Chopine Research

Several weeks of social obligations doesn't leave much time for blogging, so I'm going to update briefly on a project that's been running in the background. 

For a long while I've wanted to make myself a pair of chopines - that is, the original Italian high heel. I didn't really know where to start to find out information on them, despite numerous online articles I wanted to be able to verify some of the information for myself. I turned to my local library and ordered anything that seemed even remotely historic footwear related. Unfortunately, this wasn't terribly successful, but I did find out a few things from the books that turned up.

The Seductive Show: Four Centuries of Fashion Footwear by Jonathan Walford, Thames & Hudson - alas, this is the four centuries I'm not currently interest in, and gave only a brief mention of chopines and 16th century footwear. I could see myself coming back to it if I wanted to look into 18th or 19th century items in more detail.

Shoes: The Complete Sourcebook by John Peacock, Thames & Hudson - Filled with colourful illustrations followed by line drawings and a brief description, this might be a good book for someone who wanted ideas for what style to go for. But this book surprised me by having no references for the shoes that were studied. I had been hoping for something rather solid, a museum reference perhaps for pieces examined. Granted, there is a "sources for shoes" bibliography in the back which can lead me further on in this quest, so at least I have that.

A History of Show Fashion by Eunice Wilson - this was a little more interesting. This book had a whole (10 page) chapter dedicated to chopines and their evolution. It also had an interesting little snippet that has me rethinking what I thought I knew about chopines:
"most had mules attached into which the stockinged foot slipped; but others had real shoes attached which fastened over the instep. This was largely the difference between the chopine and the patten..the latter was held on by straps fastening over a separate shoe".
Chopines as footwear without a separate slipper? Now that is a completely different approach to one I had considered before, but makes an awful lot of sense.

This is clearly only the tip of the iceberg for these shoes - I'd still like to see some definite cork examples given how much I've seen the phrase "wood and cork were used to make chopines", especially as I have cork blocks waiting to be carved for my own shoes. And to see some more ideas on the slipper or no slipper idea.

SCA Experiments

Dear patient readers, 

I've been rather distracted this last month, between getting the fix for the ill health that was plaguing me for most of last year (for which I seem to now be on the mend), doing a little soul searching towards taking on commissions again (for which I've decided to go for it), and getting my event year off to a start by doing something scary (which is the topic of this post). 

Four years ago, I returned to the SCA events by attending Champions of the Court of Love. What better event then, to challenge myself to do something new and, for me, terribly scary: I volunteered to cook lunch. For all that I love baking, I do very little savoury cooking, and it mostly occupies the part of my mind dedicated to "things I have to do so I can craft". But last year, when a friend visited briefly on her way to the airport, I cooked a meal for her and she planted the seed of the idea, which I could not shake loose (I'm looking at you Chantelle). So with advice and help from many friends I planned the following menu: 

To start, stracciatella; an egg drop soup common in Italy, served with bread, though it seems to have analogues in nearly every country in Europe. Moving on to mushroom risotto, a dish common in Northern Italy, served with roast chicken and green salad, and hard white bisket to finish. 

For the stracciatella, I used a beef broth recipe from The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy by Odile Redon, Francoise Sabban & Silvano Serventi. A also made up a small portion of vegetable stock for the vegetarian attendees to the event. Using this as my base, I followed the directions in Martino's The Art of Cooking for a similar recipe, zanzarelli, for which I combined eggs, bread crumbs (I used gluten free bread on the day) and Parmesan cheese, which was beaten into the soup at the boil to create the whisps of egg that the recipe gets its name for. 

For the risotto, my preliminary research showed that not only was this dish common, but that nearly every town in Italy had it's own variant. The recipes of the Veneto region seemed to lean towards fish risottos, which not being terribly fond of myself, I decided to make up a mushroom version instead, by my own method. Several people have asked for the recipe for this, so here it is: 

Mushroom Risotto a Cassandra

Arborio risotto rice, rinsed with cold water

Shiitake mushrooms, sliced

Onion, chopped finely

Garlic, chopped finely

Vegetable stock, hot

Butter 

Egg yolks, beaten ( I use one per person in smaller batches)

Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed I've not included quantities in my above ingredients list. I have made this dish for myself, for 10 and for 40 at the event just gone, and a lot comes down to personal preference in how much you want to include. I find it a forgiving dish if too much or too little of your flavour ingredients are added. 

Allow butter to melt in a hot. Add the garlic and onions and fry until softened. Add the mushrooms, and fry until beginning to soften and well coated in butter. Add the rice and continue to stir until the rice has begun to toast. This is often easier to determine if you have some experience in toasted risotto rice without anything else present. You should be able to hear little "pops" from the rice as it toasts. When the rice is toasted to your liking, usually this just needs 2-3 minutes, add enough stock so the rice is moving freely in the liquid and reduce the heat so the pot is at a gentle simmer. Stir gently and frequently, and add more stock as the liquid is absorbed. Adding the stock in stages like this is what allows the rice to develop a creamy and smooth consistency. The finished rice should have a slight al dente bite. The risotto can be served at this stage, but I am very fond of adding an egg yolk after it is taken off the heat, which increases the richness and creaminess of the dish. 

Because my risotto only called for egg yolk, to use up the remaining egg whites I decided to try my hand at hard white bisket, a recipe which appears in a book manuscript written by Lady Elinor Fettiplace in 1604. Alas, bisket's were neither hard nor white, but flavoured with just a touch of star anise, were very tasty none the less. My food was enjoyed, as I was treated to applause when I finally worked up the nerve to leave the kitchen, and there were very little leftovers. 

In all, I received several gifts and tokens for my meal.... roses from the Event Steward, a string of pearls from the head cook, a crocheted heart from one of my minions... even a proposal of marriage with a hand made ring! I think it all went very well indeed.

Golden Partlet

The Historic Sew Monthly challenge for January is Procrastination. Though I've no plans to do any more Italian sewing at the moment, I did need to get one last thing made to finish off the look of my court gown, and it was something that was half the reason I modified my dress form in the first place; a decent partlet*.

Photo courtesy of Rāshid al-Jallāb

Since the partlet I made for the Realm of Venus competition, making up a partlet into a suitable shape has eluded me. I lost the pattern I used to draft the original piece, and my attempts to copy it to have for the Festival of Fools peacock competition didn't work out all too well (in fact, the fabric used in that attempt was so flimsy it ripped after its first wear). So I wanted to try draping a partlet instead, with my gown laced onto my dress form, so I could properly account for the shape it would need to be during wear, while also showing how much would be exposed at the dress neckline. I only started this partlet on the night before I was due to travel to the event, having draped the pattern the night before. And as is typical of a last minute, temporary, experimental, rush piece, I lost track of the number of people at 12th Night who complemented me on it.

Photo courtesy of Rāshid al-Jallāb

To make the partlet I used a lemon yellow chiffon as a base for some scraps of a heavy gold lace that I had, but never knew what to do with. The lace pieces were neither large or stable enough to create the partlet on their own, so I cut out the pattern pieces in the chiffon, joined them at the sides and hemmed as much as I could, then tacked the lace into place where I knew it would be on display, paying more attention to the edges to make sure it would be sewn down. The result was a gold lace partlet, enhanced by the chiffon base, which everyone agreed really lifted the final outfit. 

The Challenge: January –  Procrastination
Material: A base of crinkle lemon chiffon and gold lace
Pattern: Developed my own, based on late 16th century portraits
Year: Good for the later half of 16th century Venice
Notions: Thread, ribbon for ties
How historically accurate is it? Studying a garment from portraits makes it very hard to determine how something works where you can't see it. I've seen no extant partlets of this type, so I made something that I knew would be comfortable for me. Further, leaving the lace off where it couldn't be observed has no precedence that I'm aware of, though it copies the style of Tudor skirts that only used fashion fabric on the front and hem. So overall I'd say it's 50% accurate - good effort, but plenty of scope for further research and improvement.
Hours to complete: 5-6 hours approx, all hand sewn.
First worn: 12th Night
Total cost:  About €2 for the ribbon, the rest came from stash.

*For those of you not au fait with the Italian wardrobe, it's the blingy bit around my shoulders.

Wardrobe Mistressing

At the end of last year, I started my work as Mistress of the Wardrobe. While their Royal Highnesses already have garb for their coronation, the younger members of their household required something new for the big occasion.

Completing four sets of 15th century styled garb in one weekend is no mean feat, even if the garb for the littlest lords was of a simpler cut. The garb was mostly completed then, machine sewn and with every hem I could French seamed for durability,  but I brought home the garb for the elder children to complete some hand finishing on them both, so they'll be ready for Twelfth Night next weekend. With my supervisor in place, I was ready to begin:

H wanted a simpler style of houppelande, but wanted it to be fully length. He chose the red outer of a medium weight woven brocade (his younger brothers will be sporting the blue), with contrast given by the upturned cuffs and collar. There are just three pleats across the back to lend fullness, and these are reinforced by a band of fabric across the waist that is secured across the pleats and at the front of the garment. The garment was cut in a pretty straight forward rectangular pieces, with the addition of gores at the sides to add extra volume to the hem.

M's houppelande was a little more elaborate, being cut in the voluminous feminine style and using a light weight fabric. This dress was started with a simple bodice which finished at the waist. The bodice and skirt and both lined with the turquoise blue linen seen at the cuffs and collar, while the skirt is unlined. The skirt, which has no train as requested, as attached as a tube of fabric which was pleated into place around the skirt. The bodice is closed with hooks and eyes and will be further held in place with a belt using the reverse of the main fabric (but which refused to even consider staying in place for the pictures).

The belt was made by sewing the fabric onto a 2-3mm semi-stiff leather. I used an iron to press the fabric as close to the leather as I could to make sure it wouldn't shift during wear, then whip-stitched the fabric in place. The belt is held closed by means of hooks and bars, so these can be changed out at a later date if M decides she wants to upgrade to a typical houppelande belt clasp.

And now all that remains is to deliver them next weekend!

Oh Gosh

I thought December would be quiet this year and I'd have a chance to catch up on things, but it seems it's been anything but. The proximity of my plans for the first quarter of next year has come crashing in on me, and I've found myself flitting from one thing to the next in order to keep track of them all. So while I've been doing lots, I don't really have anything in a polished condition to show off at the moment. So instead I thought I'd do a review of some of the projects I'm hoping to get to next year.

The Dreamstress has announced the challenges for the Historic Sew Monthly 2016, and I'm very tempted to push myself to complete something for every month this year. That involves more planning than I usually put myself to for my sewing schedule, but there's no harm in trying. 
 

Of course there's still the Mistress of the Wardrobe position to contend with. That and other SCA commitments will take up quite a bit of my time, but there's no reason I can't combine some of these with the above challenges. My personal SCA sewing is on a temporary hiatus at the moment. While I'm happy with my Hedeby reconstruction (allowing for the few bits that still need to be finished), I'm not happy with my current level of knowledge regarding my Italian costume, so 2016 will mostly be a study year for that. 

Beloved Coopershill is upon us again! I've organised a sewing weekend in January, and have purchased a couple of patterns to work on that weekend. I'm trying to be conservative in my plans so I can actually get a new outfit completed (the current outfit has already been worn two years running! I simply have to have something new, or I'll end up the scandal sheets! Though nothing will bring me to replacing my evening ensemble!). I would like to make a natural form gown at some point, and an 18th century ensemble, but those will have to wait for another time.

And finally, I've decided at last to dip my toes into the waters of cosplay. This one doesn't really have a set schedule; I've picked out my first costume, and I've started accumulating bits, but it'll be done and worn when it's good and ready and not a moment before. 

30 Days of Yarn

So the month went quiet, as November is wont to be, but I achieved my goal of spinning for almost every day of the month. And this is what I came out with:

The yarns, from left to right are:
1 - 183 metres of sports weight Merino Silk (80/20), 2 ply. On this one, I didn't spin the two halves of the fibre bundle evenly, and ended up with an odd piece of single that I chain plyed and later knit up into a little pouch, which needs to be blocked before it can be shown off.
2 - 142 metres of worsted weight merino, 2 ply. My first blending experiment this. The skein doesn't show off the transition too well, but I'm hoping the gradation will be there when I knit it up.
3 - 178 fingering weight merino, 2 ply. The second blending experiment. Again, I'm hoping this one will show off it's shine when it's knit up.
4 - And finally, 178 metres of merino, chain plyed. This one gives me hope that I might yet be able to spin up yarn fine enough and well enough to make my own handspun socks![1]

The only problem I have with all of the yarns I've made above is that they all seem to want to be cowls. I'm really not sure I need that many scarf-type-object, but who am I to disagree with the fibre? 


[1] Having reconsidered how much effort is involved in a sheep to garment project, I'm starting to think socks would be an acceptable finished garment.

30 days of spinning - week one

 So after the first week of the challenge, how's it been going? Quite well actually.

I finished the spinning on my Ashford Sliver, and learned a valuable lesson in splitting and spinning one's fibre evenly.  I imagine what happened here was that I was still getting used to the wheel, and ended up with uneven tension on each bobbin.

The finished 2-ply skein is approximately 180m of soft yumminess - I'm planning on making a cowl for myself with this so I can show it off.

The remained didn't go to waste though. Following a suggestion from Constanza, I tried chain plying the leftover single. There was much cursing and stomping of feet, but I finally yielded up about 35m of chain plyed yarn.. which I of course forgot to take a picture of.





The next project I had ready to go. I had a couple of colours of Bronte Glen Merino, and I wanted to try my hand at blending the colours to make a graduated yarn. My increments were 100% steel blue, 75% blue 25% white, 50% blue and white, 25% blue 75% white and 100% white, which I weighted out and combed to blend. I span each colour segment completely before moving on to the next, hoping this would keep the colour distribution even, and I think I got a little closer to being spot on in my plying.

This came out as a lovely springy worsted weight yarn, approx. 142 meters, though I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet.












And there may also have been a bun cake interlude. Because all this spinning is hungry work...

November's 30 day challenge

November is always a busy month for me because of the day job, and this year it started early, so I haven't managed to get back to finishing off my Hedeby dress yet. I can anticipate late nights and increased stress levels as the month goes on, so I'm going to need something to keep my going in the craft department.

So that's where this month's 30 day challenge comes in. Inspired by the crafting of some of my friends over the past month, I'm going to try to do a little spinning, either spindle or wheel based, every day in November.

I have a fairly modest stash (though I've just realised I'm missing my Drachenwald A&S exchange fibre from the above picture), which Suzie has duly inspected for me to ensure quality.

In this picture, the front row has 7 silk tops from Oliver Twists, picked up from over the years at the Knitting and Stitching show. The second row has four 100g portions of Bronte Glen Merino, picked up at last years K&S show. On the far left of the middle row is an Ashford merino-silk sliver, which has already been half spun into the bobbin above, and one of my main goals with the spinning, is to complete the other half and to ply it up. The back row has on the left, another Oliver Twists silk top, which I've started spindle spinning, a Malabrigo Yarn fibre in Nube, and some scoured Gotland fibre gifted to me by Constanza last Raglan, which Suzie is very fond of. I've technically already completed today's quota, having spun up some fresh Gotland yarn, but a little more spinning won't hurt.

Hedeby Apron Dress

I didn't get the dress completely finished for event, but it was done enough to be wearable, and my hopes are high that there'll be another Norse themed event next year to showcase all the features I didn't get done in time.

In the end, I made my dress almost exactly as I'd cut Órlaith's. I did look into cutting my main panels in a A-line shape as per the Hedeby fragment, but the difference between my bust and hip measurements was so slight, I didn't feel it would have added anything to the dress.

My vague look of annoyance in the third picture was when I was questioning Órlaith if she was really going to keep taking pictures of me while I was adjusting my costume. She gleefully replied in the affirmative, and kept snapping. sigh

But this is my almost finished dress. The seams of the dress need to be sewn down, and I'm currently spinning up some scoured Gotland fibres for that job, and I didn't have time to place the darts and trim onto the back. The top of the dress was hemmed with a herringbone stitch, made from the inside to add a little give to the hem, and when trimmed with the tablet weave from my barter with Catherine Weaver of Thamesreach, was invisible from the outside. The belt is also made by Catherine Weaver, but was gifted to me by Baroness Caitríona, back when I had no intention of going Viking *ahem*. The brooches and hair pin were purchased from Pera Peris.

As Crown Princess Isabel of Drachenwald was in attendance at the event and rumours were heard of court to be held, I wanted my garb to have a "day" look as well as an "formal" look. I figured while beads and jewellery, while all well and good, would get in the way during day time chores, so I omitted the beads for during the day and wore the belt which will eventually have a great number of items suspended from it; for the moment my site token looks all lonely hanging there.

The formal look shows off the shaping around the waist much better without the best in place. One of my biggest surprises with this dress was that as I had decided not to wear modern underwear with it, there was still a surprising amount of support from the fit of the apron dress. And speaking of underwear, I've seen conflicting accounts speculating whether Norse women would have worn anything under their dresses. An unseasonally warm October weekend doesn't give the best of testing conditions, but a boat trip on Sunday morning over Lough Ree confirmed that you'd have to be crazy to not have something on underneath when the harder weather comes on. So a pair of simple trousers will be added to be sewing list for this outfit.

Overall I'm very pleased with this outfit. I think it looks well on me and the fit keeps the dress close to my body without tangling my legs. I was only really chilled on my arms and shoulders, where I only had one layer of linen to keep me warm, thought getting to work on a kaftan to wear while outdoors should sort that out. Given that we don't have enough of the dress fragments to have a single "correct" look, I feel confident that my interpretation is a good one; when I get it completed that is. But with a sewing list of fun projects for this costume as long as my arm, I've no fear of it not being seen through. 

As it happened, it was a good thing I'd planned for a formal look to my dress too. While I was at the event, HRH Isabel invited me to become her Mistress of the Wardrobe for the coming reign. I was breathless! It's such an honour!. The whole Kingdom is going to be seeing my work, and I need to find ways to step up my game. 

Bits N Pieces

This week my friend Vuirneen suggested that we take a trip to Beads N Bling, a fabulous jewellery and millinery supply store in Dublin that is sadly closing it's doors in a couple of weeks time.

There's so much I would have loved to pick up, were credit and storage capacity unlimited, so I had to content myself with a book, some trim and a few beads and things. They had such a treasure trove of a shop, I really am quite sad to see them go.  

And no, the fabric still hasn't been cut out yet.

Planning the Apron Dress

In the making of my own apron dress, I wanted to make a more fitted dress than those styles observed in the other parts of Scandinavia. As I've already mentioned, my research led me to the Danish-German settlement of Hedeby, and the evidence of darts found there. Unfortunately, when making this style of Apron Dress, there are very few hard and fast rules. Yes, there exist fragments from Hedeby, but of only one dress panel. This means any possibly re-creation of the dress is based on one's own interpretation of the finds. So here I present my thoughts on the matter.

Firstly, there is the matter of the Hedeby find. This is composed of two fragments, both of which show evidence of a dart, with trim sewn over the dart on the outside. Hägg posits this fragment as a side back piece, lining up the seams of the piece with the side and centre back lines on the body. Other re-enactors have suggested that the piece was actually a side panel, with the dart matching up to the side seam on the body. Of the two, I agree more with Hägg’s interpretation of the placement. Under the arm is a high friction area, and adding a braid to an already raised area would result in faster fabric abrasion. Now, given some of the two part-sleeves also found in Hedeby, maybe this was exactly what happened. But as the trim goes from the very top of the dress and continues the length of the dress fragment to presumably the full length of the dress, while on the found sleeve fragment the partial piece lies to the outside of the arm and away from the potential abrasion area; I don't think this is a likely arrangement. Based on this my own dress will feature darts towards the back of the dress rather than the sides. Further to this, the felted hole near the top of the fragment may have been an attachment point for straps, and placing this fragment as a side piece places this hole almost under the arm.

Going back to the apron dress find from Hedeby, the found piece we know to be a complete piece due to evidence of sewing holes at both sides, and from this we can attempt to surmise the rest of the garment. If we assume the piece was one quarter of the total dress, with a chest measurement of 64cm and a potential waistline only 15 cm below this, this gives the piece at fitting quite a small torso, and some re-enactors have speculated that this indicates the piece was originally worn by a child or young adolescent. I originally considered that this would necessitate a different cut for an adult garment, but throughout history, children seem to have been dressed in mini versions of adult clothing, so there's no reason to think this small garment can't still be used as a template. As a template in would indicate A-line shaped pieces, though the addition of gores may be required to fit this adult woman's curves. Other finds from Hedeby confirm the use of gores in items that may have been tunics or serks (underdress), but more importantly it means the style of gores was in use in the region; an important factor for how my underdress is constructed and for how I plan to make my apron dress.

So where does this leave me and how I plan to construct my own dress? I'm a great believer of conspicuous consumption in historical formal wear, even in modern wear for that matter. That is, the use of fine fabrics and accessories in a conscious display of wealth. For that reason my theory is that the front of the dress is cut in a single, unbroken piece. Although Norse looms would have regularly been able to produce quite wide fabrics as well as narrower widths[1], I believe that a smokkr, fully adorned with brooches and beads, could serve as a statement for the fineness of the fabric used for this dress. I've seen tantalising references to an "Old Norse laced dress" or "dragkyrtill", with the reference given as laz ar siþu, Falk 1919, p 158, but not being able to find any more information on this it remains a vague reference. And much as I'd love to find reason for a laced smokkr, allowing for how small the textile finds usually are, I haven't seen evidence of lacing loops or metal rings or even sewn eyelets in Norse garb. So I have to conclude, unless more information is uncovered, that the dress was semi-fitted and not laced tight.

I'll be cutting my dress more or less as Órlaith's was cut; that is as a central front piece, two back pieces and including side and back gores for width and swish. As I haven't her height, I'll be cutting my pieces a little wider, more in the A shape and bringing the apron dress to mid-calf, rather than full length, so as to show off the hem of the underdress. Hmm, guess I can't put off the cutting any longer.

[1] - Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia  By Phillip Pulsiano, Kirsten Wolf

First Dress Experiments

Among the other projects I was involved with at the Garb Weekend, one was an experimental project with Lady Órlaith.

 

At this point, I was just starting to agonise about how to construct the Hedeby Apron Dress based on the few fragments found, when Lady Órlaith, also seeking help, volunteered herself and her fabric as test subjects. We had a brief discussion about my ideas so far, and she agreed happily to the one I wanted to try. Handing over her beautiful jade green linen, I snipped it into a one piece front panel, and two back panels, pinned it, and handed it back for sewing. Darts in the back panels and hip-length gores in the back and sides swiftly followed, all sewn up by Órlaith. Truly this was the best of partnerships, with each of us feeling that we'd gotten the better end of the deal.

 

The finished dress is a fitted linen sheath, shaped to the hip, and flaring out thanks to the gores and is almost completely self-supporting even before the straps are added. Unfortunately, I misread some of the Hedeby information, so the darts lie to the inside as per the modern aesthetic, rather than the outside of the dress. The lady herself seemed utterly delighted with it, for all that it was, in my mind, full of "first dress mistakes". Truly it was very generous of her to allow me to experiment on the dress that she'll be wearing. 

 

The final effect this experiment had for me was to set my mind down the path it needed to go to consider the Hedeby dress. I've seen various reenactor versions featuring 3, 4 or even 5 panels, and arguments against each. And there being no final say which one is correct, I needed to make up my mind how I was going to attempt my own final version, and I'll cover my thoughts on that in my next post.

Finished(ish) Hedeby Underdress

At the Garb Workshop hosted by Dun in Mara last weekend, I had thought since no-one had requested my aid, that I'd be able to spend the weekend concentrating on my own stuff. But three impromptu classes and a whole lot of sewing and cutting advice later, I still managed to I made respectable progress on my Hedeby Norse costume.

 

It's amazing how much focus a room full of like minded people with similar tasks to hand can provide the drive needed to get moving on a project. For me this involved winning the fight I'd been having with the dress gores, drafting a sleeve pattern and setting them, and finishing the neckline. I had a bit of a Moment when cutting the sleeves and managed to cut them without seam allowance. Given that fabric was short, I decided to cut some gores from the scraps and added these at the top and bottom of the sleeves, reasoning that even this would have been more reasonable in period than scraping the whole thing. I had been concerned previously that the dress would end up too short, but the hem just overlaps the top of my najlbound socks slightly, so it's worked out rather nicely. Overall I'm rather happy with how this is coming along. I believe my construction is reasonably accurate, and it's a very comfortable garment to wear. 

The final underdress has some slight shaping on the torso to make it a little more fitted; with an hourglass figure there's only so much fitting you can do if you still want the dress to pull off over the head without any additional openings. The dress has side gores to the waist line and front and back gores to the hip line. The hem at the wrist and end of the dress was cut on the fabric selvage to minimise work with hemming, though this is my own invention. I haven't seen any evidence to support the idea, but I can see no reason why they wouldn't have done it if they could. The sleeves are gored to make up for my earlier mistake, and are fitted as per the Hedeby finds, though apart from the last minute gores, I decided to cut the sleeve as a single piece, so without the secondary piece seen in the Hedeby sleeve finds. Similarly, the neckline is a shallow scoop shape found to be particular to Hedeby rather than the keyhole shaping found in other towns. If I'd used a wool I may have been able to get a better fit, but given my fabric restrictions, I think it's turned out well. The arms and side gores still need to be felled, but if I run short on time, I at least have a wearable garment for the event.

 

Norse Socks

Progress, of sorts!

I have the first part of my Norse outfit completed; a pair of najlbound socks. I started these just after Raglan, while the post-event energy was still low, but I wanted something to play with. Having attended Mistress Rogned's class on Roman style najlbinding, and having made many pairs of socks before, I dove straight into making a pair for my first najlbinding project.

Oh my, I learned a lot in making these. The socks are currently a little loose around the ball of my foot, but fit comfortably on the rest of the foot. I'm not too worried about that, as having worked with this yarn before, Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted, I know it's fond of felting when it's in heavy use, so I expect with time and wear these will become a much snugger fit. 

I found documentation supporting Norse women's socks coming just over the ankle, or having a gap in front to allow the sock to be pulled on. As I didn't want to end up with yet another quarter ball of yarn hanging about, I just kept going until I ran out of yarn. Who would've thought it was possible to get a whole pair of socks out of a single ball of worsted weight yarn! And they're so soft, and think and cosy. Even if they don't end up being worn for the even, they're going to make a fantastic pair of winter socks for round the house.

Norse Underdress

Unfortunately my garb making has not been going as well as I'd hope this month. I had originally hoped to have my underdress done by the garb workshop this coming weekend (not a hope), and be able to work on the apron dress there. But as you can tell from the picture, weellll....  I'm a fair bit off from finished.

To make my Norse under dress, I'm using the information from this previous shared link, specifically the couple of paragraphs on the Hedeby/Haithabu finds. This page shows a possible layout for a Hedeby style underdress based on finds.  I've come across various cutting diagrams for Norse style underdresses in my searches, but I find it very hard to believe that a dress where every square inch of fabric had to have spun and woven, would have been cut with large waste pieces. So to this end I've been making this up so far by using a rectangle system of fabric cutting to use the fabric as efficiently as possible.

 

If you'll forgive my dodgy paint skills, I've made up a basic, if wonky diagram of how I cut out my pieces.

• The front and back pieces are half the width of my hips, plus seam allowance, and the length is the full width of the fabric, so it may be a little short when worn.

• The width of the fabric halved is longer then my arm length, so I cut a strip of fabric which is measured at my bicep, plus seam allowance, to become my sleeves.

• Lastly, I folded the remaining fabric in half, and cut out my gores, measured from my wasit to the hem of the dress, so I'd get the maximum width possible for bottom hem. Gore pieces 1 and 2 will be the side goes, while gore pieces 3, 4a and 4b will be shortened slightly, and become the front and back gores. Gore 4 will have a central seam to join the two pieces, and because of this will be place in the back.

This is the diagram of the fabric as adapted for the width and amount I had, and my own body shape, but it really is worth measuring and adapting these kinds of layouts to your own shape in order to get the best of your fabric usage. This isn't necessarily the most period method of construction, especially as modern fabrics are generally a lot wider then pre-industrial ones, but it's efficient. This has left me with a small amount of leftover linen that is destined to become a hat trimmed with white rabbit fur - in keeping with the colour scheme.

Ah yes, the colour scheme. While I've been endeavouring to ensure the correct shape for my garments, my fabric selections are a little less realistic. Partly due to the fabric being what I had available, and partly due to the required Shenanigans colour scheme, I have a purple linen for the underdress, where an undyed linen was more likely in period, allowing for the few samples that seem to contain traces of blue or brown dyes. And for apron dress, I have a thick cream fluffy fabric, which a burn test concludes is mostly cotton, but which could conceivably fool the man on the galloping horse into thinking it's a wool from a distance.

Breads

My dress is progressing slower than I'd like at the moment, so I thought I'd post about my bready experiments instead. At the upcoming Norse event, the feast will be a potluck, with a simple system to tell attended what they should bring for a good variety on the day; my item was bread. So I got it into my head to try a vaguely period recipe.

Given that sourdough has been around in one form or another for several centuries, I decided to try that. I used the Paul Hollywood organic grapes recipe to make up my starter, and the hardest part of getting that going was trying to find somewhere to sell organic grapes. I learned since that any organic fruit of veg that tends to develop a white film can be used to seed the starter with wild yeast, but having spare grapes to snack on was no hardship. It took about a week to properly dial in on the recipe, to get the water temperature and flour quantities right, but my starter seems very happy with me at the moment, with a scent that varies between natural yoghurt and home-brewed beer. I don't follow exactly the feeding measurements given in the recipe above. I vary my flour and water quantities on any given day to keep the mixture at a thick batter consistency.

After the requisite four day start up time, I started using the "discard" in the Classic Sourdough recipe to make up my loaves. I brought two loaves down to CoLD with me, where they were promptly devoured, and I got many compliments on the flavour and tang of the bread. My oven is a little on the old side so my loaves are coming out a little dark. I almost have my cooking time perfected.. maybe just a little more work so they come out golden rather than mahogany...

But uplifted by the reception at CoLD, I decided to try and a little experimentation, and sought out some sweet flavours to try. The white chocolate & raspberry loaf was again one of Paul Hollywood's recipes, though the walnut & apricot and the chocolate & berry loaves were my own inventions, taking the basic classic sourdough recipe and adding the extras. The chocolate loaf also has some added dried yeast, as the cocoa can inhibit the natural yeast and sometimes a booster is needed. I think I may have added the fruit too soon in the kneading step, and this has resulted in a rippled effect, most noticeable in the white chocolate & raspberry loaf.

Overall this is a really interesting experience. Though I love baking, I rarely do it everyday, but now that I have the starter stable, and am using it roughly every second day, it means I'm baking enough to really dial in on what the starter and the bread dough need to come out perfect. Clearly there's more science to be done.. tasty, tasty science...

The New Champion

This weekend just gone saw my shire of Dun in Mara host the Champions of Lough Devnaree event, and as, at the time, current A&S champion, the A&S competition to decide my successor.

The competition format I decided on drew from the Drachenwald Kingdom artisan competition. I invited the artisans of the isle to enter as many entries they wanted in as many categories as they liked, and the winner of each category would receive a prize, with the person with the best average score overall becoming the new A&S champion.

There was such a wonderful response! I had enquires about entries and format, but unfortunately, some people ran out of time. But there were a total of twelve entries covering six of the categories! And the quality of these entries were wonderfully high, and their scope varied. I had many wonderful judges to help me review the items, and it was a close run thing; I would not have been able to call the winner before the numbers were totted up. I felt almost more nervous than last year, when I was competing, but I was delighted to name Lady Órlaith as my successor with her many wonderful entries, and I look forward to seeing what competition she comes up with next year.

Dressform Adjusting

I started my 30-day challenge in a bit of a round about way.

With wanting to base my Norse dress on the Hedeby tailored look, there's going to be a lot of fitting involved, and trying to fit a dress onto one's own form can be an exercise in sheer frustration. I do have an adjustable dressmakers form, but it was bought so long ago that even at it's greatest extension, it can't match the curves I sport these days. So changed had to be made.

I picked up a couple of metres of 4ox batting from my local fabric store, and got to work sewing it on in layers until it matched, or was close enough to, my current measurements. And then I applied a bit of trickery.

The half finished form, you may notice, is a bit flat on front. I was concerned you see, seeing as I do several different eras of costume, how adjustable something stiff like a batting stuff bra might be on the form. So I opted to follow an idea of American Duchess's, and installed bean boobs!

I used about 1.5kg of pearl barley as I had it to hand already for a leather working project, and an old pair of tights from an old costume, and voilà, adjustable boobs!

To finish, I slipped a cheap t-shirt over the top to help everything stay in place and make the batting a little more resilient to pin-abuse. And now that I have a dress form that's a curvy shortarse just like me,  I'll finally be able to get on with all those draped projects I've wanted to do!