Get re-elected, go up a level

Recently my shire decided I was doing a good enough job as seneschal to re-elect me for a second term. And it’s only right that there be some kind of external representation of my levelling up – newly blinged-up garb!

This is the same black dress that I sewed up for Raglan, now with trim added. I had planned to add this for some time, but only recently got time to complete it. The trim is actually a ribbon yarn that was spotted in my stash by a friend, and it has worked out beautifully.

I based the trim placement on "Portrait of a Woman", a mid-sixteenth century Florantine portrait. The trim was pinned in place before being sewn down with whipstitch. I decided against putting trim on the bottom edge of the skirt for the moment, as I’m rather torn still about it. There are several portraits and woodcuts that clearly show Italian and even Venetian dresses with one or two lines of trim along the hem, these are in the minority of overall images, and I’ve seen more portraits (when you finally do manage to find a full length Italian portrait instead of one that finishes at the hips) where this trim is not evident. Even if it would give a nice bit of extra sparkle on this gown…

The Period Little Black Dress

Due to play related nerves, I didn't get a whole lot of crafting done at Raglan. What I wasn't expecting was the heat wave we got, so if I didn't get the newly re-cut linen dress sewn up, having only my linen linen wool gown to wear, something was going to give.

I'd had the fine black linen dress made up previously and had worn it for Medieval Dead last year, but I wasn't entirely happy with how it had turned out, so I put off the finishing of it. But then in June of this year I met the Honourable Lady Christine Bess Duvant, who introduced me to the pattern she had developed for making the magical gravity-defying shoulder style dress of the Italian reaissance. We completed the mock up at the Dun in Mara garb workshop weekend, and having gotten the new pattern cut just before the event, there was so much frantic sewing that some of my friends commented on the fact that they didn't really see any other pictures of me from Raglan.

But thanks to the generosity and permission of Lord Rashid al-Jallab, I have a few pictures which he took at the Friday evening court session that show off the dress well. So yes, the sleeves still need to be completed, and I need to add trim, which I'm hoping to get done before an upcoming demo (and most definitely has to be done before Coronet in November), but it's swiftly become my new favourite dress.

The original pattern, as Lady Christine focuses mainly on the late 15th and early 16th centuries, had quite a high waistline, so I dropped the waistline to my natural waist to reflect the style of the later half of the 16th century. The skirt is just a single layer of linen, gathered at the waist, with a strip of wool fabric in the hem to maintain the body. The bodice is interlined with wool and lined with purple linen. The bodice was side laced, and after this court I added a few more lacing holes in the side split of the skirt, as due to my hourglass figure, this was lying open more than I would have liked. But it looks sexy and it feels oh so comfortable (and sexy). I just don't enjoy the feel of mundane clothing half as much after wearing this dress. I can't really justify any more dresses in my wardrobe at the moment; most events just don't require that many costume changes, but damn I want more of these.

And one final picture in which I'm handed my Lindquistringes, because I just love it so.

Bottom's Transformation Completed

Ok, I said I'm back and I mean to post much earlier this week, but my schedule didn't like that apparently. So I'll do my best but updates are likely to still be sporadic for the next while.

One of the big things I had to make sure I got finished for the week long event at Raglan was my mask for Bottom's transformation into a donkey during A Midsummer Night's Dream. This actually proceeded well before the event, but I was thrown by events at the end of July which meant while I got things done, posting about them wasn't an option. But here it is now!

Picture taken by Lady Arianhwy Wen

This was a picture taken from our audience, which I was too nervous to interact with as much as I would have liked, though whenever I looked out, people were hamming back to me as much as I was trying to ham to them. Laughs happened in the right places, and unfortunately the light failed a little too much at the end for reading of my script, but I'm told no one noticed the lines I managed to butcher. I didn't quite get over my stage fright at all, but I'm very glad I did it. 

The only changes I made to the mask from the last post were to give it a couple of layers of shellac and add nose and eye outlines. The outliners, more to give a visual aid to the actors and audience, were unpainted straw glued directly onto the frame. The shellac I applied in two layers using a spray bottle to ensure an even application over the reed and the more gauzy sinamay. 

I decided against the mane, it just didn't look as well as I'd hoped while I was designing. That may have been my first and last appearance on the stage, but I certainly wouldn't mind doing more work at the props end of things.

What a month that was...

Well, that was a much longer break than I'd planned. August was an exceptionally busy month, though July ended on a sad note.

To start the month, I headed over to my larp group Legion, where I got a *coff* long overdue *coff* field promotion and finally got my foot in the door with the casino. Not getting anywhere with the guilds was a major source of frustration for me in the game, and even though this isn't a training opportunity, it's nice to be involved. And it's an excuse to make up some new kit for casino shifts.

From there I was on to Raglan, the longest event in Insulae Draconis. I confess, most of my time there was taken up with nerves about the upcoming play, and though it went well, I'm convinced more than ever now that my place is in the props and costumes section of the theatre, not the stage. But more about the play later.

Also at the event, I saw a number of friends

 

surprised with very, very well deserved awards. It was just as well the tokens for the event were embroidered napkins, I needed it during the courts. And it came as a surprise when my own name was called out to receive the Order of the Lindquistringes, Drachenwald's service award. The illumination was by Lady Elisant Walters, and the calligraphy by Countess Aryanhwy merch Catmael. I've been wearing my token since the day after that court, and I think it'll be resting there for a good while yet.




From there is was on to a BBQ with my WoW guild, and a reason to forever tease the guildmistress if her internet connection falls over again.



 




There was the trip to the zoo for my birthday (with the obligatory multiple visits to the tygers)

And then there was Champtions of Lough Devnaree last weekend (which also deserves it's own post) and an upcoming Leather Working workshop next weekend (which will also see the start of a long awaited project), so I'm hoping to be good and busy in getting posts up here again soon.

Raglan Preparations

For my last free weekend before Raglan, I've been terribly productive.

I posted previously about looking into a piece of extant blackwork embroidery, with an aim to using elements of it for a future project. That project reached a milestone this weekend as I completed the embroidery on the cuffs for a tudor style ladies shirt.

 

The embroidery is completed on two layers of thin cotton lawn, with custom dyed purple and natural coloured silk thread. The vines between the lillies is a silver metallic thread couched into place with a single strand of natural silk. The lillies themselves were outlined with split stitch in the purple silk, with the petals filled in with laid work in purple, with the petal underside done in natural, before both were overlaid with purple thread. The base of each lily was filled in with detached buttonhole stitch, while the buds were done in more laid work. The embroidery pieces are now being sewn into cuffs with a little ruffle and work on the collar has begun, so the project is looking well for its Raglan deadline.

But the weekend is also time for getting out the sewing machine! So in the company of a friend yesterday, I made good use of my time and finished off two new Italian style chemises based on the tutorial on Festive Attyre.  I used this tutorial on my last chemise (now made over two years ago, eep!) but this time, I was successful in getting the neckline finish to lie square. Though now I've gotten that down, I'm already eyeing up the edges and planning all sorts of trim. A row of embroidered suns to go with my heraldry perhaps?



And a wee little project completed on the side, just something to help me wind down in the evenings, I'm now the owner of a sparkly new dice bag! The pattern is the Dragon Egg dice bag from ravelry. Let's see how long this one lasts before it hides on me.

Red Apron

I hadn't settled on what I was going to do for the Under $10 challenge for a while, but with the countdown to Raglan marching away, it made sense to combine my to-do list with the challenge. I had wanted a new apron for some time, because even though there's one or two extant short aprons out there, in every picture I've seen, Italian aprons are worn as full length, and I just couldn't get over the wrongness in my head, so a full length apron was called for.


Aprons were a common accessory for the Italian woman, with very fine linen aprons for ladies such as the narrow, finely embroidered apron worn in the 1534 Portrait of a Young Woman by Parmigianino, and well preserved extant examples still available in museums today, such as these two lace and embroidered examples, from the as seen on the Realm of Venus and the Met museum sites respectively.

That said, while I want some day to have an apron as fine as the example above, a piece so elaborate would never fit come in under $10.  Thankfully, while the plainer aprons may have been worked into rags leaving us with no extant pieces, there's plenty of examples of plainer garments in art and plenty of examples available by Vincenzo Campi, such as The Fruit Seller, 1580, and Kitchen Scene, 1580-1590. 

 

Now, when I started this, I had planned to use my heavier white linen, but it went hiding and my red linen came to hand instead. Fair enough, as above, there's still plenty of precendent for coloured aprons in Italy. I decided to make a fairly wide apron, like the ones at appear in the pictures above, so I could make a workhorse of it. But it was when I was studying a detail from the kitchen scene above that I noticed something interesting.

The lady with the blue apron, bending over; there's not just one tie for the apron as we see in most extant examples, there two, to ensure the apron is held in place around her hips. I thought it a brilliant idea to stop a stray wind from catching the apron on furniture and pulling it completely out of the way and allowing the dress to be soiled. For someone as routinely clumsy as I, this was a must have!


The pictures of the finished item were kindly taken by milady Sela, but you'll have the excuse the modern clothes under the apron. The apron sits above ankle height, so it'll finish above the hem of most of my kirtles.

You may notice I chose to make up my ties, fingerloop woven linen thread as it happens, in two different colours. As I mentioned the clumsiness, this is to make sure I always tie the pairs of ties together right, and don't end up with a tangled mess at the end of the night. Ok, less likely to end up with a tangled mess. Or I can just make some more. 

The Challenge: HSF #13: Under $10
Fabric: : Red linen
Pattern: None really, just a simple rectangle of fabric with a rolled hem, and the bottom hem cut on the selvage to reduce sewing. 
Year: Anywhere in the 16th century
Notions: Cotton thread for sewing and linen thread for the closures.
How historically accurate is it? 95%.
Hours to complete: I think it was about 2 hours sewing, with another 30-40 minutes for the cord making.
First worn: Just for the pictures, but it'll be getting a lot of wear at the upcoming week long event.
Total cost: The linen cost only €4.50, and I used less than a metre, so that combined with the cotton and linen threads brings in the total at about €6.25 (or $8.45 for the sake of the challenge).

Bottom's Transformation

I've been falling into bad habits again. The habits in question this time being the brain gremlins telling me that I can't post unfinished work, I must post only completed projects, and my hasn't it been a while since I posted, better get something finished quick!, which of course leads to more stress and less progress.

So here's a piece of progress I'm quite pleased with. As I may have mentioned before, in all too soon a time *gulp*, I will be performing as Nick Bottom (the weaver) in a Raglan production of Midsummer Night's Dream. And performing as Bottom requires a donkey mask! So under the wonderfully supportive eye of my beautiful assistant Lynn, I got started.

I wanted to make my mask with at least a nod to period mask manufacture, but as it turns out though, there's very little information on period mask making out there. Apart from rare "Visard" masks, used as sun protection for ladies of fair skin or the more elaborate Commedia dell'Arte still made with the same leather working principles, so I had to make things up as I went, hoping I was nodding in the right direction.

I started out with some reed which I'd originally bought for an experiment with a pair of stays a few years back, and I bound this together with cotton thread - I would have used linen thread but of course it decided to go walkabout on me again.

The mannequin head was just used for pictures, I sized each piece of reed to my own head before I tied it off, which was just as well as my own head proved to be a wee bit bigger. The first band sits around my head, slightly above my ears and the centre front point rests on my forehead. I added a band going side to side to support the first band in place, then a second, over length band going back to front that would also form the muzzle. A couple of rings rounded out the muzzle, and the basic structure was done.


The basic frame complete, I started to reinforce the joins with twists of papier-mâché. I promise for my next project  of this ilk I'll use a more period glue, but on this occasion I was still using diluted PVA or white glue. Time constraints and such.

Ears attached I began to weave additional strips of reed through the basic frame to build up the shape of the muzzle and head, including some additional paper strips across the ears to give them a mostly covered up look.

 

It was at this point, unfortunately, that period went right out the window and I had to resort to the hot glue gun to complete the next stage.  I wanted to fill in the mask in a way that kept it lightweight and wouldn't inhibit my voice projection, so I decided to line the frame with some sinamay, a fabric similar to buckram used in millinery, that I had laying around. At this point, one of the ears took on a strange cant from somewhere, but I dunno, it kind of adds to the character of the mask.

 After leaving the mask to for a day and a half, I painted over the outer surfaces with a burnt sienna poster paint. To paint the sinamay, I wanted down the paint and blew across the surface after brushing to ensure the holes wouldn't clog up.

And here she is so far (yes, the character is male, but the mask insists on being referred to as she). The mask still needs a short mane, and the eyes need to be outlined so the other actors have a focal point to interact with; at the moment I can see out just fine. There's a mini rehearsal tomorrow where I'll get to put it through it's paces and make sure it's up to the task, then it has a couple of coats of shellac in its future to seal it up and help make it a little more robust.