out of 4 yards of handkerchief-weight linen, for ~$7/yard?

(I was cutting out handwork projects for our car trip this weekend.)

Answer:  2 shifts, an apron, a fillet & barbette, and an extra square of headwrap.  That’s quite the bargain.  I did cheat a little, in that the shifts are short with finished side vents rather than proper mid-shin-length with gores.  (I want to be able to wear them as thigh-length blouses in mundane life.)  I tried out the ‘short shift in hot weather’ aspect at RUM, and it was fine.  I want to research more about underwear, though.

Does anyone have a compelling reason to wear long shifts, if one is not going to be publicly bathing in them or working the fields in them?  (Both of those scenarios would be much too revealing by modern standards, I can’t see how the opportunity would arise for testing.)  In cold weather, the extra layer doesn’t contribute much – I’d rather have a long wool petticoat, to go with my wool knitted stockings, of course.  And my short shifts are long enough to meet the knickers function, just like a man’s shirt.  (Didn’t ‘shirt’ develop from the same root as ‘short’?  Sometimes I feel I’d marry a man for his OED.)  When it comes to that, I may be developing male clothes if I take up rapier/longsword/tree climbing, so I’ll be a few shirts ahead.

I do need to order more of this lovely stuff, because I need at least one more shift just like these, and some linen tippets.

The apron is sort of wrong – this fabric is truly too light for a cooking apron, heavy spills would go right through.  But I need an apron of some sort, and white is the most common color, and I don’t want heavy linen for anything else at present.  Fortunately I won’t be doing much cooking in this apron – its job will be to collect fuzz from my spinning.  Also fortunately, most aprons don’t seem to be more than a square of fabric tucked into a belt, or with ties tacked on, so repurposing the square later shouldn’t be difficult.  It’d be fun to make an English smocked apron – but they don’t seem very practical, given what I’ve learned about the elasticity of smocking, and how I need to contain the forward fullness of my skirts – particularly those pregnancy pleats.

If however, I was to run into a piece of dressweight BLACK linen – that would have to be an apron.  Perhaps with embroidery.

I am looking forward to finishing the fillet and barbette, and eventually the linen tippets.  The cotton that I wear now just looks so…finished, and upper class.  I’m such a fiber snob.  I have been reading in Stefan’s Florilegium, and have decided that the Brown Linen Green Bee Cotehardie, with Skep Pewter Buttons, doesn’t need any more for a headdress than a fillet and veil.  I have both a white silk veil (that I actually bought! I despise slipstitching rolled hems on silk) and a wonderful er…terracotta cashmere veil, that got lots of compliments at Gulf Wars.  So for that ensemble, for this winter, I just need to work out SHOES.  And make all this stuff of course.