Tag: garb

Historic clothing and jewelry that I wear or want to wear

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Update on GFD stuff

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Okay – this is just an update, since I’m not prepared with pics and such.  But I have been sewing, and I wanted to let you know my progress. Bathhouse Keepers Shift – I wore it around the house for a good deal of yesterday.  The shift is machine basted, and fitted properly around my torso.  It supports my chest well enough, and the straps have an interesting side benefit of keeping my shoulders back where they should be. I have learned something important about the eyelets I showed here.  I don’t like them.  While threading a metal tipped lace … Continue reading Update on GFD stuff

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GFD – Fitted sleeve

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I’ve been plugging away on my Bathhouse Keeper Shift, which is acting as a toile for the bodice part of my Gothic Fitted Dress.  It’s going well.  However, because my instructor, the La Cotte Simple site, which does such a great step-by-step job of explaining how to fit the bodice, somehow doesn’t talk about how to generate the sleeve cap and armseye, I’ve been scared of the GFD’s sleeve.  (The shift doesn’t have a sleeve.) Tory set me onto this site, which helps to draft a pattern.  I made this up in my sloper fabric, and tried it on.  I … Continue reading GFD – Fitted sleeve

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Linen remnants and aglets arrived!

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I can’t get over how every little thing I do presents stacks of opportunities to learn.  So verily cool. These are the remnants of linen (the last batch, bwahaha!) I ordered from Historic Enterprises, and also the aglets (aka ‘chapes’) from them. (Lavena suggested that I make my own aglets, and I like that notion, but I need some NOW, and I prefer to see how someone else invented the wheel before I waste my time chipping stone.) So the two things I have learned right away from my $22 are: How the heck do they get relatively new linen … Continue reading Linen remnants and aglets arrived!

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Luttrell Apron

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(garb garb garb garb – I’m starting to bore myself, except I like garb garb garb garb) Ta da!  A Luttrell Apron.  I’m going to enter this in Magna Faire (along with the Smocked Shirt). MATERIALS The threads are linen threads, either singles drawn from the fabric (for basic construction) or 16/2 100% linen thread sold as ‘Rainbow Linen’ in color R464 (for smocking stitches) The fabric is natural unbleached linen (IL014, from fabrics-store.com) 5.9 oz/yd, 59" wide. TOOLS I used modern cotton/polyester thread to gather the smocking pleats.  These threads were withdrawn and discarded. I used two sizes of … Continue reading Luttrell Apron

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Smocked linen apron

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Here we have the beginnings of my smocked apron, a la Luttrell Psalter. I’m using heavy natural colored linen, cut to 28" wide.  Why? Because I’m following the conventional wisdom (cringe) that household looms  in the 14th century were fairly narrow, ~30". (Anybody got a citation for this one?  Ann?) I question that ALL looms in the 14th c were narrow.  Or that some fabrics produced on narrowish looms were not double-woven to be twice as wide.  But I am yielding to the CW on this one out of expediency, and because the illustration in Luttrell seems to be a … Continue reading Smocked linen apron

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Beginner’s semicircular mantle

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I seem to be in a moon of ‘work smart, not hard.’  How odd for me. I’m worried about freezing in the wind at Gatalop.  I have started the Treble Fib Shawl in order to address cold weather, but there’s no way I’m going to finish by Friday, and I don’t want to rush.  So I remembered that I’d discussed making a semicircular mantle to go with the 1350 Gothic Fitted Dress, per Lyonet’s suggestion, and decided to see what I could find. Fortunately, Joann puts fabric on sale for Halloween, and I came home with 3.5 yards of 59" … Continue reading Beginner’s semicircular mantle

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Thursday’s Child

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Monday’s child is fair of face;Tuesday’s child is full of grace;Wednesday’s child is full of woe;Thursday’s child has far to go;Friday’s child is loving and giving.Saturday’s child works hard for a living.But the child that is born on the Sabbath Day,Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay. I had that rhyme in a Mother Goose book as a girl, and I was born on a Thursday.  (Everyone out there is now shouting ‘OF COURSE YOU WERE!!’) For example: Since I have this new lovely loom, and I finished Debbie Redding Chandler’s recommended beginner sampler, and I went to weaver’s … Continue reading Thursday’s Child

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GFD sketch

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Here’s my plan for the Gothic Fitted Dress. I’ve got the brown linen, 5+ yards, for the overdress.  Lavena likes to cast pewter buttons, and I have an offer from Melissa to carve the soapstone for skep shapes.  (We’re a bit wary of how much the buttons might weigh, and thus flop over, so we’re going to try out the concept this Project Night.) The brown dress will be embroidered with large green bees volante as in the dancing girl’s dragonfly dress here, in ‘The Allegory of Good Government’, 1340.  That’s the green I’m thinking.  The blue underdress is 5.3 … Continue reading GFD sketch

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Wooden shoes!

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I have been pondering wooden shoes for some time.  They’re in Aertsen’s paintings… Pieter Aertsen, Market Scene, 1561. And I’ve read that they’re still being produced and used in Holland and other places.  Our word ‘sabotage’ doesn’t really come from wooden  that were hurled into machinery in protest, breaking it, and causing grief to the new industrialists, as much fun as this is to imagine. So I’ve wanted my own pair to try out, to see if they are practical in the garden, and for my plaid kirtle and (someday) my green pleated kirtle.  They’re not very expensive to order, … Continue reading Wooden shoes!

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Book Review – Clothing Culture

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Have I mentioned before that I live at 30dN latitude?  Same latitude as Cairo, Egypt?  And that the sun is HOT? Those who saw my lobster-red back at fighter practice from a walk to the store know that we get rather an intense sunlight here.  No wonder Le Corbusier was entranced with the light on the Greek boxes built into the hillsides – and Santorini is at 36dN.  That’s like…Chattanooga, Tennesse. Anyway, Maudey told the Costume Guild after Pennsic that the book to get was Clothing Culture:Dress in Egypt in the First Millennium AD.   Amazon US doesn’t have it, though … Continue reading Book Review – Clothing Culture