New Frilled Veil

Good grief I have not posted in a long time! Suffice it to say, Life Happened. I've moved 3 times since I wrote last, first to California, then again in California, and most recently to Oregon where I will hopefully be staying for a good long time. In the midst of all that, I have not been working on very many projects.

I did decided that I needed to make a new frilled veil. The first one that I did had a small frill which held up well without starch but it went all limp and sad after I washed it. I think it really does need to be starched after I wash it, so once I get some earplugs or something to put in the pleats I will give this a shot.

In the mean time I need a new one that will not need starching and hopefully hold up better to washing.  I also harbor a deep and not-so-secret desires for a ridiculous fluffy veil, but again being able to wash the thing once in awhile would be nice.  Cathrin at Katafalk made a lovely non-starched frilled veil a couple of years ago, which I am excited about as it is 1 - not starched and 2 - detachable!  Making the frill removable will help a lot with my washing issue, as I've found that the frill itself is not what gets dirty fastest, but the flat veil section.   Elina at Neulakko's version has somewhat deeper/larger frills (I have a big frill/buns problem as well) and it looks wonderful.

I have managed to cut out my frills and have been hemming and hemming and hemming.  I'm going for a four-layer look which seems to have been popular and should work well with my no-starch plan as the extra fabric will, hopefully, help to support itself.  It does seem that having frills front and back is a bit more common so that's what I'm planning to do. (check out my pintrest board for a collection of relevant images and links) This thing is going to be substantial!

For those of you new the whole frilled veil phenomenon, Isis Sturtewagen did a master's thesis on these as well as a number of other articles.

Breast Bag thoughts

Much and more has been written already about the Lengberg Castle "bras."  I'm not going to rehash any of that except to say it seems fairly certain that by at least the 15th century wearing some sort of supportive undergarment *other than* a fitted gown was not unknown.  I've been playing around with making one of these for the better part of a year now and here are some thoughts.  I've set up a pintrest board on period undies and another on modern undies to collect images and helpful links, rather than overburdening this page.

1. It appears that "lifted and separated" was the the ideal boob shape for most of the period I am interested in.  This really cannot be accomplished with a fitted gown*, which gives you more of a mono-boob shape.  Furthermore there is plenty of textual evidence for breast-shaping garments (and surgery!!  WTF??) in the later middle ages which suggests to me that a breast-bag garment is more likely to have been employed than a super tight gown.

2.  There is more than one way to bag a breast.  The "long line bra" option is but one of four breast-bag garments that were found.  It seems to have gotten the most press as it looks the most like a modern bra, but looking at visual sources as well as what is available on the find themselves suggests that many means of lifting and separating were possible.  Just like we have lots of bra styles today, both for fashions sake and to accommodate different anatomy, they did the same thing back then (and why ever not?  People in any given period of time face the same basic challenges and needs).

3. This one is my favorite - modern bras and bra making can teach us a whole heck of a lot about how to actually construct a plausible period breast bag.  Again, the basic facts of anatomy have not changed.  Breasts are what they are and there are some basic rules about constructing supportive and shaping garments that do not change regardless of time period or shape being sought.  This is not to say a corset-is-a-corset or that a bra-is-a-bra, but in either case the garment is being supported at the waist line in the case of a corset or at the underbust line in the case of something bra-like.

Understanding the importance of the bra band and how to get the center point of a bra to tack (that is, sit flush against the rib cage) makes fitting a period style breast bag MUCH easier.  Keeping in mind that my breasts are on the heavy side (another thing I would not have known without a foray into modern bra making), the bust band must 1 - exist and 2 - be snug/tight.  This makes fitting the cups or bags much easier and proper support possible.  It's also what does the lifting.  The separating comes from how the cups/bags are arranged and fit on the body.

Once you figure out the band, you need to take a good hard look at your breasts and figure out where the root of the breast is (towards the center?  under your arm? someplace in between?)  and how much space you are working with at the center front.  The first version of the Lengberg bra I made had way too much space between the cups, which prevented the band from tacking and allowed my breasts to creep out from under the cups.  The current version has less space, but the band is still too loose so I am not taking but I am not falling out the bottom either.  Figuring out where to make adjustments to get better fit is not as obvious (or at least wasn't to me) but there is a certain logic to bra fitting and it's easier to see after playing around with actual bra patterns.   There are fitting instructions for these things after all, why not apply that accumulated knowledge?

4 - Tacking.  As I mentioned above, the idea of tacking is that the center portion of a bra (where the two underwires come together on a modern bar) should lay flat against the sternum.  This happens when the band is snug enough and the cups are sitting on the actual breast rather than starting too far to one side or the other of the breast root.  A properly fit bra that tacks is a marvel and if you have never had this happen I highly encourage you to put down the computer, go find a specialty bra shop, and get fitted.  With soft cup bras, this is not as likely to happen as there is nothing rigid for the band to pull against the body, but you should still not have inches of space between the band and your chest between the cups.  Some things that seem to work to get this to happen on a breast bag type garment are 1 - making sure the band is snug 2 - getting the center height and width right and  3 - making sure you are working with the right shape garment for your particular breasts.  

It's all about understanding your breast shape really.  Just like with outer garments, you've got to work with the body you have.  The first step in a well fit garment will always be understanding the shape of the body that will occupy it.

*assuming you have sufficient breast-mass to need help in this area

Some good resources

Here are a couple of great links that some of you may be interested in -

For the late-period enthusiast, Drea Leed has made her out of print book on 16th century Flemish working-class costume the Well Dress'd Peasant available in PDF format at http://www.elizabethancostume.net/welldressdpeasant.pdf.

If you are interested in Vikings, the best research summation I have seen thus far on apron dresses and under-gowns can be found here - http://urd.priv.no/viking/  She's got a lot of other great links and resources as well, all grounded in good archaeology.

More bra links

In an effort to *not* loose track of these link, here is a bit more material on the Lenberg bras and ladies undies in general:

BBC History article by Beatrix Nutz
More written sources from Medieval Silkwork
Another article by Nutz on the find

Boob wrangling!

Here is an interesting post with a great contemporary quote about 14th century bust supportive.  It's nice to have textual evidence for something bra-like as well as supportive gowns to fit in with all the great information that's been coming out about the Lenberg bras.

It's nice to know that boob wrangling was an issue for the ladies back then too.  Somehow knowing for certain that women weren't running around with things flapping in the wind back then makes me feel better.

Soooo hot!

Well, not so hot today but it has been quite warm in these parts for the past few weeks, and as my workshop has no AC I have not been getting so much done.  I'm also really lacking in motivation, I don't feel very good about myself just now (body image issues being a big theme for me) and I feel like sewing anything for myself is a waste of resources.  Sigh.  So I've been canning my crop of tomatoes, knitting, watching the Olympics, and working on two quilt projects I've had sitting around forever.  And spinning some wool for a sweater project I've also had around forever.  At least I'm being somewhat productive.

Isis over at Medieval Silkwork posted a great summary and some fabulous notes about the Lengberg bras for those of you interested.  I've got some great ideas for underwear now, and a documentable plan for supporting the girls under the Mary of Hungary gown.  Now to just get past my current I-am-gross-and-unworthy issue.

For those of you who knit, I make and sell knitting needle cases and bags to keep myself in wool and linen.  I'm currently running a contest and looking for some feedback on potential new fabrics.  Vote for your favorite print and you could win a needle case!

Lenberg bra!

There is finally an image of the Lenberg bra on line!  Hurray!  The Daily Mail has a short article on the undergarments found in Lenberg Castle which includes pictures of one of the bras and a pair of underpants.  Finally something in English!

This is a really interesting find and from what I can tell a paper should be included in the next NESAT with more details about the garments.  From what I have been able to find so far, the bras and underwear date to the 15th century and look quite a bit like their modern counterparts, save being made in linen.   It does explain how one would be able to get the high-busted look that was so popular at the time.  Fitted and supportive gowns are one option, but something about that approach has always bothered me.  It seems like a  small undergarment with shaped cups that is laced down the waist, like the one shown at right, would work better.  And don't even get me started on the whole "women didn't wear panties" thing.  A man must have come up with that one.

More on Mary

Unknown painter - Portrait of Kunigunde
of Austria, 1485  

Thanks for all the great comments on my last post!  Marion McNealy (from the Curious Frau for those of you not into German costuming), as it turns out, as a pintrest board (I love pintrest!) with some other gowns that are quite similar to the Mary of Hungary gown, including the Austrian example at left.  You can check it out here.  There are several examples there of what look to be decorative smocks which would be worn over a kirtle of some sort.  Looking at those images, I'm a lot more comfortable with the 1490ish dating of the gown.  The fancy over-smock is a feature of German costume at the time, and partlets were worn in more Western countries both over and under the bodice, so it makes sense.  The smock in this case is quite long, at least based on the pattern diagram of it I've been able to find, but having tried to wear short full smocks like this before the extra length would be a help as it would keep the whole thing tucked in neatly.

Of course now I wonder if the provenance of the gown is correct.  Given that it's a royal gown I would tend to think the history of it is at least somewhat correct and that Mary wore it, but why she would choose to wear something out of date by several decades is an open issue.  Marion suggested she may have been wearing one of Mary of Burgundy's gown, or one belonging to her sister in law, for the coronation festivities that occurred in the 1520s.  This makes sense and bears a bit more research.  I did find a website devoted to Hungarian art, so that should be a bit of a help.  There are a few images there that show gowns quite similar to this one.  Hopefully I will be able to find some reliable information on coordinating head-wear while I'm poking around.

So now I have a lot to think about, and may have to actually write up documentation on this project.  If I find anything interesting I will be sure to post about it.  I'm really wishing I spoke about 5 languages this week though, between this project and the Lengberg "bras" (more on that later) I'm running into a lot of translation issues.

Mary of Hungary

I'm in the process of planning my garb for 12th night this year, which is set at the court of Henry VIII early in his reign before he went all nutso and cranky.  Straight Tudor has very little appeal to me, and I had run across the Mary of Hungary gown awhile back so this seems like a good excuse to make it.  Plus there is smocking!  Yay smocking!

Anyway, the dress is supposedly dated to 1520, however the only other artistic representation of this style of gown I've been able to find so far is dated 1490.  It does sort of look like a cross between a late 15th century Burgundian gown and an early 16th century gown, so I'm wondering what the correct dating is.

I'm also not sure what the correct supportive undergarment would be for this.  My initial thought, given the 1520 dating, is a pair of bodies maybe with an attached petticoat, work under the smocked chemise.  Someone else suggested a 15th century style kirtle, and yet another person has suggested that the chemise is actually the body layer and the kirtle would then go over it.  Given the limited source material I have on this style, I'm not sure.  Wearing a chemise with silver embroidery on it next to the skin seems a little strange to me, as you can't really wash the embroidery.  Plus the stove tile that is my only other reference at this point appears to show the chemise without anything over it.

Has anyone seen any other references to this gown that might solve the dating/underwear questions?  So far I have the following-

Original article on Cynthia Virtue's site, with the stove tile image
Image gallery on Flight of Fancy
Project Diary/notes from Flight of Fancy - she mentioned two books as additional sources which I do not have access to
Hungarian National Museum description
Frazzeld Frau write-up
Pintrest board by Marion McNealy - the portraits here suggest an earlier dating (1475-90).  Marion has also told me that the museum is now dating the fabric to 1475, which given the images we have so far makes more sense.

Sleeve sources

The sleeves for the 12 Hour dress are really simple - big rectangles with an s-curve cut into the top.  They probably should be a little narrower than they are, as cut there are 2 pleats just back of the top shoulder, which does not seem to be a typical style for women's sleeves of the period (1410 or thereabouts).  Whatever, it's not unheard of and it hangs well, which is really the main thing.

As far as sources, here are two.  There are more, but these are the on-line ones that I used:

April from the Les Tres Riches Heures du duc de Berry :

There is another very similar sleeve, but with dagged edges, in Bibl. de l’Arsenal, ms. 664. fol 47. which I cannot find a picture of to link to.  There is a picture of it here on page 7.

Pouting

I had a very lovely discussion with some fellow weavers at KASF about my need to find a smallish table loom to do sampling on.  It's really a pain to warp up the big floor loom to do a small amount of weaving to test thing like set and thread suitability, especially since there is so much warp wasted on the bigger looms.  Imagine my joy when one of those weavers found a perfect loom, in wonderful condition, for sale near by for a really fantastic price!  And my little business had been doing well enough that I could have totally swung the cash.  Well...then Tuesday I was working away on some cornhole bags (bean bags for the non-initiated/tailgating redneck types, yes I am bitter) and my sewing machine decided to throw a fit.  The tension has gone totally bonkers.  Back to the repair shop it went, only to be told it's pretty well done with it's reliable and useful life.  


The good news is I now have a beautiful new babylock that should last me a good long time, even sewing cornhole bags and other thick fabrics.  The bad news is no loom and no money (anyone need a knitting needle case?)  So I am very sad and sort of pouting about the whole weaving situation, I really was hoping to get started on the Perugia project in the next week or two but oh well.  With some luck I will be able to go visit a friend who has a table loom for a couple of days and do the sampling there.

In the mean time, before the great Sewing Machine Disaster I was able to order all the linen for the DH's new suit of cloths so I can at least get started on that.  With a spanky new machine that will sew things nicely too!  Yay for that!  I've started looking at briaes patterns and images.  The pinboard is here if you are interested in what I'm finding. I'm learning towards a style like that seen at left, which is from Tacuinum Sanitatis (BNF Nouvelle acquisition latine 1673), c. 1390-1400: making millet bread (fol. 56).  Since he will have chauses over these rather than split hose, some extra length in the leg (as opposed to the brief style that you see a bit latter) will be more modest.  The super long ones with the weird floppy legs seem like too much for the poor boy to deal with.  This is a nice compromise.
The plan is to make one pair, make the chauses, see how it all works, then modify the briaes as needed.  He's not a big event-goer but he'll still want more than one set of these.  There are a couple of camping events I can get him to in a year so he needs enough manties to get through a weekend.

Perugia brainwaves

Yesterday was KASF (Kingdom Arts and Sciences Festival, an SCA event dedicated to all things artsy) and I had the very great pleasure to share my display space with some of my most favorite people from the northern part of the state, who I hardly ever get to see.  We're all apprentices, and all interested in the same things though with a focus on different time periods and geographic regions, so it's always fun to talk and see what we've all been working on.  We're also at different places in our skill sets and research, so it's fun to share sources and help each other out.

Besides, there are only so many people in the world who would get it when you mention that you want to eat a lot beets sometime to see if that really will turn your cloths pink, and not only that but then make plans to try it out with you.

Anyway, I'd been mulling over my Perugia towel project, and one of the women had what may be a solution to the very slow and tedious process of picking up every single blue pattern row with a pick up stick!  And it might actually be period! Opphampta weaving is something she's been doing on her drawloom, but you can do this on a 4-shaft loom like mine with a set of tie-up sticks and a sword. The idea, as far as I was able to gather in looking at the book while at the event, is that you tie up the draft for the pattern section on these supplementary sticks behind the sheds using string heddles. The sticks rest on the warp while you weave the plain weave sections in whatever pattern you are doing, then when it is time to do you damask or opphamta pattern, you pick up the appropriate sticks, slide in the sword to create the shed, throw you contrasting weft, and proceed. No more picking up each row and counting out each row by itself! Yay! Still slower than plain weaving but a whole lot faster than the other way of doing this, and totally within the skill set of the people who wove the original towels. I suspect this will work better for the more geometric designs, which is what I want to do for now anyway, but it could be set up to work for the more complicated patterns too.

 I also got a copy of a whole book dedicated to the cotton industry in Italy from 1100 to 1600 lat week, which I am very excited to start reading.  So far I've only thumbed through it, but it looks like it's well researched and should be an interesting read.  Since cotton was used in these towels, it will be useful to know more about where it came from and how it was produced as I write my documentation.  I'm also hoping to find out how else cotton might have been used during that period.  From my thus far very limited understanding, it was fairly expensive stuff, but it was cultivated in parts of the Mediterranean.  And interestingly, according to Marion at The Curious Frau, who is one of the most knowledgeable people about late period German costume out there, cotton was used to make those fun German headdresses that look like a doughnut stuck on the back of your head.

After all this, I still really wish I had an 8-shaft table loom to do some sampling on.  Oh well.  If anyone would like to buy me one...or failing that if you see a good deal on a used one that is somewhere on the east coast, do let me know!

Perugia towel research

I'm finally starting to make some headway on my long-delayed Perugia towel project.  This is a Very Good Thing Indeed, as I think it will be a fun challenge and produce something useful and (hopefully) beautiful in the process.

I'm starting to compile my visual sources on a pintrest board, a new (to me anyway) tool that I find wonderfully useful for this sort of research and also totally addictive.  What a great way for visual people like me to keep links organized!  Hurray!

Anyway, I did the indigo dying for the cotton contrast bands yesterday with very good results.  The blue came out nice and bright and even, so that's ready to go.  I have 3 tubes of 40/2 linen ready to go, which should be more than enough for one napkin sized towel.  I'm just starting to wonder if the 40/2 is too small.  20/2 is definitely too big, but I can't seem to find anything in between.  Last year I was given a tube of what I think is 30/2, but I'm not sure and can't find more anywhere anyway.  Gah.  Hopefully the 40/2 will work, that's the best I'm going to get.  Having to work at 48 EPI or small is a little terrifying, especially when I get to thinking about the pickup part (the blue bands are all done with a pickup stick, by hand), but this is supposed to be a challenge after all.

If you are at all interested in these towels, here are some on-line sources that might be of use to you:

http://larsdatter.com/perugia-towels.htm - tons of links to extant towels and art work with towels in it
Perugia Towels - a blog about Perugia towels and the weaving techniques used to make them.  Lots of useful information
Bibliography of Sources - Thora Shaprtooth's bibliography of sources on Perugia-wares.  Very helpful.
Affordable reproductions from Historic Enterprises.  Sort of makes me wonder why I want to make my own sometimes...

Coat Progress and new costume resource

The coat and camica are done!  Yay!  The client came last night for a fitting last night and the coat itself fit well and she was quite happy, but I had failed to up underarm gussets in the camica, which turned out to be desperately needed, so I put those in this morning.  That's what happens when you make a thing in 3 days with no chance for a fitting.  It's much better now, and we were able to get it placed well enough to see that the neck draping will work perfectly.  I may actually have the neck a little too wide, but that should be easily solved with a few pins.  It will work out perfectly if she ever decides to do an actual Italian gown.

Sadly, in the joy of finishing the blasted project, I failed to take a picture.  Not that it fits properly on my dress form anyway, about the only thing that would would be a costume from Downton Abby.  I will get a picture of the whole thing this weekend though.

In other later-period costuming news, Kendra at Demode posted yesterday about a fantastic resource for those of you/us interested in 16th century costume.  She found a scanned PDF of a book by Lucas de Heere with some really fantastic illustrations of contemporary costume, a couple of which I have not seen before (and I have done a lot of research into this period from my Faire days). What's really great about de Heere is that he's drawn common people, not just the aristocracy.

More hat pondering

Petrus Christus, after 1460, Portrait of a Young Girl

So I've been poking around at all the Burgundian hat pages I can find (not too many, sad to say, though there are a few) and the current generally accepted "right" way to make these things seems to be willow, cane or some other basketry method as opposed to stiffed fabric.  Huh.  I suppose this makes as much sense as another else, we know they knew how to weave straw, we know they wove straw into hats, so why not?  Of course, we also know they made felt and fabric hats and some of them (like the Phrygian style caps and loaf hats) are pretty architectural so I'm not really 100% convinced, but lacking any extant hats to look at, it's as good an argument as any.

What bothers me about this argument though is that many, if not all, of these cone type hats seem to be covered with fabric (though I can think of one that sort of looks like woven ribbons or a basket type surface, it's hard to tell).  Covering woven straw or reeds with delicate fabric seems like a bad plan, as the straw would wear through some of the clearly very delicate cloth that's on these hats. Sure, you can pad it out to protect the cloth, but that makes for a pretty chunky looking hat.

I don't know.  I have a lot of buckram so since I have that to hand and am not entering that hat in an A&S competition, I'm going to use that for the first version of the hat.  I've always loved the simplicity of the hat in the Christus portrait, and the neck drape is all kinds of fun, so I might go with that look instead of the more formal gold thing in the original painting I'm basing the actual dress on.  The black hat strikes me as less formal somehow, which I think would work better with my wool gown.  The dates on the paintings are close enough that I don't think it will be a problem, plus the hats are very similar in shape and sitting in the same position on the head (the gold hat is a little more rounded in shape) so the style doesn't seem to have changed much.

One other interesting structural mystery about these hats is the loop.  What are they for?  What are they attached to?  You can see in the Memling picture here, showing ladies with loops but no hats, that the loops appear to be attached to headbands or something attached to the hair, not the hat.  It might be that the hat sits over the loop/headband thing and attaches to it, with the loop acting as a counterbalance.  This makes a certain amount of sense to me.  When I was in college, I had to do a theatrical version of a horned hennin as part of my senior project and it was very difficult to counterbalance.  I solved the problem with some creative shaping in the back of the hat, which looked ok but prevented me from turning my neck in certain directions.  That same semester we had to make these big bubble-shaped head pieces based on the same hennin idea and solved the problem with little close fitting caps that went under the whole mess, so perhaps the loop-band is serving the same purpose. 

Staffordshire Hoard in D.C.!

I just found this article about an exhibition of a selection of more than a hundred pieces from the Staffordshire Hoard which will be on display in D.C. at the National Geographic Museum from October 29, 2011 to March 4, 2012!  Yay!  That's only 3 hours from home, and conveniently after the major recovery period from my surgery later this month!  I should be able to walk through the museum with no problem!

If you are in to Anglo-Saxon stuff in general, and metal working in particular (go shiny bits!) this should be a really amazing exhibit, and not to be missed!

Wrap front gowns?

I've been battling a nasty summer cold (no fun in a heat wave in Virginia) and haven't been overly productive since I got back from my trip to California.  I have been reading though.  While out at my parents house I found 4(!!) boxes of books from my undergrad days, mostly on Medieval and early modern history.  I picked out enough to fill two large flat rate boxes and shipped them home so they would be waiting for me when I got back.

One of the books I shipped is on the history of private life in the middle ages.  It's quite interesting, if you are into academic reading and social history (which I am).  But what got me really excited was the picture on the cover.  I can't find a citation for the cover image anywhere for some reason.  What you see here is a small version of the cover.  Amazon has a larger, though lower quality scan of the cover here Any ideas where this image comes from?  What's interesting to me is the two ladies in the back who appear to be wearing wrap front gowns.  The image to the right, a 15th century miniature by Jean Bourdichon seems to show a artisan's wife in a similar style dress (of course her arm is covering the bit of her gown that I really want to see, but she's also holding a distaff I'm ok with that).

We also have this image by my old friend Gerard David, which shows Mary Magdelan (in the cloak) wearing what might be a wrap front gown:

Unfortunately the clearest image I've found so far of this type of dress is the book cover I can't find any attribution for, but I'm intrigued.  The ladies in the book cover look like attendants, the artisans wife is clearly at work, so perhaps this is some kind of working overgown?     If I can find some more information about this style of dress, it would be a fun project.  I don't think I've seen anyone wearing a wrapped gown like this.

Vacation Report

I'm back from vacation in Southern California!  I don't recommend air travel, Disneyland, or the Getty on a gimpy leg necessitating being pushed around like a luggage cart but it was still a good trip.  My fabric haul was mostly quilt related, so not really applicable to this blog, but I did get to visit the Getty Villa, which has a wonderful collection of Greek and Roman art, great for my collection of source material on Roman clothing!  Yay!  Of course, they also have lots of images on line but there's something about seeing the pieces in person and in life-size that makes all the difference.  Plus you can take pictures close up of whatever details you want and from odd angles. 

I haven't uploaded my pictures yet, so these are all from the Getty's website, but will give you some idea of what's in the collection and what I found particularily inspiring:

 

A Portrait of a Woman as a Cybele is quite large and striking.  I like how she has her palla draped leaving one arm bare, and the crown/diadem on her head (though that might be what sets her apart as a cybele).  Something about her pose in the gallery was quite relaxing and natural.  She just seemed comfortable, sitting there with her little critters.

Leda and the Swan not cloths, but her hair is pretty and for some reason I just love this piece.  It's not huge in person, but strikingly beautiful and amazingly well preserved.  Probably my most favorite sculpture in the villa.

Faustina the Elder another way to wear a palla, this time much more modestly.  In person, it looked like the palla was tucked into the belt of her tunica somehow, which made me feel vindicated as I have done that myself to control the inside end of palla.  I also like the hair piled up on top of her head.

Muse what you can't see from the museum's picture is that she's got her hair in a ponytail!  The gallery this statue was in had several other muse's in it and at least one other was also working the ponytail look, which made me very happy.  They both looked to have hair that hung to just below the shoulders, maybe the middle of the shoulder blades at the longest.  Very cool on several levels, though again since it's a muse and no a portrait it's hard to say if a normal person would ever wear her hair that way.

Roman Necklace this was probably my most favorite piece of jewelry in the collection, it looks like something you could get today in a better jewelry store.  They actually had a reproduction of it in the museum store ($250, which isn't really bad at all).  They have a pretty good collection of jewelry and such, which you can look at here.  Lots of rings, but there are some of lovely necklaces and burial diadems as well.

Research tips

When I was working on my undergraduate history degree my thesis adviser gave me lots of good advice.  In addition to "Alcohol lubricates the brain" the other tidbit that has stuck with me and proved to be invaluable is "serendipity is your most valuable research tool."  She was right then, I found many of my most helpful source material shelved next to the book I was actually looking for, and it's still true now in the internet age.  A case in point...

Back in collage when I was active in the SCA the first time around (in Berkeley) I came across a picture of a tomb brass in a book of a lady in a funny loose gown with buttons all down the front, a silly hat, and a little dog.  This gown fascinated me and seemed terribly comfortable for camping, so I worked with one of the local Laurels to come up with a plausible period method of drafting the pattern and made the dress.  Soon after that I stopped playing and put the dress away.  When I became active again, I pulled the dress out, but was unwilling to wear such an odd style without having the documentation for it to hand.  I just couldn't remember where I had seen the picture, who it was of, or any details about it, nor could I find it in any of my own books.  None of the research geeks in my new group had any ideas either when I tried to describe it, so I stuffed the dress away and moved on.

I was surfing around last night looking for images of cloaks and mantles, specifically 14th and 15th century cloaks and mantles, and I came across this site on 14th century ladies fashion, mostly from tomb monuments and brasses.  Scrolling down the page, what do I happen upon but Lady Maylns, from Chinnor Church in Oxfordshir!  The very same tomb brass that inspired my weird gown!  Yay!  So now I can wear my funny loose over gown with all the buttons again, and have yet another excuse to make a frilled veil. 

Score another one for serendipity. 

Silly Hats

I am a huge fan of the silly hats.  Whole outfits have been worked around the wearing of silly hats.  This particular hat is not only silly but mysterious.  It looks like it's fur, but one could knit and full such a hat just as easily (in fact I think I saw someone at a Ren Faire once with just such a hat, though slightly smaller than the one in the portrait).  As I am planning to go to Pennsic this year anyway, I need more cloths, and starting with a silly hat makes as much sense as anything else, so here goes.  Now to figure out how it's constructed and what the best way to reconstruct it will be.

More information on the original portrait can be found at the National Gallery.

There's also this hat:

which to me looks like a mini version of one of these:

They both like a variation on a knit and fulled beret, or possibly a brimless wool flat cap like you see later on.  Of course the top lady is English and the bottom one is German, and a few decades apart, but the basic shape looks pretty similar.

Here's another portrait with a fabulous hairdo and headpiece I sort of love and may have to copy and thus work a whole outfit around as well (maybe the same outfit).  This one should be much cooler (duh) than the one above, and gives me a good reason to not cut off my hair.  I am sort of wondering if it's a beaded piece or a metal band though.  Beading would be far easier for me to do, as I already know how to do that.