Badly lit photos of 16th century textiles

Since I couldn't use flash, these are some very dark photos taken at Museo Stibbert in Florence. My phone broke the first day too, so I had to use my friend Sara's camera, with which I am not familiar.

Anyway, maybe you'll get something out of them.

And, the coronation clothing of Napoleon, when he was crowned king of Italy.

Buying shiny trim in Florence

I've been on holiday in Florence for a week, something I will naturally get back to in more posts. For now I just want to show the lovely metallic trim that I bought at the rather amazing Passamaneria Valmar on Via Porta Rossa 53.

Photo by Sara Lundström

Test knitting

So, at Double Wars I am going to give a class on renaissance knitted garments:  waistcoats, sleeves, stockings, hats and mittens. I am of course going to bring my knit silk Eleonora di Toledo stockings, but I thought that it might be a good idea to bring some samples to let people see and feel how these garments may have looked and felt to wear.

My first sample is damask knitted silk with a knotted in silk pile. This technique was used in waistcoats and sleeves in the Nordic countries in the 17th century, which is too late for teh SCA of course. Knit wool sleeves and knit silk waistcoats are, however, known from many European countries from the 16th century. So, even if none of this particular type are preserved, I thought it worth trying the technique and showing the result. I was naturally especially tempted by the fact that we have one of the preserved 17th century ones a our local museum and I have had the joy of examining it closely.

Most preserved knit silk waistcoats are from the 17th century, there are a few that could be dated earlier - if you want a lot of links to extant ones, you should have a look at this blog post.

Anyway, the yarn here is a little thicker than silk buttonhole twist, it also has a tighter twist. The originals generally had a looser twist, but I was working with what I had at home, more samples will be made later.

   I am using 1mm/US #00000 needles. They're carbon fibre, from KnitPro. I wish I had longer, steel ones though.

The dots on my kitchen table cloth are 12,5 mm/ 1/2 inch wide, so you get some size comparison.

Maj Ringgard has made the most recent analysis of the 17th century damask knitted silk waistcoats in her article  “Silk Knitted Waistcoats - a 17th-century fashion item” in Mathiassen, Tove Engelhardt, Nosch, Marie-louise, Ringgaard, Maj, Toftegaard, Kirsten & Venborg Pedersen, Mikkel (ed.), Fashionable encounters: perspectives and trends in textile and dress in the early modern Nordic world, Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2014. She found that of the damask knitted waistcoats those who were knitted in the round, which were the majority, had the silk pile knotted in afterwards, while those knitted in the flat had the pile knitted in.
   This sample is obviously knitted in the flat, but I decided to knot the pile anyway, for this sample.

Unlike the originals I used a different coloured, much looser twisted silk yarn for the pile. This was due to the fact that the salmon coloured yarn is to tightly twisted to give the soft pile you see in the preserved ones. At the same time the while silk yarn is both way too thick and too loosely twisted for the knitting.

Having seen the knit waistcoat at Gothenburg City Museum up close I am not sure if it was the same yarn used for the knitting as for the pile, though it definitely was of the same colour. More testing will be done.

Anyway, this is how it looks when finished, from the inside and from the outside.

And it feels absolutely lovely on the skin. This was ptobably not an issue in period though, since you would have been wearing a shift or shirt under it.

It is unlikely that I will ever knit a whole waistcoat, it is boring and slow work to knit on so small needles, but I will look into the 16th century sleeves more and may make a pair from wool when I start makign 16th century clothes again - the coming years I will be concentrating on the 13th-early 14th century, as you might know.

A new 13th century shift

Somehow all the shifts that I made ten years ago have been worn out. I have one new from 2014, but the other ones really need replacing.

So before I went to Crown I cut out a shift and then I sewed on the way there, at the event (a little, during the tournament) and the way home. And this afternoon I finished it.

I've had the linen for eight years or so. I like self patterned linen and I thought that the stripes gave it a 13th century Spanish feel. After all they had a lot of striped clothing, even if I haven't seen a striped shift yet.

Keeping with the Spanisk influences I used Dona Teresa Gil's shift as my pattern.

Photo from the history blog Nonnullus

I see that iI shoudl ahve made the slit at the neck much deeper, but I'm not sure if I'll change that. After all, I am not nursing anymore, and haven't done so for nine years, so I need it.

Updated page

The page on my embroidered 13th century wool gown has been updated to include info on Måns' matching tunic. And has changed its name to "A man's and a woman's matching embroidered 13th century wool tunics"

Spring Crown photos

This weekend I was at Drachenwald spring Crown, held at Rockelstad Slott. Which means that I got photos of both me and Måns wearing our matching outfits. I will write down documentation ,inspiration etc next week, but for now I will show you some photos that I, or when I'm on them, my daughter Valeria took.

My one photo of the fighting. So many people take photos of that and I was more interested in watching. And in sewing on my new shift.

Judging A&S competition entries with Lady Tece de Kaxtone

Mistress Helwig Ulfsdotter and Lady Ragnhil de Kaxtone

Posing in the park in my pink cotte.

Park and lake, it was so beautiful.

The castle, seen from the lake.

The castle again

Valeria by the lake, after breakfast, before I did her hair. In her pretty 16th century German dress.

Valeria again, with her hair in a net.

Me before the feast, in the room that Valeria and I shared.