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.