I Aten't Ded (Yes I Used That Title Before)

 Well, it's been a wonderful four years, hasn't it.

In addition to *gestures wildly* all of that, we bought a house, moved, and have been fixing it up; and I co-ran three events in 2023.  But before everything fades into a generalized mush in my brain[1], here is a quick listing of the projects I've done since the last post.  I really hope, I ought, I need to make time to write a few of them up, as they are worth recording.  But in case I never do, A Bulleted List:

• tunic for John Marshall for the elevation of Elizabet his wife (Oct 2020)
• an embroidered squirrel for the Laurel cloak, same
• 11th-century mantle for Matthias' Pelican, also an under & over-tunic for him (April 2021)
• embroidered pelican for Viking-style coat for Hedewigis being made a Tyger of the East (Sep 2021)
• Waffenrock for Matthias for his wife's Laureling (Nov 2021)
• Mantle based on Roger of Sicily for Thorfinnr's Laurel (May 2022)
• viking-era outfit for myself, same
• and I used this pattern to run off several copies for general wearing, which has proved quite useful since I have put on the Pandemic 30lbs and most of my existing clothes don't fit
• embroidered acorn for John Marshall's own Laurel cloak (Oct 2022)
• woolen undergown (with a little woolen embroidery around the neckline) and a quick version of the Dokkum-Berg Sion hat for myself for Mudthaw, and a bloody good thing too (March 2023)
•  super big project: for Beth's elevation to the Pelican, I masterminded a squad of people to put together a full Tudor outfit for her beloved Tidehelm (Oct 2023)
• and I did a goldwork embroidery undersleeve for her regalia, same. 
• Knitting!  I finished a knitted object for myself! which was a scarf/small shawl and I really like it and have gotten many compliments on it.  (Dec 2023)
• Fixed the ties on my silk 16th century sleeves (?? this spring sometime)
• Armorial appliqué for their Majesties of Calontir as gifts for the Pennsic state dinner (June 2024)
• And, I helped with our current King Consort's wardrobe:
• buttonholes and some trim bits on a jerkin (Jan 2024)
• trim, buttons, buttonholes, and lacing points for Coronation suit (April 2024)
• assembled a shirt, which I did completely by hand (though had to pass off to someone else to hem it due to injury) (July/Aug 2024)
• helped attach jewels to Pennsic Opening Ceremonies suit (Aug 2024)
• I'm also working on a knit-along shawl...which started in March and was supposed to complete in 5 weeks.  I'm maybe a quarter of the way through it, but I pick it up betimes and get a bit further; it's not abandoned.

Part of the challenge is that so much of this is a) regalia and more to the point b) surprise regalia, and so I haven't been posting in media res because I haven't wanted word to get out - even if the person knows they're getting A Thing, one wants them to be wowed on the day with the actual object.  And then once it's done, I've generally been too wiped to muster up a post about it.  Not to mention, my job's gotten exponentially more stressful over the past several years and the idea of sitting and typing yet more stuff into a computer after finishing work is just aaaaaaaaa no.  I need to find a way to reclaim that, too.  

Currently, I have another piece of regalia that's due in a month...which I will be starting as soon as I'm done with this post, don't @-me...and then maybe? I could try making something for myself?

[1] too late, yes yes

It Has Been Eight Months Since My Last Confession

I was talking to one of my five regular readers, who pointed out I hadn't posted since January.  "Nonsense," I said.  "I must have at least posted in the run-up to My Grand Day Out."

Quotha:

okay that's awkward

So, yeah, I have been doing stuff, though since March nothing super-epic.  It's boiled down about like this:

• Jan-March: completely focused on getting everything ready for Mudthaw, which is when I became a Made Man™
• April: finishing the bits of the outfits for Mudthaw that didn't quiiiiiite get done on time, because there was a 14th-century immersion event at the end of April, and we had all these just-made fancy high-Gothic duds, and well yes
• May-July: Some small amount of Pennsic sewing, but mostly working on the planned gifts for the House Runnymede dinner that would be held at Pennsic
• Aug-now: mostly absolutely nothing, because not only is it start-of-semester at work, but my Service Desk manager left and I have been doing two jobs

And, the list of things what have been achieved:

• My silk under & over-dresses
• my burgundy wool hose[1]
• my dashing consort's silk cote
• my dashing consort's brick-red gabardine hose
• a new chemise with a better-shaped neckline
• 1 pair plain white linen hose (mine)
• Contrasting strip on the bottom of my lavender kirtle[2]
• new purse (mine)[3]
• 3 new lacing cords of various sizes
• Beeswax "aglets" for all current lacing cords[4]
• 10 painted cushion covers with Eastern baronial arms (that's the Runnymede gifts aforementioned)
• 2 sets of fake-hair braids.  (And I've actually practiced putting them on, TYVM.)

So, I mean, that's not awesome for 2/3 of a year; but I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty burned out for awhile; and could only manage things which absolutely had to get done.  It's only in the last week or so I've started to feel like getting back into it - and the most I've achieved is "sewing on some buttons that somebody else made".

That said, what is there I have to say to you, my readers, about advancing the cause of Science?  I feel like there's a lot I could or should post about my gown(s) and his cote, though I don't know how much of it I can pull back out of the sludge at this point.  (Other than that the difference between real and faux-silk brocade is epic.  EPIC.)  I also should have a round-up of all the work that other people did for My Big Day, much of which has its own blog posts, for your amazement and possible envy. The rest of the stuff seems kind of business-as-usual?  I think?  Not super-useful to add to the corpus of group knowledge?  But I'll try and commit to back-filling, at least until I have something new and exciting to share.

[1] Which were too small along my cyclist calves, and I burst the back seams during my peerage ceremony, FML.  But they have been regifted to someone with thinner legs and they all lived happily ever after.

[2] so the dress is now a) hemmed and b) no longer too short.

[3] Mostly done.  I still have to make the hanging strings for it.

[4] they worked SUPER WELL. do this forever

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"

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.

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.

Respawning After Some Life Disruptions

it was a very good vacation

I have been off the grid for a bit here on account of rather a lot of travel; we were on vacation (in California, which is beautiful and has much going for it, but not a lot of medieval interest), but then there was a sudden trip to the UK for unhappy reasons[1], and between those things and emotional drain and trying to catch up at work and the beginning of holiday wharrgarbl, my art has had to take rather a back-seat for a time[2].

I pulled myself back in harness last week and got cracking on the pourpoint's buttonholes again, only to run out of thread all of a sudden. -_-  I've ordered more, and it should be here in another few days, but in the interim I thought it might be good to get moving on the silk under-dress I cut out two months ago.  I have already burbled some thoughts regarding this undertaking; and my resultant decision points are:

• no lining,
• hand-sew (and finish) the seams,
• sewn, not buttoned, lower sleeves,
• laced front closure.

The current internal conflict is whether to baste the pieces together first, rather than just pinning & sewing the seams directly.  I understand that's best medieval practice, and since I'm not actually up against the wall, I should maybe try doing things right for a change instead of listening to Whiny Impatient Me and just plunging in.  I am also going to wax the thread properly with the iron an' all.

I think I have plenty decent linen thread to use for internal construction; will have to dig around to see if I've got an appropriate silk for eyelets, seam finishing, and the $&@! tablet-woven edge for the center front, but that's less urgent.  Oh yes, and silk scraps for facings, since I'm not lining it.

ugh it's 1:30pm already

[1] and shortly I shall be going again for similar reasons

[2] I did do some knitting on the plane(s).  And figured out how to do kitchener stitch without a tapestry needle.

Largely About Largesse

Largesse examples from the Citadel of the Southern Pass,
in Ansteorra.  

The original meaning of largesse is, coins thrown to the populace on some great occasion, such as a wedding or a coronation.  E.g., during the wedding of Mary Stuart to the future François II (1558):

This is the best screencap I could find,
and it ain't great, but it's Col. Brandon
with a fistful of coins he's about to
throw to the crowd after his wedding.
(Sense and Sensibility, 1995)

"Then the heralds cried for a third time "Largesse!" and threw among the people a great number of gold and silver coins of all descriptions, as Henrys, ducats, crowns of the sun, pistolets, half-crowns, testons, and douzains.  Such a rush and outcry among the people followed, that nothing was ever heard like it, as they precipitated themselves one upon the other...During the offertory, pieces of gold and silver were again thrown among the people, in token of liberality and largesse."  (Lives of the Queens of Scotland, Agnes Strickland)

In the SCA context, though, it's taken on a meaning closer to the idea of tokens or gifts of favor (not favors, per se; I have a different rant about those)--a way for the Crown (or local barons, for that matter) to give an attaboy-in-passing, so to speak, outside of the formal awards & orders context, for any reason that moves them: you did them a service, you did something cool, they like your display or your performance or how you comport yourself on the field--any ol' thing.  This is a Great Idea and very medieval and I love it and I want to contribute to it.  But I have been perennially stuck on "how".

Disclaimer: I have some personal madness here; particularly I want to note that this madness is entirely personally-applied, and I do not have any mental wharrgarbl about anyone else's work or contributions but my own.

Very broadly speaking, it seems to me that there are two kinds of largesse; "high-end" (bigger or more expensive or more painstakingly crafted) one-off creations that might be given, for example, as gifts to other royalty; and the more, and understand that this is not said with any degree of denigration, "mass gift" items which are smaller and less expensive of money and effort to produce.   I haven't really been thinking about the high-end largesse, since I can barely keep up with my own big projects, but I should like to contribute to the other kind, the more so since there's more of a need for those.  But where I get stuck on is, what's appropriate for me to do?  For my craft, nearly everything I do is a hefty time investment, and I can't produce items quick enough to be useful in this context.

Well, let's cut to the nubbin of it: of course I could...if I wanted to machine sew / use non-period techniques / make other compromises.  For instance, one of the obvious items I thought of is to make small "relic"-size pouches.  None more medieval!  So appropriate, 

Relic purse from the Abbaye
de Saint-Maurice d'Agaune

and even useful!  Right the hell in my wheelhouse!  And you'd think, pretty quick to make...and you'd be right, generally speaking...but I have a bug up my butt about tablet-woven edges, and I'm still slow AF on that, so it'd take me an inefficient amount of time to finish even one, let alone several.  Is this stupid?  Will the recipient notice, or know, or care?  If my king gave me a nice little pouch to say "attagirl", would it bug me if the sides were sewn instead of having a tablet-woven edge? I'm pretty darn sure it wouldn't.[1]

I guess the core question is, what's the right balance between purity of work vs. actually producing things?  I am comfortable with that line for the various things I'm making for me, because I'm the only person it affects; but for largesse, it affects the honor of the Crown and the happiness of the recipient, neither of which I want to trifle with.  Possibly--yes, probably--I am overthinking the living shit out of this.  But I really don't want to create things that the Crown winces to give, or that the recipient winces to receive; and I don't where the generally accepted wince line is.

[1] Though if it was of neon green polyester with pink bunnies and a plastic draw cord, my eyebrow might rise more than somewhat.

Various Devils In Details

Nothing to see here, move along

I spent most of the last while working on [REDACTED], and after some few setbacks and, ahem, learning experiences, it's done and I'm tolerably pleased with the result.  Don't worry, I took a bunch of photos and you'll get to hear all about it later, if without the piquancy of my in-the-moment emo.

I have now turned my attention to the linen kirtle I cut out last summer and, like an idiot, was trying to finish at Pennsic, which I want to have done for Quest (which is Memorial Day weekend).  And now that I've hauled it out and started really looking at it instead of just robotically executing "here are the pieces, sew the thing", I have a couple of concerns.  The minor one is easily resolved, at least once there's someone over who can pin me in: the front neckline is wayyyyyy too high.  Like, almost no drop from the shoulder.  I'm not sure how that happened, but it did; but I don't want to try and amend it freehand, but I can assemble the rest of the thing, leave the neckline unfinished, and then have someone mark it on me.  (The back, at least, seems to be in the right place, so I can even close it up to the shoulder seams.)

Somewhat more concerning is that the center fronts are quite curved.  Now, this is perfectly normal for my 14th century stuff; but my understanding of the 16th century is that we're all about the straight lines because we have support happening inside the garment layers[1] and that's going to force your shaping so your pieces can be more cookie-cutter.  Certainly all the example pieces and published patterns have straight fronts, so I think this is Not Right, particularly for a working-class dress.  On the gripping hand, what I need is a passable light linen dress comfortable for the Cambodian summers we've been suffering, so a) does it really matter for this garment since it's not a show piece and b) do I have time to get consultation/help with amending it and c) is it even something that can be amended at this point?  

Um?

It is possible that the answer to all three of those questions is a big whompin' No.  

But to keep my options open as long as possible, I'm going to finish the skirt and attach it (I'm OK with where the bottom of the bodice is hitting) and by that time I'll have a sense of whether I'll be able to tap someone to have a look at it (the usual sewing night this week is prorogued for a birthday celebration).  Or I can start training the dashing consort on how to pin someone in--though when I consider how long it took me to get the knack of it, this may not be helpful for the current undertaking.

Other minor nits that have occurred to me:

• I had originally planned to bind the neckline with a contrasting linen, but I'm not sure whether this would be appropriate for a working-class under-dress.  On the other hand, I'm mostly going to wear it alone, so a wee bit of ornamentation would not go amiss.  I can't find period guidance either way.
• do I need a strengthening strip around the skirt waist like we do for cartridge pleating (I think maybe not, because again, working class basic?); 
• a facing for the center front to strengthen the lacing holes would be smart[2]; 
• the Tudor Tailor says to self-bind the armholes, rather than other finishing techniques, and I'm wondering why; 
• I really need to make a shift with a more U-shaped neckline for this late period stuff and also maybe my shifts should be a little longer (a lot of them are barely knee-length)

Of course, after all this, it'll probably be one of the years where Quest is 40 degrees at night and pleasant during the day.  So I'm hedging my bets by finishing the refurbs on at least one pair of my consort's wool Venetians, too.

The Trello board I mentioned in my last post continues to work well; so well, in fact, that it was proposed to me that I could teach a class in Agile Project Management Techniques As Applied to Your A&S Work.  Do we think this would be a useful / valuable thing?  Would it play in Peoria?

In other news, I am engaged in a Kafkaesque struggle to understand what the East Kingdom actually expects of you reporting-wise after you have held an event.  The only thing I've learned is that 1) everyone has a different idea--and I asked some experts, I can tell you--and thus 2) no one really knows for sure.  So I have started to document what I've found, because this is silly.  (I still, after two weeks, do not have an answer of where I'm supposed to send our duly-collected waivers--you know, the ones you're supposed to turn in within ten days.)  Hey, guys?  This kind of disorganization is why more people don't throw events.

[1] or under, for later and fancy rich people
[2] this is, in fact, what suddenly caused me to go HEY FRONT NOT STRAIGHT WHYYYY

The Pourpoint Commission: It's Go Time

"It's 21 days to Mudthaw, we have six metres of
Sartor silk, four pounds of raw cotton, society
is collapsing and we have day jobs."  "Hit it."

After days of obsessive activity somewhat interrupted by being gone for a week for a work conference, I got enough of the test pourpoint together--i.e. the body + left arm, which is my patron's dominant side--for a fitting yesterday afternoon, and mirabile dictu, we are actually in pretty good shape here.  I need to add a little extra around the midsection (behold the difference between a human animal in summer and winter) and a little extra around the forearm muscle; no huhu.  My only concern is the way the front gore fits, which looks a little bunchy and puffy.  I took consultation with my panel of experts on how best to fiddle this, and by moving the seam inwards a little on the gore, it should do better.  (Viewers will note that there is some bunching under the armpit, which is true; this is a consequence of both the padding and the extra fabric needed to get the range of motion which is the whole point of the grande assiette sleeve.  So, that's okay.)  


It was interesting to note the difference in padding thickness on the pieces, as well.  The ones I had done first (the back) were much less full than the ones I did last (the sleeve & gores).  This wasn't at all intentional, and indeed I wasn't even conscious of it as I was working.  I think it's a combination of early trepidation + later confidence; at first, I was afraid of over-padding and turning it into a ski jacket, and with each successive piece I was worrying less about that and just instinctively adding Enough Padding To Make It Look Right.  And, as it is, I think I will want to up the levels even more, particularly across the upper chest.  

So.  Hurray.  We pass unit testing.  Guess what that means:  Time to do the real piece. And I am determined to have this in wearable state for the patron on March 25, which is an important event for him.  Possibly this is madness; though minimum-viable-product is having the garment done except the OVER FIFTY BUTTONS AND BUTTONHOLES AFJKDJFKDJFKLJG and sew him into it for the day, which reduces the number of required hours by a significant factor.  We'll see how it goes. 

aaaaaaaaaaaa I am being
trusted with this

Some thoughts:

• The big elephant in the room is, how differently will the silk behave in the quilting process?  I had no lossage due to padding on the test unit, but I'm pretty sure this is because linen is mad stretchy.  Silk is not.  And we do not have much, if any, excess fabric here to screw around with.
• How best to do the sleeves is an open question yet.  The pattern instructs you to assemble the upper sleeve (i.e., insert the gores) and then quilt it all down together; and I started with that, and then looked at the now somewhat three-dimensional item, and could not see how it could be done on a stretched-flat quilting frame.  So I took it apart, quilted each piece individually, and then assembled them.  This worked--though if you think setting a gore is hard, try doing it when all the pieces are thickly padded--but it wasn't the best or neatest.  Beth opined it could be done post-assembly by hand, sans frame, but I'm not convinced that'll end well for me. 
• also, damn do I wish I had gotten to the serious quilting before I went to see Gold Charlie.  I have a whole list of things I would look at more closely now.
• I estimate that 450g-500g of cotton is probably about right for padding one courtly pourpoint.  I still have a good bit left of my first batch of bowing, but a) I haven't quilted the right sleeve pieces yet and b) as noted earlier I should've used a lot more on the body pieces at least.
• Mem: make sure the quilting lines will line up with each other across the center front.
• I have been advised to balance the pattern of the brocade on the different pieces.  The medievals weren't obsessed with perfect matching like we moderns are, but if you look at Gold Charlie, they didn't just slap the pieces together willy-nilly either.  
•  I did order some 5/8" buttons; the flat ones will do the job for the lower front, but the domed ones are right out.  I need actually round buttons for the sleeves & upper torso.  
• oh hey let's make sure I have enough plain white linen in stock for lining this

The next order of operations is to lay out all the pattern pieces on the silk, getting the brocade lined up and all, so I see exactly how much extra I have to play with for testing purposes (and for covering 50+ buttons, fjdklajfdklajflajfakdkjagfdf).  If I have enough extra, I'll quilt say a 6" test swatch and see what our stretch factor is.  --Oh hey.  I could do the test swatch, and then disassemble it and use that for covering buttons, if I absolutely had to.  

ora pro me

Much Brain, Little Progress

YASSSS GOLD CHARLIE IN PERSON

It's been awhile.   Part of this has been The Holidays, part of it two lurgies (the second one culminating in a mondo sinus infection that I'm still taking antibiotics for), part of it was, well, okay, *humblebrag* a trip to Germany where I got to see Gold Charlie (!!!1!), along with many other of our favorite hits.  But to be entirely candid, my absence of either writing or, y'know, actual productivity has been the socio-political situation of the nation.  I spend a lot of my time in states of rage or despair or both, and when I try to muster my forces to do something artistic or creative I am swamped with feelings of "what does this matter when the world is on fire?".  I am working to retool my brain in this, because a) I have made commitments to people, b) mental health requires both downtime and creative time, and c) fuck these assholes[1] I'm gonna make things[2].   

I did make some small progress on the pourpoint over the hols; I bowed 500 grams of cotton, which took two movies[3] to do (including rest breaks, which there were many of).  I've ordered proper linen and silk sewing thread for the quilting work. And, I've re-stretched my base linen on the frame, but without setting it up completely, so the cats can't use it as a hammock; so all I have to do is pop the top part onto the standing part, and go.  (Goal is to make the setup and takedown easy enough that I can get a reasonable amount done in an evening.)

This is the photo from the exhibition catalogue;
the buttons in question are the three at center top.
You can't see in this shot, but they have shanks that
are about the same as the ones below them.

My trip as relating to the Pourpoint Commission:  Well, I got to see Gold Charlie, obvs.  It being in a special exhibition, of course I couldn't take photos (I snuck the one up top, as you do), but to be honest, the way he was on display meant that there wasn't a lot to see that I didn't already know, either from books or from standing on the shoulders of giants.  Now, had we been able to see his inside... But it was still a highlight and I got all giddy.  More immediately useful, however, was a display in the same case, of various buttons and belt bits dug up in Prague.  These included some flat metal button forms which, the label text contended, were the same as the flat buttons on Gold Charlie (fabric-covered, obviously).  Pressing my nose to the glass, I think they have the right of it.  So I need to find a source to approximate those.  (They didn't specify anything regarding the round buttons on his top part, but they also look to have a firm base, so I assume those are probably metal as well.)  I did also buy the enormous companion book to the exhibition, which is entirely auf Deutsch; from what I puzzle out on Gold Charlie's entry, they only mention the use of linen thread, which seems off to me; from all I've observed, the medievals seem to prefer like thread to like fabric--as previously noted, the Black Prince's jupon[4], silk velvet, uses silk thread for quilting.  (Red Charlie has silk thread on his outer, silk layer, and linen thread on his linen inner layer.) What I figure to do is use linen thread on the linen test unit, and silk thread on the final project.  

Editorial and possibly too-judgy note: I do not for the life of me see how anyone can look at Gold Charlie and think those quilting lines are an after-market conservation add.  Maybe it depends on how he'd been displayed in the past; I dunno.

Passementerie crown from a
reliquary of Kunegunde; 14th
century.  Super nifty. Again,
photo from catalogue

But! This was only a fraction of my adventures.  We went to Bamberg Cathedral and the Diocesan Museum there, where lives the Star Mantle of Henry II (and several other big muckin' embroidered things attributed to him and Kunegunde), and the entire burial suit of an 11th-century bishop--none of which you can take photos of, I may add; I bought the book but it's not super great for pictures.   The Germanisches Nationalmuseum has, of course, a hojillion other medieval stuffs, even if a bunch of them are not on display at any given time; but my old buddy the heraldic embroidered pouch was out and I got many, many photos of him.  (Including the details of how his tablet-woven edges work, woo hoo.)  I feel like I could give a paper just on his construction details (though I may need help from the more expert tablet weavers for specifics of the pattern because I'm not very good at this game yet).  And there's a bunch of stuff in the Imperial Castle Museum in Nuremberg--most of it not textile or costume related, it's true, but good general aesthetic (lots of arms & armor, too, for the people into that stuff).  And we day-tripped to Munich and went to the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, which has TWO WHOLE ROOMS of nothing but medieval textiles.  I am a failure at getting details of these, because with a few exceptions there were no labels next to the pieces, just on giant unwieldly cards in pockets at the corner of the room (and entirely in German); and very little of this stuff is in their online collection. -_-  But I got many photos and we can always cross-reference with the book which they had in the room but not in the gift shop, wtf you guys.   

Kinda small but
click through, you'll
see what I mean

I also saw a lot of art in various media that was capturing the 14th century beau ideal; particularly the Schöner Brunnen in Nuremberg's town square, which is actually original--something I didn't realize at first, because it's in such perfect condition, especially when you consider that most of Nuremberg was completely pulverized in WWII.  But it's covered with Important Figures in a range of outfits--the nine worthies are in high fashion, prophets and philosophers are in more modest clothing, etc.   And here's a thing, my Gothic peeps: all the high-fashion gents, not just here but all over, have the big plaque-like hip belt we're used to seeing; but many of them also have a similar but smaller belt around the wasped portion of the waist.  It seems to be entirely decorative, not functional--pouches and daggers and things are always hanging off the hip belt--but it's all over the place.  (And it's definitely a belt; I got a photo of a St. George in the round that shows its buckle and strap in back.)  Thoughts?

Anyways, getting back on the wagon: today I need to sketch out some ideas for [REDACTED], which is a team project with a longer fuse, but we want to get our designs settled & approved so we can appropriately source materials and plan out the work.  After that, I'm going to crack the whip and get quiltin'.  I want to have the final of the pourpoint commission done for Mudthaw, which is March 25th.  This was a lot more plausible before I lost most of January to being sick; but if I could do the 19th Century Project in two months, by the Lord Harry[5] I can do this.  

Current music: Pink Floyd, "On the Turning Away"

[1] Seriously: Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer, was insinuating that the pussyhats were mass-produced in overseas sweatshops.  Because dead white guys can't understand that we create things.
[2] I was away during the Pussyhat Project, to my sorrow, but I have procured two different yarns--one acid green, one flesh-and-dark-green, to make brain hats for the March for Science on Earth Day.  
[3] Ladyhawke and Watership Down, if you really wanna work out the exact times
[4] What should we label this?  Heraldic Eddie?   Just plain ol' Eddie, since there's only one of him?
[5] I am trying to become less potty-mouthed, and find interesting oaths to use instead.