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.  

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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As Promised (For Once)

The first of three of my Florentine outfits from BAM weekend.  This one's my new Caerleon livery, a refit of what was originally going to be black and silver:

photo by Simona della Luna

Long hair wrap inspired by this.  After a bunch of ridiculous trial and error with the sewing machine and various scrap fabric, I finally realized I could just do this with my plain, long, silk gauze veil that I use for everything. HA. I just laid it over my head, tied it around my hair in back (which was in a ponytail with a plain elastic band), and then looped the ribbon ties around it until I reached the end.  It never once fell out, but was really easy to just pull off without having to untie anything at the end of the day.  Win.

Big bag sleeves, with company motto embroidered (machine) around the edges of the sleeve openings.

photo by Simona della Luna

A better shot of the back, with satin ribbon couched along the edges of the dress; sash made from wide upholstery scraps; corset and dress straps that won't stay up (a result of the cut of the back of both garments, I now know); the hair; and my new raven tattoo, lol.

photo by Simona della Luna

Another shot of the ribbon couching, sleeve embroidery, and sleeve attachment.

Man, that is some unfortunate Pause Face.  Blech.

photo by Simona della Luna

Evidently I forgot to remove  my bobby pins on this day, hehe.  I used them to keep my veil in place while I was wrapping it up, and while I was tying on this skinny velvet ribbon;  but once the pins were removed the whole shebang stayed in place like a champ.


















Things to work on for future Florentine outfits: 

• a higher back on the corset, to keep the straps in place.  
• a shorter corset, because this one kept trying to sit above my hips, which pushed the whole thing upwards into my armpits, and made the straps fall off
• wider-set straps in the back of the dress pattern, to help the back fit better and to keep the straps from trying to fall off. Sigh.  The off-shoulder look was popular during this time period, but it was achieved by cutting the outfits to BE that way, not because they just wouldn't stay up.  I love this dress, but I look like a pile of laundry.  :/ 

That said, my absolute favorite thing about this outfit was the sleeves.  They came out perfectly, and looked fantastic.  They were also, in combination with the boofy silk chemise sleeves underneath, very warm in the chilly, rainy air, without being too hot, or too bulky.  Yay! 

More tomorrow!   :)



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Event Pics Yay.

Paparazzi-Madylyne at Crown Tourney over the weekend:

Green linen gown (with the raglan-style shoulder seams that I experimented with in December), white under-gown, and white silk veil made from the fabric I got from a friend in October.

The whole shebang was really comfy and easy to wear.  I'm pleased.  You can't tell in this picture, but the skirt is split up the sides so that I can (a) wear something neat underneath that shows, and (b) pin it up if I want to - I had one side of it pinned up with a pretty "amethyst" cloak pin (since I didn't wear my cloak OR the fancy new hood I made for myself at the last minute, since, true to form for Texas weather, it was actually hot in January!)

Also pictured:  NEW CAMERA!  No more cruddy phone-cam pics for this blog!  

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Anyhow, I'll be wearing this green dress  at Candlemas over the aubergine gown with the pomegranate sleeves.   I'm working on a set of net cauls for my hair to wear with it, under this silk veil.  IF I get time, I may throw together something else for court that evening...but only if I get time.  If not I'll likely just wear the purple and green all day, or maybe just the purple during the day.  I haven't decided.

First, though, I'm working on that opashen for Vasilii, which I managed to get "halfway" done with in about two hours yesterday afternoon (cut out, body seamed together - the rest is just hems and trim and alllll the other finishing details).


More to come...



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