VPC2017: Meisterin Christian's Child's Smock

This entry is presented for the categories Child's Play: Out of Your Comfort Zone (Embroidery), One Metre Material Project (linen and lace), Give What You Get, and  Togs, Togs, Undies.

Meisterin Christian says:

I  have been interested in the lovely late 16thC linen shirts with silk insert embroidery stitches, but alas this is too late for the clothes I wear in the SCA.  I decided to make one for my goddaughter for 2017 Midwinter Coronation, both as gift to her and also as an experiment to learn more about these shirts and their construction.  I was also looking for a project to take with me on a 4WD camping trip at Easter.  (What I should have taken was the Skjoldehamn hood (although I hadn't even thought about making it at that point), as trying to hand sew a white linen shirt outdoors in crepuscular light and a windy, wet, muddy environment was not ideal.)
I worked from several extant women's smocks and boys shirts in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 4, and a girl's smock pattern in the Tudor Tailor.  As the child was only 2 years old I had to scale down the extant patterns in size, but still leave room for growth as the event was some months away.  There was always a chance that her growth would not be linear and the smock would either swamp her or be too small (I had backup plans for either scenario).  Also chances were, that given the pace of growth for toddlers and the number of SCA events each year, she might also only be able to wear the smock once.
The extant shirts and smocks are made of white tabby woven linen in various thread counts.  I made this shirt from less than 1 metre of such linen; offcuts from one of my own smocks.  I imagine that women in period, who we known often made shirts and smocks for their family (even if tailors or servants made their other clothes), would have used remnants in the same way for their children.
Each pattern piece in the original was hemmed first, with narrow (~3mm) hems and then the pieces were sewn together with the coloured silk in a decorative stitch.  Due to the light and mud (see above) the hems done in the field weren't always 3 mm, but once back in the real world the later hems were nice and tiny.  There is no reference in Janet Arnold to the stitch used to hem the originals so I used a simple whip stitch with a white linen hand sewing thread; these stitches are essentially invisible in the completed piece.
Due to the less than optimal sewing conditions outdoors, the many small pattern pieces, and the danger of losing pins in the muddy grass, I loosely slip-stitched the hemmed pieces together before stitching the pieces together permanent with the insertion stitches.  Given the child is generally energetic, it seemed a little reinforcement to the slightly fragile embroidery stitches might be a good idea.  It's entirely possible that this could have been done in period; the tacking stitches are also virtually invisible in the completed garment.
For the insertion stitches (that join the garment pieces together) I decided not to use silk because of the cost (since the child might only wear the shirt once) and because a toddler's clothes are likely to need some serious laundering.  I substituted DMC embroidery thread, which I was assured would be colour fast even in nappy-soaking chemicals (so far, so good).  Having surveyed the silk colours of extant garments in Janet Arnold, I tended to a crimson, and with the help of the child’s mother and other godmothers selected a colour we all liked.  Late period embroidery is definitely outside my comfort zone.  Having looked at the embroidery on various extant garments, and searched for information on period techniques, I experimented with a few until I found stitches that I liked.  Some of the extant shirts also have decorative embroidery on parts of the garments other than the seams (e.g. sleeves), and/ or also alongside the insertion work on the seams.  Given the child may only wear the shirt once or twice, I decided the additional work was probably not warranted.
The remnants I had were not enough to cut the sleeves in one piece so I had to piece them. I'm sure this would not be uncommon in period for economic reasons. Initially I planned to put the additional seam at the back of the sleeve where it would not be obvious, but then I decided to make a feature of it by putting it at the front and embroidering the seam which would add interest if the shift was worn with an open front sleeve.  I started my embroidery here. I decided I really liked the alternating triple stitch buttonhole stitch so I played around with the stitch until I found a technique that produced the right look and was easy to maintain in a steady stitching rhythm.  I sewed a couple of inches and decided that it was too large a scale for such  small garment, so unpicked it and went to double stitches.  Once I'd sewn the whole seam I realised it was really red and overwhelming, and then recalled a shirt that had a white linen thread stitched over the insertion silk embroidery on one shirt, and for which I'd thought - why would you do that?  Why use practical white linen thread decoratively on top of red silk?  Now I wonder if the embroiderer thought as I did that there was too much red in that stitch, and it needed more contrast from the white.  The stitch was also (comparatively) very slow and used a lot of thread, so I decided it wasn't going to work for the whole shirt.  I decided to change to a single alternating stitch for the rest of the shirt. Its not clear if different insertion stitches were used in different parts of the same shirt, but it is clear that decorative embroidery used a variety of stitches on the same garment, so I went with the change.  It also made more of a feature of the centre front sleeve seams.  After some experimentation I chose a pretty standard looking insertion stitch (essentially an alternating blanket stitch with another stitch into the intersection to "knot it off").
The body and sleeves were gathered into a collar and cuffs to make the smock more comfortable for the wearer.  For the same reason I choose to attach a flat band of lace to the collar and cuffs.  I briefly contemplated making the lace, but since the child might only wear this once, that seemed unwise. Ties at the cuffs and collar in the original garment were inserted through sewn eyelets, but I figured a toddler would have those out and lost within minutes, so instead I sewed soft tape ties on as neck and wrist closures

VPC2017: Mistress Antonia's Sui/Tang Dynasty Garb

Mistress Antonia brings us these delightful outfits for Charley and Posey Panda - late Sui, early Tang Dynasty garb for the categories Out Of Your Comfort Zone (being from the Far East!), One Metre Material Project, and Togs Togs Undies!

Mistress Antonia says:

I can only offer the most modest documentation...
Posey's outfit is modelled on images of court women of the Tang dynasty.  She's wearing a two-piece outfit (襦裙), a typical Tang dynasty outfit consisting of a blouse (襦, ru) and a wrap-around skirt (裙).  Charley's wearing formal attire, consisting of a round-collared robe (yuanlingshan  圓領衫) over an inner robe (tie li, 貼裏).

Both pandas have a full set of underclothes.  I didn't have a lot of information about Tang underwear specifically, so I modelled them on more modern Hanfu underwear.

I gave Posey a pink peony headdress because large flowers on heads crop up in some Tang Dynasty paintings, such as Zhou Fang's Beauties wearing flowers.  I wanted some version of the typical scholar's/official's hat for Charley, but it wasn't really something I could make myself, and buying one was financially prohibitive, but I spotted felt bowler hats with ears on Ebay for just $5-- and I thought that maybe a panda would rather have room for his ears than for a topknot he doesn't have anyway. 

Everything was made from fabric I already had, and almost all of it just scrap.  Total expenditure for the project (excluding pandas) was about $15.

VPC2017: Dona Isabel Maria's Linen Underskirt

Dona Isabel Maria presents a Spanish underskirt for the category Togs Togs Undies!

She says:

Over the last few years, the number of Spanish costuming resources has exploded as people translate portions of wills from both Spain and the New World.  One of the more interesting wills mentioned a manteo that was described as "not put on over the head". This has been interpreted as a wrap skirt and, of course, I had to test this interpretation. I decided to make it as an underskirt as part of a middle/lower class capsule wardrobe for camping events.

Materials & Equipment: 3m linen, cotton thread (1 spool), beeswax,  scissors, tape measure, preferred hand sewing needle, both editions of Juan de Alcega's pattern books.

As I intended this as a working garment, I followed period imagery and chose to make it just below ankle length.  As this was a test piece, I also chose to make it from linen and forgo the lining mentioned in the few, partially translated wills I can access.  In order to make more efficient use of my fabric (and time) I decided to alter the piecing shown in Alcega's cutting diagrams. (This does not seem to be against his general philosophy.)  After a few calculations, the fabric was cut and hand sewing commenced using a combination of running and whip stitches.
The piecing is done with a flat felled seam and the hem is a simple double turn under, both worked in running stitch (it just worked beautifully with the linen). The waist is bound in a narrow strip of linen (finished with whip stitch) that extends to form ties to fasten the skirt.

Verdict: Flattering, comfortable and now a workhorse garment.

VPC2017: Her Excellency Ginevra's Hose & Houppelande

Her Excellency presents a pair of hose which fit the categories Counting On Sheep and Togs Togs Undies, and a refashioned houppelande for Remake Reuse Refashion Reconsider.

She says about the houppelande:

I remade one of my old Burgundian dresses into a 1520’s middle class houppelande. I took off the old collar, cut the cuffs to just a bit over wrist length, recut the front, rehemmed the front, put on new cuffs and collar facing.

 

VPC2017: Meisterin Christian's Linen Hose & Katharina von Bura Dress and Haube

Meisterin Christian presents a pair of linen hose for the categories One Metre Material Project; Hitting Below The Knee; Togs, Togs, Undies.  Possibly also Remake, Reuse, Refashion, Reconsider, and a dress based on a portrait of  Katharina von Bura for the categories Remake, Reuse, Refashion, Reconsider and Counting (on) Sheep, and finally a haube for The Neck Best Thing.

About the hose, she says:

I first made woollen hose some years ago, and then after a particularly hot and wet Canterbury Faire one year I decided I needed some linen hose to either wear alone, or as a lining layer for woollen hose.  However my pattern had disappeared.  Having torn apart my sewing room, I gave up on the project.  Last year I decided it was time to make some more hose, and after failing to find the pattern yet again, made a new one.  Which I then promptly lost.  While looking for some beads for another A&S challenge project I found last year's pattern.  So, using a (less than a metre) scrap of the same linen I used for my child's shirt project in this Challenge, I whipped up these linen hose.  Pictured as worn below (the foot-selfie makes my feet look alarmingly small).

Hose made from woven linen fabric are recorded in 16th C sources and at least one extant example survive.  These may have been worn as lining for woollen hose (so that the woollen hose can be worn repeatedly without washing while the lining pair could be cleaned frequently), and/or they were probably worn alone in warmer weather.  The hose were cut on the bias in order to stretch and conform around the feet and legs.  Garters are worn to hold the hose up. The seams here are stitched in linen thread, overcast stitch for strength, with the seam allowances flat felled on inside for comfort.

About the dress and haube she says:

For Yule 2017 I decided that as this winter event included outdoor activities I really needed to wear something warm (and made of more practical fabrics than say silk or brocade).  It was not cold enough for my really heavy woollen dress, and too cold for my light woollen dress with the slashed sleeves; ideally I needed something in between.  It occurred to me that I had an unfinished green woollen dress in the naughty corner (that’s where annoying, frustrating, or uncooperative A&S projects are sent until they learn to behave) which I had started years ago and not finished because a) I didn't have much use for warm clothing at that point, and b) the woollen fabric was somewhat annoying to sew).  This seemed like a prime opportunity to get a new dress and also knock off a couple more A&S Challenge categories in the process.

Of course this all occurred to me the night before the event, which is not the ideal time to decide you need a new dress.  After some excavation I recovered the dress and found that there was only about 30 mins work (tidying the lacing rings and waist fastenings), and a brustfleck (the brocade breast-band), needed to make the dress wearable.  Since it was the night before the event, and I'm not completely crazy, I found an brustfleck from another old dress and covered it in a scrap of brocade from my stash, and after a couple of hours work I had a new, never-been-worn dress.  And to add to the fun, I also quickly cobbled together a haube (the hairnet/snood type thingy Katharina is wearing in the portrait) from a (purchased) black hairnet and a gold headband I had begun for another haube project.  I didn't get any photos of the dress at the event, so the photo below is of the dress on a dressmakers form.

This dress is based on the 1526 portrait by Lucas Cranach of Katharine von Bura (below).  Katharina von Bura was the wife of Martin Luther (he of the 95 theses).  The size, shape and placement of guards (black trim / bands) on the bottom of the skirt and the back of the dress are conjectured from dresses in other portraits of the period.

VPC2017: Mistress katherine's Dog Collar, Puppet Theatre Towers & Bookmarks

The increasingly prolific Mistress katherine adds the following to her Challenge entry hoard.

Firstly, a medieval dog collar for the category Togs Togs Undies! 

This is a dog collar, based on the comments by Gaston Phoebus in 15C Book of the Hunt, and from illuminated manuscripts. Common features: red velvet, embroidery with gold thread or wire, a leashing ring, single eyelet, rumbler bells, studs of various kinds. Modelled by Mercalli ("what a good dog!"). Here's a good site with lots of doggy and hunt info.
And a good image from Gaston Phoebus of white pointy-eared dogs with collars.

Mistress katherine says: 

I was particularly delighted to read that the Boke of St Albans describes the kind of dogs to be found in a medieval Scottish town including a 'prick-eared cur'

The next entry is new towers for the puppet theatre at Canterbury Faire, made from scavenged cedar shingles and painted up like 14-15C examples. These are for the category Out Of Your Comfort Zone, which katherine assures us she was.

She says: 

This took me out of my comfort zone -- I had to use power tools and -- worse-- ask an unknown neighbour for permission to raid his construction skip. I also looked at the shingles after I'd painted them and realised that circular saw marks were clearly visible, which Master Edward confirmed was a no-no to proper woodworker eyes, so I flipped them over and sanded them down to start again.

Some examples of puppet theatres in manuscripts can be found at the Bodleian here and another example here.

Finally (at least for now!) - bookmarks in baronial colours for the largesse chest. From the 12C onwards, cords, threads of strips of leather were attached to beads, buttons and similar shapes to make stand-alone bookmarks. Multi-threaded bookmarks were particularly popular amongst the clergy for flipping back and forth in service books. These are for the category Fly The Colours, but they also meet the requirements for Give What You Get. More information about these from katherine here.