I just finished another paper for Your Wardrobe Unlock'd the bulk of which was testing different pounce and fixatives to use with the prick and pounce technique when applied to dark fabrics... and now I'm filled with all sorts of ideas for further tests that ought to be done ( Read more... )

Despite there being a "cutting diagram" of the St. Elizabeth of Thuringia Gown, actually figuring out the pattern for the body of the dress turned out to be much more complicated then I expected, despite it's deceptively simple lines:


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I've slowly been working on 13th century styles -- initially to experiment with different ways to cut the Maciejowski women's dresses (France, circa 1250) since my normal way of cutting a T-tunic (basically what Robin Netherton describes in her Tournaments Illuminated, Issue #141, Winter 2002 article "Where Did the Normans Get Their Sleeves?") ( Read more... )

I'm really tired of altering this dress... but when you loose a quarter of your body weight in a year, it's kinda inevitable -- and it's the only one of my gothic fitted dresses that even CAN be altered to my new size, so I suppose I should consider myself lucky... at least I have a dress that fits! (And I know, no one has any sympathy for my ( Read more... )

I finally finished the underdress to my 1475 english burgundian! OK, so I finished it enough to wear it to Pennsic in 2011, but then I decided that the back neckline was a mistake, as the sleeves were falling off my shoulder points and I ripped it apart and it's been languishing in pieces in my sewing room ever since. But it's wearable again!! Of ( Read more... )

I finally got my hands on a copy of Medieval Art Recent Perspectives. A Memorial Tribute to C.R. Dodwell. ed by Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Timothy Graham -- which contains the article "'Estroit vestu et menu costu': Evidence for the Construction of Twelfth-Century Dress" by Jennifer Harris. She puts together the best argument I've ever seen for side- ( Read more... )

So, I'm in the middle of a very tight deadline regarding painting silk banners for Her Highness for Coronation... So - what does that mean I find myself doing? Fanaticizing about NEW costuming projects I could be doing! (Quite silly I know!) Well, OK, it's not exactly a new idea -- I’m back to fanaticizing about a 12th century bliaut, which is an ( Read more... )

So I had more fittings for Calum's grande assiette cote today.

Here are pictures from the pattern I draped in my first attempt (the one I wasn't that happy with) -- I got it to fit reasonably well... but I still was not pleased... it did not have the characteristic shape to the front gore:


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For those of you who aren’t local SCA folks, Calum and I put our names in the hat to become the next Baron and Baroness of Cleftlands. We won’t actually know who’s selected until April, and the investiture will be April 14, so it behooves me to start on possible “stepping up” garb just in case. It feels incredibly presumptuous of me to do this, but ( Read more... )

I finally finished my last YWU’d paper on the black velvet titanic-era evening dress! Yeah!!! *Happy Dance!* I’m so tired of this paper… the dress turned out to be very difficult to pattern and document. Which I predicted it would be - I thought it would be a nice challenge. It was beyond challenging. I am exhausted. I’d say, I never want to see it ( Read more... )