Lady Ruth's 15th Century Outfit

Work has begun on the dress for Ruth and already I have learned one very useful thing.  While looking at paintings, settling on a design, Ruth made a very profound statement, "We need to start with the chemise and then work out to make sure the necklines match up properly."

Obvious, I know, but not something I'd thought of before.  You have to remember my background.  While I've been sewing clothes since fifth grade, I've only made one item at a time: a shirt, a skirt, a jacket.  None of them required thinking about the undergarments, unless the placement of darts was needed.  The concerns I must consider when creating a multi-layered outfit are new, but I'm glad this one was pointed out before material was cut.

Ruth and I have met two successive Fridays so far.  During the first we decided on the look she wanted, taking into account time period and personal preferences for how the dress fits and is fastened. Second we took down her measurements.  Then we ate and played Carcassonne.  During the week, Ruth realized we could use the pattern she has for a chemise she has already made, with alterations to the neckline.  The next time we met I redrew the yoke and sleeve patterns.  By the time we had cut out the yoke, sleeves and gussets we were ready for a break.  Time to eat and play Carcassonne.

In between those two meetings, we and three other friends took a field trip to West Springfield to scope out Osgood's, a textile warehouse.  Oh, the fabrics they had.  It's not a place for the faint of heart or lean of wallet.  Linen is not cheap, but they had many colors and prints.  Wool.  Some of the wool is to die for, soft and fluffy.  Wool in the full spectrum of colors,  and many, many plaids.  Yardage and fixtures for drapes, Upholstery fabrics, cottons, spandex for swimsuits.  I bought a soft, green wool I'll use for a period dress for cool weather or sites.  It's thick and warm and feels like polar fleece.  Ruth bought material for her outfit, a nice medium blue wool for the outer dress, a burgundy (?) for the kirtle, and something else for the fold-over cuffs on the sleeves.  It'll be smashing together.

~ Marjorie

Projects

I have a belt.  I am very proud of this belt.  I'll never use it to hold up my jeans, it's way too long.  It will, however do an admirable job of indicating my new, lowly status.  The belt is green, and was given to me by Mistress Ose Silverhair.

I am now her apprentice.  {Squeeee!!!!!} 

(Okay, I promise to be more dignified for the rest of the post.)

Mistress Ose is a fiber-arts/spinning Laurel, whereas I will be focusing on medieval pattern making, clothing design, and sewing techniques.  It will be an interesting journey as I set aside "modern" habits and thinking to learn how to parse paintings and duplicate drawings to recreate clothes of different places and times.  I already have two new projects to work on along with two older projects to finish.

My first major, long-term research project will be to recreate this 1170 German purse/bag:

It's silk thread on red linen, with some sort of buttons along the edges, a drawstring, and a separate cord for it to hang from a belt.  It's a whopping 10 x 13 cm, basically 3 x 5 inches, big enough to hold modern ID cards and some money, not big enough for my HTC One 8 cell phone though.  That's okay.  I'm working on minimizing how much weight hangs from my lovely green belt.

There will be a lot of research and learning of techniques involved with this project.  I'll be writing the museum (Alfred Bonno Museum in Chelles, France 

http://www.chelles.fr/Culture/Musee-Alfred-Bonno) to see if they can tell me more about the buttons, lining, embroidery stitches, cording, and more importantly, send me high-res photos to inspect details myself.  The embroidery looks like split-stitch at first glance.  I have to master that.  The cords are probably some form of handloop cords I don't know.  And those buttons... I have no idea what'll be involved in recreating them, but I'm quite certain it's not a skill I currently possess.

My second major project, which has a more immediate due date, is to create patterns for a 1470's Flanders outfit for Lady Ruth Baraskya.  I'll have more details as we progress on this project, but it will involve drafting patterns for a chemise, a lined kirtle, and an overdress.  Ruth will do the sewing once I come up with the patterns and an order of assembly for her.

The two hands-on sewing projects I'm finishing are my first completely hand-sewn dress and my cloak.  The dress is a basic 12th century rectangular dress with triangular gores in the skirt and gussets at the underarms.  I'm still unsure of the final sleeve design, large, swooping open sleeves versus tighter, arm-fitted sleeves.  In either case I'll be doing beaded embroidery around the neckline.  I'll show research and other pictures in a future post.  The cloak project is just adding more material to my half-circle cloak to make it a 3/4 circle to fit me better.  I'll also be lining it and appliqueing my device onto the back.  (For those who speak heraldese: Vert, in saltire two needles threaded, argent, and on a chief invected Or, three crosses bottony vert.)

I apologize for the overload of information on this first blog.  I'll write more often and in smaller bits in the future.

Thanks for listening,

~ Marjorie