Not exactly ‘construction’, more like ‘acquisition’.
Courtesy of a new list of suppliers, I now have the following wishlist. Santa, please take note.
(Especially since I’m wearing 14th c to Saltare Jan 12th, and some of this stuff needs to be in my hands by then.)
Poulaines, women’s size 8, $65. Poulaines are those pointy-toed shoes you see in illustrations. This is a great price, and the product has a real shoe sole, so you can put in an athletic insert for comfort and health. (Actually, these need to be in my hands by St. Nicholas’ Day, so I can make pattens for them.)
14th Century Poulaine, Type .4
Wool hood, blue, large (lots of hair, remember?) $30. Yeah, I could make this, but it’s kind of a complicated pattern that I’d have to figure out, the fabric would run $15, and we just don’t have great wool selection in Florida. Plus my time is worth SOMETHING, and I’d rather put it into smocking or fitting garb.
Chapes, dozen, $6 – Chapes are also called aglets, and are used to tip laces. They’re hard to find, and these are museum reproductions, made out of the same stuff as the original (a copper alloy). Nice.
Linen remnants, $15 for 5 yards – I would be happy to get any linen or lightweight wool, but you’re not going to find either easily for $3/yard. What could you do with one yard of linen? Make one leg of men’s hose, cut on bias – and they are allowed to be different colors! Make a hood or coif. Make two legs of women’s hose, cut on bias. These particular remnants have the benefit of coming from a place that cares a lot about authenticity of color.
Historic Enterprises also has some beautiful jugs, I particularly like the 5 qt capacity, but shipping pottery is nuts, so I include a picture just because they’re beautiful. After trekking back and forth to the bathroom at Gatalop every time I wanted to change or wash my face, I am thinking that it’d be nice to have a jug and basin (and a way to hang up my window sheetwalls) so I can change or washup without being near plumbing. I’m not sure ceramic is the way to go, since I am schlepping this stuff all over creation, and perhaps a wooden jug and bowl would be lighter and less breakable. A leather jug? Need to ask Lavena.
Threads: silk/wool, wool, linen – in any color but pure black. (Black is very difficult to dye and stay dark – best to back off to near-black grays.) Particularly linen is hard for me to find without ordering.
Finally, leather pieces are always useful.
The women’s hood is actually really easy. It takes less time to do up than a plain tunic.
p.s. they’re so quick I might make you one, specially if we work out some barter as mentioned in following post. Let us see what colors I have that suit you–alas, not that lovely mid-blue, but maybe something else.
Instead of a jug and basin, how about a couple of buckets? (One for clean and one for used?) They would be multi-purpose; yokes can be made to carry them more easily; and they’d go with your “peasant tech” ideal a bit more.