And Now For Something Completely Different

 

Yes, here I am again; and I have done a bit of sewing; but mostly just been trying to survive the 2020 garbage fire which has not been easy on me.  But that's not what I'm here to talk about.  I did a new thing! to wit, coming up with the words for Elizabet Marshall's Laurel scroll.  

The elements that need to be in an SCA scroll are as formalized, in their way, as the elements in a medieval letter:

• The award being given
• The names of the monarchs giving it
• The name of the recipient
• The reason for the award
• The date & location the award is being bestowed

How you phrase and arrange these elements, however, are entirely open, and they can be frotzed however you like.  So, what's appropriate for a lady of 12th century England being made a Peer?  She's not a Norman, at least, so one does not have to fret about French (early or modern), thank goodness.  I started by trolling through every online source I could find of Angevin documents: letters, decrees, charters, anything that was out there.  (Someone is actually working on a definitive collection and translation of all the papers of Henry II!  Hooray!  Publication date?  January, 2021.  -_-)

Eventually I found a site that had transcribed the last big effort, from the early 1900s, of as much STUF as they could find from Stephen, Matilda, Henry II, Richard, and John.  It's all in Latin, and they didn't translate it, but did have summaries, so at least I had somewhere to start.  Some facts became immediately clear:

1. Charters of the time were repetitive.  Do not use a single noun or adjective where you can use three.
2. Charters of the time were extremely businesslike.  They're concerned with the "what" and not the "why".
3. (and this is obvious) There's nothing directly translatable to the normal elements of SCA peerage - you don't give someone a charter to declare them a knight, and the king is 100% not involved in artisan stuff.  

#3 was my first problem.  In later period, you can find extant examples where a royal is ennobling or in some wise giving an attaboy to their tailor or whatever; but earlier on, absolutely nope.  But what I did find was the first charter creating a peer of England: issued by King Stephen in 1139, wherein he created Geoffrey de Mandeville Earl of Essex.

Stephanis rex Anglorum archiepiscopis episcopis abbatibus comitibus baronibus justiciis vicecomitibus et omnibus fidelibus suis totius Anglie salutem.[1]  Sciatis me fecisse comitem de Gaufrido de Magnavilla de comitatu Essexie hereditarie.  Quare volo et concedo et firmiter precipio quod ipse et heredes sui post eum hereditario jure teneant de me et de heredibus meis bene et in pace et libere et quiete et honorifice sicut alii comites mei de terra mea melius vel liberius vel honorificentius tenent comitatus suos unde comites sunt cum omnibus dignitatibus et libertatibus et consuetudinibus cum quibus alii comites me prefati dignius vel liberius tenent.

And, my janky-ass translation:

Stephen, king of the English, to archbishiops, bishops, abbots, counts, barons, justicars, sheriffs, and all the faithful in the whole of England, greetings.  Know that I have created Geoffrey de Mandeville earl of the hereditary county of Essex. Wherefore I will and grant and firmly command that he and his heirs after him will hold jurisdiction from me and my heirs well and in peace and freely and quietly and honorably, just as my other earls in my lands better or more freely or more honorably hold their counties where earls are [???] with all dignity and freedom and customs with which other earls I have aforementioned hold dignity or freedom.[??????]

(See what I mean about the repetition?)

Okay, this takes care of the giver, the recipient, and what's being given; but there's nothing to explain why Geoff is getting an earldom[2]. The existing Angevin charters seem to be completely concerned with effect, not cause.  They do not waste time or ink on why a person or organization is getting something (or having something taken away), they just record that they’re doing it.  The closest one gets is either a note about restoring to how things were under a previous ruler, or a gift to a religious foundation which may allude briefly to doing something in the name of a saint.  So the usual “why we’re doing this” in an SCA scroll is purely ahistorical for this period, and you just have to make your peace with that.

One cool thing I did find, though, was in one of Matilda's[3] charters:

Precipio tibi quod seisias Willelmum filium Otonis de terra sua de Benflet ita bene et plene sicut inde seisitus fuit die qua rex Henricus pater meus fuit vivus et mortuus.  Et bene et in pace, libere et honorifice teneat sicut liberius tenuit tempore Henrici patris mei.

My slightly less-janky translation:

I command to you the seisin of William fitz Otho of his land in Benfleet well and fully as it was in the day when the king Henry my father was alive and dead[4].  And he is to hold it well and in peace and freely and honorably as freely as he held it in the time of my father Henry.

This is relevant because Elizabet was given her Writ by Margarita, but because of pandemic her actual peerage was going to be bestowed by Tindal & Alberic; so it was a nice element to knit in. 

So, our final construction:

Magnus Tindal and Alberich von Rostock, Consules of the East, to all dukes, counts, viscounts, barons, nobles, ministers, and all faithful people of the East, greetings.

Know that we appoint Elizabet Marshall a Mistress of the Order of the Laurel, even as decreed in the day of the queen Margarita our forebear, for her excellence and skill at embroidery and her service to the ancient and honorable guild and craft thereof.  Wherefore we will and grant and firmly command that she will hold this honor from us and our heirs, performing its duties well and freely and honorably, even as our other peers in our lands hold this honor, and with the dignities and freedoms and customs that these aforementioned peers hold.  And we grant and reaffirm unto her these arms by letters patent: Azure, three squirrels maintaining a threaded needle Or. 

Done in this year of the Great Plague at Chateau des Coccinelles.

Scroll in progress

[1] This formula, with minor adjustments, is in all of Stephen's charters, as well as Matilda's and Henry's.

[2] spoilers: he was an opportunistic asshole and Stephen was trying to get him to be inside the tent pissing out for a change

[3] if you're not up on your English history: she was the daughter of Henry I and a rival claimant to Stephen (who was only a cousin) for the throne, which led to a nice little civil war for quite some years.

[4] Yeah, I don't get it either.

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

Catch-Up and Moving Forward

painted salon at Guédelon

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

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

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

a few Landsknecht layers 

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

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

proof-of-concept

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

Gerald helping with fabric
selection, as usual

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

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

maaaaaath

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

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



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

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.

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

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.

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

The Pourpoint Commission: Buttoning Down

ONE! ONE BUTTONED SLEEVE! HA, HA, HA!

It's been a long holiday season, with the concomitant distractions, coming-down-sick, family visits, suddenly holding three offices[1] and so on; but I kept plugging away at the work, and although I'm not as far along as I hoped to be, I'm within the baseline schedule.

First off, it developed that the local post office just lost my quilting thread entirely, so I had to reorder them completely (snarl).  This arrived quickly and safely, at least, so I got back to work on the sleeves right after Christmas Day and finished them up...while coming to the slow realization that I was going to be woefully short of buttons.  Not just the cloth ones, either; I extrapolated the measurements and calculated I was going to need about another half-dozen metal-core ones as well.  Which meant I also needed to order another packet of metal blanks from the other vendor.  kiiiiilll meeeeee

However I had plenty to do while waiting for that shipment, so I placed the order and got cracking on another ~30 cloth buttons....where by "got cracking" I realized I had not recorded what dimensions I used for the fabric pieces that make up the buttons, so I had to cut a finished button of each kind open and measure it.   For the record, the metal-core flat buttons are 1-1/4" rounds of fabric with a gather stitch in a 1" diameter circle; and the cloth ones are 2" squares with a gather stitch in a 1-1/4" diameter circle.  This results in as close to a 5/8" button as you can get under these fabric conditions, which do not lead to anything remotely resembling consistency.  (When I do finally get to making my fancy overdress, I'm curious to see if that brocade behaves as chaotically as this one does.)

When I got all the existing buttons sewn on, I realized I didn't actually need any additional metal button blanks at all; I had just enough (at least, once I re-made the one I had to cut apart for analysis).  *facepalm*  Still, I figure I can make a couple extra and give them to my patron in case he loses any.

Current state of play on all fronts--

• Pourpoint itself: all that needs doing is about 25 more buttonholes, and undoing & fixing two spots at the top of the shoulder where the fashion fabric has pulled out of the seam.  Buuuut I also have to write my paper and figure out how to arrange my display... Likelihood of on-time completion: 100%
• Silk dress: The body seams are done & gores in; the sleeves are constructed (one more long seam remaining); but I have to sew in the sleeves and then do all the fiddly bits--center front facing, neck facing, and all the G-D eyelets, which usually takes me just as long as the actual construction.  Likelihood of on-time completion: 80%. Likelihood I'll be able to wear it: 45%, because...
• Sideless surcoat remake: haven't even looked at that shit.  In theory, as noted before, it wouldn't be more than a day's work, but that assumes I have everything I need.  So, likelihood of on-time completion: 45%.
• New veils: whaaaat, you say?  Where'd that come from?  Well, I've been displeased with my head styling for some time, and this displeasure has steadily raised to the point where I can no longer abide. So I spent some time when I couldn't sew thinking this question through, and I have a long-term complicated plan involving fake braids and one of them fancy frounced veils; but as a Phase One implementation I was going to follow the excellent Katafalk blog's how-to for getting The Look when you have short hair.  To do this, I need two pieces of nice linen hemmed up: one for the wimple, and one for the veil.  And I am thinking maybe I ought to prioritize this work over the new dress, because my wool dresses are good quality and all, and I would rather look complete to a shade (if bourgeois) than dressed in silk & velvet with hair like a haystack or wearing nothing but a cotton (!!) headrail.  But I am very slow with rolled hems and I haven't even looked at my linen stash to see if I have anything fine enough in stock.  Likelihood of on-time completion: 70%, if I prioritize it over the dressmaking.

[1] yeah so I'm now Webminister for the Kingdom Ministry of Arts & Sciences, and Seneschal of our local canton, and deputy Webminister for same.  I'm not sure how that all happened at once.  Or why "all at once" happened to be "right now".  Frickin' comedy writers.

Foreign Working, No Visa Required

This is before steaming, don't @-me

As previously noted, I was in a wait state on the pourpoint due to lack of thread[1] and so switched gears to start on my silk dress.  I'd assembled the body pieces from the waist up before I left for England; and it occurred to me that this silk packs down so small and light, I could easily take it along to work on--it's not like I was going over to tourist or party, and I knew there would be a lot of quiet visiting time where hand-work would be acceptable.  I prepped by cutting a whole bunch of appropriate sewing lengths of the linen thread I am using (60/2, if you care) and waxed & ironed them thoroughly, then wound them 'round a card to bring.  That, my usual sewing kit, and the gridded ruler & chalk was enough, and took up no more space than, e.g., my pajamas.  I'm happy to report that I return with the back and side gores fully assembled & attached.  I still hate gores, but I seem to be getting better at them.

I did also baste instead of pinning the pieces together for sewing. It feels weird in my head place--a little less so the more I went on, but it is not entirely resolved--and I haven't yet noticed any benefits in speed or accuracy for what I'm doing at present, but I'm going to keep on and see how things change (or don't).  

I had also meant to bring stuff for seam finishing, only then realizing I didn't actually have anything appropriate.  That is, I have silk threads of all kinds; but they are various types of embroidery rather than sewing thread, and although I've used some of them for seam finishes before, those were either for decorative purposes or on thick enough wool or linen that they could pass unnoticed.  I can't fudge it on this fabric, nope.  So I sent a Hail Mary order to Superior Threads for a couple of colorways and weights that I thought might do; and that at least I have found here waiting for me, yay.  C'mon, let's open the box together!

So, I got two spools of their Kimono Silk (100/2) and two of Tire Silk (50/2). Now I've got them out of the packet, I think either would do, but the 100/2 looks like a better bet (and is a closer color match as well).  My fabric is still so very crisp and sheen-ish that I'm going to have to be exceedingly skilful to not make the thread super-obvious, if that's even possible, which I'm not convinced of.  All I can say is, thank goodness I don't intend to wear this dress without an over-layer.

Apropos of which, I think I don't have a whelk's chance in a supernova in getting the brocade over-gown ready for February[2], so I'm letting my back-brain chew on how I can easily & quickly remake my very very old rust-red velvet sideless surcoat as an alternative. The color story would be good; I'd just need, I think, to bung in a lining[3]--scrap silk would do--and do something to ornament the neckline.  Obviously what it should have is a strip of narrow gold-work embroidery trim, but possibly a good-looking storebought trim could pass. But it'd be no more than an afternoon's work, anyways, I should think.

Sock #1 Action Shot

On the knitting front, I have gotten past the heel of Sock #2, hooray for long flights. 


[1] (...which still hasn't arrived, I find?  WTF?) 
[2] more fucking buttonholes
[3] this would also contain those stupid little cotton pills that get everywhere when you're working with cotton velvet

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.