The March of Progress; or, Life Is A Bowl Of Sour Cherries

I bought about this many.

The Bocksten tunic looks like
the T-tunics of yore, except that
it makes the shape with gores and
gussets, so it's not wasteful of fabric.

Since our last visit, we have had yet another jiggering of priorities, though minor in nature.  I had a long colloquy with my dashing consort, and he expressed his concerns about comfort in the light of the OMG DEATH BY FIRE climate that's being predicted for this summer, particularly since we are going for two full weeks (it being his first time for that[1], and only his second time going at all).  He's very worried that, even if made of the lightest materials and not fashionably tight, he'll be too hot in full Tudor glory.  So, we're de-prioritizing late-period shirts and doublets, raising the quota of T-tunics (well, probably they'll be Bocksten Man tunics, just so I don't twitch), and adding one pair of Standard Early Period Pants.  I'd still like to try my hand at a working-class Elizabethan doublet, to see if he's more comfortable in that, but it will be further down the food chain.  (It's also a higher-effort item.  Not only do I have to figure it out in the first place, but even the po' folks had interlining and stuff, so construction is more complicated and more time-consuming.)

Example of a
not-plaid bog dress

In the spirit of hitting the low-hanging fruit, I got the five camp sheet walls done, hooray.  It was a nice place to start the terrifying list, because although time-consuming and vaguely tedious, they aren't difficult.  Then, last night, I finished mending my existing bog schmata and finally--FINALLY--fit and finished the 2nd one I cut out three years ago.  (What's a bog dress?  As the term is used in these parts, it is a peplos-like garment made out of the loudest damn plaid you can find.  I am not clear if they are called such because examples have been pulled out of bogs, or because people down in the bog at Pennsic wear them, or because it is easy to throw on if you have to go to the bog in the middle of the night.  They are probably not period, at least as we make 'em, and they're definitely not right for any of the stuff I'm doing, but Goddamn are they convenient, particularly for early morning coffee time / going to the swimming hole / doing scut work / when it's stupid hot and you just can't face lacing up a gown.)  The acute reader will notice that my priority list nowhere mentioned bog dresses, and this is true, but a) I was also running a little bit scared about the OMG DEATH BY FIRE long-term forecast and b) it got one more thing that's been hanging around for ages out of Bucknard's Everfull Sewing Basket.  Also, it must be admitted, having a quick win is a good confidence booster.

I also spent a little time yesterday digging around the intarwubs for a free(ish) cloud application that can do Gantt charts and/or project plans with task dependencies.  This was insanely helpful during Colossus: The 19th Century Project[2], and I'm hoping that employing these tools will help control the brain-bees that are buzzing around in the back of my psyche waiting to strike.  It makes you feel like you've got a handle on the situation (whether you do or not, *ahem*), and also it's great for those overwhelmed moments when you are dithering/overwhelmed about what to do next--it shows you what tasks you have available, and you just pick one.  So, I'm giving Gantter a try.

The next several days are a whirlwind of social activity, and I have to spend some time in the kitchen because I have bought All The Sour Cherries In The World (since we're in the two weeks of the year where they're available) and I need to employ them before they go off; so there's not going to be much time for advancing the quest list.  But I hope to knock out the last two Queen's Favors, and maybe coax the weekly sewing circle into helping me assemble my tablet-weaving class kits.  *shifty look*  I may also be able to abuse the big oul' copiers at work to make a copy of the pourpoint pattern from the seminal work on the topic, so I'll be ready to start diddling it based on the client's measurements, from which I can then cut out a muslin.  (See?  Task dependencies!)

[1] Candidly, this will only be the 3rd time I've gone for two weeks.
[2] I wanted to upload my project plan for that, for the edification of others, but it looks like it got deleted off the project management tool at work.  Someone may have noticed it was there.  -_-;;;;;;

Of Banners and Re-Prioritizations

Saturday, we had us a wee local event that we've run for the past couple of years.  (Well, I say "we"; mostly Beth, but I halp!)  The idea is to have a sewing-themed event at just the right period before Pennsic, so people can get help with their projects and/or learn new stuff with enough lead time to implement.  This year was more than usually chaotic, as everyone is covered in bees, but the immediate[1] matter[2] for me was to put together a class on history and styles of banners (with emphasis on what's useful / relevant in an SCA context).  As previously implied, I struggled with focus on this one, as I kept coming across interesting references that I wanted to track down; which in most cases to describe it as "falling down a rabbit hole" dramatically understates the nature of the transaction.

One of the many cool banners
lost by Charles the Bold in 1472.
It's a tiny tiny standard, really,
though I don't know why it doesn't
have his usual motto ("Je lay
emprins") on it.

Ahem.  Anyways.  I produced a thing, and the feedback I got is that it's pretty good, and that I should teach it at Pennsic too.  I'm too late to get it in the hard copy course catalog, but a lot of people are using the online one in preference anyways, so...?  And we've decided, jobs willing, that we're definitely going to go for both weeks, so I could schedule this for the first week and not go completely batshit.   In all honesty, just as with the Elizabethan working clothes class, I feel as if I'm not doing anything super-genius, just collating and processing and contextualizing a whole bunch of data that's already out there, and couldn't anyone do this?  But on the other hand, it doesn't seem like Mister Anyone is, and the core idea is to make good information accessible to as many people as possible.  Maybe my business card should read "I Troll Through Garbage References On Pinterest So You Don't Have To". 

So, there's that job jobbed; but with only five weeks to go it's time to have a long hard think about my previously-expressed priority list.  I need to pare it down more than somewhat, particularly since some new elements are in play.  Without further ado, then, the revised edition, cast in the lingo of my workplace's Project Management Office:

ESSENTIAL

• Kits for tablet-woven edge class
• Handout for Elizabethan working clothes class
• For my dashing consort:
• 1-2 more shirts 
• 1 grub-able T-tunic
• 1 working (i.e., not form-fitted) Elizabethan doublet
• Hem the five sheet walls for the camp
• Hem the last two Queen's Favors and hand them the $*@& off
• Redo the lining on the Big Damn Banner, so I can a) display it and b) send it back to the owner who has been remarkably kind about the whole thing

IMPORTANT

• Muslin of a pourpoint for the commission I have alluded to
• For my dashing consort:
• Finish the wee flat cap
• Ensmallen the 2 prs. Venetians that are too big
• It's possible that I should frob one of them to sit at his hips, not at his waist, so he can wear it with just a jerkin.  It isn't Historically Accurate, but it'll be a lot more comfy for him if it's a stupid hot year.
• Put lacing holes in all prs. Venetians
• Many many lacing cords

NICE TO HAVE

• For me:
• 2-3 extra lacing cords (finger-looped or lucet)
• Tablet-woven headband with fake braids 
• Embiggen eyelets on some of my older gowns
• an apron or two
• A 16th-century working-class petticoat & smock
• For S.:
• Falling collar that can be pinned to shirts
• More shirts
• (He should have more clothes but I want to see how all the other stuff works out before planning the next round.)
• Canvas-work butt-cushions for our X-chairs
• SOME DAMN BANNERS.

I think I can do all of the Essential, maybe a couple of the Important, and I am pretty sure it drops off precipitately after that.

[1] I also ended up with five sheet walls for the Baronial encampment to hem, but never mind.
[2] And I registered two badges for myself!  I'm kinda smug about that, because it means I don't have to sketch hawks displayed on everything I want to heraldically pee on.  Dear Past Me: I hate you (even if your aesthetic taste is pretty good).

We Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Program

Le Palais des Papes in Avignon, the largest intact Gothic palace in the world.
Which, alas, only refers to the buildings, not anything in them

The previous three weeks of radio silence have been the result of a) preparing for vacation, b) being on vacation, and c) recovering from vacation.  Said vacation was in Provence, a place I had never been; and it was lovely and magical and I didn't want to come home.  It was also chock-full of medieval architecture, including an entire abandoned village you can freely wander around, though regrettably no textiles or dec-arts remain anywhere (everything that may have survived the passage of time has been snarfed by bigger museums elsewhere).    Much to my sorrow, I could not diddle the travel plans in a workable way that permitted a stop at the endangered Musée des Tissus et des Arts décoratifs in Lyon, which holds a lot of Clothing's Greatest Hits.  We did travel right past it, but it was not practical to jump out of the train going 100+ MPH. I may yet live to regret not trying it. 

But I can present a working reconstruction
of a 15th-century paper mill that's in
Fontaine-de-Vaucluse

I did get three more Queen's Favors embroidered on the plane, at least.  Should have been four, but that's the problem with watching superhero movies when you're trying to work; you just have to look at the really impressive bits (IYKWIM, AITYD!)

So, best vacation ever; also, point of self-aggrandizement, we did so much walking and climbing that I lost a pound and a half; but my re-entry into ordinary life and the realization of just how few weeks it is til Pennsic was rather like being thrown into a vat of icy water.  Which is mixed with angry bees.  During a lightning storm. In a spirit of complete candor, I will admit that back in April, I started waking up in the middle of the night with what I have since learned are panic attacks, and though they disappeared during vacation and I was all "hurray!  Is fixed!", they returned with a vengeance afterwards.  I have taken advice (medical and otherwise), and mitigation is in place, but the point of this is that I am permitting my hobby to have far too much of an emotional impact on my well-being...an issue that, by my observation, is far too common among us.  Please, take the time to think about this, and practice some self-care if you feel you might be doing the same.  IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FUN.

[end PSA]

I had previously taken some pains to reduce the nebulous cloud of All The Work into actionable items; the problem is, that list is still a very long one, and not one I felt the least bit comfortable in my ability to finish.  Or even to start. Yesterday, I hacked on it yet further; for the upcoming week, the only thing I think about is Stuff That Has To Be Done For Next Saturday, which is:

• Create my class (essential)
• Figure out something to bring to the potluck (essential) (but could be delegated)
• Hem the favors I've embroidered (important) 
• (better still if I can do by Thurs and drop off to the local canton meeting, since they're batching delivery)
• Redo the Tiny Tiny Flat Cap (nice to have, probably won't happen)

I started working on the class last night, and once again fell down the rabbit hole of trying to make it super-scholarly and documented.  No, stupid, that's not what this is. This is a brief survey of banners so people who have never done one before feel prepared to go out and make one of their own.  Stop chasing references to Charles the Bold's lost treasures and when the French Crown started hanging banners in Notre-Dame.  STAAAHHP.

A Little Flat Cap Fail

Immediately after my previous update, I took action on my determination stated therein to make something tangible as a break from trying to digest vast quantities of information.  So, I dug out the flat cap pieces I cut out A YEAR AGO ahem and looked to see where I was at: which was, I had the fashion fabric (black wool) pieces and nothing else.  And indeed, now I think on it, where I'd gotten stuck previously was over-thinking what I should line it with.  Hello, own worst enemy.

It seems that silk linings for flat caps go pretty far down the social scale, so I dug out some scraps from my Extremely Purple Gamurra to use.  (This is not really an appropriate period choice, as the silk is a slubby dupione and the purple is way too optically bright, but I don't have any more appropriate scraps and I'm not cutting into virgin silk for a first-try project.  Also, S. likes purple.)  I cut out the matching lining pieces and started assembling.  The Tudor Tailor pattern is pretty straightforward and by the end of that day I had the crown basted and gathered and the hatband & lining attached on their appropriate sides.

Gathered crown, sitting on top of the unattached
brim.  Did I mention the lining was VERY PURPLE?

The next step is to attach the brim, but I wasn't feeling happy about it.  The wool is a very light, loose twill, and the silk is stiff for its weight but is also very light, and it all felt like it was going to be super-floppy even by flat cap standards.  I thought it best to reinforce that a little, so I dug out more scraps--dark brown cotton canvas that was part of the interlining for my 16th c. gown--and interlined the brim.  

Protip:  Do not try and retro-fit this into a brim & lining you have already sewn together.  Just fucking unpick it and do it right.  It will take a fraction of the time.  ASK ME HOW I KNOW.  

Looks great, doesn't it? 

Finally all the hurdles were overcome and everything was attached and I had something that, by gum, rather looked like a flat cap!  I did my victory lap around the living room and then had the recipient try it on--whereupon it perched on top of his head like an oversized fascinator.  Somehow, in spite of careful measurements, it came out about 2.5" too small for his head.  This is far too typical in my life.

I put the thing aside in disgust for about a week and dove into some pourpoint research (more about which later) before finally gritting my teeth and unpicking the pieces to see what had gone wrong.  Upon extracting the hatband and ironing it out, I measured it and it actually is the right size for his head. I guess what's happening here is that the extra volume caused by the gathers turns the perfect-sized hatband into a too-small one.  I think I don't have any choice but to cut a larger hatband & lining; I hope I don't have to cut out a new brim as well.  

I had even more antipathy for the whole thing after this realization so I put it to the side again, and I've just been knitting for the past week (at least the damn sock is nearly done; just in time for summer, as anticipated).  My attention's also been sucked away by Pennsic work (I'm the land agent/general factotum for a camp of about 70 people) and for an event I'm helping run next month where I volunteered to teach yet another class I haven't actually prepared for.  And I'm about to go on vacation, which is full of yay!, but I'm feeling time slipping away and I'm not feeling good about that at all.

Elizabethan Working Clothes: Drinking From The Firehose

Gerald is also overwhelmed by the source material

I have spent the past week, in between other drama and tasks, accruing even more data (and Chrome tabs), and attempting to capture the portion that will be most helpful to self & audience in a Google Doc*.  At this stage, said doc is a mad combination of explicatory text and bulleted lists, but that's par for this part of the course; I will write out discussion points as I think of them, and the bullet lists are topics to cover when I have them figured out, ahem.   I also bought a bunch of cheapo muslin from Joann's yesterday (since I was out in the burbs anyways) since I figure there will probably be a lot of draping going on, and with a reasonable percentage chance of making a pig's ear of some of it, I don't want to be stopped dead in the middle of a roll for lack of materials.

This is all decent progress, but I'm feeling itchy; I want to stop thinking and start doing.  Conversely, I'm feeling unusual trepidation about starting, because I don't think I have all my ducks in a row yet.  Having been woken up at an ungodly hour for a Sunday anyways (thanks, shrieking children on the street at 6:30am) I took the opportunity offered by some quiet rainy morning time with coffee to graph out my thoughts.  And these are our concerns, Dude:

1. What changes do I need to make to a doublet so that it still looks like the garment we see represented in imagery, but has enough freedom of movement that a man can work a farm in it**?   I don't think that just making it bigger all around is the right answer.
1. Related issue: I'm still not sure how breeches will stay up at most guys' natural waist if they aren't attached to something.  
2. I'll need to line up one of my friends to fit me for my own dress.  I could base it more-or-less off my Florentine gown, but it's a different enough design that I'm going to need help for the last mile, and my peeps are covered in even more bees than I am right now.
3. Do I have the right fabric to use as showcase garments?  Do I have anything even semi-right?  How much should I compromise?  This isn't for professional use, this is to help people who don't know this stuff make OK choices--but shouldn't they have the opportunity to see what the gold standard is?  Should I kill myself (and wallet) trying to get super-period fabrics, like linen canvas and madder-dyed wool, or make do with what my audience is more likely to have access to?
4. How much detail should I include in the class?  I don't want people to drown in it, or be driven off by too much information, but I want it to be a solid and comprehensive platform for them to start from. Where do I draw the line?

Some of these have immediate solutions.  For #1, I'm going overcome my I Don't Want To Be A Bother and ask my expert tailor friends; and I'll also throw on Tudor Monastery Farm (which is a little early for this, but never mind) and see what I can observe.  For #2, I'll cut out a generous muslin bodice draft using the dimensions of my gown and find someone to pin it on me.  For #3, I'll turn out the stash today (stupid rainy day, we were going to go to the botanical garden and look at lilacs) and gather a pile of anything that's Plausible™, and compare it to the source material I have.  And for #4, I will have to come to terms with the fact that I may not get it right for the first iteration.  

Another possible angle is to take it slow with the main garments and work on the smaller and/or better-known technology.  Vide, planned outfits--

For him: shirt (use current one), separate falling collar that can be pinned or basted in, doublet, breeches, stockings (use one of current pair), jerkin possibly, hat

For me: smock***, bodies & petticoat, kirtle probably, stockings, coif, apron

I could work on my smock, coif, and apron; and his falling collar and hat (IT IS CUT OUT FOR FUCK'S SAKE! JUST DO IT!).  It all needs doing and none of it should require outside help.  (I also need to make a metric buttload of points for all his outfits, and I should figure out what my tech is going to be for this oh god aglets & get cracking on them.)

Welp, there's some action items.  On with the motley!

* My modus operandi for documentation is: 1) get all the text down in a Google Doc, for maximum flexibility; 2) import into Word or, better yet, Pages for image addition and manipulation; and then preserve that as the ur-copy and export to PDF which I upload back to Google so I can print it from anywhere.

** This is also a problem I want to attack for the 14th century--what changes do I need to make to a Gothic fitted dress so that it's easy to move in but still holds my bQQbies up?  My blue silk is almost there...but it's cut to the same pattern as my red wool, which fits very differently, and I do not know why.  But I really want a plain dress for kitchen or other scut-work.

*** I haven't made up my mind whether to do a low-cut smock & add a partlet, or a high-collared one and eschew it.  So that's another decision that I should stop putting off.

In Which There Is Inner Turmoil

this would be a metaphor

In the wake of my Hey Kids Let's Put On A Class commitment, I set aside the day for starting work on it--partially because wouldn't it be so novel if I got something done before the last minute for a change, but chiefly because sometimes these things evolve a little under the handling and I wanted to make sure that the description in the Pennsic classes handbook will actually reflect what is going to come out of my piehole.  

I anticipated that there would be some amount of brain bees in the course of this; my process, insofar as I have one, usually looks not unlike this:

1. X=0
2. Suck up vast quantities of information
3. Attempt to distill this down into something the mind can encompass.  
4. Freak out
5. X=X+1
6. IF X<2 GOTO 3; ELSE GOTO 7
7. Profit!

I did not expect the freakout phase to happen quite this quickly.  Let me see if I can capture it adequately for the edifications of Future Me as well as other benighted pilgrims on the Path--

As I may have mentioned previously, I made my dashing consort a black linen suit (i.e., doublet and Venetian hose) for last Pennsic.  I was killing several birds with one stone in this project; first, the linen was good quality but I got it for a relative song, so--this being my first effort in the technology--if I made a complete fuckup of it I hadn't wasted expensive material; second, being linen inside and out, it should be quite light and comfortable even in hot weather; and third, since it hasn't any interlining, it would be machine-washable, so he could grub around in it for camp work (or even just the sweat of day-to-day hot Pennsic) and that would be OK.  And indeed, this is the kernel of idea that has germinated into this class plan. 

So, what is problem?  Problem was that the feedback my dashing consort expressed was:

• he was still awfully warm when wearing it
• he felt a little uncomfortable with how the shirt was bunched under the doublet
• he felt rather insecure, like his pants would fall down
• ...which we fixed by lacing the Venetians to the doublet, like they're supposed to be, BUT...
• then, every time he lifted his arms more than halfway, he felt like the doublet was going to rip from the hose.

Which is fine; it was a first effort and mistakes were likely to have been made; but I wanted to try and puzzle them out to know what I should make as an exemplar for this class.  Is the shirt too generous in its fabric?  Did I cut the doublet wrong, or the Venetians, or both?  And so forth.  

This is after having him move around
a bunch. There are clues here for the
observant consulting detective.

One of the elements strongly in my mind at present comes from a recent thread on the Elizabethan Costume FB group, which dovetailed in with both my 19th century project and my previous pants rant; the question of natural vs. modern waist.  Here's a link to the full thread, which I think you can view without being a group member; but if you can't, or if it's TL;DR, the takeaway is that for most of the Period of Pants (and indeed, up until sometime in the 1960s), gents' trousers sat at the natural waist or close to it; not at all where you see them today.  (And I had this flagged as a "gotcha" to mention in the class.)  But it made me wonder: is this where I screwed up on the linen suit?  So, I had Himself put it on, and I did my best to make a critical analysis of the situation.

First I got mentally stuck on the shirt.  That is a lot of fabric.  Too much fabric?  I could take some out of the sides.  And the side slits should prob'ly be further up to his hips, so he has full range of motion, so the torso could be more snug.  I nodded, satisfied that I had solved the problem--and then realized that would make the sleeves way too short.  Maybe I could release some of the fabric from the neck gathers?  Maybe the neck shouldn't be gathered at all?  But it has to be gathered.  Back and forth and back and forth...

I left that for a bit and had him put on the suit, lacing just a couple of points for convenience.  It looks right, they're meeting--but that's too low?  It's on his hips?  That's not right!  Pull them up?  Now it's bisecting his special place!  What if I do this?  What about that?  Where did I really fit it to?   How could I be this wrong?  

The last straw was going back to the Tudor Tailor pattern I used, and trying to parse out between it and the example images where I went off the rails.  Now, there aren't, unfortunately, any images of a gent wearing just his shirt & Venetians or trunk hose, so it was hard to tell; but I got it in my head, based on the fully-dressed photos, that they had cut the hose to the modern waist, not the natural waist.  I can't tell you why this, in particular, was the cause of my soul being crushed into the approximate dimensions of a small six-sided die, but so it was.

here's me

At this point there was nothing for it but a crying jag, in which were barely-perceptible self-excoriations about my incompetence and failures and how much better at all this I should be by this point in my career.  This was nobly borne by Himself, who made every possible effort to reassure and support me; finally I pulled out of the nosedive, gritted my teeth, and started to work the problem.

First, I found his natural waist.  Then I had him put on the Venetians, sans shirt, for better visibility.  I had him hold them up at the highest point where it was not impacting his marital prospects, and compared.  OK!  It's a tad lower than his natural waist, but only about a half inch; that's within acceptable tolerances.  Now, the doublet: the lacing strip still meets up with the waistband of the Venetians (if somewhat unevenly front-to-back); this is a result!  Standing still, he said there was no discomfort!  Therefore: why problem?

Um, no.

Ignoring the hose for the moment, I had him move around, stretch his arms above his head, bend over and back, and so on.  This caused the doublet to move halfway up his chest and the sleeve to move halfway up his lower arm.  Clearly, though the shirt may not be perfect, it's not the primary trouble spot.  No: the problem here is that I've made a doublet of a fashionable cut out of a (relatively) base material.  Much like you wouldn't chop wood in a bespoke suit (particularly in the too-tight way they like 'em these days), you would not be particularly physically active in a doublet fitted this closely.  

I cannot properly express the unbounded relief I felt from this realization.  I didn't do anything (too) wrong; I had faithfully interpreted the pattern I was working from (and the pattern was what it ought to have been), I had simply not understood its ramifications.  The path forward is clear: I will put some shiny trim on this suit, and treat it as a dressy outfit, but of a very summer weight (like for opening ceremonies, or if we actually have to go to royal court, *gurk*); and I will cut him a much more loose and generously-fitting workaday doublet that will be appropriate for bending and lifting and all.

I still need a better understanding of the elements that go into permitting or restricting range of motion.  It's moments like this that make me think I really should go take a couple of the basic FIT courses, as I'm pretty sure I'd learn it better in a class environment than by trying to read up on it.

and then I saw Judi Dench in a doublet and paned hose and they were set to her natural waist and everything will always be OK.

More Odds & Ends

there's that job jobbed

The first thing I did with the aforementioned free will was to finish, believe it or not, another daisy.  There's a comedic backstory to this (which, to anyone who knows our atelier, is 100% par for the course), but long story short, the Actual Laurel Cloak™ hasn't been done yet (the candidate was robed with a substitute cape-let [that we stayed up all night making {and was still pretty stylin', I must say}]).  It will still happen, and it will still have lots of people's embroidered daisies on it, and mine had been hanging about since August, so I finally got off my arse and finished it.  ONE. MORE. CHECKBOX!

I'd done about 1/3 of the petals in the previous push (see previous post for context re: what I was trying to accomplish), which took me maybe 6 hours in total..whereas it took me somewhat less than that to do the entire rest of the motif, so I think we may safely say that Learning Has Occurred.  There's clearly a lot of room for improvement, technique-wise; when I look at the stitches closely, I am bothered by their unevenness, and I'd like the shading to be more graceful; but I feel it's not bad for a first attempt.  I certainly do understand now why they recommend you actually color in the design with colored pencils before stitching, though.

Once the petals were done, I just did the stem in stem stitch (duh), and the center as well.  Mostly because I was kind of on a roll with it, but also I wanted to experiment with using it as a filling stitch.  I'm not sure about the two colors of yellow--I had a vague thought it would give a kind of textured effect, which I don't think it did exactly, but it's a little more visually interesting than plain yellow all the way in?  Maybe?  Or maybe the spiraling pattern of the stitch would've been enough.  It's not bad, I just don't know if it would have been better.

I'm in a wait state on the possible commission, so I backgrounded that process and spent some cycles on what classes to teach at Pennsic.  I figured to do the hands-on tablet weaving class (mem: buy C-clamps), but I wasn't sure what else; I've taught the class on  linings (or not) in Gothic fitted dresses for the past three years running and maybe I should give it a break, and the pouch class is all well and good but it doesn't have a lot of practical application for most people.  It occurred to me that it might be useful to put something together on working-class Elizabethan clothes for Pennsic (I have a possible title: "No, I'm Not Putting The Tent Up In A Farthingale"), since that's a topic I'm currently struggling with.  It means I have to spend the next couple months making working-class Elizabethan clothes, for myself as well as my dashing consort.  I questioned whether this would be useful in a world where we have resources like The Modern Maker and The Tudor Tailor and Stuart Peachey's series and Drea Leed's site, but the feedback from my Facebook Greek Chorus was overwhelmingly positive.  I do feel a little bit hinky teaching other people's stuff (even with complete transparency and citation), but it was pointed out to me that a lot of fellow-travelers a) don't know or have access to these sources, and b) don't have time or capacity to trawl through it all to get actionable information, so a well-done distillation (especially including the results of field testing) would be valuable to that population.  So, all righty then.