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.

Silk Banners! Or, this Oda Cannot Draw a Straight Line

Yesterday I spend the afternoon with a couple of SCA friends (my former peer and her husband) working on a new silk banner.  To be strictly correct, it's currently my ONLY silk banner, they were working on replacing/augmenting their current silk banners.  Always nice to have someone who knows what they are doing when you doing something like this for the first time!

The motto translates as Shadows Pass, Light Remains.
A good reminder for me right now, and it reminds me a little
of the Litany Against Fear from Dune

We made large silk pennons which we will probably fly from our pavilions or from poles next to them.   I'm not 100% sure that silk painting in this manner is strictly period, but from what I've been able to fine the style of banner is and the idea of painting fabric to make a banner of some sort is, and this being the SCA no one seems much to care beyond that.  The silk looks lovely fluttering in the breeze and is actually very easy to paint with modern silk painting materials.

There are a number of good websites on how to do these types of banners.  It's a lot of fun and quite easy to do.  The most difficult part is stretching the silk.  We have two styles of frame to start with, one of wood and another of PVC with integrated legs.  Even with the legs, the PVC was much less expensive to construct, easier to build and move around, more adjustable, and easier to store.  The silk was cut to something close to size, attached with rubber bands and large safety pins (though you could also sew it on to the frame the way you attach fabric to an embroidery frame) and you are ready to go!

We also found it helpful to have several yard sticks (and a couple of old leese sticks, we're all weavers so these are plentiful) to support the paper we had drawn our designs on while tracing with the resist and to rest our hands on while painting.  Unfortunately I didn't take in-progress photos but again, there is a lot of good information out there.

Overall I am really happy with how this turned out.  The wool combs from my arms could stand to be a little larger, and there isn't a straight line to be found, but once flying in the wind no one will notice. There are also a couple of small drip spots and bleed overs, but again you can't see them from a distance.  We found that the darker colors covered up the light color drips/bleeds very well, and that once one color dried it created a bit of a dam for the adjacent colors.  Not as good a break as the resist, but it worked pretty well.

I'll be doing wool applique for my next banner project.  I know that both methodology and application are correct for my time period in this case, and it will create a heavier piece suitable for hanging on the wall of my tent or displaying as an actual banner with all the necessary hoists and supports.

Some resources:
Midrelm article on Banners, Standards and Pennons
How to Paint Silk Banners (PDF file, very good instructions!)
Flags and Banners in the SCA (another PDF, great overview of various shapes)
Dharma Trading Co. (for all the supplies!  Great place to get Dynaflow paints, gutta resist, and even silk to make your banner, plus lots of instructions on how to use whatever products you choose.  We used these paints - http://www.dharmatrading.com/paints/dye-na-flow-fabric-paint.html)

Perugia Style Turban

Last year at Ymir (a Viking themed SCA event held in North Carolina every February) I displayed my Perugia style towel for the first time.  One of my fellow spinners was so excited about it that she commissioned me to weave her a similar turban for her Italian kit.  What with one thing and another, it took a full year to get the sucker done but I did and was able to deliver it to her at Ymir.

The basic idea was to produce something along the lines of the turban shown in The Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano, 1423.  There are a couple of other similar paintings with simpler color work on the cloth but this one looks the most like a typical "Perugia" design to me.  As I found when weaving the original towel, the complex pickup pattern is a bit beyond my looms capabilities, especially when working with 40/2 linen at a fine set, so I opted to create a simplified pattern based on Rose Path twill.

The finished turban is 22 inches wide and about 80 inches long.  I've found that for me and other anatomically large-headed folks this works well for a nice turban wrap.  If you want to do something similar for yourself, I would suggest starting with the circumference of your head as the width and experimenting with the length you will need for the wrap style you want in purchased linen before you commit to a warp width and length.  Linen ain't cheep and everything about warping with fine linen is a huge pain.

Aside from measuring the warp, which was doubly miserable as I warped two projects at once (more on that later, I wove two head wraps on the same warp so make the best use of my time dressing the loom) the weaving was not too bad.  I need a warping mill.  6 1/2 yard lengths on a warping board suck and most of what I want to work on right now are long lengths of cloth for clothing.   I used boiled flax seed dressing, diluted and sprayed on with a spray bottle, and tried to keep the level of humidity around the loom as high as I could.  This helped with getting a clean shed and maintaining even tension, though was difficult as I did the bulk of the weaving in the dead of winter when the highest temperature we had was in the low 20s.  A humidifier might have helped.

I also started out the project with fishing line running along with my floating warp.  This made adding a bit of tension to those threads to keep them from getting lost in the selvages much easier and prevented them from abrading too much and breaking.  I still quite a few extra weights attached to the back of my loom (it looked like a Christmas tree back there) but overall it worked out very nicely.

Angel wings (brackets that hold the lease sticks in place and at a fixed width) were a HUGE help.  It was much easier to find broken ends and I was able to warp by myself with very little trouble.  Not only was I able to maintain the cross in the warp, but it helped to even out tension and spread the warp out properly behind the lease sticks.

The only major problems I still need to work out are some weird tension issues that developed when I got to the second project on the warp.  I started having a lot of breakage and tangling that I didn't run into on the turban.  I suspect I need to wind onto the back beam with help when working with linen.  Some of the problems might have been fixed had I used a warping mill.  I don't have any plans to weave linen in the near future, by the time I get around to it again I will hopefully have a mill.  

The turban came out beautifully in the end and my client was very happy with it.  I was a little sad to see it go, but I know it's gone to a good home and will be worn with pride and love.

War of Wings Feast

This year at War of the Wings (a kingdom war here in Atlantia that takes place every October) I decided to spend Friday cooking a period feast over the firepit using as many period cooking techniques as I could.  I only used one modern sauce pan and a single dutch oven (which isn't the worst concession to modernity as they had similar things, I just don't happen to own the period equivalent as of yet).

The meal turned out really well.  The biggest disaster turned out to be the guest list, we had some missing people and ended up with a lot more leftover than planned but that's not so bad.  People wandering by were pretty impressed that we had a high table set up in camp in such a primitive camp site.  The food turned out well, everyone enjoyed it, and no one got sick, so I count that as a win!  Here's what we ate -

Bread - I made a honey wheat bread in the dutch oven.  While not necessarily a period bread recipe, baking in the coals is a period method and it was a lot of fun.  The first loaf turned out beautifully except that it got charred on the crusts.  I ended up giving it to the rest of camp and they made quick work of the inside of the loaf, leaving a scary carbonized crust.  The second loaf sort of collapsed a bit in the middle but baked perfectly and was still tasty.  I think the over wasn't quite hot enough but as this was the first time I had baked in the dutch over on my own I think it went pretty well.

Birds on the Spit - I spit roasted 3 chickens on the spit my cousin made me for Christmas.  These turned out quite nicely and the spit worked great, though they didn't cook as evenly as I would have liked.  I think the spit was overloaded.  Next time I'll limit myself to 2 birds at a time.

Pumps - Medieval meatballs.  These are really tasty and were a big hit.  I've made these twice before and decided to double up the recipe this time, which turned out ok but if I do this again I will need a bigger pot as they didn't cook as evenly as I would like.  The balls need more room to float around in the broth.

Buttered Worts - I used spinach this time, though you can use a range of leafy greens for this dish.  Last time I did this I had spinach and mustard greens which was quite nice.  This time I simplified the cooking, sauteing the leeks in a large pan over the fire in butter, then adding the greens then a bit of the stock from the pumpes.  When the greens were done I dumped everything over the sopes.  Very good and much easier than all the boiling, though I suppose the boiling may be necessary for some greens.

Roasted Turnips - again simplified the preparation by turning this into a single-step baking process, baking it in the dutch oven.  Worked fine and was very tasty.

Lumdardy Tart (beet pie) - Yum!  People had no idea this was beets until I told them.  To be fair, there is some debate about whether the recipe refers to beet root or beet greens.  I used beet root, and more than called for than the redaction linked, and it was good.  I've seen other people use Swiss chard, which might be interesting to try some time, but this is a tasty version that people like.

Apple Muse - Basically applesauce, with a twist.  If you can't get saunders, I would suggest cutting back on the honey and being careful with the saffron, perhaps adding a bit more salt.  Do NOT use food coloring, the saunders is doing more than adding color (I found this out the hard way the last time I made it).  It was a very nice dish a good way to end the meal, and is REALLY nice with a bit of heavy cream and powder blanch on top.  Be sure to use the best apples you can get.

Pears in Syrup - I like to add cinnamon, galangal, mace and a bit of nutmeg to the spice mix and try to always use turbinado or demara sugar for the extra flavor.  The leftover are killer on french vanilla ice cream.  This makes for a nice, light-ish dessert and is very easy to cool over the fire, you can set it in the cooling coals and pretty well forget about it until you are ready to plate it.

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.

New Needlework Books

The Royal School of Needlework (they of Kate's wedding lace fame) have some out with a series of very affordable, compact instructional books on a range of needlework techniques many of which are if interest to the reenacting crowd.  There is one on blackwork, one on goldwork, whitework, stumpwork, silk shading, and a range of other techniques.

I got the volumes on whitework and goldwork as Christmas gifts this year and am very impressed.  While not aimed specifically at the historically minded crowd, they cover the actual hows and whys of the subject, as well as bit of history.  The instructions are clear and the photography is both beautiful and helpful.  They won't take the place of in-person instruction for those who really need it, but if you learn well from books, or have had some class instruction and just need a reminder these are a great resources.  And at around $15 new, the prices are great! A lot of other needlework books focus either on history to the exclusion of instruction, or pack in so much information that they overwhelm the reader and it becomes difficult to find the directions you need one how to execute a particular stitch when you need it.  These seem to fill the gap quite neatly and should prove to be a valuable reference for both new and experienced needleworkers. The goldwork book in particular has a wonderful section on threads, explaining in detail the difference between all the different types of gold threads and how best to work them.  This alone is worth the price of the book, as for whatever reason this very important information seems to be missing from all of the other books on goldwork that I have in my library.  Kind of important stuff, and wonderful to have all in one place!  The author also does a great job explaining what sorts of working threads to use with the metal and emphasis the need to use the right sorts of needles and reserve needles and scissors for use with metal threads alone (critical, as the metal damages them and makes them useless for more delicate silks and cottons). I am looking forward to picking up the volumes on blackwork and crewel work.

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!

Life and Hose From a Flat Pattern

Wow...what a crazy last few weeks (has it been a whole month?) it's been!  We decided to swap offices, which turned into a pretty major renovation on the garage/office (or groffice) which was become my sewing studio.  It was badly converted by the previous owner and the dogs and my former cat did some pretty major damage to the old carpet that had been glued (!!??!) with ever so much glue down.  So once all the stuff got moved out into various other parts of the house, including the dinning area and my loom room, the DH pulled out the stinky carpet and I went to work with stripper and a scraper.

Ugh.

Then I painted the walls, painted the floor (in the end, faster than putting down tiles or some sort and there are no cracks for any further doggie accidents, plus we can tile or linoleum over it) and moved in last weekend after a five day trip to Southern California to visit my grandmother for her 90th birthday, only no one had bothered to let me know she had been sick for all of March and was in a convalescent home until the week prior to the trip.  She's 90, so things starting to go is not that surprising but still it would be nice to know that she was *that* sick.

But I digress.

While out in CA, I visited one of my favorite wool shops, Village Spinning and Weaving, which is where I got my spinning wheel, and they placed a wholesale order for my knitting needle cases!  Hurray!  My very first wholesale account!  So in the midst of all this work space moving I've been trying to fill a wholesale order, stay current on the commission I have for later this month, and get the projects I have to do for events this month done.  All I  have to say about that is thank God my anxiety meds are working.  This is all very good stuff, but it's more than I have had on my plate at once time since the accident.

Anyhow, one of the commissions I have right now is for a pair of men's hose appropriate for a Norman persona.  The client is a member of my Viking living history group and lives in North Carolina, so the authenticity standard is high and the availability of his leg for fittings is low. I will see him next weekend, so that plan is have a mock up ready for him, and hopefully cut out and at least start assembling the hose (mostly by hand) at the reenactment event we will be at.  My usual method of draping a hose pattern clearly isn't going to work here, so I had to figure out how to flat pattern hose.  Luckily I found a hose drafting tutorial at the Medeival Tailor!  Hurray!  The only problem with it is that the foot shape isn't quite what I wanted for an early period set of hose, she's got a simplified version of the London hose with a flat, inset sole peice, which as it turns out is documentable, but the more typical shape for early period seems to the stirrup style you see in the original London hose, the Greenland finds, and even a pair of Roman hose.  There is a seam under the foot in this style of hose, which can be a little weird for modern feet to adjust to, but done in wool the seam would compact and not be a problem.

I decided to use my husband's linen hose and a set of wool hose for myself as a test to get the foot shaping right and what do you know but this is even easier than draping!  It helps that the pattern shaping is fundamentally simpler than the gore type hose I was making before, but I think you can see from the photo that it fits quite nicely.  This pair was made up after one fitting, after which the only modifications I had to make were to take in the toe area and adjust the curve of the heel.  I could have probably avoid the toe adjustment if I had taken more measurements of the foot, but I wanted to work with the measurements I had of my client.  Getting the heel curve right I suspect just takes some practice and a little adjustment, not a big deal.

I will have to write up how I did this, as TMT's directions are really only useful until you get to the bottom of the leg, once you get into the foot shaping things go a little funny if you want the seam under the foot sort of hose.  To give you some idea, I was able to get the pattern drafted, fit and a pair of hose constructed in less than 3 hours, as compared to the 6 it took when draping just to get a pattern.  I still need to hand finish the seams but that's a huge time-saver.

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!

The finished Venetian Coat and 12th Night report

Here it is, in all it's glory!  Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  For a weeks worth of work, it's not too bad.  There are some minor tweaks with the fit I would like to do, and had I had more time I probably would have done a few things differently (doing a full lining for one thing, and side splits for another) but it looks good and the client was happy was happy and comfortable, which is the main thing.

12th Night was quite a bit of fun.  I was a little worried about the drive down there, I have not been a car for that long since my surgery in August, but I was ok coming and going and am only a little sore today.  Given all the walking we did on Saturday and how cold it's been, that's not surprising at all.

There were quite a few more merchants there this year than last, which was really a nice surprise.  Eadric the Potter was set up, and I got a really beautiful 14th century ceramic cookpot for camp.  Eadric does amazing work and is very knowledgeable, if you are not familiar with what he does you should check our his website and his Etsy shop.

I also found a new guy to buy reasonably priced reproduction buckles from!  Hurray!  Thorthor's Hammer does lovely work, and as I said is quite reasonably priced, which is novel for metal workers in this area.  I got a really pretty little heart shaped annular brooch for $8.  Score!  Plus he has fibulae for Roman that don't cost an arm and a leg, so I will be able to replace the buttons on my tunica exterior.

Aside from shopping, I did enter my Eyelet Brick Stitch bag of Doom into the A&S display, along with the lampworked rosary, neither of which had made it to 30 Year or WOW last year.  It was a little hard to watch people Picking Up The Bag (!!!) but nice to see that they appreciated the work that went into.  I was awarded a silver nautilus in evening court for it too!  For those of you not in Atlantia (or in the SCA) this is an arts and sciences award given out for an extraordinary achievement in the arts.

Now I've got to get myself together to KASF, it's only 2 weeks away! Gah!  I'm not making anything new, or competing, but my display is a mess.  I need to get organized and make sure I have all my A&S 50 stuff in some kind of order.