SCA: A 15th-Century Velvet Houppelande

At my very first Gulf Wars, someone lent me a giant flannel houppelande on a cold night, which I threw on over my cotehardie, and I have wanted one ever since.  So comfy!  So voluminous!  It's like wearing blankets!  This year I finally made one for myself, since War of the Rams (BAM) in November is likely to be pretty cold in the evenings.  

This houpelande is made of the same cotton velveteen Ikea curtain panels that I used for my Regency pelisse, back in June.  Last year I acquired a huge box of these curtain panels from my local neighborhood swap group for free, and I still had 4 of them left (about 10 yards of fabric) - they were perfect for this project.  

I didn't have enough of the velveteen to make a full circle houppelande, so I used a simple A-line cut for the body of the dress, (adapted from a vintage 80s dress pattern) with side gores for as much fullness as I could pack into this thing.  The sleeves are D-shaped, and come to a short cuff at the wrist.  

The houppelande is unlined - I didn't have any fabric to use as lining, and I figured this velveteen would likely be heavy enough to keep me warm when worn over my other clothes. After it was put together I dyed the entire piece with teal and charcoal Rit dye, which gave the aqua-blue fabric a lovely medium blue-ish-gray color: 

After dyeing the whole thing, I added a collar and cuffs of white faux fur from my stash: 

 

The belt is one I made for a Burgundian gown that I made several years ago and never got around to wearing (oops). I had to move the hooks out several inches from where they were to get it to fit, but thankfully, the belt was long enough that I had plenty of space to work with.  The hooks themselves are gold-colored plastic highlighted with green nail polish to mimic an enamel look; I forget where I bought them originally, I've had them for aeons. 

The padded roll hat in the first picture is one I made many years ago.  It's nothing fancy, just a stuffed roll of damask upholstery fabric with pearl beads sewn on, worn with a netted/beaded snood and a couple of lightweight veils pinned onto it.  

So there's a big, new, warm outfit for BAM that I can wear on cold nights.  I also have my linen coat to wear over my Viking outfits, which won't be terribly warm on its own, but which I can wear with layers of hoods and caps, and my wool shoulder cloak.  

Edit:  It turns out the weather at BAM wasn't cold at all - mid-70s during the day, and only into the 60s at night, so I didn't get a chance to wear this at the event at all.  Maybe next year.  

Adventures In Dyeing: A Dublin Hood

It's days until BAM and I'm spinning my wheels.  I'm out of projects, and I needed something to do.  I thought, I've only got the one Dublin hood, why not make another one?  But the only scraps I had left that were big enough to get a hood out of were white.  There's nothing wrong with  white linen, but I wanted color. Boom:  weekend project.

Looks gross;  smells like SANGRIA mmm

Fortunately, I also had some frozen blueberries, a pomegranate, and a large jar of hibiscus flower tea.  That's right, no RIT dye for me this time - this is my very first foray into dyeing with natural materials.  It's something that's fascinated me for years, but I've never had the time or the space to get into it.  For this hood, though, I didn't need much space - only a pot on my stovetop - and I already had the materials.

I soaked the hood in vinegar, simmered the plant material in water for about 30 minutes, added 1 cup of salt as a fixative, and then simmered the dyebath with the hood in it for about an hour, then left the hood in the dyebath while the water cooled down.

Tada!  I have no idea what color this is.  Light red?  Dark pink?  Almost-magenta?  Does it have purplish areas in it or not?  If the color even? I can't tell - it's even in some lights, and in some others, not so much.  I'm not terribly likely to wear this color, but this was a really fun experiment.  I definitely want to learn more about plant dyeing when I get back from BAM.


AN UPDATE:  I very rarely do this, but this one was weird.  Two years later, in 2022, I pulled this raspberry-colored hood out of storage to get ready to go to an event, and it had faded to nearly white.  I don't know what happened to the color - I didn't store it in sun or heat or any moisture or anything.  It just faded, very badly.  I have no idea why.  

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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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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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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The Headgear Discrepancy

In the Hungarian National Museum exhibit, the extant Hapsburg wedding gown is shown sans headgear. There's a white scarf or veil wrapped around the head of the display mannequin (as seen here); but no other head covering is shown - the focus is on the dress itself.  To my knowledge, there is no headgear that goes with that extant dress.

So, in researching the Hapsburg wedding gown for my red-and-white version, at some point along the way I decided that I'd make a truncated hennin to wear with it.  The decision was based on (a) the Hapsburg gown being a combination of Burgundian and German styling, and (b) I kept coming across portaits of Mary of Hungary/Hapsburg that were either German in styling or French.  A little bit more research and I would have realized that I was actually seeing portraits of two entirely different women!

Marie de Bourgone, Michel Pocher, c. 1490

The first is Marie de Bourgone, (1457-1482), daughter of Charles the bold and Duchess of Burgundy. This is the Mary of Burgundy so often depicted in classic Burgundian dress with the steepled hennin.

Hans Maler, 1520

The second is Mary of Austria, also called Mary of Hungary after her marriage to Louis II (for which event the "Hapsburg gown" was created), and Governor of the Netherlands after his death, as regent for her brother, Ferdinand I.  She's the daughter of Philip I and Joana "the Mad" of Castile, and the niece of Catherine of Aragon...and is no relation to Mary of Burgundy.

Portraits of this Mary are often of Mary as Governor of the Netherlands, after her first husband's death, and in these later portraits, her garb looks decidedly more German.

(There are a also couple of portaits of her wearing mourning dress, after her second husband's death, which looks like it's probably Tudor-y, but I haven't been able to track down sources for them other than or hobbyist blogs which have no documentation).






Why didn't I catch this?  Because all of my research was about the *dress*, not the woman herself.   There is a also, I've discovered, a LOT of confusion between the two out there on the internet, a lot of blogs and A&S papers and other sources which list incorrect names for both women and/or present both women as the same person.  It took some digging into the parentage and domain of both Marys to figure out which one was which.  ARGH.

So, now what? 

Man, I have no idea.  While the Hapsburg gown is, technically, contemporary to late Burgundian fashion, during which women were still wearing hennins, I *could* get away with it...but now I know I've been confusing my Marys, I feel like it's not the right hat for the dress.  And, of course,  I can find NO period portraits of her in a gown that looks like the actual Hapsburg wedding gown.

I don't have time to make a big ol' German hat.  And the Hapsburg gown isn't a big ol' German hat type of dress, anyway.

When I did my original research on the patterning and construction of the Hapsburg wedding gown, I found three others made by SCAdians on the web, and...none of them are wearing headgear at all in the photographs.

Sigh.

Anyway, in the meantime, I thought I'd share my research-fail with you, because I thought it was kinda funny.  I really should have clued in, earlier, to the fact that I might actually be looking at two different women!

Oh, yeah...

So, here's the truncated hennin that I made:

(this is my "seriously?!" face)

The hat is made of a double-layer of heavy cross-stitch fabric (because that's what I had), covered with some blue drapery fabric scraps that I adhered to the cross-stitch fabric with spray adhesive.  The drape across the front is black velveteen salvaged from an old coat.

I folded the point of the cone inward to blunt the end and add stability to the hat itself, which was pretty flimsy before I did that.

Inside the "brim", the edge of the blue drapery fabric is turned under the edge of the cross-stitch fabric and the raw edges covered with a strip of ribbon hot-glued and stitched in place by hand.

While it doesn't show well in the photo for whatever reason, my silk gauze veil is sheer enough that the color and pattern of the hennin shows through it.  I really like the effect.

Not bad for a little hat that I totally didn't need and don't have anything to wear with.  :P



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You, Madam, Are Out of Order.

In what I'm sure is an adorable attempt to keep up with things I say I'm going to do  ...

*pauses for laughter from the audience*

I return to October's Monthly Sewing Challenge, which you may remember from this post.   While I did not finish the purple 12th century gown in October, I DID finish it this month, and will have pictures for you very soon.

In the meantime, I DO have pictures for you of my 13th century cylcas surcote, done in Caerleon's heraldry, for the War of the Rams at BAM last Saturday:*

All linen, with machine embroidery around the edges of the neckline and sleeve openings.  And for once, worn with all appropriate and period layers (with some modern ones thrown in.  It was fücking cold):

• knee socks
• knee boots
• leggings
• linen braies
• cotton chemise (white)
• linen underdress (green - and this is actually my plain beige underdress that you've seen me wear with my blue Viking apron dress.  I dyed it last week for this event).  
• Linen cyclas
• Hair: net snood, barbette, and linen pie crust hat.  I was also wearing a veil and/or scarf wrapped around my head and neck most of the event, as well as...
• a "cloak" which was a plush lap blanket from Waldemart that I picked up for $4 at the last minute to wrap around my shoulders

I was SO WARM.  Man, all those layers feel like walking around bundled up in blankets.  Yay!  

mostly the whole thing

Cotton duck screen-printed lions satin-
stiched in place, and tongues painted with
50% mixture fabric glue and craft acrylics

Bonus project for November:

A long tunic for one of my very favorite
Vikings up in the Steppes area (Dallas). 

Green and black machine-embroidery on the
neck facing. 

Evidently I'm on a machine-embroidery kick lately.

Wait til you see December's project.  :)

SO ANYWAY, now that you've seen November's project (s)...I'll put up pics of October's project later in the week, LOL.  And then maybe afterwards I'll have my poop in a group enough to get things done and posted on time.  ;)



*  Very short event review:  fücking cold. 

A Sewing Challenge!

SarahLizSewStyle is doing a garment-a-month sewing challenge, and I'm joining in!  I'll be doing it with SCA garments, though - and maybe the occasional mundane piece.  I'd begun a new outfit for our baronial event just last week, so I've decided that that will be my October garment and my first one of this year-long challenge.

If you'd like to get in on the challenge, visit Sarah Liz at her blog here, SarahLizSewStyle:

The dress I've begun (and I spent about two hours on armpit gussets alone last night; apparently this is going to be one of THOSE projects, egad), is a 12th century pendant-sleeve down.  Much like a bliaut in cut, fit, and shaping, but with long drooping sleeve ends that start at the wrist or mid-forearm, rather than the elbow or upper arm like a bliaut.

Inspiration-wise, I give you the following:

Mistress Aénor d'Anjou, a 12th-century clothing Laurel, via Pinterest, and her website.

Revival Clothing's 12th century linen pendant-sleeved gown (there's a red/black version on the website now, though I prefer this photograph).

This lovely and simple gown by Antalika on DeviantArt.  










The fabric I'm working with is an amethyst-colored "antique satin" (a satin or silk substitute developed in the 1950s which can be made of several different combinations of fibers;  mine is rayon and silk), which is cross-woven with black and with a slubbed weave and a very subtle luster on the outside.  I purchased it at Gulf Wars in March, and while I don't have a picture of my actual fabric, it's just about this color, maybe a tad lighter:

SilkBaron's "blackberry" dupioni

I cut out the dress pieces last week; last night I managed to get the body all put together, the neckline shaped, the gores in the skirt and underarm gussets all pieced in, and the sleeve pendants shaped, but not attached.  Not bad for one night!  Especially when you consider that I'm basically improvising this pattern as I go along.  I cut the basic body shapes based on my cotehardie pattern, without didn't cut a neckline so that I could do that later, and a tad large so that I can slip the entire dress over my head.  

This fabric is what my mother used to call "hairy."  It unravels like crazy, and SHEDS EVERYWHERE.  While the fabric itself is strong, trying to pick out an errant line of stitching is like walking on a rotten rope bridge across LAVA.  UGH.  

That said, otherwise, it's been wonderful to work with.  It has some give on the bias, but mostly doesn't stretch at all, so there aren't any weird tension issues with it pulling.  It's lightweight, but with a beautiful heavy drape, and feels wonnnnnnnderful against my skin.  I'm almost disappointed that I have to wear a chemise under it, hehe. 

The fun part is, I have to have the dress finished by THURSDAY NIGHT.  @_@   I still have to create an exterior neck facing and attach it, attach the sleeve pendants, finish all the interior seams, and hem the skirt. If I end up with time, I may also run some very simple embroidery (by hand) along the edge of the neck facing, and maybe around the edges of the sleeve openings, but I'm not sure about that yet.  

For now, the dress is just a pull-over, meant to be wrapped with a loooooong cloth belt (which I don't have, by the way, so there's that).  I'll be wearing my linen pie-crust filet hat, with a linen barbette, and either my large silk veil, or my small chiffon veil with the pearl edging.  Haven't decided yet. 

Fun!  So we'll see how far I get tonight.  Update when finished! 

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How Much Do I Love Pie?

You know, for a woman who once *hated* the idea of covering my hair for the sake of periodicity (1), I sure do love my veils and hoods these days.  And now I have made my first second hat!  I've been wanting a "pie-crust hat" for some time now, like this:

Oh, wait, no, that's Adrian Paul.  This: 

hat on the left (image from the Manesse Codex)

My previous hat had one problem:  it got smashed flat in a box somewhere on the way to its first event, and I never even got to wear it.  Sadface!  A good friend of mine, H.L. Catherine de Harewell, suggested this alteration to the next design:

Yup, it's flat.  

 It pins together in the back (or the side, whatever).  This way I can pack it flat without worrying about it getting crushed!  Is that not an awesome idea?

The hat is plain white linen, all hand-stitched (I made 90% of it in the car on the way to an event), and stiffened with heavy cardstock paper.  If I end up loving this as I wear it around this fall, I'll open it up and replace the paper with something more durable; but for the time being I just want to make sure the hat wears well.  No harm wasting paper for a trial run or three.

And here it is with my uber-period cow-print cotton bandana, and v-neck tshirt.  Oh, and also my roots showing.  I should probably do something about that.

SUCCESS!  I can't wait to wear it.  I can't wait to show you the dress I'm making to go with it!  I can't wait to show you ALL KINDS of things I'm working on right now, beginning with painting my sewing room - I've already done the closet.  Busy busy!

P.S.:  a lot.  Like, a LOT a lot.  I'm famous for it.

(1) "Periodicity", coined by Lady Harewell, and used with assumed permission.  ;) 



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Finished Hood!

...Er, two weeks ago, actually, but for some reason I forgot to post this.

Crappy pic of me; great shot of the hood.
Even though it's all rumply from sitting in a pile. Oops.

Yes, I do have three articles of clothing now
with these same buttons.  Hand-stitched front edge
where the lining is sewn into the outside shell.  

Hard to see in this pic, but, there's hand-sewn top stitching here,
too.  While the inner/body seams were machined, I did all the finish
and top-stitching by hand, to give the hood the appearance of
having been all hand-made.   

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