite dull-dark red wool gaberdine.  
[2] Hum, if I don't have time for a bycocket, should I make a hood for my dashing consort instead?   I have the pattern, I'd just need the fabric.  Hmm, hmm, hmm.
[3] == "wasted being sick on the couch and playing the new Assassin's Creed"

And Suddenly It Was Mid-November

here we go again

Why do I care that it's mid-November?  Because my generalized project plan had November charted out to finalize the pattern for my dashing consort's cote-hardie, and I have done sweet F-A on that task to date.  waugh

Did I get pictures of us at
the event? Of course not.  But
here's how I jazzed up his
over-tunic.  I am pleased.

Now, I did start as well as finish[1] the 13th-century tunics + the embellishment of my Norman gown that I mentioned last post, and I did them in time for the event, and they came out nearly exactly as I had in mind; so hooray for that.  And I have not been wholly idle in the interim; I've mostly finished the embellishment of the sleeve for her Majesty - just one more pearl decision to make - and I finished both my consort's madder wool hose and my own white linen hose.  However there has been rather more Skyrim[2] and rather less sewing than otherwise.

Since it'd been some time since I first burbled out all my thoughts regarding prep for My Grand Day Out, I figured I should go through it all again and turn it into a proper organized sequence of tasks: not just his cote, but everything involved.  I created headings for each garment of interest (with a separate catch-all for small bits) and then wrote a separate post-it for each task I perceived underneath.  Now, at this stage, most of the tasks are high-level; I do not have separate ones for "cut out fabric", "sew back seam", "hem neckline", etc. at this juncture, because I don't need to yet.  As each garment comes up on deck, then I will break them down to that level.  For my dresses, which I'm not going to start to attack until mid-January[3], the only specific tasks are thinky-planny ones like "am I going to line the overdress, and if so, with what" and "fabric or metal buttons?".   Similarly, for his cote, there's just a high-level task for "make the silk cote", but there is a ream of very specific tasks re: getting the pattern together.  (My current working plan is to use the pattern pieces from the pourpoint as a starting place - his chest size is not dissimilar to my patron's - and adjust from there both for differing dimensions and for what I've learned about where the assiettes really want to be.)

Having littered a coffee table with many bits of paper, and ordered & categorized them, I then created a new Trello board and transferred each item to a "card".  (Is this a waste of paper?  Yeah, slightly; but I find it much more effective for me to start the process with physical entities; YMMV.)  I also created labels for each garment and tagged each card appropriately, and added comments as needed so if I pick one up in two or five or ten weeks, I have some idea of what the heck was in my mind at the time.

My roadmap looks something like this:

• November: 
• complete a first-draft pattern for his cote
• December: 
• make up (enough of) a linen cote[4] to confirm the pattern
• adjust cote pattern
• make silk cote
• decide on his hose fabric
• read up on bycocket production; decide whether I have the spoons to do it
• January:
• buttons & buttonholes on silk cote [cursing intensifies]
• Bycocket production, maybe
• make final decisions on my overdress: lining, tippets, buttons, (extra) ornamentation, etc.
• Acquire fabrics for hose, bycocket, linings, etc. as needed
• Cut out hose for both of us[5]
• February
• Check fit on my underdress vs. current body shape
• Based on that, decide on pattern adjustments for overdress
• Cut out & make up overdress [more damn buttons]
• March
• Finish overdress
• Finalize adjustments to underdress
• Finish underdress
• Complete all non-essential items as time permits

I mean, yes, also there are holidays and birthdays and work going *foom* in there, but we'll take it as it comes.


[1] "Finish enough to wear", anyways. All the seams are still raw on the inside.  BUT THEY ARE HEMMED SO SHUT UP.
[2] I always have the urge to play Skyrim this time of year.
[3] Der Tag is March 30; and my shape has been changing sufficiently that if I start them now, they won't fucking fit right by the end of March.
[4] which will then eventually be finished for him as a summer garment.  WASTE NOTHING.
[5] the nice thing about the hose is, I can in extremis farm them out to helpful friends.  Or in absolute emergency, I at least can wear my trusty old yellow wool hose.[6]
[6] something old, something new, etc etc

Not Much With My War, Ho Ho Ho, How About You?

My après-Pennsic post was going to be about all the stuff I threw together at the last minute & how it all worked.  And you will still get that; but first:

...this was a thing that happened. At the end of the A&S War Point (which I was an alternate combatant for[1]), their Majesties rolled up to hear the results and congratulate their champions; and then I got called up to be told to go pick a date[2] to sit vigil and consider the question of being made a Companion of the Laurel.  I comported myself with all dignity and rectitude throughout, I will have you know.

Then we went back to camp and had scorpion bowls.  And cake.  They got me a cake!

So, well, good thing I had already started in on my fancy outfit.  What terrifies me now is whether my shape/size is going to keep changing betwixt now and then; which is why it's even more important to get the date sorted out.   It has to be after Coronation (because Beth and I are on the hook for the Prince's clothes, as mentioned, and that's a big job); and then immediately I'll be away; so basically sometime between late October and...as long as I can stand the suspense.  (Obviously a huge number of our peeps come to Mudthaw, but I think if I have to wait for eight months, I might die.)  And the later the date, the more likely my shape is going to change, so AAAAAAA.

I also have to take thought to my dashing consort's outfit.  I have offers of help with actually making it; but I need to plan out pieces, fabrics, und so weiter.  I did actually succeed in making two pairs of braies for him before Pennsic, and of course that nice new shirt, so the underwear layer is taken care of; but the rest bears thinking about.  At least, since it's 14th century, there's no goddam pants involved.  (I would sort of like to make him a bycocket, but this may not be the absolute best moment to try and learn a new skill.)

"Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"  Well, it was a bit of a tough war; I'm happy to make this my last year of running camp, because I'm just exhausted.  Both weeks were wretchedly humid, which really takes it out of me, though at least it was reasonably cool the first week.  I did actually make it to two classes I wasn't teaching!  And I made a paternoster in one of them, which is an accessory I'd been conspicuously lacking, so that was nice.  Also, our excellent Baron was getting knighted, so we had the fun of planning a vigil in our camp behind his back.  (Of course that was one of the 90+-degree days, poor guy, but at least we set up his vigil spot next to the tree line.)  Oh, and I learned how to do the whipcord braiding thing.  Yay, more narrow-wares!

I completed one iteration my dashing consort's full Bocksten outfit: braies (2 pr, one of which he says is too scratchy), shirt as mentioned, coif as mentioned, white linen hose, white linen hood, sand-colored extremely-light wool tunic.  And he wore it for both opening ceremonies and for the War Point (i.e., me getting called into court), and I presented the ensemble at the A&S display as "Bocksten Man in a Time of Climate Change". 

Now, on the topic - we had the felicity of post-Pennsic dinner with Master José, who was rocking his full early-17thc. glory in the hot weather; and his experience was that having a wool garment over his linen underthings was the absolute most comfortable.  And importantly, not a very light wool (like what I made the aforementioned tunic out of), but one with some, in his word, sponginess; that it made a big difference in the wicking action.  So that's an interesting angle and I want to explore it next year.

For my own clothes: both the gowns (the pink GFD and the lavender kirtle) that I took in still feel too big, but everyone said they looked fine.  I could take the pink one in again, but it was a right fucking PITA to do that for the kirtle and I don't know if I could face doing so.  We'll see.  I do want to smock the green apron I made to wear with the kirtle, though; I don't like the look of the giant rectangle of green across my front.  We can be a bit more elegant, I think.  (I also need help on How To Arrange Your Own Partlet.)  

For works in progress; during various lazy time, I also finished one half of my consort's madder-wool hose.  I have the lining for his light woolen hood cut out, too, but not made up; and I'm nearly done with one leg of my white linen hose.  And, I have his ochre linen hose and my burgundy wool hose cut out as well.  So that will be some nice small pieces to work on in upcoming spare time HAW HAW HAW HAW.   

Today I'm hoping to re-center and triage all the upcoming work (not just sewing specifically, but brain and planning, of which there is a lot).  I lost most of this past week to work wharrgarbl[3] and a nice case of John of Gaunt's Revenge that I came back from war with; living on beige food does not leave a lot of energy or drive, I can tell you, and what little I had was entirely consumed by le job.  Feeling mostly myself today, though, so here we go.



[1] all the attention and none of the pressure!
[2] Usually, Writs are for people who hate surprises and want time to absorb the info/get a new outfit together/etc.  In this case it was because my friends figured, not wrongly, that there were too many conflicting priorities and it would be better if I was involved in choosing the date.  They promise there will be other surprises on Der Tag.
[3] Lots of things went along quite well while I was gone.  Some...did not.  And some UXBs were clearly timed to go off when I returned.

Conquering the Shirt of Lamentation; or, a Superior Method of French-Seamed Underwear Reveal'd

behold!

I finally got over my avoidance and attacked the problem of the very wrong shirt this weekend.  Spoilers, yes, making larger gussets and everything else smaller and adding some narrow side gores was the correct answer; also I did some interesting non-pointy things at the top of those gores; but that's not what I'm here to tell you about, neighbors.

OK, so, yes, in an ideal world we'd do all our clothes by hand and that would be lovely and great and experiential.  But too often, we are faced with a situation of "I'm about to go to Pennsic and I have no underwear / I need to outfit my newbie/partner/offspring" (or any one of a thousand variations on that theme), and there's nothing for it but to whip out the ol' Singer and turn your domicile into the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory[1].  Frequently in these cases, too, we have a particular need for sturdiness in the garment(s), because they will be worn in the field and will see heavy use.  What this means is "seam finishes"; and although there are lots of perfectly period methods of hand-finishing seams, if you're under the gun, this is not going to help you; you need an industrial solution.

(There are people who are that fast with hand-sewing.  They are not the people who need this blog post.  Drive on.)

A serged fabric edge

Most folk will do one of two machine seam finishes: serging, or French seams.  Serging (or overlocking) is thorough, but requires a special type of (not super cheap) machine, so it's not an option for many amateur sempsters.  (You can also kind of fake it by running a zig-zag stitch on your normal machine along the seam allowances, but it's a definite kludge, and not the simplest thing to manage particularly on some fabrics.  Still, it can be a useful option.)  The other downside is that it's a little untidy if someone looks at the inside of the garment--and indeed that also means that if the threads get caught on anything, they'll unravel like whoa.

French seams are more painstaking (particularly when you are first getting to know them), but because the original seam is encased entirely inside another seam, it's very sturdy and protected.  It's a particularly good choice for your linen underwear of all kinds, since linen loooves to fray all over the place.   (I'm going to plow ahead assuming you know from French seams, but if you don't, here's a decent tutorial.)  Now, there are usually three challenges to French seams:

1) they're still a bit slower, since you have to sew everything twice and keep pressing things vigorously with your iron; 
2) it's easy to lose track of what you're doing and end up with one or more seams on the incorrect side of the garment;
3) getting the fiddly bits at gores and gussets is a right PITA and often results in unsightly bunching or messes.

Now, some several years ago, Beth and I spent a weekend cranking out chemises for War, since neither of us had nearly enough underclothes; and we came up with a general and efficient process for the order of construction of this sort of garment.  I have, this weekend, improved (dare I say, perfected?) our previous work, which also encompasses some mitigations for the three challenges mentioned above.

This is intended for shifts / shirts / etc. of the main medieval period; the usual composed-of-rectangles-and-triangles style you see for centuries with minimal variation. You can use it for a Bocksten tunic, though, too.  And, I apologize for not taking photos in media res; I was on a manic roll and it did not occur to me.  Have some ASCII art instead!

1. Cut out your fabric pieces and have them all ready.
2. If the body of the garment is two pieces instead of one long piece, sew the shoulder seams together & French them.
3. Cut the neckhole.  (You can hem it now if you want, but I always leave that to the end, just in case I need to make any edits.
4. Pin each gusset to its sleeve along one side.
            ----------------
       |               |
       |               |
       |               |
       -----------------
                  |    |
                  |    |
                  ------
5. Pin the rest of the sleeve closed (remember the gusset wants to form a triangle with the hypoteneuse towards the cuff end).  You now have a tube with a triangle on it:
     fold line ----->  ----------------
                       |              |
            cuff --->  |              | <--- arm opening
                       ----------------
                                   \  |
                   gusset fold ---> \ | <--- also open
                                     \|
6. Sew the 1st gusset edge.
7. Start at the wrist and sew the sleeve closed, continuing along the 2nd edge of the gusset.
8. Repeat the previous two steps for the other sleeve.
9. Go to ironing board, press out the gusset and sleeve seams, prep them for Frenching.
10. French them in the same order you sewed them.
11. If you are doing front and back gores, well, I haven't perfected these because I don't put 'em in my underwear (St. Louis notwithstanding); I suggest following the La Cotte Simple tutorial - it is written for grande assiette sleeve funkiness but the principle will work here.
1. Insert the back gore to remind yourself how to manipulate them again[3]
2. Insert the front gore now that you remember how to do it
3. Press them out in preparation for Frenching
4. French 'em most of the way up and just fahddle the top by hand.
12. Sew up the center seam of the gore that's currently two halves of a gore; press it, and French it.
1. If you were dealing with taller people who have some side seam in between the bottom of the gusset and the top of the side gore, you would do something different than what I'm about to do, probably. That's not what I've got, though, so put a pin in that thought and come back to it.
13. Pin the sleeves to each side of the garment.
14. Sew from the point of the gusset on one side, all the way up around the top of the sleeve and back down to the point of the gusset on the other side.
15. Repeat for Sleeve #2.
16. Pin the side gore in, and sew it - again you're following the Cotte Simple method, because you've effectively created a slit to set the gore into.  You can kind of hand-flatten the existing seam and get your "top point" into that.
17. Repeat for Side Gore #2.
18. Press the bejesus out of all of that and prepare them for Frenching.
19. OKAY HERE'S THE SEXY PART.  Start at the hem level on one side of the gore, French your way up, and then cross over diagonally onto the gusset/sleeve seam opposite--so if you started with the side of the gore that's at the rear of the garment, you'll move to the gusset/sleeve part on the front of the garment.  Go all the way over the top, and back down, and cross back over onto the other side of the gore.
20. Do the same thing on the other side.
21. Profit!  (or hemming and cuffing and other fiddly bits, anyways)

That step 19 there, it makes that really irritating portion where the gusset & gore meet actually behave.  It was a complete miracle.   But even without that, the ordering of events here means you are stacking as much work together at the ironing board/work surface as you can, and stacking as much at the sewing machine as you can.  Moreover, it should reduce--reduce, I say, nothing can eliminate--the risk of getting a seam on the wrong side of the garment, because you are batching the 1st-seam work and it should be more obvious when you're going awry.

So, that pin there in Step 12: The received wisdom is to use the gores without a center seam on front & back, and the other pieces that you do have to sew together to make the full triangle on the sides; and if you're doing that, it's easier to sew the halves separately to the front & back of the main garment, and then just run up the center. There is a lot of sense to this, particularly if you have some distance between gore & gusset. And if you are making a thing for a tall person, it may work better. On the other hand, sometimes you end up with gore halves at slightly different heights. :-/

Anyways, I hope that people will find this valuable. If there's one thing more true than another, it's that we always need more underwear, and it's a tiresome slog to produce it; I hope this will help expedite a necessary but disagreeable task.

[1] hopefully with fire exits[2]
[2] but lemme tell you about my pre-tenement-law first apartment
[3] ™ Beth

Bursts Of Productivity

My productivity over the last two weeks, if graphed, would look not unlike the seismograph in Tremors[1]: nothing nothing LOTS nothing nothing LOTS nothing, und so weiter.  I needed some time to process the Shirt Failure; and between that + assimilating a bunch of stuff that had been in the basement storage room + several social obligations, I had a week of small work--mending my wool hose, fixing the bodice length on last year's kirtle[2], etc.  We were also away for the weekend again, which cuts into the work time (though I whiled away some Royal Court time by sewing various site tokens & badges onto my dashing consort's canvas satchel).

Last week I got some mojo back.  I've done some preliminary sketching and mumbling about the shirt proportions; my current theory, after putting Himself into various other shirts, tunics, and even one of my shifts, I have a new theory:

- Shorter and narrower sleeves, yes; but much narrower, with
- larger gussets
- yes to gores (ugh) but starting higher up, and rather sharper angles than we do for tunics
- and therefore the body pieces can be somewhat narrower too.

when you were
right the first time

I also found that I had hung onto the pattern from last year's Laurel hood; and since I was using him as the reference body for fiddling it, I knew it was in shouting distance of fitting him; so I cut out one of those in a lovely light wool twill and fit it more properly to him; it's pinned and ready to sew today.  AND I marked the pattern clearly, so I can bang more out in short order at any point--I'm figuring to make him one out of handkerchief[3] linen as well, for sun protection rather than weather protection.  I'm not sure that this was an actual variation in the 14th c.; broad-brimmed straw hat over your coif seems to be more the thing; but here again, they did not live in Pennsylvania in August.

I am still in major avoidance on the braies question, though. :-/

Yesterday, we diverted course to fulfill our obligation of knocking together a few Bocksten tunics for His Highness to run around in at Pennsic.  Of the three we set out to make, I'd say that one's at 90% completion, one's at 80%, and one's at ~55-60%.  I've taken the first two home to finish up, and Beth has the third.  It's not clear whether any decoration or ornamentation is desired by the patron, so we're leaving them plain fabric for the moment, and will extend an offer to add trim real quick if wanted.  (On the one hand, I am strongly of the opinion that the Prince ought to have some richesse on his clothes.  On the other, I can 100% understand preferring to just toss a Pennsic garment in the washing machine; and in most cases, adding trim takes that option off the table.) 

Also, setting a gore with a French seam sucks donkey balls.  (We are machine-sewing & French-seaming these for reasons of speed and durability; don't @-me.)   The workaround is to not do French seams on those, but to just serge (if you have a serger) or zig-zag oversew (if you don't) the seam allowances instead.  Once again, we observe that many of the sewing techniques you see in our era make lots of sense if you hand-sew, and become a giant bucket of poo when you add industrialization. 

So we did a lot of good work, none of which would have been possible without the support team: the beloved redhead, who opened his house and especially his large dining room table for us to make a complete bear-garden of, and my dashing consort, who grilled lunch and picked up dinner &c.  And both of whom put up with our racket and our rackety music over the course of a very long day.

I did not, alas, manage to slip-stream a tunic or two into the production line for my consort, as I haven't mathed out what the proportions ought to be yet (do the shirt first!); and as can be seen, we didn't really have the time anyways.  But, having a day's boot-camp practice on this garment should make me move faster with it when I do get to it...as long as it's fairly soon.   I'm not switching gears to move that up the queue, though; I need to stop starting and start finishing.  Therefore, today's orders of priority are:

1. Finish the princely tunic that's at 90%
2. Finish the princely tunic that's at 80%
3. Sew together the wool hood
4. Simultaneously cut out a linen lining for the wool hood, and a plain white linen hood of the same cut.  Probably out of the same fabric.
5. Sew those up as well
6. If time, attach the lining to the wool hood

On-deck circle: the $*@& shirt; taking apart & redoing the neckline of my kirtle, which Beth kindly marked for me last night[4]; drape a hose pattern on him; try and take a pattern off my wool hose for me (I found the foot portion of my pattern, but the leg portion is clearly gone, never to be found again. -_-)

[1] Also now I know that they made five straight-to-video sequels, including one last month.  Really?!
[2] though that was more of an embuggerance than I anticipated.  Still, fiddly rather than difficult, if you see what I mean.
[3] or as I call it, "underwear linen"
[4] this will also be an embuggerance.  So much easier to get help before you do the eyelets...  

There's Planning, And Then There's Planning Ganging Aft Agley

The vaguely-nauseous and anxious feeling I got when looking at my kanban board the last two weeks made it clear that I had to do some clearing of the mental decks before putting serious needle to cloth.  (And also some physical clearing, as I hadn't absorbed the, cough, 25 yards of fabric I brought home last weekend.) So I spent some time on that yesterday.  The first step was to make a card (i.e., Post-It) for every item that a) I might want for Pennsic or b) wanted to make out of the new fabric--these are overlapping but by no means congruent sets. The purpose of this step was twofold: to get all the ideas out of my head and on record, so they would stop floating around taking up skull space[1]; and also, to know what fabric to keep out and which to stash.  I also flagged some blockers and linked them where appropriate (those are the smaller ones in the center, and the colored tags on some items). 

Why did I do it physically instead of in my Trello board, you may well ask?  First, because it's easier when you're going back and forth between fabric piles to just scribble on a scrap of paper than it is to go through the steps of making an electronic asset--particularly since some get crumpled up & thrown away; and second, because my board is presently full of stuff that's not immediate as well, and I'd need a much bigger monitor to see it all, and this made for more & better instant visualization.  All of these Post-Its will now get turned into items on the Trello board, certainly.

As you see, this resulted in a pile of projects that will keep me going into the next decade; but I resolutely refused to sweat about it, and after consultation with my dashing consort[2], selected/prioritized the items that are Minimum Viable Product for his 14th century Pennsic, to wit:
1. Linen shirt (white) 
2. Linen braies (white)
3. Linen hose (heavy ochre)
4. Wool Bocksten tunic (tropical-weight; I have several fabrics for him to choose from)
5. Linen Bocksten tunic (blue)

(The bonus rounds are, in order, a light wool hood; a fitted cote--pourpoint pattern sans padding--; and wool hose.)

Now, my BFF and I have a play-date in two weeks for a Bocksten production line, since we volunteered to make some Pennsic tunics for His new Highness; so my intent is to slip #4 and #5 into that process.  Therefore the immediate priorities, other than washing the linen that hasn't been washed yet, is to get cracking on the undies.  And lo! I had cut out a shirt two weeks ago! so let's just assemble it!  HAW HAW HAW

First, my sewing machine started playing silly buggers.  I am not going to weary you with a detailed account of my two hours of shrieking frustration; suffice it to say now I know a lot more about timing, timing errors, and troubleshooting, and also I had done something stupid that should have been obvious if I'd approached the problem with logic instead of rage. But! Finally I was ready to roll.

I spent the next couple hours assembling the shirt with French seams (dont @-me; I know perfectly well they aren't period; but they are a good way to keep underwear linen together under heavy use) and, mirabile scriptu, I did not do a single one of them backwards or any other fashion of fuckup.  That may in fact be a new record.  I was feeling pretty damn smug about myself, as it was wholly assembled other than finalizing the neckline and doing the side seams from the gusset down, and it was only about 9pm; and I put it on Himself to decide for sure whether I wanted to just make the sides straight or add gores[4].  And then the screaming started.

- The sleeves are too long.
- The sleeves are too wide.
- I thiiiiiink the underarm gussets are too big too?
- The body is correctly wide around his midsection but bunches up like whoa under the arms (though that might resolve itself if the first three points are addressed).
- The neckhole is wider than I meant it to be, in spite of stringent and intentional efforts to Not Do That.

What makes this doubleplus frustrating is, I spent hours mumbling over a notebook and taking measurements of other garments he wears to get to the dimensions I used; and I basted various parts together and tested them on him before sewing; so to be this wildly wrong after all that work makes me feel like a complete loser. It also is rubbing my nose in the fact that, yes, I am pretty darn OK at draping and fitting at this point; but the true skill of the master, to look at a person or even just their measurements and intuitively turn that into a list of garment piece proportions, is still way beyond me. 

So I can fix this, yes.  I can cut down the sleeves and possibly the gussets and see where that gets us, and then it'll be another quick job to reassemble; and the neckline is within acceptable tolerances (just not what I had in mind).  Possibly I can even do it today, depending on how long it takes us to deal with clearing our stuff out of the communal storage room (thanks, landlord). But this has wasted time, fabric, and spoons, and I hate that.

I am also not looking forward to braies.  At all.


[1] I cannot overstate the importance of this step. 
[2] I'm not getting a new dress this year; my own goals are just to fix last year's new dresses so they fit.  The only thing I'm hoping for myself is a snuggly tunic for colder mornings, and maybe a shift with a more U-shaped neckline--most of mine are more boat-necked-ish and it just ain't right[3].
[3] I can get away with them under my GFDs but it starts being more obviously fail with the new kirtle.
[4] Yes, I know the St Louis shirt has gores.  But it's a century earlier and I'm not convinced something worn under a tight-fitting men's cote would, because you don't want a ton of undies fabric mushed under your body-con upper garment.

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

The Comfortable Sweats of the Soul

Hey, we had a picnic yesterday!  It was chillier than expected--thank you, 15-mile-an-hour wind--but it was dry and mostly sunny; we had a solid turn-out, and a lot of random interested foot traffic, and some fighting, and some musicking, and some dancing. (Also, it is warmer when you are dancing.)  I am pleased to say that I can reliably stumble through the alto recorder part of "Sumer Is Icumen In" now.  Even though sumer had not, in fact, cumen.

More immediately relevant: I wore the pink linen dress I cut out for last Pennsic, which I have not yet altered.  Now, I noted at the time that I thought it might need a little bit of taking in; and probably it could be, but a) I didn't want to rush into that since it seems that my body is merrily shifting flesh around and why waste all the effort to redo it all in another two months and b) I wondered if possibly this was more correct for a working dress of the era.

So I wore it as-was, had an active day of moving tables and bransle-ing and whatnot, made no cosmetic boob adjustments or anything else during the day, and then took a look in the mirror when I got home.  It was by no means the Hello I See You Have Already Met My Breasts look of the high-fashion 14th century; but it was perfectly controlled and adequate.  And it was comfortable all day--I mean, I felt a little insecure without the feeling of tightness, as my large-breasted readers will understand, but I ran (well, the shambling lope that passes for a run with me) several times during the day and felt none of the usual discomfort that goes with unsupported sprinting.  All in all, I think my theory is correct, and this is the right fit to aim for if you're a working girl (ahem).

I have so much accumulating on my plate, but work is ratcheting up to a fever pitch; I do have a go-live date for the Project From Hell[1], at least, so I know when that stress should end[2], but I've just won three more high-profile and short-time-scale projects in the bonus round, and this is sucking all the oxygen out of my brain.  I'm having to triage pretty ruthlessly at the moment; the immediate priorities are--

• the Project Management Techniques for A&S Projects class, which I find I have agreed to teach at our local A&S night next week
• creating the walkthrough video on Measuring Your Tent For Pennsic (a thing that has been historically challenging for our camp members, so I want to see if an alternate way of presenting the information works better)
• create this year's form for collecting camp members' data

I did finish a small knitting project

I'm a little depressed at the thought of all the sewing I want to do vs. what I can do.  I'm trying to break everything down into the smallest possible tasks, so even when I have almost no energy, I can still find something productive to do that gives me a feeling of accomplishment.   There's some buttons about to happen, for instance. 

[1] a fortnight from now.[3]

[2] unless it goes pear-shaped[3] and I have to apologize in the full Yakuza sense of the word

[3] AAAAAAAAAAAA

So-Called "Good Problems" Are Still Problems

it me, apparently

I had previously mentioned my sad situation, wherein the silk dress I had been laboring at for a couple of months turned out to be excessively too small; and although I did not mention it at the time, you can bet I was not just going to leave it at that.  Because that pattern had just been fit in October; according to my monthly measurements check, my numbers have not changed appreciably between then and now; and although I am as much at home to the Fuckup Fairy as the next person, I really don't think I'm so bad at my craft as to have screwed up this badly.

Therefore yesterday I packed stuff up (dress, shift, pattern and all) and laid my problem before my Local Expert.  We managed to get it laced up all the way with much labor and grunting; and after poking and hmm'ing and yanking and squishing, some facts emerged:

1) I need a finer-weight shift to wear with this dress,
2) I had in fact made the dress precisely to the pattern (go me!),
3) the pattern no longer fits me, as my back is now over an inch broader than it had been in October.

WTAF, you may ask?  Well, I have been diligently working out three days per week since early February, incorporating a good deal of bodyweight and upper body workouts.  And my monthly measurements, being for health rather than sewing reasons, have only been measuring the circumference of, e.g., my chest...not the front half + the back half, which is a significant matter in the clothing world.   Which, I mean, yes, I knew that difference is important if you're measuring someone for a fitting; but it didn't occur to me that my exercise program would change either a) so soon or b) in this way.  Again, my under-bust and over-bust total distances are still the same; but a portion has migrated from the front to the back.  

this is what mitigation looks like
or maybe it's a Georgia O'Keeffe sketch

So it was comforting to know that I had not made any errors of execution; but this did not get me any closer to a wearable garment.  We knew that we had to add more fabric at the back, but it was important to get it right on the next edit; this silk is exceedingly unforgiving, and any pin or needle holes you make are there for all time.  To get in the right ballpark, Beth traced the shape of the gap that resulted in the front when it was as laced up as much as it could be; and I will use that to cut out a strip to add in the center back seam.  I'll baste it in and we'll see if that fixes things enough to get on with.

I will also need to add a strip at the center front hem, because I tried to be clever with the CF gore and I fell onto the wrong side of the line between "clever" and "stupid".  That's a whole separate post, though.  It is also not today's problem; I need to change tracks and take a look at the dress I intend to wear for our event next Sunday, and see what edits it might need as a result of these recent findings.

Done, other than second tie

In between all this drama, I managed to bang out a coif for my dashing consort.  I am sure that I waaaaay over-thought it, but eh, I did it in one afternoon, and the next one will be even easier.  The center front looks a little bit too pointed maybe, too.  But it's not a big deal.  It covers his head and it does the job.  

Restarting The Engines

I've not done a thing in the sewing realm since my last confession.  Partially this has been due to a whirlwind of social activity; and partially because the stress is ramping up pretty seriously at work and on the nights I am home, all I have been up for is flopping and staring at the One-Eyed LCD God[1].  And I'm about to leave for a work conference, so the ball is not going to get moved any closer to the line for another week.

On the bright side, I got to see Hamilton.   

And also, inspired by one of those social outings (a trip to the Knit Night at Club Cumming), I have at least managed to start a knitting project that had been stalled for [redacted out of embarrassment] because I had broken the needle I required for it.  Serendipitously, there is a friendly neighborhood knitting store right around the corner from the club, and they hooked me up...a two-minute job I could have done at any time in the past [redacted]...but anyways, a nice small comfortable project is off and running, which is a thing I find can sometimes help me limber up my sewing mojo.  

To be fair, I have started some back-brain processing about my dashing consort's 14th-century kit.  I daresay I can knock out the shirt and cap with minimal drama, and that should give me a leg up to start worrying about the hard bits.  I would have said that about the braies, too, but a bit of desultory looking-around suggests that there are more options and directions than I quite realized.  There's what most people do, which is in essence loose linen boxers with a drawstring waist.  But that's not as who should say accurate.  Plus, accuracy is a moving target, depending on when you are in the 14th century, and whether you're doing the new-fangled tight-fitted fashions, and so on. (Here's a nice survey article of the situation.)    Since this is supposed to be field wear, I guess we should err on the side of working-man styles--? but the sort of faffing involved is something that many modern people find vexing (ask anyone who's worn a great kilt to Pennsic).   

I was inspired in my morning blog-reading[2] by a post where the author makes watercolor sketches of her planned outfits--not fashion-sketch style, but each piece individually next to each other.  To me, this is a brilliant way to think through an outfit as a whole, and how it will work together, and I'd like to try it.  Watercolors per se are probably a terrible idea for me, but I have a lot of colored pencils.  I am not sure my sketching ability is up to snuff, but let us find out.   

[1] I also had a bad dream where I was running around an event or fighter practice or something with a pourpoint in my hands that I was frantically trying to fit to someone, or anyone, and it kept getting more ragged and more flat and less-padded and embarrassing to acknowledge as my work, and and and.  Fuck you very much, brain.

[2] this is what my generation does instead of reading the paper in bed, y'all

Rolling With The Punches

it me

I am feeling a little hard-done-by presently.  The blue silk dress is mostly finished--just need to fell the armhole seams, do the skirt center front seam[1], and hem it; but when I tried it on with the sleeves attached, I realized that it really is too tight to wear (by about 5lbs worth, if you see what I mean) and I would feel both physically and psycho-emotionally uncomfortable wearing it at present.  So, that's irritating.  On the bright side, it means I am not going to make myself crazy trying to finish it and redo the surcoat for Saturday.

Which is probably for the best; because although the antibiotics finally knocked out my sinus infection, I have had an adverse reaction to them which made me break out in giant itchy hives all over my body for the last several days[2].  I'm kept functional by Hulk-appropriate doses of antihistamine, but it's not conducive to sewing, far less being creative.

pricked und pounced

I did manage to fulfill my commitment to make a favor for the youth fighting on Saturday.  I have a personal dislike of the giant rectangle belt favors much...favored...by tradition, so I figured to do the narrow kind you can tie around the warrior's arm.  Since my colors are blue-and-gold, and I have all these handy blue silk scraps from the dress, I cut a strip from the waste to embroider my badge on.  I transferred the design with the prick-and-pounce technique I learned at last year's embroidery academy (using baby powder instead of lampblack, and an estoile from the Traceable Art Project).  This worked pretty well, except the silk was so thin I couldn't put it in a hoop, and my thumb kept smudging the lines. 

finished object

I outlined the whole estoile in stem stitch with golden silk floss.  Since my badge is blue-and-gold, and I had this lovely blue ground already, there was no point in embroidering that half; I just filled the gold half of the estoile with the same silk floss.  In stem stitch as well--which is not a filling stitch, I know, but I thought it would work well enough for something this small.  [Narrator's voice: It didn't.]  (Well, it did, but it was a pain in the butt and not as nice as it could be.)   In general, I do need more practice with stem stitch--I couldn't get the outline, even, as crisp and exact as I wanted.  Add it to the list of things to work on.  -_-   I also made a fundamental error in spec'ing out the project; I cut the silk strip with the thought of just hemming the edges, but of course it actually needed to be folded over so as to protect (and make invisible) the wrong side of the embroidery.  So I had to tinker with it a good deal to make it work and get it hemmed, which also means that the estoile goes a leeeetle too far to the edge, but whatcha gonna do?.  The next one will be better.

It's coming to the time where I have to plan and, more to the point, prioritize the summer sewing (in conjunction with my other obligations).  There's going to be more learning experiences, sigh, since I am intending to make my dashing consort a proper 14th-century kit: braies, shirt, hose, tunic, cap (and hood if I have time), none of which I've done before--well, the shirt is easy, and I've made hose for myself but that was years ago--.  Plus, I need to take in the two dresses I finished for last year, because I do not enjoy my boobs wandering down somewhere around my navel.   And, of course, the mending.  Ugh.



[1] I think I need to start the eyelets further down, too.  Trying to decide if that means I have to cobble together additional facing.  I don't think so, since it's not load-bearing?  Because it would be a fucking nightmare to do at this point.
[2] and they started a day after I finished the antibiotics.  Is that fair?  I ask you.

Upcycling Your Closet: Proof of Concept

that sleeve is not actually attached. shhh

I've been minimally functional the last several days of lurgy, at least enough to do eyelets; and by diligent application (and pseudoephedrine, and bingeing on The Crown) I got them done this evening with enough time to lace up the gown and throw on Ye Fifteen-Yeare-Olde Surcoat on top and see how we're doing. 

A few observations:

• Although I cut out the silk to the pattern fit to me last summer, and although according to my monthly body measurements I'm the same dimensions now as I was then, this is really tight koff koff. I am guessing this is the unforgivability of silk. 
• Somehow the two front panels and their gore ended up a good 2" shorter than the rest of the hem, which is otherwise pretty consistent.  How the hell that happened I do not know.
• God, I need some decent aglets on my lacing cords.
• The standy-out-ness of the fake fur is all wrong; it needs to be moved in.  Possibly the side gates need to be cut in a little further entirely, at that. 
• I also don't like the cheapie fake fur I used, period; but I don't know if I can easily/quickly get my hands on anything better.
• My intent was to pull the cheapie buttons off the front, and just wear the very lovely (and large) èmail en ronde bosse brooch my dashing consort got me at the top center; but I don't know if there will be obvious marks left behind, because stupid cotton velvet.  
• The ideal (and period) solution would be an ermine placket.  Anyone selling ermine?  *hollow laughter*
• Not sure if I should cut the neckline a little lower, to be closer to the line of the under-dress.

All in all I'm increasingly unsure I'll be able to get everything done in time for Mudthaw, which is two weeks from yesterday--I lose most of next weekend to family affairs, and I promised to make stuff for the bake sale, and make a favor for the youth fighting, and and and.  It may end up another bourgeois outing, after all.

They Are Called "Long" Seams For A Reason

Current status

Been quiet here because I haven't done anything except a) hand-sew long seams on the new silk dress and b) fight off successive rounds of sinus weasels that lay me flat for days at a stretch.  I am very, very bored with seams--because the silk is so prone to marking, I have to be super careful with my needle placement when stitching down the seam allowance, and that means I have to concentrate mostly on that instead of being distracted by stupid teevee while I work--but it must be admitted that this laborious grind is improving my skill and control.  (My gore action is also improving, though not yet to where I want it to be.)

The good news is, I'm mostly done with them; all the gores are in and the sleeves are assembled.  The remaining work, probably in this order, is:

• face the center front with silk strips (this is going to be harder than usual, as it is a more curved front than usual, at least for me)
• close up the center front long seam, up to the bottom of the lacing point (I haven't done that yet 'cos I figure the facing will be easier to do while the garment is still two-dimensional)
• attach the sleeves to the body
• eyelets bloody eyelets
• face and hem the neckline
• hem the skirt (maybe a reinforcing strip there too? Not sure.)

The bad news is, I'm sick and flat again.  I do not think I have the spoons to futz with the facing today; and I shouldn't disassemble the rust surcoat yet, because I need to check its shape on My Body With Dress On so I can decide if edits are necessary.  hrmgrmbl.

Oh yes, I did finish the socks I was working on; so I can pull another knitting project from the backlog (to be completed in another 18 months, no doubt).  I'm not feeling inspired presently, though.

The Pourpoint Commission: And On The Seventh Day, She Wrote Documentation

The pourpoint is DONE.  I moved the final card from "In Progress" to "Completed" on the ole kanban board last night; the subsequent celebration of which I am still feeling a tad this morning, ahem.   Also I am having a giant smug that I did not quite run out of the quilting thread--there's about a yard and a half remaining.

Naturally, that is not the end of the matter.  The garment is finished, but the project is not; I'll need to finish the linen test version at some point (oh god more quilting) (at least it'll be laced, not buttoned).  More immediately, however, I need to get my documentation ready for the competition.  I have the basic skeleton already--I wrote my usual couple of pages[1] for when I showed it at Pennsic--so I can expand from there, including all of the neckbeardy detail that one is usually wiser to excise in documentation meant for the general public.  I am reasonably sure I can knock that out today and still have leisure to make Rôti de Porc Poêlé aux Choux for dinner.  No, I'm more concerned about the rest of the display and how to arrange it. Obviously I'll have my test swatches and samples of the different padding materials; maybe a couple of spare buttons, too; but I am chewing on what else to include--there's a fine line between "interesting additional detail" and "a giant cluttered mess".  And I really don't want to faff around with a science-fair style tri-fold standup.  Dear past me: maybe I shoulda gone to one of these before entering, just to see how other people roll. 

Silk Clothing,
BNF Nouvelle acquis.
lat. 1673

Oh hey typing this all out is giving me stomach butterflies.  Or maybe I've had too much coffee.  Or both.

Anyways: staying focused: today I write the actual paper, and also dig out linen to use for veils (or learn that I don't have anything suitable).   I have two weeks to freak out about my presentation.  

--LATE BREAKING SUDDEN INSPIRATION: look at the various Tacuinum images of tailor shops and make it look like one of those?  hmm.

[1] which, as usual, almost no one read, hey ho