Shutterbug

April / Danielle (depending on if we're speaking mundanely) has uploaded photos from Christmas Revel! Including this one of the brown kirtle in action. Well, posed at this particular moment ...


Plug: Really, click the link at the beginning of the post and browse through the galleries. She manages to capture a good representative cross-section of SCAdian culture, from the heat of battle to the pageantry of court, beautiful crafted items from the society's artisans, and friends kicking back and having an all-around good time.

Holiday wind-down

Christmas Revel this past weekend was fabulous - Bacon Bit won both the youth heavy and rapier tournaments, Morgana antler-bombed no less than a quarter of the populace in attendance, and our newest Pelican, Mistress Barbara Sterling was elevated to her peerage, surrounded by old and new friends who cherish this wonderful lady and her decades of service to the Society and our young Kingdom.

April took a few full-body shots of me in my brown kirtle, off-white apron (I don't think I told you about that one), and gold Monmouth cap. I'll get that posted asap.

Alas, I am unable to deliver a project-completion update, as my mundane job got in the way, and I was asked to fill in at a store roughly an hour's drive from home. I can offer you a teaser photo of my grey-brown wool hood in progress, though.



Since taking that shot I've attached the center-back gore and sewn the seam up the back of the head to the liripipe attachment. That leaves the liripipe seam, the buttons and buttonholes, and some seam finishing.

There are no more events this month, and all of January's are too far away for me to consider attending. The next feasible event, Candlemas, will be held near Memphis at the beginning of February. After pulling a five-hour drive from the Gulf coast this past Sunday, the two-and-a-half hours to Memphis seems like a breeze, and I can crash with my sister the nights before and after the event, work schedule permitting. After that, a month-long research and prep fest for Gulf Wars XXI! That's right! Gulf Wars will be old enough to go to the Known World Party. I'm going to do my very best to get three or four days off for War, which means working things out with my boss many, many weeks in advance.

I know I'll need a wool gown for the inevitable chilly nights, and a cloak with a clasp or pin would be really useful. A red-and-black parti-colored gown would be nice to have available during muster and at the Gleann Abhann court, but party clothes come after wardrobe staples on the priorities list.

So, to my three official followers and everyone else who stumbles across this blog for whatever reason, I wish you and your loved ones health and serenity this holiday season, and an optimistic outlook for the new year.

- Mathilde de Metteneye

Stress test

Usually I prefer to wash garb by hand in the bathtub. This is because I'm a tad paranoid about all my hand stitching deciding to fail simultaneously. Silly? Yes, but I still play along with my brain.

Anyhoo, I deviated from my usual methods the other day and sent the brown kirtle through a machine wash. Mostly because it's become quite cold and I have no interest in stooping over a tub and swishing my hands around in cold water. Granted, the machine was on the delicate cycle and the lowest spin speed, and the kirtle was the only garment in the load. It did not disintegrate, nor did the seams explode. As I was hanging it up to dry (using the ribbon loops I stitched to the waist), I did find one weak point at a strap attachment. I have plenty of the same silk thread used in the garment's construction, so with a quick repair it'll be ready to play at Revel this Saturday.

Remnant-wool hood is also coming along nicely. I did a couple of test buttons and a test buttonhole. Haven't quite nailed down the spacing for the buttons, or whether I want to do even spacing or grouped pairs for a little added interest. Gotta get back to work to ensure the hood is wearable for Revel. It's supposed to get stupid cold outdoors once the sun sets. Photo post tomorrow night, perhaps?

Hey, look! December!

Got together with some of the crafty critters from Tor an Riogh earlier today for a little workshop on making and using natural dyes. Lots of good questions, a little show-and-tell, and a healthy amount of enthusiasm about experimenting with backyard dye materials.

Christmas Revel is in a week. I had a bit of garb-making burnout after Crown List, but yesterday I pulled some khaki-grey wool from the remnants stash and got to work on a London hood. The gore points above the shoulders result in a little pleat, which messes with the neck circumference a bit, so I'm going to need another (slightly deeper) gore at the center back of the cape. I also decided to line the face opening and button plackets with leftover dark brown linen from *ahem* that last project.

Assuming I don't waste too much of my day-off-work tidying the house, doing laundry, or reviewing my dye presentation (it's slated for addition to the Shire website), I can at least have the gores inserted, the liripipe sewn in, and some fabric squares cut out for buttons. Oh, and I also need to wash some garb and air out my wool blanket.

Monmouth cap

Until very recently I avoided knitting in the round. Most of my projects consisted of rectangular shapes, with the odd hat every now and then - always with a seam up the back. Well, no more! I bought myself a set of straight double-pointed needles, an interchangeable circular knitting kit and some lovely soft wool yarn as a birthday treat, and got to work that very night.

My gauge for worsted-weight yarn on size 7 needles is about 4 stitches and 7 rows per square inch. I decided to work the brim in a double knit stockinette, so I rounded my head circumference up to the nearest full inch and cast on double the number of stitches I would need for a single layer. I think my mind wandered a couple of times while I was working the brim, but the mistakes aren't glaring. Once the brim reached the desired height, I joined the two layers (K2t, repeat to end of row) and continued in stockinette stitch until the total height reached 4 inches.

I divided the total number of stitches into 8 sections for the decreases, and did some maths to figure out how many rows to knit between each of the decrease rows. The crown of my hat has a more gradual slope than the extant piece referenced by other recreationists, textile archaeologists, etc., but all in all, not a shabby attempt. I'll jimmy with the decrease scheme to try for a flatter crown and try my hand at fulling the next cap.



Now I'm working on a dark blue wool cap for my dear hubby, who doesn't dig the whole "dress-up" scene, but does appreciate a warm cap knit with love.

Overdue post-event catch-up

[Deep breath ...]

Last week I kept myself busy, hem-stitching like a loony until my brown kirtle reached a wearable state. The skirt length turned out just right for a utility garment - long enough to avoid indecency, but short enough that I don't have to worry about tripping over it unless I'm bent waaaaaaaay forward.

Since I can't do just one project at a time, I picked up some dark brown tapestry thread for a new matchy-matchy lucet cord and some mustard/gold wool yarn for a knit Monmouth cap. I also spent a good chunk of time one day braiding a cord from Kermit green embroidery floss, only to discover that my eyelets are not big enough for the knot to pass through. Bugger.

With all this going on I wasn't able to put a new high-necked smock together in time to pack for Crown, so I wore my keyneck under-tunic with the brown kirtle. It didn't look half bad, really, but the sleeves are a bit tight through the forearms. I have three weeks until Christmas Revel to sew a new smock. Since I have the knit cap there's no rush to work on a hood, and I know I won't have time to turn a wool army blanket into a cloak. But hey, rectangular pieces of fabric as outerwear are totally period and can serve multiple purposes.

Macie got its first on-the-body outing on the day of the tournament. It did fine, with one exception; when I was using the wool blanket as a cloak, the weight of the wool pulled the shoulders back and the neckline up - and it was pretty shallow to begin with. I'll definitely keep Macie in the late spring / early autumn rotation, when I can go without a full cloak. The brown kirtle got to come out for court and feast. I ended up serving feast, rather than sitting - something I would recommend to any fairly new SCAdians. Carrying drink pitchers and food platters to and from tables helps make contacts, and, at least in Gleann Abhann, the feastocrat makes sure to feed those who volunteer or are recruited to serve. And buddy, do we have some good feastocrats!

That's it for now. I'll be working on the smock and putting together a class on natural dyes in the upcoming weeks, and I'll post a write-up for the Monmouth cap on my next day off work.

Skirting the issue

Progress is yummy. Over the course of the past few days I've completed the double box pleating for my brown kirtle. This involved revisiting my maths, re-measuring, pinning, making frowny faces, re-re-measuring, re-revisiting the maths, undoing some stitches, re-pinning, and finally producing an acceptable outcome. Although next time I do something with double box pleats I'd prefer to end on a "peak" rather than a "valley." It's just cleaner that way.

Once all that was done I went straight to attaching the skirt and bodice at the waist seam. I had initially planned on turning the top edge of the skirt under just a bit and sewing the waist seam about a quarter inch up from the bottom edge of the bodice. Once I had the bulk from the pleats in my hands, however, the plan changed to "overlap the pieces flat, with the top edge of the skirt on the outside, and hem stitch." Jean thinks I have Cinderella's mice stashed away in my closet to do all the tiny stitchwork that seems to make its way into my garb ... I wish it were so!

For the kirtle to reach a wearable state, I need to close the front of the skirt and hem it. I'm a little concerned about how the skirt's heaviness may warp the shoulder straps during between-events hanging storage and after washing, so I'm going to grab some ribbon and attach weight-bearing loops inside the waist seam. If I do this right, it will take the stress off the straps and I'll only have to worry about replacing the kirtle if/when my body shape changes.

A side note: even on the hanger the dress has a booty. Period silhouette accomplished! I will post pictures once the kirtle is ready for its debut at Crown.

I'm not a wench, I'm your wife!

The bodice is complete! The eyelets (18 of them) were spread out over 3-4 days, which helped me avoid inventing any new profanities. I've been messing around with the skirt today, though, and I had to revisit the maths. Yech.



Here we are from the front. Pardon the midriff; I'm a bit short-waisted.



From the side you can see that this bodice design does nice - but not obscene - things for the boobal area.



I apologize up front for the poor image quality. My husband is not a natural photographer and I had to have him re-shoot because the first set was done from his standing viewpoint ... and he's significantly taller than I am. I made him sit down and shoot more level with my torso, but I'd already unlaced myself and crawled back into mundane clothes before uploading the photos. So yeah, you get blurry. It's better than "Here's how perspective can make a woman look like she has an unrealistically tiny waist and linebacker shoulders!"

There is still a bit of wrinkling, but it's much less noticeable than the wrinkling in the purple kirtle's bodice (it's unlined *gasp*). Adding the weight of the skirt should take care of some of it, right?

Back on track

Since I was off work today I made my shopping trip, picking up only what I absolutely needed in order to finish my new outfit before Crown.

1 spool dark brown Gutermann silk thread
1 spool tan/natural Gutermann silk thread
1 skein avocado green embroidery floss (for lacing cord)

Before heading out, though, I threw my smocks, apron, and coif into the tub for a quick wash and rinse, then hung them up to dry. The Maciejowski gown and my purple kirtle are getting dunked tomorrow. I also found a 3-ish yard piece of thick flannel in the magic fabric trunk the other night, quickly whip-stitched the raw edges and ran it through the laundry. It wants to be a cloak and maybe a pair of mittens. I'd say things are coming together nicely, and I have plenty of time to spend finishing the brown kirtle and getting my stuff together for the event.

Ruh-roh!

Note to self: always buy at least two spools of silk thread per full-body garment.

After my last post I decided to hit the last steps of the bodice out of order ... I guess I was in the mood to poke things with an awl. I've completed 13 of 18 eyelets, but I can see that I won't have enough dark brown thread to finish the rest of the eyelets and the straps, then pleat the skirt, connect it to the bodice, and hem it.

I've sent out a message to some of my other medievalist friends in an attempt to put together a shopping trip to the nearest decent fabric/craft store, but if that fails, I'll have to find a better justification for driving an hour than a couple of $3 spools of buttonhole silk.