I made tassles to hang off the bottom of the pouch but I'm not happy with them so they've come off and I'm trying to figure out how to make baubles like what are on the extant piece.

The tassles for the ends of the drawstrings worked though so I'm keeping them.  Just the tassles to hang off the base don't work.

So while I do the research on making baubles I'm working on a couple of embroidery projects that need completion by the end of the year.  I've got to find a thing called waste canvas to use as a space marker for counted blackwork.  The fabric I'm using isn't even enough for easy counted work so you put this waste stuff on top, do the embroidery and then tear away the top.  I'm going looking for it today.

I found where I had stored the picture of the pouch someone had up on the web.  Sorry, I can't remember where I saved it from - else I would credit it.  However, it is originally from the book The Medieval Art of Love.

I finished couching on the top cord.  And have sewn in the hanging straps.  I made that out of one long lucet braided cord and have doubled it over and knotted each end.  Went overboard with the tacking down but it ain't going to fall off.

I made fresh drawstring cords from the black and gold weaving silk.  The single thread was too thin so I used two strands.  That seems to work well.

It's just had a hand wash in the sink and is drip drying in the bathtub.  To finish it off I want to to make a tassel for each of the drawstrings in the weaving silk and a tassel for each corner of the bottom made from the wool/silk.  Give it a bit of weight on the base.

I started this pouch as a whole about a year and a half ago.  It was submitted to the 2008 St Florian de la Riviere A&S Baronial Championship.

The year before that I had woven the fabric on a knitters loom with the intention of making a cushion with embroidery around the edges.  However, I was cook for the Baronial that year and that took a higher priority than getting the A&S entry done.  So the 95% finished weaving sat on the loom for close to 12 months when the next year's Baronial competition came around.  This time I wasn't the cook for it so I decided to go for it. 

I finished off the weaving and then handfelted/handfulled the wool in the bathroom sink.  The wool was a commercially spun cone bought from the Qld Spinners, Weavers and Fibre Artists Guild.  It's a 3ply/fingering weight 100% wool.  The weaving is a simple tabby weave (ie 1 warp / 1 weft).

The design is based on an extant piece shown in a very small photograph in the book "The Medieval Art of Love".  It was made by a woman for a woman and the symbolism shows the strength of the woman in the relationship.  This appealed to me.  So this is my interpretation of the embroidery.  I used stem stitch to do the outlines and split stitch to fill the dudes.  100% weaving silk was used in a limited range of colours (what I had with me at the time).



I lined it with a bit of left over black linen just before the competition started and submitted it with a one page blurb attached.  And it won!!

I always meant to come back and finish the thing off but life intervened and I hadn't gotten around to doing it.  Well, I put it in the suitcase when I was packing to leave Australia back in December with the aim of completing it at some point this year while in the US.  Now that Pennsic is over I have decided to sort out the list of UFOs I have floating around.  And this was a big one.  So here's the state of it as of tonight.





The eyelets are now done and I have started couching on some lucet braid for the top.  I have braided about 60 inches of cord for use as a hanging cord.  That will be attached to the internal part next.  I had braided some cord for the drawstrings but when I threaded it through the holes I decided they were too big and the gold wool/silk yarn used is too thick for it's purpose.  So I am going to braid some more cord with black weaving silk - the same stuff used for the embroidery.  I think that will flow through the holes better.  Finally I will make a couple of tassels to hang off the bottom and they will be made of the wool/silk yarn.

I was working on the eyelets tonight at A&S at Caer Mear where I was told I was mad.  I took it as a compliment.  :-)  I'm now in the home stretch to finishing this thing when I can then use it.

Okay so I'm back from Pennsic and some things got finished and some didn't.  The only thing I'm disappointed in not finishing is the Spanish outfit.  I have to remake the bodice anyway so I kind of gave it up as a lost cause.  I got the second sleeve inserted and only had the two hems to finish (underskirt and dress skirt) but it was just too hot and too much of a hassle to get them done while onsite.

I did get the green and the blue anglo over tunics finished and worn as well as the roman tunic.  The braes were a godsend and I plan on making more.  But I do need to make a master pattern for them for easy reuse - rather than guessing length and width each time.

Here's the state of the list that is now going to get forgotten after this post.  :-)

• Rehem trim on peplos - nope
• Spanish dress - got to skirt hemming stage
• Anglo wool over tunic - got to hemming stage
• Anglo linen green over tunic - done and worn
• Anglo linen blue over tunic - done and worn
• Hose - nope
• Braes x 4 - got 2 made and wore them alternating days except for when I wore Trues.  Still have enough fabric for more.
• Farthingale - nope
• Underskirt - got to hemming stage
• Roman tunic - done and worn
• Mongol linen coat - got to hemming stage
• English smock - cut out and overlocked edges but no sewing done
• Anglo linen under tunic x 2 - got to hemming stage
• St Birgitta caps x 2 - nope
• Pouches for water bottles - nope
• Lochac tabard - nope
• Camica - nope to adjustments.

Over the next couple of weeks I have to finish off the unfinished pieces and then go through all my garb and pack up most of it.  I've only got small events left for the rest of the year so I'll only need to keep out one or two outfits.  I'll pack up the rest and then if I don't need any of it before heading back to Lochac it will be ready for shipping.  The outfits I keep out can then be worked on for shmicking up with lots of embroidery and the like.

At 8 day countdown....
 

• Rehem trim on peplos - will do on site
• Spanish dress - slice 6 of 8 of second sleeve then hemming and banding skirt
• Anglo wool over tunic - at hemming stage for onsite
• Anglo linen green over tunic - at hemming stage for onsite
• Anglo linen blue over tunic - at gore insert
• Hose - will take fabric with me and maybe make some while there
• Braes x 4 - not yet started
• Farthingale - given up at the moment - will take with me for maybe working on while there
• Underskirt - not yet started
• Roman tunic - at hemming stage for onsite
• Mongol linen coat - at hemming stage for onsite
• English smock - not yet started
• Anglo linen under tunic x 2 - not yet started
• St Birgitta caps x 2 - not yet started
• Pouches for water bottles - not yet started
• Lochac tabard - not yet started
• Camica - have to shorten shoulders as it is currently too big

Luckily I will be there for the full 2 weeks so I will have plenty of handsewing time.  I am using a sewing machine at the moment for the bulk of the work.  There's authenticity and then there's stupidity!!  I am machine sewing to hemming stages as much as possible and then packing it to be hemmed once onsite.

I wore my new cap at Sapphire Joust last weekend.  And I now have some more thoughts on it after wearing it for 2 days.

First - the band around it is too thin.  It needs to be thicker to stay on my head.  It was okay if I had my hair in a bun at the back but the minute I put my hair in plaits it kept pulling back.  The bun meant no weight on the fabric, but plaits meant it had weight and the band was too flimsy to keep it in place at my fringe line.  Which makes sense.  There was nothing to grip the top of my head with.  Thicker piece plus embroidery should be better.

Second - the string piece stretched.  So that also contributed to it slipping back.  The string wasn't as tight as it needed to be to keep it on my head properly.  I need to have a think about how to fix that.  If I make it wider will it stretch even more?  What if I run stay stitching along it?  Will need to do a bit more research and investigation.

Otherwise I was extremely happy with it.  I wore it by itself when in camp and also used a veil on top when I went out in the sun of the tourney.

I've got more 100% linen fabric so I'm going to have another go at it.  I need more than one for Pennsic and it's relatively quick to make.  This new one will have a thicker band on it and I'll have a stew over what to do with the string.

Most women in the period of the SCA went about their everyday lives with their head covered.  In my particular area of interest - Great Britain pre 14th C - they always had veils or wraps especially if they were Christian.  This has always been an issue for me cause I hate having my head wrapped up and only showing the face.   I also hate having bulky things on and having to fiddle with it / worry about it when trying to run a kitchen, etc.  I can see the logic for headcoverings due to hygeine reasons, etc, - just hasn't been my cup of tea.

Now this is a sticking point when trying to be accurate in period.  Women and men in the SCA period wore coverings on their heads.  Very rarely did they not.  It's quite visible when you're at an event and can see who has and who hasn't got headgear.  I have been in the past one of those who hasn't got headgear, but I'm trying to reduce that from happening in the future.

So, I decided to do some research into headgear that didn't weigh a tonne, had lots of wrapping/fiddling, etc.  And I came up with the Cap of St Birgitta.  There's a number of blogs around where people have done investigations on this style of linen caps so I won't duplicate what they have got.  But I will put a lovely link to my blog of inspiration here.  While these caps don't come from my chosen area/time I'm happy to be a little inaccurate for the sake of being within the SCA time frame.

This has been an interesting project in that alot of instructions I found weren't in English so a number of prototypes had to be made while I made sense of Swedish measurements and drawings.  It's probably still not quite right based on the original but I have an event in 2 weeks to attend and it'll keep my hair out of the way for it.

So here's how I eventually ended up with this:



( Details and photographs )

The wool hood is finished.  Basically the process for the first gore was replicated for the other 3 gores.  The exceptions were that the back seam was continued all the way to the top so that the hood was actually a hood and not a tube.  And the front gore tip was folded under to produce a square top.

Thoughts on it. 

It's a bit flouncy/flowy.  This may be cause I made the gores a bit big.  But I was worried about it being too tight around the shoulders so I'd rather it a big looser.  Because I made it from an off cut it may not have been quite deep enough in the head area.  If I make another one I might have the head bit  bigger than half (ie have the shoulder bit smaller and the associated gores smaller too). 

It was a good use of fabric.  The only offcuts were around the bottom of the gores to make them circular.

( Picture intensive )

I didn't bring any head coverings with me.  And the wool hood I had at home needed replacing so one of my aims this trip was to make a new one.  I bought a felted wool offcut from Hancocks when I got the fabric for the chemise.  It was 80cm long and 130cm wide.  It's a wool/poly mix but it doesn't feel scratchy.  I went looking for a more period pattern for constructing a hood.  I found one but I can't remember where I found it so unfortunately can't reference it at the moment.  If I find it again I'll put a link here.  (ETA...found it again  http://www.sca.org.au/ynys_fawr/as_articles/as_database/as_doc_25.PDF)

( Body and first gore insert )

Okay - so I did a bit of research.  To my understanding celtic women wore a Leine (tunic), Peplum (tubular dress) and Brat (cloak).  So I'm calling this wrap a Brat from now on.

( Finished details )

I went op shopping to Goodwill today.  Stanzi had been successful at home in Brisbane with op shopping and finding some really good fabrics.  So I thought I'd have a look around here to see if I could have similar success.  No fabric pieces as such but I found a 100% wool tartan long skirt for $9.  The pleats/darts in the waist weren't cut so I knew the fabric would expand nicely.  I've been wanting some sort of tartan wrap for a celtic/scottish cover.  I haven't undertaken alot of research yet on this but I seen some pictures that have the scottish women wearing long wraps over their heads and shoulders.

( Starting details )

Step 6 - Sewing up the square corners and sewing down the neck lining.

( Sewing sewing sewing.... )

Step 5 - Sewing all the seams together.

The instructions stated neck seams of 10cm except for if you are making it for a larger person.  Well I'm plus sized so I decided to go with 15cm seams before inserting the gussets.

( Whip it, whip it good... )

Step 4 - Attaching the gathered pieces to the embroidered neck pieces.

( Fiddly bits... )

Step 3 - Gathering.

Also called smocking and also called cartridge pleating.  I followed instructions on Reconstructing History here.

( Smocking details... )

Step 2 - Hemming all the pieces.

After the embroidery was done, I cut out all the necessary pieces for the chemise.  These were then hemmed using a standard hemming stitch.  Selvedged edges were just folded down once, unselvedged edges were folded down twice.  I used Gutermann's white cotton thread for all the sewing except for the embroidery - where I used Gutermann's black silk thread.

( Continue here... )