Happy New Year!

I know, I’m late, it’s the thirteenth already. I’ve been busy as heck the last few weeks getting ready for Bryn Gwlad’s Candlemas (February 1st) and Ansteorra’s Laurel’s Prize Tourney (Feb. 8th).  

Candlemas is BG’s big event of the year - everybody puts on the dog and brings their best to the various championships that are held during the day. There’s a marvelous feast in the evening, and an Italian Renaissance ball. It’s really something to see. For my part, I’ve been working on an A&S entry for the event (the red hand-sewn Norse dress I posted about a couple of weeks ago). 

Laurel’s Prize Tourney is not a tournament, nor is there a prize awarded for anything. What it is is a big A&S gathering where you can display your works - a project, a body of work, something you want advice on, whatever you want - and have the opportunity to talk to the laurels and to other like-minded people about your work.  You basically sit at a table, show off your works, and geek out about history with people with similar interests - and it’s SO FUN. I’ve been once before and I had a blast. 

This year LPT is in Oklahoma, so a bunch of us are trekking up there together for the weekend (it’s a one-day event) - picture a minivan stuffed with craft projects and history nerds on a 5-hour road trip, LOL. It’s going to be great. 

So I’ve been getting ready for that, too.  I’ll have more about both events as they get closer, and hopefully some pictures of my various displays afterwards, too. For right now, I’ve got work to do: 

I’m 

• Finishing up some small sewing projects 
• Weaving two projects (three?) 
• Making glass beads
• Organizing and planning my display(s)
• Writing and organizing documentation 
• Planning A&S shenanigans with a friend who is also doing both of these events with me 

And for some reason I’m also crocheting a sweater in my down time, because I guess I didn’t have enough going on at once. AAAAA!! 

Ok, back soon. 

Lady Madylyne Goes To Candlemas

2 years, 2 months, and 3 days.  That's a pretty long hiatus.

I've really missed the SCA these two years.  I had burned myself out pretty badly, and had no interest in even dipping a toe back into the whirlwind of stress that I remembered.  All that "project management" I posted about?  I missed the most important part: don't overload yourself and drive yourself insane! 

This past weekend, I dipped that toe back in, though - I went to Candlemas (fittingly, it was also my very first event, back in 2011).  I had a BLAST, reconnected with a bunch of old friends, made some new ones, and just generally immersed myself in that wonder that is an SCA event.  I got so many hugs I think I may never need another one.  I went into it thinking, "I'll just do this one event, and if it goes well, I might go back to the SCA...but we'll see."

Well, ladies and gents, I'm back.

I didn't make anything new to wear to this event.  The theme was late Elizbethan, and there was no way I could have pulled that off in a short amount of time - so I wore my favorite Viking, since that's what I had from before that still fit and was still in decent condition after sitting in a box for more than two years.

"Please, Mr. Photographer, will you take
a picture of my outfit for my mother so
she doesn't kill me? Thanks." 

(Caveat:  no, the green hanging apron in the front isn't technically correct for 10-11th century Viking.  If I remember correctly, the idea of it was based in one guy's misunderstanding of a grave find from, I think, the 70s, which was later proven to be not at all what he thought it was.  But it looks cool, and I felt the outfit needed it, just this once).

Now, Edna, that's not nice. 

It took a hot minute to find something that fit me properly; and then I had to re-do the jewelry that went with the outfit and put together a new set of feast gear.

Jingle boobs. 

So, what's next?  In general, I'll be taking things slowly and participating on a smaller scale than I did before, at least at first. There are many reasons for that;  the first being that I don't want to overwork myself like I was doing before...but it also doesn't help that BOTH of my sewing machines just died. That's going to put a bit of a damper on things, I think.  (C'mon, tax refund!)

I think the next event I'll attend is likely the Academy of Defense in Bjornsborg.  It's a rapier tournament, and it's at my very favorite event site of all time - grassy and cool, filled with mature pecan trees and surrounded on three sides by a quiet little river.  Lovely.

See you soon!

Candlemas

Yep.  I just never remember to ask someone to take pictures of me.  Here are some selfies, though, of the finished pink dress and new ear cauls.

In my uber-Medieval living room, with
turban and brown linen/blue cotton hood.

At the actual event site, with blue velvet dress
and a bit more cleavage than I meant to show.

ONWARD, TO GULF WARS!  More soon.


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Ear Cauls, Four Ways

Two years ago I made this set of red and gold ear cauls.  Last year at Gulf Wars, one got thoroughly crushed when I packed to head back home.  I decided to make a new set, and I had three goals in mind:

1. not red and gold
2. sturdier construction
3. more secure way of keeping them on my head

Keeping those goals in mind, allow me to show you my new cauls:

1. Oops. 

They're totally red and gold. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just thought I'd do a new color this time. Turns out, this was the fabric that I liked the best. It's left over from the red, faux-silk sari that I used to create the trim on the red and white Habsburg gown that I made for Candlemas in 2015.   I'm rather proud of myself for using the fabric the way I did: there's far less applied decoration on these, since the fabric itself is jacqard and brocade, and there's a little decorative border between the two already.  I aligned that line vertically, so that I can flip the cauls around and wear either the red side or the gold side facing outward.  It's almost like having two sets of these!

2. Sturdier Construction

This time, rather than creating a papier-maché form, I made something more similar to plaster, with layers of buckram soaked in a mixture of white glue and water. They took about four hours to dry completely. They're a bit flexible, but extremely strong.  They're a little heavier than the papier-maché set, which will help keep them in place.  I changed the shape a bit by forming the cauls over a little glass bowl from Ikea, instead of over the wire spider that I used the last time.

Clockwise from top left: glass Ikea bowl; buckram caul
forms; scissors; sari fabric scraps; buckram trimmed from
edges of cauls

Between this stuff, the spray adhesive, and the
hot glue I used to attach the trim, I pretty much
glued myself to everything I own for three days
in a row. The other day I glued a box of baking
soda to my bathroom counter.  I have glue issues.

Last time, I attached the fabric to the forms with spray adhesive. It was quick, but that was both good and bad: it was so quick that I didn't have time to smooth out the fabric over the forms as much as I'd have liked. This time, I used a mixture of white glue and water on a paintbrush to attach the fabric...but because this glue was so much slower than the spray, and so wet that it kept softening the forms and making them mooshy, I actually had a really hard time getting the fabric to stay on the form:

A terrible idea in progress.

Just a tip: don't do what I did, with the bobby pins.  I've had good luck using them to secure delicate fabrics for sewing purposes - they hold well enough to get a piece through the sewing machine, without poking holes in the fabric.  In this case, though, they made the edges of the cauls extremely lumpy.  I had to soak this caul to soften it completely, remove the fabric, then re-form the caul over the bowl. I ended up using the spray adhesive to attach the fabric again after all.

The cauls, overall, are a bit lumpier than I'd intended, but far more smooth than the last set.  It's something to keep working on.  I think next time I do this, I'll cover the forms with something thick and soft, like felt, to smooth out any rough spots in the forms, before putting the decorative fabric onto them.

After both cauls were covered, I used hot-glue to affix a band of brown upholstery gimp to the edges, and a wee strip of gold metallic ribbon across the center line of the fabric and just inside the gimp around the edges.

3. More Secure

My last set were independently suspended from my circlet by little metal hooks, so that I could pop them on and off easily.  It was a neat idea, and they stayed in place really well as long as my hair was wrapped around them snugly, and my veil was wrapped around it all so tightly that the veil slipped around on my hair and all over my face.  It was kind of a pain in the butt.  Also, my hair isn't long enough anymore to help that whole situation out.

This time I attached each one to the ends of a linen band - which I made too short, and which slipped off my hair right away.  I replaced the band with a black, velvet ribbon, with the velvet nap facing inward so that it actually grips my hair or a snood and doesn't slide around.  My circlet sits on top of the ribbon and above the cauls, which helps to keep them in place, too.

The finished set is much more secure - and comfortable - and, I think, prettier than the last set:

 

Top: gold side out, and red side, with metal circlet; both with single veil
Bottom: red side with two veils; gold side; with embroidered ribbon band

My circlet got a bit of an update, too.  It was silver-colored brass with black antiquing in the detail. It was also scratched and tarnishing.  I cleaned it up (with toothpaste, because I couldn't find my actual jewelry cleaner), and then coated it with gold nail polish the same way I did the buttons on my pink cotehardie.  I really like the way it came out.  And maybe now it'll stop turning my forehead green.


Whew!  That took a few days longer than I thought it would.  I really bit off more than I could chew for Candlemas this year.  Which is ironic, really, considering that I opted out of both Candlemas A&S as well as Kingdom A&S the following weekend because I haven't had time to really do a job on something special.  So instead of taking on a new, big project, I pecked myself to death this past month with a bunch of little ones.  I need a brain transplant some days, you guys.  Oy.



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The Pinkhardie

I'm starting a new wardrobe re-fit project, like the one I did with my Viking clothing last year, and my Florentine outfits the year before.  The first two were about making both sets of clothing more period-appropriate and replacing worn-out pieces.  This time around, I'm pretty much replacing my entire Gothic wardrobe.  Most of it is 4-6 years old, faded, worn out, and none of it fits me correctly anymore. 

I started with making over the blue velveteen cotehardie, which you can read about here. After having tried a few different versions of my cotehardie pattern in the past couple of years, I decided that I really loved the way the blue velveteen fits better than anything else I've tried, so I've gone back to that one. I drafted a new pattern from the blue velveteen and ran a couple of mock-ups to make sure it would work.

The next step was making two new cotehardies with that new-old pattern, both from stash fabric.  This pink one is plain linen, with bodice and sleeves lined in white linen, and buttoned in front and on the sleeves.

You can see where the bodice lining stops in this picture, because the fabric is so light!  I have a white underdress that I plan to wear with it, though, which cleans that up when it's actually on me, thank goodness.  That'll become an issue when it gets hot later this year, though, especially with the lining already in the top half of the dress.  I may go back and line the skirt; or I may just make a plain, white, linen underskirt that I can wear with more things than just this.






 

"original"

Finishing this dress involved some color changes. First, I tweaked the color of a dress a little bit by dyeing it in a bath of plain, black tea. The pink was a little bit too bright and Easter-egg-y for me; I really prefer a more ballet-slipper pink color like you'd get from a natural dye.  The tea toned down the pink to something more like you'd get with madder and less like Paas.

Photographing pink is hard.  The picture at left is NOT a good representation of the actual color of the fabric; but it does a pretty good job of illustrating the difference the tea staining made in the fabric. This fabric came from Fabric-Store.com; their photo of the fabric (here) is pretty close to its actual color. The real finished color is kind of on the line between pink and pale peach.

This is actually pretty close.
Stupid pink. Stupid camera.




It's weird for me, wearing pink. I think in my life I've only ever owned like three pieces of pink clothing. I really love this dress, though.

Top: single coat of polish (left); two coats (right)
Bottom: unpolished buttons (left) and after two coats (right)

 
The second adjustment was in the buttons.   I had some 5/8" silver buttons with a pretty compass rose design on them that were almost perfect with this dress, except that they were a really dark, cool, silver tone.  A couple of coats of gold nail polish ("I Married A Gold Digger", by Orchid Nail Laquer) took care of that: 



(This is the dress, by the way, on which I used the Washi tape to help me with the buttonholes, which I talked about briefly last week). 











 

What's Next?

Candlemas is tomorrow.  After that it's all Gulf Wars all the time until March 11th.  I'll be finishing a second new cotehardie, altering and updating a couple of older ones, sprucing up some accessories and making some new ones, and talking about a whole bunch of changes going on with my campsite arrangements for both myself and for Caerleon.  

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Blue Velvet Redux

new dress, for Candlemas 2016

In 2012, for my second Candlemas, I made a midnight blue velveteen gown that was more or less cotehardie-ish, with a shimmery leaf-green lining in the sleeves, embroidered with gold thread and tiny faux pearls. It had seen some wear, and was far too small for me, the last time I tried it on (six months ago), so I decided to adjust the sizing a bit, and to change the look of the whole dress.

In an awesome turn of events, when I tried the dress on a couple of weeks ago, before starting this project, it fit me perfectly!  Yay!  No re-sizing necessary!

Here's What Changed: 

1.      I removed all of the gold metallic embroidery and beading, steamed out the impressions left by the decoration and brushed up the fabric's nap with a soft brush to smooth it back out. 

2.      The original front lacing placket was removed and replaced with buttons. 

3.      I unstitched the neckline edges and flattened them out, then re-shaped the neckline at the bust. 

4.     The neckline was a wee bit deeper in the front than I wanted before, so I added a 1/2" edge binding in a linen the same color as the velveteen. 

5.      A twisted, blue, cotton, embroidery floss was couched in along the join between he body fabric and the edge binding. 

6.      I removed the green sleeve linings were removed and replaced with a blue washed-silk fabric from stash.

7.    Finally, I put smaller buttons onto the sleeves.  The size and design don't match the front buttons, but the metallic tones of both styles look great together, and I like having smaller buttons on the sleeves, anyway - less banging my arms on feast tables. 

The dress in 2012, made from a pair of
cotton velveteen curtains purchased at Ikea

Buttons and edge binding on new dress

One Last Thing

I tried out an embossing technique that I'd seen online - there are many tutorials on YouTube and on various blogs out there, this is one.  Basically, you wet the fabric with a spray bottle, place a rubber or foam stamp underneath it, and use a hot iron (without steam) to dry the fabric against the pattern of the stamp.  I thought it would be nifty to have a band across the lower hem, and one at the hips -  similar to the decorative bands in this image from Les Belle Heures du Duc du Berry.  At first, it looked fantastic: 

yay?

After a day or two, though, the embossed design simply disappeared from the fabric.  I tried it a few different ways (wetting the fabric on the inside, the outside, different iron settings, using starch, not using starch), but no matter what I did, the pressed pattern simply would not stay where i put it - after hanging for a couple of days, it just vanished. Oh, well.  It was a neat idea.  

Okay, Two Last Things

I thought I might "reupholster" my old red ear cauls for this outfit, as well, before I remembered that one had gotten badly crushed at war last year, and I'd thrown the pair out and resolved to make a new set when I needed one.  

Instead, since I felt like trying out something new, and didn't want to spend the time on making a new set of cauls, I decided to try my hand at making a bourrelet, or padded roll headpiece, instead - which, of course, ended up taking more time than a new set of cauls would have.  Whatever. :) 

Cotton/poly damask scraps from stash, over-embroidered along the fabric's design, with (plastic?) silver trim, plastic pearl beads, and a glass "ruby" and plastic pearl drop in the front.  There's a wire inside from an old Halloween witch's hat, and it's stuffed with the contents of an old bed pillow that had gone flat.  I love recycling old stuff!   

I may or may not end up doing some more embroidery on it.  The more I look at it, the less finished it actually looks.  Then again, 90% of it will be under a veil.  I'm not sure yet. 

I'll have pics of the finished outfit, with jewelry, veils, and other accessories, after Candlemas. 

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Now, About That Hat Situation

First of all, I needed a head covering for the daytime, to go with that gold Swiss dress I made.  I decided to make one of these:

(This is captioned as belonging to Whiljascorner.wordpress, but I can't find this post anywhere on Whilja's blog - my apologies to her, and if anyone can find a direct link, please comment here so I can give better credit).

Easy, soft, pretty, and easy to wear.

Bonus: looks fantastic with an old, shredded
Planet Fitness t-shirt

Here's mine.  

Lightweight, white muslin, cut into a circle about 20" diameter, with a band of the same fabric, and silk ribbon ties in back.

Gathering the circle onto the headband.

There's a piece about 4" wide in the center back that is not attached to the headband, that I just hemmed with a very tiny rolled hem.

I'm holding the back of the (coif? cap?)  up so you can see it's purpose:  the ties at the back of the headband tie underneath my hair, and the un-gathered back of the fabric circle kind of tucks up underneath it.

The design is similar to a St. Briget's (or Birgitta) cap, except for the width of the headband, and the length of the ties.

My non-SCA BFF/roommate asked me if I was
going to be working in a bakery at Candlemas. 

The 20" circle is plenty loose - enough that I could stuff a padded roll for a more haube-like look if I wanted to (hint: I don't. My head's a weird enough shape already, thank you).

This will work fine on its own; and it would also look great under a big, floppy hat, if I end up making one.

And then...

I decided, after seeing a number of beaded and embroidered coifs of similar design on various blogs, I decided to make a fancier one to wear with my Hapsburg gown:

This one's made of blue washed silk, machine-stitched in silver metallic thread.  I sewed the gathered circle onto a length of gray bias tape, then stitched it onto a headband of navy silk velvet ribbon, accented with a strip of narrow, silver, woven ribbon trim. The ties are a vintage rayon seam tape.

I will probably end up making some sort of hat to wear on top of it...but I haven't quite gotten there yet.  Stay tuned!





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Candlemas: IT'S FINISHED!!! (2/2)

WOOP WOOP!

Man, I gotta tellya, that skirt whupped my butt.  The skirt on the extant gown is cut as a full circle.  I tried for days to figure out how to do that with the two remaining curtain panels I had, but I just couldn't make it work.  In the end, I went with a panel-and-gore skirt, to make the best use of the fabric I had.  It means that the skirt isn't as full as I'd have liked, but it still looks and moves great (it's far fuller than it looks in the pics; my dress dummy is perched on the edge of the table, and some of the skirt had to be wadded up underneath it to make it look like it was standing up.  I reeeeally need to get around to building a stand for it!)

The skirt is pleated onto a hidden waistband attached underneath and behind the lower edge of the bodice...

I wrapped the red printed linen drapery fabric around a core of white upholstery
canvas, for stiffness and strength - the skirt is reeeally heavy! 

There's  a split in the front of the skirt - I'd originally wanted to conceal the waistband closure inside a deep pleat, but I didn't have enough fabric to pleat the skirt as fully as I'd wanted to.  So I split the front, and edged it in a narrow bias tape; the split sits pretty flat, and is completely hidden by the black belt when I have it on.

Too much/too thick fabric for pins?  Bobby pins. Thanks, Pinterest! 

All in all, though, I really like the way the dress came out.  It fits perfectly, and though it's heavy, it moves well, and is really comfortable.

Other Notes: 

• I ended up not lining the skirt.  This dress is heavy enough, I didn't want to add any more weight to it.  I also didn't want to add yet another layer to the three I'll already be wearing at the event...which is indoors. 
• I added a 3" trim of red upholstery velvet to the bottom of the entire skirt, to soften the lower edge and echo the wide, red silk trim on the neckline and sleeve cuffs. 
• I still don't have a freeping hat!!!  D:  

Fully-dressed events pics in just a couple of weeks. :) 

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More Dresses For Candlemas: Blue and Black "Kampfrau"

This one's for my friend L. Ysabeau (for whom I made the russet silk bliaut back in October):

(modeled for us today by Violet, who still needs a stand, but it turns out
she works just fine for photo purposes perched on the corner of my cutting table)

Tada! 

• Black and turquoise linen
• Bodice lined in the same black linen
• Cuffs and neckline trim interlined in a white pique cotton (shows behind  the slashing on the neckline)
• Skirt cartridge-pleated to the bodice edge, and sewn on by hand. 
• Neckline slashes tacked and stitched open by hand: 

Yesterday I finished this gown (I'd been in the middle of putting lacing hooks behind the front opening for like two weeks, for some reason. It took like maybe thirty minutes to finish), cleaned up my sewing room a bit, and started working on the waistband for the red Hapsburg gown.  More on that tomorrow! 

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Gold Swiss/German Linen Kirtle

Bryn Gwlad's Candlemas event is a sight to behold.  It's just about my favorite event of the year.  It's primarily an indoor event, chock full of classes, A&S, music, and dancing.  The hall always looks amazing, the feast is lit by candlelight only, and heralds announce each course as a coordinated fleet of servers delivers food to the people who aren't up participating in the ball taking place at the front of the hall before the high tables...to live music.  *happy sigh*

It's also usually a themed event.  This year the theme is Landsknecht, on the road to war (Gulf Wars, in March).  Landsknecht dress, or at least German-styled clothing in general, is encouraged (but not mandatory).  Though I've sworn for five years that I'll never "go German," here is my first one, to wear during the day at the event.

It's based on the following two works by Diebold Schilling the Elder (Swiss, 1445-1485), and a couple of recreations I've seen online that I really love:

unknown, Schilling

Barbara Erlach and daughters,
Schilling

In Nova Corpora

Sew Mill

Notes

The pattern is based on my usual cotehardie pattern.  It's rectangular construction with inset gores, and only the neckline and sleeves have been altered. (The sleeves are short because I'll be wearing a pair of over-sleeves with the dress for part of the day and working with my hands for most of the rest of it; they're cut as modern sleeves with the seam under the arm instead of behind it, which I did for speed as much as for the slightly baggier look they give to the shoulders).   I would really have liked a fuller, longer skirt; but I only had so much fabric to work with. 

The bodice of the dress is flat-lined in white linen; though it is also turned at the neckline/front opening.  The sleeves and skirt are unlined.  I wanted as few layers as possible for this outfit, since a hall full of people dancing, gaming, and milling about gets pretty hot;  I'll be working most of the day, attending dance classes, and wearing braies and a smock underneath this dress as well.  I'd rather not die of heat stroke before lunch.

A close-up of the front lacing after completion, during a test fit.

The lace is a silk twill tape from a stash of vintage notions I received from a friend several months ago.

There are no hooks or loops or holes for the lacing; rather, a thin, double-fold cotton bias tape is attached inside the edge of the front opening. The bias tape was attached with  line of decorative chevron stitches (machined) that run down the entire front opening edge, with gaps in the stitching to form loops in the bias tape through which the twill tape is threaded.

I was originally going to close the vertical slit with buttons or a hook; but I didn't have anything in my stash that wouldn't interfere with the belt I was going to wear with the dress.

(Sorry, the stitching looks horrible from the inside.  On the outside it's nice and even, and practically invisible on the gold linen).

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With my newest Caerleon sleeves...which I made like a year ago and never posted to the blog. But I kinda love them.  :)








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