Regency: Crocheted Fingerless Gloves/Mitts

 I've been meaning to sew myself some [fabric] fingerless gloves/mitts for some time now, "whenever I get a minute" - whenever THAT might be.  You know?  

I did recently find the time to make these, though: 

These are crocheted, in #10 black cotton crochet thread.  There's no thumb, just a thumb hole, mostly because I was already 100% DONE with making itty bitty tiny things with itty bitty tiny thread and an itty bitty tiny hook (size B).   I love the way they came out, though. (In case anyone wants to know, each glove took me about 2.5 hours).  

Is crochet period for the Regency?  Eh, one could make the argument.  Crochet was developed as early as 1820; the first examples we have are crocheted purses from England.  It was originally called "Shepherd's knitting" because the crochet hook was called a Shepherd's hook, and could date 5-10 years earlier in England and Ireland, but nothing 100% documentable has been found.  So it's possible.  I was going off the idea of netted purses and gloves, and the possibility that someone, somewhere, might have crocheted instead of netting.  Maybe...?  

I made them to wear with a dress I haven't made yet. Isn't that always the way?  

SCA: Return of the Cotehardie : A Dress Makeover

 I’m in love with my new 14thC bycocket, but I had nothing to wear with it to the next event. It’s been years since I busted out ye olde cotehardie - and while I am no longer young and thin, I’ve seen plenty of larger women rock a cote and look fabulous doing it, and so I shall be among them. 

So. 

I took a ride through all of my old costumes, and I found one that actually *almost* fit. Luckily, it had HUGE like 2” seam allowances from old alterations taken to make it smaller in previous years, and I was able to take almost all of it out and re-shape the dress so that it fit me again. Success!! 

The next problem was that it was pea green. It was a neat color, but totally the wrong tone for my skin - it makes me look really pink, and not in a good way. More like in a carbon monoxide poisoning way. So I overdyed it with Rit’s dark green, and voila - it came out a dark, warm, sort of hunter green: 

I order to spiff this dress up, and because the old polyester thread didn’t take the dye, I: 

• removed all the visible hand and machine stitching and replaced it with hand stitching in the correct color 
• removed the machined buttonholes and replaced them with hand stitched buttonholes 
• removed the buttons and re-sewed them with dark green thread, since for some strange reason I had  originally attached them with orange jeans thread (see pic above)
• removed the neckline binding and re-stitched it by hand, repairing a rip in the binding in the process

With the stitching and dyeing out of the way, it was time to make some new sleeves for this dress - it has half sleeves on it with long pendants, but I had no dress to wear underneath it. So I made a pair of half sleeves out of a blue cotton drapery fabric I had on hand, which I basted into the insides of the green short sleeves: 

 I also made a “medieval sports bra” sort of under-bodice thing out of the same fabric to wear underneath.  I had no modern or period contraption to make my bust look the appropriate shape and placement for this dress, and the dress itself, being unlined linen, would stretch out of shape as soon as it warmed up and not hold me correctly without supporting undergarments. So I made basically the sleeveless top half of a cotehardie out of the same fabric as the sleeves, which will support me, bring my waist in a little,  smooth out my back, and - along with the half sleeves - make it look like I’m wearing two layered dresses: 

All put together, it goes a little something like this: 

Bonus:  along with this dress and the blue bycocket I trimmed up last week, I made some new jewelry to go with it.  I had a purple and silver costume piece (plastic and pewter) which was badly tarnished and the plastic setting was chipped in a couple of places, so I took the whole thing apart and put the beads on new gold metal, and painted the plastic centerpiece setting with gold leafing paint to make it gold:  

Tada!  Now I just need somewhere to wear this.  I'm posting this in the hopes that nobody I know is reading it, because I want this to be kind of a surprise - I've been a Viking ever since I came back to the SCA in 2018, and whenever I wear this ensemble will be the first time I've worn anything but Viking since then.  I can't wait to wear my new hat and dress!  :) 

SCA: The Blue Bycocket

 So, I was at coronation yesterday, and a friend of mine busts out this huge box full of felt bycockets she’d made, and gives one to another friend who was sitting nearby.  And I said, “That’s f——-g cool! I want one!” AND Y’ALL, SHE UP AND GAVE ME A HAT.  It’s been years since I rocked The One True Century*, but I’ve always wanted a bycocket to play with - and now I had one. 

using sewing pins to mark the position of the future embroidery

It didn’t take me long to figure out how I wanted to dress it up.  It needed feathers, and I just happened to have a stash that included some teal McCaw, Blue Jay, and some lovely brown feathers that I’d picked up over the years. I bound them together with some teal ribbon and sewed the package together. 

feathers before securing them to the hat

Now for the body of the hat. It’s midnight blue, and what could be more perfect and more me than a nighttime full of stars?  I covered the crown of the hat in gold and silver embroidered stars, and teensy pearl beads: 

Next I used some of the leftover teal silk ribbon from other projects to cover the edge of the brim, and added a strip of some old blue and gold medallion jacquard trim that I had in my stash. I also found a fabulous giant button to use to set off the feather cluster. 

Tada!! A finished starry night bycocket.  I’m in love with it  and I can’t wait to get into what’s next - this hat has engendered a whole slew of new ideas as far as what to wear with it! 

* my friend JM calls it that, and I love the phrase.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my Viking and I always will, but 14thC rocks.  

SCA: A Woven Hedeby Bag

 Had enough Hedeby bags yet?  Me, either.  Here's one that's a bit different: 

This one is woven of yarn.  I saw one made of naalbinding a couple of months ago, and decided I needed one.  I do not naalbind - I've tried multiple times, but I just CANNOT get the trick of it.  It's infuriating.  

I do, however, crochet.  After looking into the various naalbinding stitches that have been identified from extant finds, I found that a herringbone/chevron crochet stitch (a modified half-double stitch) approximates the Mammen stitch from Finland fairly well - you can find more info about that stitch, and lots of other info about naalbinding here: https://www.en.neulakintaat.fi/30

Mammen stitch example pic from  https://www.en.neulakintaat.fi/30

The crochet herringbone stitch was a bit tricky to learn; I learned from watching this YouTube video.  Here's a closeup of what my herringbone stitch looks like, for comparison to the above picture of naalbinding.  It's very similar, I think enough to pass: 

crochet herringbone stitch

I made a rectangle of about 20", and folded it in half and sewed the sides closed to make a square-ish bag about 9.5-10".  (I used a single chain stitch on the inside/wrong side to sew up the sides from the inside, then turned it right-side out).

The bag was made from bright green acrylic yarn (Caron Simply Soft in "Pistachio"), because that's what I had on hand at the time I decided to try this project.  After the basic rectangle was made, I over-dyed the whole thing with a dark blue Rit dye made for synthetic materials, because the original green was a bit too loud and bright for me.  The resulting color is a darker, more muted green, and I really like it.  

I did not line the bag with fabric or anything, because the weave of the herringbone stitch was so thick and close that I didn't feel it needed a lining.  

I made the handles out of a very thin scrap oak plank.  This time, rather than a curvy Hedeby design, I used the pointy Birka handle design - because I wanted something a bit different, but also because I thought the zigzag shape of the handles would look neat with the zigzag-looking herringbone stitch.   After cutting, shaping, and sanding, I finished the handles by applying a thin dark brown Minwax stain ("Special Walnut") and a coat of Polycrylic to seal the handles.  

I am NOT happy with the handles at all.  I have so far cut out my handles with my jigsaw, but this oak plank was too thin to support the stress of being worked with such a heavy tool, so I used only hand tools - namely, an old, rusted, dull coping saw and hacksaw, neither of which did a good job.  I messed up cutting one end of one handle so badly that I had to cut the other handle to match it so the error wouldn't be quite as obvious, but this meant I didn't have room on the handles to drill holes for a carrying strap.  So we'll call this my Hedeby Clutch, LOL.  

Why a woven yarn bag?  Why not? No actual bags like this have survived; all we have are the wooden handles, and contemporary/earlier Sami bags of a similar design to guide our guesses as to what the bags  may have looked like.  They could have been fabric, yarn, leather, who knows?  This was just a fun little experiment for me.  

Mistakes in the handles aside, I like the way this project came out overall, and I'll definitely do it again.  Coronation is this weekend; now I have a new thing to show my friends when I go.  :) 

Regency: A Green Linen Capote Hat

Before the SCA took over my life at the beginning of October, I was working on a new hat for my Regency costumes.  It started out silly, which I'll tell you about, but first, here's the finished hat: 

First, in July, I bought a blank hat form from Etsy (Austentation) and trimmed it up in blue fabric/ribbon and LOTS of hot glue.  First mistake.  I hated it - it was overly frilly and girly, and I felt like a blue version of Strawberry Shortcake when I put it on.  NOPE.  I took it apart and removed all the hot glue from the straw with my iron and a scrap of fabric.  

just...no.  

What I wanted was something more subtle and graceful - like this ruched capote worn by Jennifer Ehle in the BBC Pride & Prejudice miniseries from 1995: 

The crown of the straw hat was too tall for that ruched soft fabric crown, so I cut part of it off and wrapped the edge in a bit of cotton bias tape to keep it from unravelling: 

(please excuse the hot glue, I removed it)

Next I created a mock-up of the fabric cover for the brim, and an 18" circle crown piece with some spare cotton sheeting I had on hand.  Once I got the fit right across the brim, I took apart the mock-up and used it as a pattern to cut out the pieces in a dark green linen (which I dyed; the linen used to be a light blue).  The linen was a bit limp for this application, and a good deal heavier than the blue fabric had been, and it sagged in places in an unattractive way, I ended up using the gray cotton mock-up pieces as a lining, to give the linen some stiffness: 

This time I sewed the pieces onto the hat with plain cotton sewing thread, rather than gluing them in place - it made the pieces lay flatter and more smoothly, and I should have done it in the first place, really, but I was too excited and in a rush with the blue. Oops.  I used a pad stitch to baste the brim cover in place around the base of the crown; and whip-stitched the turned edge of the crown piece to the brim cover, then pressed the crown piece outward over the stitching.

At first, I didn't like how it came out.  The fit around the edge of the brim was too loose, didn't look clean and smooth at all.  Also, the crown was too small, and wasn't fluffy enough.  I ended up taking the hat completely apart, re-stitching the brim edge so that it fit better, and cutting a new 22" circle for the crown so it would be large enough.  After altering the fabric pieces, I tacked on a green poly satin ribbon to the sides for ties:

I'm really happy with it now; it looks great, fits perfectly, and is a lot more understated than the frilly blue thing I first made.  The only thing is that now the crown is TOO big, and because of the limpness of the linen, it hangs in weird ways around the back of my head.  The hat still needs a lining to protect my hair;  I think when I do that, I'll stuff the crown of the hat with a bit of tulle or something to keep it poofed up a bit more so that it'll stay in place and not sag.  

I plan to wear this hat with my white Ikea dress and the green velour spencer jacket I made in 2021, if I ever get another chance to wear either:

So what's next?  I got some fabulous, FREE fabric the other day, and I'm working on a new Spencer jacket.  More soon!  

  

Regency: White Cotton Neck Frill

I made a silly accessory just for fun! My original inspiration for this frill (also called a ruff or fraise) came from two places:  this pointed and ruffled chemisette made by Sarah at Romantic History, which was based on a Janet Arnold Patterns of Fashion pattern, and which I love to pieces; and the ruffled collars worn in the 2020 movie adaptation of Emma by Emma and Mrs. Elton.  

I haven’t seen these frills terribly often in fashion plates or in impressions by other costumers; but I did manage to find a couple of historical examples in museums and fashion plates: 

1800s ruffed frill from Meg Andrews auctions

1807 ruffled collar from the Metropolitan museum

ruff worn with a pelisse; no clue if it's part of an underlying chemisette or not. 
LACMA

another similar fashion plate

Mrs. Elton’s orange ruffled collar in 2020 Emma

I essentially copied Sarah's design for the ruffles and neck band, and omitted the chemisette panels.  My ruffle pieces were 34” long and 3” wide at the widest point (narrower in the front, about 1.5”); and the neck band (finished) 17” x 1.”

The fabric is cotton voile, starched a tiny bit to make the ruffles stand out.  I didn’t have any starch on hand, so I mixed a tablespoon of cornstarch into 2c hot water and sprayed the fabric with that before I completed assembly. I honestly had no idea you could do that. No, seriously, all my life I thought laundry starch was just some magical (and probably dangerous) chemical concoction.  The more you know. 

pinning the ruffles to the neck band

I used two ruffles, each gathered and sewn into the neck band of the same fabric, one at the top and one at the bottom. I cheated and cut them as one piece and hemmed the pointed edges that way before cutting them apart, to keep the straight edges from fraying while I worked on the points.

TINIEST ROLLED HEM EVER

I attached a vintage silver-colored 1/8” silk tape to the neck band ends that I had in stash, and left long tasseled ties in the back to hang down. 

the finished fraise/ruffled collar

Tada!  I love this piece. It’s very silly and froofy, and I had a lot of fun making it. In retrospect, I think I should have paid more attention to staggering the ruffles so they weren't so stacked on top of one another; and I think I should have made them longer on the bottom than on the top to accentuate the layers more.  Overall, I like it, though, and I plan to wear it with...a dress I haven't made yet.  More on that at a later date.  

No BAM for Hrefna - What's Next?

 So it turns out that I can't make it to BAM this weekend after all.  My ride got very sick at the last minute, and I can't make the trip on my own or find another ride.  So I'll have a nice, long weekend off work to myself, to rest and work on various projects around the house.  Here's what I've got going on right now, which I'll be posting about in the coming weeks: 

• SCA:  I'm crocheting a new Hedeby bag (yes, crochet, I'll tell you all about it soon) - I need to finish it and then dye the finished product
• SCA:  I've decided to update the male Viking tunic I made for myself over a year ago, which will involve changing the neckline and sleeve cuffs
• Regency:  I'm in the middle of working on a new hat for myself, which I need to finish and then trim up with ribbon and floral elements
• Regency:  I have a new outfit planned, and some accessories to go with it.  That'll be a lot of pattern drafting and engineering patterns from pictures I've seen online

Plus I have about a million other little projects around the house to get done, some of which I'll post here and some I won't (you don't care about the doorknob on my pantry, right?)  I have plenty of things to keep me busy over the long weekend, as well as a birthday dinner for my best friend and roommate; and lots of projects to plan and work on over the coming winter.  

One of the many crochet things I've been working on

SCA: Prepping for BAM

 The third week of November is "BAM" - Bordermarch Autumn Melees, now called War of the Rams.  It's a five-day event in the middle of east Texas, and it's usually wet and cold...and a TON of fun.  

In 2020 and 2021, my Pandemic Project was an all-new Viking wardrobe - two new serks and three new apron dresses.  By the time the Pandemic blew (mostly) over and we were free to hold SCA events again, however, I'd gained enough weight that exactly NONE of my new dresses fit, so earlier this year I rushed to make two new serks and two new apron dresses that would work for me (the teal one that I've never blogged about (oops), and the blue herringbone).  

However, in August I started hitting the calorie-reduction and daily-walking bits as hard as I could, and I'm pleased to say that I've lost about 25lb since then - enough that I can fit into all of my Viking clothes, both the pandemic projects and the new pieces, as well as some older apron dresses that I spiffed up in 2020 and have never worn since.  

So, I've been spending my spare time in fixing up these older new dresses. All of my newer Viking clothing is seamed on the sewing machine and then finished by hand, and constructed in as period-correct a way as I can make them.  Except the older new dresses weren't - some of them were hemmed on the machine, so I'm picking the hems out and re-doing them by hand to make them look a bit better.  I did the same with my serks, which were all made entirely by machine - I picked out all the necklines, hemlines, and cuffs, and re-did them by hand in either a herringbone stitch (on the inside, which looks like a running stitch from the outside), or a running stitch. 

linen serk with new neckline stitching

All of my clothing is ready for BAM, and all of my packing is as pre-packed as I can make it, and I still have a week and a half to go.  So I'll be re-hemming dresses, ironing things, and working on various crochet projects until then.  I can't wait!