Genevieve's Journeys

...England is a awash with flooding. I'll have to watch the Peanuts Christmas special on YouTube, and the Grinch too, for any white Christmas fill.

Hoping to stop pretending to work and slip out of the office soon, and go shopping in person rather than online. 

For this holiday crafty wish list:
- get more gilding tools to improve gilding results, hopefully today
- finish lining a hood
- start a new cardigan on the needles
- make more smellies as gifts
- optional: start laying out new bodice for German undergown

I have to rein in my instinct to start a half-dozen new projects - I get so wound up at the prospect of a few days uninterrupted crafting that I tie myself in anxious knots over what I could do, and end up frozen, unable to decide what to do first, and only manage to do the boring routine stuff like housework.

If I can settle to just a handful of projects, I have more chance of actually finishing them, and thus avoiding further rebukes from UFOs round the house.

I've actually had some FO results - finished a smock, finished some knit garters - but somehow they're anticlimactic compared to starting new.

HLady liadethorneggecame through with pictures, and only one of them is slightly tipsy-looking.

Pics are huge, so you an enjoy them in all their splendour! Also, it was a lovely day.

Aside from being happy that it came out the way I pictured it, I was really pleased with the silly hat. It has a wire form inside to provide the shape - there's precedent for wire forms for the pointy gabled hoods, so I suspect the use has been plausibly extended to this earlier pointy bonnet shape. The silk ended up draping very well - better than I expected - and it's all pinned to a headband.

The rosary beads were a gift from Lord Logan, who made occasional trips to the holy land; the sash is a silk pashmina from Lord John, chequey's squire, who came back from Af'stan with a bag full of beautiful textiles for Robert and me. I'm hoping to trim it to make a more manageable sash, and still have a lovely scarf to wear.

When really finished, it'll be hooks and eyes all up the front - as is, there's H&E to the waist, then I stitched up the rest of the bodice.

I still have wrinkles round my middle, but at least these ones are documentable - they look just like the ones in a painting shown in the Queen's Servants.

( Gown of great shinyness )

As promised - photos of refurbishing a gown.

This pink linen gown was always a fitted undergown, but was originally made to go under my fine purple wool gown, c. 14th c. I knocked it together quickly to wear at the first coronet tourney 2 years ago.

Unfortunately, I chose 2 lightweight linens, rather than one heavy and one light, or two sturdy ones - and even the two together do not provide enough support for me to wear comfortably. It looks...ok - but I saw a pic of myself wearing it last year, and decided it was no longer 'fit for purpose' on its own.


Inspection...


...judged acceptable.


Lined w/out sleeves.

But how to fix it? (implied requirements: easily, cheaply, quickly, etc - the old saw being you get 2/3 of these, but never all three).


The final decision was to do much as I did on my first refurbished gown:
- cut out the front lacing
- add a lining

Cutting out the lacing is always gutting, because it's a lot of handwork to replace. But that's the part that is holding together the two layers. Without it, you can manipulate the fabric as you please.

Gown with lacing cut away - see strips of lacing, waving goodbye to the gown.
New lining is of a cotton twill, very thin, very hard. If I could find linen canvas at a price I liked, I'd buy it, but this twill has served me very well in another gown.

I'm using my trusty old fitted gown pattern, that is effectively just the bodice part: I usually add skirt length to it when cutting a gown, and then do a muslin for the sleeve. This length provides support to about hip level.

I added this layer between the two linen layers, because I still wanted a fairly finished-looking interior of the gown.

At this point, I discover just how much the linen has stretched since I made the gown - the gown necklines, all cut the same shape originally, now have three different shapes, and I'm not able to predict exactly how each one will stretch to fit. So I settle for basting in a vague front neckline, and leaving the back open, til I can try the gown on and see how the fabrics sit together.

At that point, I got Robert to pin the three layers together around the back neckline; I'll probably trim to whatever shape all three layers can agree on. This step still TBA.

I can, however, match the front edges, and redo the lacing holes - once more under supervision:


While lacing holes are a PITA, I do use them a lot...so am now quite quick, and can do about 8-10/hr - so the lacing was finished in one sitting.
Next step: finishing neckline, trimming, edge finishing and test lacing.

 Our cheap Argos-sourced iron has patches of Teflon wearing off the ironing surface, and it's catching on my fabrics. I've cleaned it off, but it keeps on sticking. There's also not a lot to distinguish between low and high settings.

Does anyone know what to look for in a good iron?

I have no useful means to distinguish different irons except price, and it baffles me that they range from £10-60 for no apparent reason.

I'm mostly pressing natural fabrics, with occasional forays into blends, and the occasional shirt/blouse for work.

Any guidance gratefully accepted.

Lovely Master Bertrik sent me a CD of pics from the January event, including this one, which shows my refurbished gown best:



I'm really pleased with the way the fur trim turned out - it really changes the way the gown hangs, and draws the gown hem straight down - and the sleeves. They look a bit looser than I intended, but I'd prefer them loose to uncomfortably tight.

Also happy with the headdress - now just have to find the nicest example from the Luttrell Psalter or similar to support it!

Best of all, Robert likes the whole outfit - he hadn't seen it all assembled before I went to Dance Moot, so this is its unveiling all over again.

A lovely newcomer took some pictures - this is in the little courtyard adjascent to the site:



And of course, the Cranach painting that inspires it - mostly bachlorette number 2, but with number 3's geometric bust band decor.

Remember I was complaining I didn't know what to do w/ t-shirts? Now I do! I can hardly wait to get home and view my ratty T's collection...

Except I'd nalbind them, rather than crochet - I already know nalbinding.

Towards reworking my non-specific late-period costume into a recogniseable Elizabethan doublet and skirt: this is my work on the petticoat.
I'd previously used a two-layer petticoat, gathered at the wide waistband. Both layers are a sort of neutral colour cotton.
I've unpicked the waistband and gathering, pressed it to within an inch of its life, and now reassembled it into a single skirt (lighter-weight cotton in back, as it'll never be seen), and am pleating it onto a smaller waistband.

It's full enough to do cartridge pleating in the back and sides, but I want knife-pleating in the front, to keep down the bulk around my tum.
I'm still stitching down the pleating - my hands are rather sore from stitching and folding (and possibly from some knitting...) so this really is a WIP.

Yes, it's cotton - and not the wool form of cotton. I'm sticking with it because I don't have suitable linen I want to use in this project at the moment, and also because the whole project is something of an experiment. If it works, and I get a nice outfit out of it, I can always upgrade w/ a (red?) linen or silk petticoat in future. Till then, I'm using what I have at hand.

My hope is to keep pinning foreparts to this petticoat, and then wearing the blue skirt overall.

I've considered stitching together all the foreparts into a sort of pinwheel forepart skirt, where I could 'spin' them around to change forepart colours. I've seen it in the SCA, never known if it's an authentic practice (though using only good fabric in the visible front and cheaper 'filler' in back is arguably correct).

	Starting point: Lining of the petticoat Two layers of cotton, flattened in the front, gathered in the sides and back. Hoping to piece it into a more authentic (pleated?)petticoat, along with the other forepart pieces.
	Petticoat Previously used curtain cord along a channel at the bottom of the skirt to keep it hung down.
	cartridge pleating a petticoat This petticoat is assembled from the two layers that were in my old petticoat. I unpicked them, pressed them, and stitched them into a single tube, then started pleating, with flat pleating at front centre.

Our guests more than paid their way by the advice and input they offered both Robert and me on crafts.

I showed Bastian my frustrating non-working soapstone mould and we tried it together. B observed that our pewter was very very different from his own - very brittle, very grainy. He said he wouldn't be able to snap the pewter sprue the way we can snap ours.

He also suggested that our moulds were possibly not getting hot enough - that the pewter was cooling too quickly, and thus blocking the edges of the mould for the rest of the liquid pewter.

So we have a couple of options to try to remedy this:
- a new mix of pewter that needs a higher temp to melt, and (thus)
- a different arrangement for heating and pouring.

These solutions will have to wait til we can invest in the kit.

But I was much encouraged. My mould should work, and I've done everything possible to help it that I knew of - no obvious oversights or mistakes.

It was a boon to talk to lacedwaist  about an old costume (literally - bought it from an amateur theatre) that I'd hoped to convert into a more passable Tudor or Elizabethan piece. I've already changed several parts of it, but I know it is still improve-able.

This time, I was clever enough to take 'before pictures' of all the parts!

Current plans are:

- reshape the neckline to squarer shape
- trim the waistband of the bodice and add a small gusset to improve fit - it fits very well for an 'off the rack'  purchase, but I'm now ready to fiddle with the fit to improve it, which I was reluctant to do before
- remove metal grommets, stitch in eyelets
- remove the small sleeves and turn them into shoulder puffs
- possibly add laced-in sleeves of different fabric
- rework the petticoat with a smaller lower-profile waistband, so I have less bunching of fabric around my waist
- replace hooks and eyes with eyelet strips, to lace together the skirt and bodice. Right now the hooks and eyes dig into my tum and back
- add guards to the outer skirt

I'll also need a longer-sleeved shirt, and a better headdress, to go with this gown - not sure I have the right weight of linen for this. I already have a stomacher and partlet, patterned by maredudd1066  for me.

We spent some happy time looking through Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion and the Tudor Tailor for ideas.

I hadn't realised how simple (in cut!) many of the Eliz' sleeves are - not as closely shaped as my cotehardie sleeves. I'm sure there's still shaping to do, but the drawn shapes shown in TT looks straightforward, not scary.

Anyone got tips for shaping laced-in (non-puff-and-slash) Elizabethan sleeves?

This weekend at Winchester Pilgrimage, pilgrims will have a choice of making a scrip from brand new lightweight canvas, or using some of Dubheasa and terafan 's old pavalino to make a bag. When they left Drachenwald, they left with us the remains of two worn-out pavilions that they'd already replaced after many years of service.

I've been diligently washing & drying canvas pieces, ripping them into suitable segments, and unpicking tabs and toggle loops that were very sturdily stitched on in the first place! The washing doesn't completely remove the grime and wear of 10 years' of use, but it will hopefully remove any live mould spores. The canvas is quite soft and workable, and I much prefer it to the new twill.

We've now been cutting up their old pavilions for 3 years, and still have canvas to go.  We gave a few scrips to TRM Marguerite and Maximilian last year, to distribute as gifts to those who remembered D&T, and M&M did this gladly.

Robert is craftily saving the remaining roof piece, however. He has hopes of finding a centre pole and sewing stakeloops to the edge, and producing an instant arming pavilion - possibly to be road-tested at Raglan. It would be brilliant if we could salvage a useable tent from Dubheasa and Terafan's castoffs.

Might also explain why there are so few extant examples of pavilions (a few, but not many survive): aside from hemp and linen cloth simply rotting and wearing away, the bulk of the material might have been cut up and re-used when no longer serviceable as a tent.