"You have nothing to be worried about. I'm here to help."

And the plague doctor mask is finished!

It's not perfect, but for my first attempt at leather mask making, I'm quite pleased with it. It fits my face nicely and I think it will lend itself well to being modified for future incarnations.

I've sewn up a simple muslin cone to hold the flowers and spices that will form the very last part of the mask. I've decided on a mix of carnations with cinnamon, cloves, and possibly some nutmeg, but I won't be mixing that up until a day or two before the event, because I want the flowers to be as fresh as possible and the event is still four weeks away.

And now to write up my documentation... ugh, the curse of the blank page....

I know now why I was putting off the next step of the plague doctor mask. It was the part that was intimidating me the most - setting the glass lens.

I shaped a piece of leather in the manner of 14th century glasses and soaked it overnight to make it more pliable. I could believe the difference the soaking made, it was so easy to shape the leather around the purchased glass discs. It's just a shame I procrastinated while sewing, meaning the second eye piece, the one on the right, had mostly dried out by the time I sewed it down. The eye pieces I think will need a little more shaping to finish them off, though I'm wary of trimming too much and having the lens fall out of their settings.


So now the mask is mostly done! I'll need to apply straps and buckle to secure the mask around my head, possibly with another across the top of the head for comfort. Plague doctors of the 14th century believed in the strong scents of flowers like roses and carnations, herbs and spices, or even vinegar soaked sponges to keep at bay the miasma or bad air that was believe to cause disease. The nose will need a muslin bag I think, as I don't want to end up with cinammon scented rose petals trapped for all time at the end of the nose.

And now it's time for me to get in a little quick baking, because home baking always makes long car journeys go quicker. Especially when they involve getting up at stupid-o-clock in the morning on a saturday.

This week I had that most frustrating of experiences - a dead end interwebs search. I was searching for an Edwardian era walking skirt or corset skirt of a particular style, but despite bringing to bear my personal researcher and asking a community of dressmakers: no joy. It's forced me to realise the internet does not have everything. It lied to me. 

So I took the only resonable course of action and bought more fabric than I strictly need right now. Some people buy comfort food. I buy comfort craft. And ice-cream.
The purple brocade is a stretch fabric, but I plan on using it for a sew-along I'll be starting at the end of the month. The green fabric is taffeta, my absolute fabric fabric. At 4 metres for only €20 I couldn't pass it up.

In the mean time, work on the plague doctor mask has been progressing nicely. I have the beak assembled and have learned not to store arkward shapes like spools of thread there anymore. The glass circles have arrived, so all that's left is the shaping of the last face piece. I've been reassured that the stitching I've been using is period (pre 17th century), so very shortly I'll have to start putting together my documentation.

The rest of the weekend passed and I did indeed manage to start on my A&S project. A leather plague doctor mask.

Behold my elite leather working set up with high tech binder clips.

I used a cream leather from my stash and an imitation sinew that I've been looking to use for a while which goes beautifully well with the tone of the leather. I pre-pierced the sewing holes with an awl and have been sewing the seams in what I could best describe as a variation of a butt seam.

The first part of the nose seam was hard going, but after a completely necessary ice-cream break, my hands remembered what they were doing and got properly into the swing of the stitch. I should be able to complete the lower part of the nose and hopefully the glass circles I've ordered for the eye pieces won't be too much longer about arriving.




This mask may well end up being a prototype so I can learn the method before I remake it, this time paying proper attention to the historical methods.