SCA: Green 1490s Florentine Outfit - for Candlemas 2024

1490s Florentine Italian
for Candlemas 2024

In the beginning, I honestly had no thoughts about what to wear to Candlemas in February - I figured I would just go Viking, like I always do.  But then I went to the event webpage and saw this: 

"The year is 1494 and the wealthiest bride in Europe is about to become the queen of Germany and future Empress of Rome.  Come re-live the wedding of Bianca Maria Sforza of Milan and King Maximilian I of Austria and Germany." 

1490s Italian? I'm in.  The Sforza wedding was said to be one of the most amazing spectacles in years, by several people who wrote about it later: a pageant of high fashion and pomp the likes of which the writers had never seen.  Candlemas this year is intended to be a huge costume extravaganza, and everyone will be wearing their finest Italian and German garb - there's even a costume contest!   Time for a new fancy outfit, I thought.

My first thought was to make some minor alterations to the red velvet Florentine-ish outfit I wore to Baronial in 2022 (the trim is wrong, the sleeves are too big, and the whole thing needs small adjustments here and there), but I wanted something new.  And so of course, I started with something  old.  

Gamurra

I started with my black silk noil gamurra, which I made in 2014 and which has undergone many transformations in the past nearly ten years, mostly in the form of various decorative stitching and trims being applied and removed to change the look.  

I did the same this time, applying a gold and black braided trim to the neckline and front edges, and attaching some gold (brass) lacing rings to the front opening (yes, on top of the hand-sewn eyelets that were already there. The eyelets are very small, and they don't show under the rings when the dress is laced at all).  

Giornea

before - Burgundian dress

For the giornea,  I made over an old Burgundian dress that I had made in 2013 and had never worn - I just never got around to making an underdress or headgear to wear with it, so it just sat ignored  in my closet all these years. The outline was already nearly perfect, though. The dress is voluminous (much fuller than it looks in this picture), but the sleeves were too tight at the top, which made the shoulders fit weird.  Fortunately, I didn't need the sleeves.  

I removed the sleeves and all of the faux fur trim, cut the armscyes a bit deeper, removed the collar and opened up the center front seam all the way to the hemline.  

I also stitched a length of gold braided trim along the neck opening/center front.   I didn't want to dress this giornea up TOO much, because the sleeves and the trim on the gamurra were more than enough decoration for this outfit, but it did need something so that the edges weren't just plain. 

closeup of the front

Giorneae were usually open either at the front or sides or both, to allow the gamurra underneath to show through - mine is only open up the front, and is belted all the way around with a long, black, double-faced satin ribbon sash.  My giornea was inspired by several Renaissance paintings, like these two (both fragments of frescos by Domenico Ghirlandaio): 

fragment from the "Birth of St.
John the Baptist" fresco

fragment from the "Visitation" fresco

Sleeves 

While 90% of this dress was basically free - I made over old costume pieces and used materials from my stash for almost all of it - I did actually splurge on fabric for the sleeves. This is a silk damask in aqua and gold (sort of a shiny tan, really) from Rennaisance Fabrics - it’s so soft and pretty, I just love it!   

Since the fabric was fairly dressy, I opted for a plainer sleeve design, closed at the upper arm and open on the lower arm, and laced open to allow my linen camicia to poof out through the lacings.  

I stitched eyelets along the open forearm edges and on the sleeve heads where the sleeves attach to the gamurra in a tan/brown thread which matches the "gold" parts of the fabric's design. 

I took my inspiration from images like these: 

another fragment from the
"Visitation" fresco by Ghirlandaio

I'll talk about the accessories, and my hair, tomorrow. For now, although I won't be the fanciest nor the richest-looking person at the Candlemas event in my made-over dress, I'm proud of this outfit and I can't wait to wear it.  I just hope it's not too hot, and that it holds up to dancing.  

Bonus:  my Project Cat, Rabi, asleep on an Ikea pillow underneath my work table: 

SCA: 1490s Florentine

 After refitting my two Florentine-cum-Venetian dresses, I still had my old red velvet court dress to figure out. Here it is in 2013 when I first made it: 

It still fits! I still had the original pomegranate-print linen sleeves, too, thankfully.  They were too tight, however, and originally I thought I'd just add a gusset under the arm to widen them, but then I thought, hey, I'm a bona fide Crazy Person, right?  Let's do something crazy! 

So, I cut them apart and re-shaped them as pieced sleeves a la 1490s Florence, to make them a little more accurate for the style of the dress (see below).  See the embroidered pouch on the far left?  It's the same fabric, but in 2013 I embroidered over the printed design to spice it up a bit, and I decided to do the same thing to these sleeves.  

Here they are finished: 

And here's the whole dress, updated and complete (click to make bigger): 

The dress isn't period accurate, I'm afraid.  A big thing with the laurels around here is to be able to explain THAT you know something is wrong, and WHY you chose to let it remain wrong.  Technically, the red velvet gown should be a giornea, open at the sides or the front to reveal a gamurra dress underneath.   However, I simply don't have the funds right now to make a whole new gamurra to wear under this dress, so I left it closed and used the matching sleeves and front panel to simulate the look of a separate under-dress.  I'm not a huge believer in the "10 foot rule", but it passes the 10' rule, and it looks cool, even if someone who really knows their Italian stuff would know right off the bat that this isn't right.  It bugs me, but it's what I've got.  I guess for making something old wearable again, I didn't do a half bad job.    

So now I'm all set for Baronial in October! At least, as far as things to wear goes.  I've been designated site decorator for the event, so I have a lot of work ahead of me making loads of flags and pennants and signs and ribbons and who knows what all.  I'll be busy with that for the next month and a half.  Meanwhile, I might even figure out what to do with my hair for the event.  And before Baronial, the annual fall Bjornsborg event is coming up early in October, so there's that to prepare for, too!  October is going to be busy.  

 

SCA: 1520s Venetian - Black Dress

 After completing the wine-colored linen Venetian dress, I set about making the same changes to my black silk Florentine dress: 

 

Once again, the silk fabric was badly faded, and needed a refresh.  I over-dyed the whole thing with Rit's black dye. 

 

 

I created some new bag sleeves for it, just like I did with the wine dress, cut from the skirt of an old sideless surcote that had seen better days, and dyed them at the same time as the dress so the black tones would match.  This fabric is linen, with a woven stripe pattern, which I find just neat as hell. 

 

There's two old 1490s Florentine dresses turned into 1520s Venetians for the price of a couple of bottles of fabric dye. Yay! 

 

The only thing I'm not sure of at this point is what to do with my head.  My hair is very short these days (I cut off like two feet of hair in May and am growing out my gray), and I prefer to keep it covered in the SCA.  With Viking all I have to do is throw on a kerchief or a Jorvik hood and I'm good to go.  But what will I do with these Venetian dresses?  I suppose I could just pop on a snood, but I want to do more than that.  Hmm.  Maybe some more research is in order.  

SCA: 1520s Venetian - Brown Dress

So, I'm a Viking pretty much full-time, but we have an Italian-themed event coming up in October, so I thought I'd drag out my old Florentine wardrobe and see if it still fit.  

Reader, it did not.  I'm a bit larger than I was when I made these outfits - ten years ago!  The corset, first of all, rides up over my belly into my armpits, so it's not workable at all. Thankfully, the two dresses fit well enough if I lace them wide open (they used to close in the front), and can be laced tightly enough that they're supportive, so I don't need the corset. All of my old sleeves are also too tight.  I wanted to replace them with bag sleeves, but between that idea and the fronts being laced wide, I was getting pretty far away from the 1490s Florentine style that these dresses were originally supposed to be. 

Enter Palma Vecchio and his contemporaries.  I found the following paintings online, from 1510s-1520s Venice: 

Cariani, 1520

Unknown, 1520s

These Venetian dresses are laced wide (tied, actually), and shown with baggy oversleeves.  That's exactly what I wanted!  Now I know it's actually a thing.  (Mind you, I have no actual research to back this up, just a few paintings to go off of). 

The first thing I did was to dye my old brown dress.  It was badly faded after all this time, and needed the color refreshed.  Rather than overdye it with brown (I hate Rit's browns), I combined a wine color with an eggplant color, just like I did with the cotehardie I dyed two years ago, and it came out beautifully: 

Then I created some bag sleeves for it out of a blue linen, dyed to match (eh, they mostly match. They’re a little lighter, but then the original color was very pale).  I had to improvise the pattern:  all I had to go on was a pin from Pinterest with a broken link; I couldn't find any 1520s Venetian sleeve patterns anywhere else.  I copied the shape as best I could, and the sleeves came out just fine. 

 

my version

 

The only problem I had with dyeing this dress is that for some reason I originally attached the skirt with dark gray thread. It didn’t show much against the brown linen, but now that it’s red, it stuck out like a sore thumb.  So, I took the skirt off and put it back on with thread that matches.  Not a huge deal, but kind of a pain in the butt. 

So now I have a new dress to wear to the event. I have a black one to re-work as well, and a court gown to fix up. I’ll show you those soon. 

SCA: Venetian Fan Makeover

Approximately 2 billion years ago, I made myself a little paper hand fan/face screen to go with my Italian outfits. I loved it…but it got loved to pieces. 

The paper is bent, tearing, fuzzy around the edges. The design, drawn in sharpie marker, is faded and crappy looking. The stick - a dowel with hot glue wrapped around it to simulate a turned piece of wood - was chipping off paint. Time to redo this thing. 

I spray painted the stick black, and then dry brushed on a couple of coats of brown and tan, to recreate the wood look. I sprayed it with Polycrylic after that, to protect the finish. 

For the flag, I cut a couple of pieces of damask-print scrapbook paper and glued them together back to back. Then I painted the edges and over some of the detail in the print with gold leaf paint, and attached the fan to the stick with embroidery floss coated in Mod Podge, like I did the first time. 

Brand new fan!  It matches exactly nothing I’m going to be wearing at Baronial, but I don’t care. All my other stuff is blue, this can be blue, too. 

Inspiration pics: 

Italian fans, 1500s

French face screen, 1600s

Woman In White, Titian, 1561

SCA: Bits and Pieces For An Upcoming Event

 We have an Italian Carnival themed event coming up in October, and I’ve been refitting a couple of old Florentine dresses to wear to it. I realized the other day that I needed some jewelry and a mask for the event, too, so I dug out these old pieces: 

I made each of those necklaces about ten years ago, to go with Italian ren and gothic ensembles. I cleaned them up a bit, but since they’re made with brass and pewter (the pearls and garnets are real), I couldn’t get them really shiny and silver again.  Oh, well. They’re still pretty. 

I had a mask already made, but it was broken, having been crushed in a fabric box in storage.  I’ve actually made three masks, but something always happens to prevent me from wearing them, including a freaking TORNADO.  

Not to worry. I glued the mask back together and put the feathers back on it, and voila: 

There! Now I just have to get the actual dresses together. More on that later. 

In Which Our Heroine Awakens From Her Post-War Nap

It's been a few weeks, but I finally feel rested.  It always helps me, after an event - especially one I've been working full-time preparing for - to center myself with non-SCA stuff when I get back.  So, I've been gardening, and riding my bike, and sewing some mundane clothing. 

I have a bunch of pics from war this year, and I'm working on getting them all into a Flickr album (or something) that I can share here.  Here are a very few, for now:

Sunday night, after a day of camp setup, I
helped serve feast! I'd never done that before;
and it was SO MUCH FUN.

AND I BURNED THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF MY ARM
ON ONE OF THE OVENS! I took really good care of it all
week, and ever since, and thankfully, it's already mostly
healed, and it looks like there won't even be much of a scar.

So here's a thing: 

I FINALLY got some pictures of the flag ropeline around our campsite, you guys!! You've seen the flags in a couple of posts before. They're made of heavy-weight cotton (originally Ikea RITVA curtain panels, purchased second-hand from my old dance studio when it went out of business a few years ago).  They're each 9x12", double-sided, serged closed on the edges, with a rod-pocket in the top to slip over the ropes.  The fence stakes started life as 8' long 1x2" sleepers from the hardware store - $1.50 each; each cut in half, cut to a point on one end, sanded smooth, and stained/sealed.  There's a 1/2" copper tube strap (5pk/$2 at the hardware store, in the plumbing section) attached to the top of each stake for the rope to go through.  So far the entire fenceline has cost me a whopping $30; and I've got plenty more materials on hand to expand as our camp gets bigger. 

The entrance to our camp.  We often use the ropeline as traffic
control; this year we used it for safety, too, by placing it in
front of a tent-rope trap that kept tripping pople before
we got the whole camp set up.

Looking down the outside of camp, with the silk banners we
all helped to paint in 2012. 

A painted cotton banner I made in 2011.

From the opening ceremonies on Tuesday mornings, all kingdoms lining up to begin negotiating the war treaty. 
This is the most SCA picture ever. 

Me carrying the banner in the procession
to the castle (with my dress falling off my
shoulders and the surcote too low in the
front, because by the time I got to war,
they were too big already! ARGH!)

Caerleon

Just Vikin' around. 

Sadly, I did not manage to get pics of me in that purple men's Viking outfit. I promise you some, though, because...well, because I promised you some, and the entire ensemble looks pretty damned spiffy, if I do say so myself.  (In fact, a friend of mine liked it so much he's commissioned one for himself!) I didn't get to wear most of my cotehardies, because they were all too big again by the time I got to war (ARGH!); nor any of my pretty, fancy court things, because all the fancy court-type stuff was called on account of ...

 

After that was overwith, Caerleon bugged out to a hotel for the night...because hot showers, and because WALLS, y'all.  I admit to being thoroughly unhinged for most of that evening. I've been through several tornadic events in my life - this was actually the least severe of them all, but it brought back some pretty terrible memories, and I was kind of having some epic disaster-flashback issues that evening.   We came back the next morning to clean up and break camp.  I stayed until Saturday to help out the folks I rode with who were working at the merchants' offices.  Friday and Saturday I spent walking around in jeans and a hoodie, because all of my clothes and things were soaked and had been hurriedly crammed into bags into a trailer during a downpour on Friday. I had to laugh - I've made a mask every year for three years now, intending to get to a masked ball at war or some other event, and I never end up making it.  This year I DID make it to the masque at the Known World Party Friday night (which was held inside Beade Hall with donated food and booze from many, many generous people who had such things survive Thursday) - and I showed up wearing jeans, a hoodie, and a generous helping of embarrassment and disappointment.  Oh, well.  Next year?

A flooded pond on site, taken as we GTFO'd on Saturday.
Goodbye, Mississippi.  Please be nicer to us next year.

So, all of that being said, 

I had a FANTASTIC WAR.  Before the tornado I got out and participated in the event in ways I'd never done before.  I met a ton of new people, made some new friends, stepped out of my comfort zone in a constructive way, and had a fabulous time exploring parts of the event I'd always wanted to explore but hadn't.  My health was REALLY nice to me this time around, too, and the freedom was an absolute joy.  I took a HILARIOUS class on ancient-Roman-style swearing that was really interesting and educational as well as lewd and fun - I lost the teacher's card, but if any of you were at the event and know who it was, send me a link to her page! 

Life was really scary and chaotic Thursday; but Friday and Saturday I saw 3,000+ of my fellow SCAdians banding together to help one another in the aftermath of the storms.  Some people lost everything they had, but every single one of us that I could see pitched in to spend the last two days of the event cleaning up, helping each other break down camp and get cars out of the mud in the parking area and on the saturated roads, and make sure that everyone had shelter and food and a way off site.  Everywhere I went those two days, people were full of care and concern for people they didn't even know - and many of us got to know each other through swapping stories of how we all fared during the worst of the storm (shout-out to some of Calontir's heralds, whose names escape me, but whose stories of holding their main pavilion that evening, and whose tale of "How John the Tall Saved the Children" at another event, really made my day on Friday!) 

This is the reason I love the SCA, even when the occasional drama and politics get me down - our love of this game makes us family, and when the chips are down, we are all there for each other, whether we know each other or not.  And whether you, Dear Reader, were at the event or not, I want to say thank you to each and every one of you for being family to me and to each other.  If you were there, or if you've had an event that went similarly (I hear Lilies War gets pretty interesting), thank you for caring and helping each other.  Thank you so much.

S'mo Italian Stuff

Just in time for the 14-15thC Italian-themed Queen's Champion event this weekend:

1.  Green damask giornea top layer for the brown linen gamurra I fixed up last month:

$7 thrift store holiday tablecloth FTW

2.  Blue silk cioppa (over-layer dress, sometimes worn over a gamurra, which is closed in the front, sometimes worn alone) with pieced sleeves:

Event pics, with sleeves, next week!

4.  A new necklace for no reason at all, with graduated, faceted carnelian beads given to me by a client, alternated with 4mm amber-colored glass seed beads:

5.  A blue linen sleeveless underdress, made for a friend to wear while working in the event kitchen and/or bumming around camp:

This was based (loosely) on the following excerpt.  I lowered the top yoke considerably, and left off the trim and shoulder ties.  This is meant to be sort of a sundress that she can wear for SCA work days - casual, plain, and cool in the Ansteorra heat.

from Triumph of Death, Lorenzo Costa
 (right panel)

Also finished since  my last post:  two Roman dresses, and two Viking apron dresses, for another client, as well as two pairs of Phrygian caps for two other people, all to be delivered this weekend at Queen's Champion.  Hopefully I'll have pics of everything for you next week!

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Can't Stay Away For Too Long

In the past month-or-so since war, I've taken some time off.  I've sewn mundane garments.  I've cleaned up the house.  I've been spray painting shelves, moving furniture around the house, helping to plan surprise birthday parties, learning to cook new things, and spending a LOT of time in the garden.

And yes, I've been gearing up to hit the SCA sewing.  The longer I put it off, the more excited I am about it!  And it's about time to get down to business.  I have a mountain of alterations and new projects for clients - some regular and some new.  There'll be a lot to show you in the next few months.

The first thing on my schedule was to refit a few things from my Italian wardrobe.

To Wit: 

I started by replacing the neckline on my old, white, cotton camicia with a drawstring neckline instead of the flat one it had (because it was ripped on one side, and stained, I think with coffee).

Next, I dug out my old, brown, linen gamurra for some repairs and alterations:

• re-attached one of the ribbons at the shoulders that tie the sleeves onto the dress
• re-attached a couple of button loops on the sleeves that had torn loose; and reinforced the rest of them to prevent that happening in the future
• changed the sleeve buttons
• replaced the hand-stitched lacing rings on the front of the gamurra with a strip of eye tape (the eye side of hook-and-eye tape by the yard) for a more even and professional-looking front closure on the dress
• Removed the skirt, which had always been a couple of inches too long, and rather than shortening it, shortened the bodice on the dress to move the look from a more mid-1400s natural waistline to a midriff-length high waistline seen in paintings of the 1480s-90s, which is the look I prefer (I intended this dress to have a higher waistline to begin with - which was why the skirt was too long - but I'm very long-waisted, and in the habit of adding length to the waistline of anything I sew, sometimes without thinking about it.  I realized recently that this was actually why that dress never fit me correctly in the bust!)  

Finished, front and back with sleeves

l

Before - April 2013. The front was sloppy, the bodice
lumpy because it was too long, and the sleeves were
too loose (I fixed that last fall but forgot to mention it). 

L-R:   opening up the brown linen shell,  opening up the lining and interlining and sizing the piece I removed from the lower
edge of the bodice, finished insert - and noticing that I twisted the front when I put it back together, resulting in a twisted
strap - I had to take the strap apart and flip it and sew it back together, LOL.  Oops.  

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Not my favorite part of making a gamurra.  However, since it was essentially
pre-pleated from just having been removed from the dress, it was far
easier than pleating "from scratch."  

Eye tape inside the front opening of the dress, and 1/8"
cotton twill tape lacing.  Also the new drawstring casing
on the camicia.