I haven't been blogging

But, I have been working. I am sorting fabric and just did a bunch of heraldry stuff. I went to the meeting and I went to the collegium. I took Aurelia, my deputy with me. Two Aurelias! Ha! What is the world coming to? I have been knee deep in research and heraldry.


I have sewn up everything but the hems on the three dresses. Here are some pictures of them outside under the walnut tree. I really like the flow of the walnut dyed dress on the far right. On the far left is the plain, natural silk. The pattern is my own. I have included a rough bitmap but I don't think it is a very good drawing. It is a pretty basic tunic with gores.










I think many folks in SCA use a similar tunic design for the under dress. What is extant is mostly just little fragments of weave or trim. Trim helps keep fabric. People are apt to cut off the end of a sleeve and stick it in a trunk for later use. It has given me a few ideas on what is extant and what is not. We keep preaching this 'there is no extant 12th century garb' but there are a few rare pieces and loads of fragments. You can tell a lot from a fragment. One thing I have learned from patterning is that no two people do it exactly the same way. The big thing is achieving the look you want. If you have that planned out in advance, you won't have serious issues.

One thing we have not found with extant pieces is the curved armpit as in my pattern. Extant pieces tend to have diagonal gores or triangles in the armpit. That could easily be done on this cutting diagram by taking the triangular gore out of the corner between the sleeve extensions and the armpit. Squaring off the arm of the dress would be valuable too. Why didn't I do this? I like to take advantage of the bias of the fabric. That kind of stretchiness allows me to wear the same dress, fighting or not. My latissimus dorsi muscle tends to change shape when I am fighting. This has caused me problems in the past. I will make garb and it won't fit because of the muscle. That happened to me during my "Year of the Norse" clothing scare. 8 dresses, two of which still fit.

The sleeves are plenty long and it seems I can get on with lining the cloak and making the over dress. I have been very intersted in doing sleeve treatments from Chartres on my aqua silk, but I am not sure which ones to do. I had better get on it soon.

accessories!

In my quest to be more period, I have been working on some accessories for my costumes. I picked up a bunch of garment leather to do details on various projects, but it was also cheaper than the half hide I bought. I can use the garment leather to make patterns, much like a dressmaker would use muslin. I know I need a tough, leather bag for my every day items. I plan on making an alms bag for money. What is the difference?

Wallets, pouches and purses were used for personal items. It all depends on the time period, where you are going and what your social class is, of course. I am a French Courtier or a nun, depending on how old I feel that day. I have finally decided. There are days when a Dominican Habit and the 13th century do not fit. It is then when you are a 12th century French Courtier. (Not courtesan. I am merely a minor hanger-0n in court.)

I found an interesting 12th century bag for sale that featured a kidney shaped flap. You can see them at http://www.by-the-sword.com/acatalog/images/gh0055.jpg or at http://www.jekylthehidesmith.com/12thCenturyWallets.htm for reference. The picture is lifted from jekylthehidsmith.com but I am giving them a plug. I found a couple of original examples that I am having a devil of a time finding again. It seems that in leather, the bag with the kidney shaped flap was the stylish thing to wear. Fancy alms bags were a must. I will need both. I am also an organization freak so I will be adding tiny wallets for things like money, contacts, medical info and my cell phone (which will be on vibrate at vents.)



I started by creating an outline. It seemed like the illumination pages and the extant pieces did not have a base like we find in a modern purse. These were wallety-pouches. They generally have a strap with a buckle closure or a beaded tie. Some were one points to attach to the belt and some were two. I really prefer the two as is shown in the jekyl piece, but most of the drawings I found were single straps. I wrote the purveyors to see if they had an idea of where they got the design.

My first try was going to be a single point with a simple buckle closure since I have a gazillion buckles left over from the boxes of buttons. I pulled out a brass one that I figured I could live without and that looks period. I took some polish to it and cleaned it up and wow, it looks great. Huzzah for recycling. I basically whipped it up to see how the thing would look if I were to make another. The blue on blue is tough to photograph.

What would I do differently? I would edge the flap. I would also line the final version. I think two points are necessary with this weight leather. I would do a final version of a more durable leather. I would also double over and edge stitch the straps. I also did a curved bottom which is kind of silly. I didn't see examples of that. I think outside stitching or a pounded folded edge seam would be more fun too. All in all, the pattern is only about 1/2 inch off. Of course, if I were smart I would just buy one.

Christmas...

I have a huge case of the I wants today.

Aureelia's Christmas List:

My own bottle capper.
Some wood.
A new shield (GREGGIE!)

Anything on this page:
http://www.revivalclothing.com/catpages/talbot/tal_buckles.htm


Books I need (or think I need.):

Blood Red Roses: The Archaeology of a mass grave from the Battle of Towton AD 1461 (Hardcover) by Anthea Boylston (Editor), Christopher Knusel (Editor), Veronica Fiorato


More to come...

Three Colors

Well, not as happy as I had hoped. You can see differences. I think we know now that I will never be a professional. THEY AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE PALE! I am doing something wrong. I have to do more research. Oh, it looks so easy on paper, doesn't it?

Left to right: Walnut with Alum mordant on silk, plain raw silk, fermented cochineal on silk.

Still, they aren't suckage. The walnut is a pretty color. I do like it. It would look smashing under a green or gold wool dress. I have a lot of sewing to do and a lot of thinking over how to get all of this a great deal darker than it is.

kirtle

Dear God I am fat! Whoa, those things in the front are falling fast. Remind me to wear a bra. It never hits you until times like this, does it? I am getting broader by the year. Yeesh. Hey, but that can be fixed.

Let's look at the kirtle. It is 100% silk, dyed for 2 hours in fermented cochineal. The mordant was alum. This can go under a cote or a bliaut. The color does show up in a few illuminations, but I am going to check with Master James. I think they are faded.

The length is good and the arms rauched a lot. HUGE amounts. Maybe too much. I think it is just a tad too bulky. Here is an arm shot. All the seams are frenched and except for a tiny part under the armpits, they are perfect. The tightness around the arms is weird, but I think I can live with it.



Maybe I should trim them? What do you think?

The color in the top picture is more realistic to what the dress looks like. It is a sort of raspberry. This sleeve picture is over exposed and I lightened it so you can see how much is bunched up on my forearm.

Walnuts

I began the walnut dye a few days ago. I steeped the hulls three days, until it was a whimpy coffee color. I then strained the mixture and peeled off the hulls and boiled them for 2 hours. The dye vat took on a murky coffee color, or deep roasted bone beef stock. This is the silk right after I turned it. It has been in 5 minutes.

In the meantime, I boiled five yards of silk with an alum mordant solution. I am told this will be more mahogany. Dying looks much easier on the page that it is in reality. I love this part of the research because I find so many things are NOT things you can simply follow the instructions on and have it come out perfect each time. I am turning the cloth every fifteen minutes as it boils away in the vat. It is actually at a very slow simmer and I keep a polyester net bag full of hulls in there to deepen the color.

In the meantime, it is lampwork, stewing the dried and recently fermented cochineal to see if it can do red or once fermented always mulberry, cutting out the plain silk kirtle and sewing up the pink kirtle. I have learned my french seams and I believe good material helps you learn. Silk needs the added seams. It prevents it from raveling. Now, the neckline is a problem I am not quite sure what to do. The various instructions seem at odds and it is hard to french. So, I do it my way. Go me. This is the kirtle or under dress.

Oh! It has been an hour.
How about a picture on our progress with that dye vat? It is darker, but not nearly as much as I wanted. I am disappointed. Why isn't it super brown?? This is silk! It should be dying a very dark color. It isn't bad though, is it? This is probably the final color and it isn't awful by any means.

I will go back to pinning the pink kirtle.

Bumpy beads

This is my first try at raised bumps. I still have control issues and need practice, but my cousin Jeffy has gladly taken all my old beads off my hands. I am doing custom beads for her for Christmas. It is a fun idea because she can motivate me to do what suits her, which is also a direction for me to practice.

The evil eye project is basically done. I am going to do a couple of bracelets so I will be making more evil eye beads, but not right now. I really need to learn and perfect dot techniques of all sorts and raised bumps are a big deal.

I am also on the search for nice wool and lining for my new clothing. The kirtles are coming along nicely and I should have pictures up later. I am going to french the seams, but only because it is good when working with silk.

Pink Tunic

Eh.. well this is another thing that will end up in Gold Key. The good thing? I used a bunch of scraps except for the trim. The black is a washed silk twill bordered with a black braid. The tunic is sportswear so it will be perfect to loan, when I get to that point. It will be sturdy and wash well in cold water.

It is nice and uniform. The washed silk came from a skirt that I tore the gusset on a few years ago. I stashed it to use for trim. I did the same with a pair of dark jade green pants. I plan on using them later but with a linen dress I have in mind. It kept me out of trouble!

On another note, I gave all my old lampwork beads to my cousin Jennifer. She has ideas and I am going to make the beads and give them to her. Then, she can order what she wants. She wants green, blue and red cubes. They will be very small. She also wants some beads with texture. It was nice because everything she wanted was period.

Dying!

I have been going a little nuts because the dye vat of indigo is stalled out. I need to put the whole mess in a metal container and warm it for a while. I don't want to because it is going to smell awful. I did get a huge container of soda ash from the pool supply place. I cannot say it was cheaper, but I think it may be.

Instead of indigo, today is cochineal. I am working on the colors and seeing what will come of what I am doing. I started with an old sideless made of unknown material. I decided to use this as my test while I wait for one cotton broadcloth to dye and some silk to mordant. Alum is the mordant and I am doing an amonia rinse on the unknown fabric. I mean seriously, no big deal if this doesn't look great.

I started with my dye pot which was 4 ounces of ground bugs that were fermented for about 2 weeks. I intended to dye things within a day but my schedule got busy and I needed the big pot for other things. I plunked my disgusting blend of bugs into a strainer and kept all their nasty little bodies for more dying later.

I can see they will have more life in them. The instructions for cochineal often mention they can be reused. They just have to be dried throughly and bagged. They will not be as strong, but as you can see here, they have plent of life left in them. Or dye that is, since they are especially dead after having been pried from their host prickly pear, dried, ground, boiled, fermented and drained.

One of my problems is this is a late period dye that I will be using on early period clothing. I am not too concerned as that only will be of concern to very informed folks. I am going to be embroidering on scraps of this dye lot for other dresses and probably will put a bit of wool embrodiery on the under dress I am doing for this particular piece.

I am also using rubber gloves to handle the material. This stuff is really chapping and drying out my hands. I think it is the alum. I am also handling very hot material as I am treating it twice. The fabric is simmered in the alum mordant and then I am swapping it right into the vat of cochineal.

Here is the fabric in the vat.

Notice the deep, rose color? This is after about 10 minutes in the cochineal solution. It is developing and interesting color that I am very fond of, so I couldn't be more pleased.

This particular piece is two different fabrics. They both appear to be a cotton/polyester blend. I am not sure how well it will take the dye, but that is what experiments are about. The colors really changed by the time I took them out of the vat. You can see the difference in the colors of the two fabrics.








Then I put it through an amonia rinse. This is to set and alter the final color. I did this in the washing machine and now it is showing every little mistake in my dying. You really have to get in there and turn everything and rotate the fabric for even coverage. The end result wasn't quite as pretty as what I pulled out of the dye vat. You can see the mistakes and it isn't nearly as dark.

It isn't horrible though and it has far more character. The distinction between the fabrics is blatant though. I will take pictures of it on me after I find something to put on the sides.