Costuming and sewing year in review

 Well, as we all know there weren't any costumed events after the beginning of March, except a few picnics, and online SCA events, but I did sew and make new costumes, and also plenty of clothing more for every day wear.
I am still recovering from exhaustion, and the first months of the year I mostly spent watching "Bones" or walking in the forest. Walking in the forest, and biking continued to be my favourite activites throughout the year. Since I am immunocompromised I can't go on public transport, so if I wanted to get somewhere it was on my bike or on my feet.

But, on to the costumes/clothing - there are five main categories this year:

*SCA period - medieval and 16th century

* Directorie and empire/Regency

* Fantasy costumes

* Dirndls

* Modern clothing, mostly from jersey

So, here we go:

SCA period

In April I started on my first medieval costume of the year: a green wool 12th century gown with embroidered trim in silk. It is all hand sewn, and has a hand sewn undergown from linen. It was finished in the beginning of June, but then it got too warm for me to consider a photoshoot. And hubby was working so we had to count that in too. So it wasn't photographed until early July. More photos and lots of information can be found here. The belt is from Svetlonoska weaving.

In June I re-made an 18 year old dress from c. 1300 to make it fit me better. You can read that story here.

In August I hand sewed a late 16th century kirtle from linsey-wolsey. Info here.

Directoire and empire/Regency

Between January and March I worked on a riding habit, mostly based on the one in Patterns of Fashion, you can read more about it here. There's even a video of me riding Casey. I really should have had a saddle, but I am just happy that I didn't fall off.

In November I hand sewed a new pair of regency stays from cotton and made a new linen shift, also by hand.

I also made a checked cotton dress, from thrifted fabric, a new cap, and a two new aprons. One from new grey cotton, one from the same thrifted curtains that I used for my late 18th century open robe. Like the rest of my Regency wardrobe everything is hand sewn.

Old caps in these three photos.

New cap, from a thrift store find of home made lace, and cotton fabric an old dress that used to belong to my best friend's daughter.

I also made a winter bonnet from an old plastic "straw" hat and some fabric remnants and thrifted trimmings.

In December I made a regency ball gown from sheer cotton with a silver thread woven in, trimmed wioth silver fringe and glass beads. I am now waiting for silk to arrive so that I can make a a sleeveless petticoat for it, I can't wear the same petticoat with everything.

Fantasy costumes

In March I made a 16th century corset, using my effigy corset pattern, and added lots of fabric leaves to it. I then dragged my husband to the forest to take some photos.
The skirt is bought.

In April I put fabric leaves, made by me, on my 16th century Venetian gown and made a peasant blouse for it from a cotton scarf from a thrift store and lace which I applied and sewed beads to.

Original:

Fantasy version:

I also made a capelet all covered in leaves and some flowers.

More photos and info here.

In September I made a 1930s bias cut gown, which I used for a set of fantasy photos. I had by then started making wire crowns, and wanted to make one for each of the elements. We made a really succesful photoshoot of me as a Water Elf by lake Vänern, more photos here.

I also made a Fire Elf costume in October, from an old sunbleached saree for the undergown and two brocade table cloths that I found at a thrift store, pluts some velvet remnants. The overgown is heavily influenced by the works of Mariano Fortuny, as you probably all can see. The crown is made by me.

We did a photo shoot with my air crown too in October, but I am not very happy with it and I didn't make any new clothes for it.

Dirndls

My dirndls, and dirndl-inspired dresses fall somewhere between costume and mundane clothing. They are neither modern, nor normal, but I do wear them for everyday wear.

I started with a green one in April, and then went sort of crazy.

That dress quickly became my standard hiking clothing throughout late spring, summer and early autumn. It has as apron, but I don't seem to have any photos of me wearing it.

The next one was made from unused cotton fabric from a thrift store. Here I tried Froschgoscherl (info here) as trim for the first time.

 

Both these are worn with a bra under, but for the next one I made the bodice supportive, with a few bones in front. Unlike the first one which was made with hook and eye tape and the second which has buttons this one is laced. It has Herzrüche around the neck, and the apron was actually made for the blue dress. It is an old sheet from a thrift store. This dress is otherwise made from new material, both cotton.

I re-made a courduroy skirt that I made last winter into a winter dirndl with a velvet bodice. Horrible photo, and I have curlers under that cap ;)

I made another more winter-y dirndl, from the same pattern as the light blue one, from a vintage cotton fabric in green with pink roses.

And finally, as you have seen: the christmas one, from christmas patterend quilting cotton sold at half prize in February this year. With real lacing rings, supportive with a few bones, and closed with hook and eye tape under the lacing. I wonder when I bought that hook and eye tape - it can't have been this millenium.

And it has TWO aprons, one from the old lining of my first medieval wool cloak from 1993, and one from cotton bought at another thrift store this summer. The trim is also from thrift stores, love vintage ribbons.

Modern clothing, mostly from jersey

As mentioned above I made a 1930s bias cut gown from viscose satin.

But mostly I made insanely colourful dresses, and a pair of tights and a hoodie.

I have actually made a few more, plus a jumper for Rickard, but I don't have any photos.

My projects for next years is more Regency, a late 16th century silk damask doublet, and 13th century Spanish. Plus continue to embroider on my silk cloak.

God Jul! to all of you

 In Sweden we celebrate on christmas eve, so today is the big day.

Hubby took these photos of me outside the main entrance to the (close due to Covid-19), earlier this week. There is no snow in Gothenburg, but today there was ice on the puddles when I took a walk to a nearby nature reserve at least.

The outfit is not Swedish, it's a christmas interpretation of a German dirndl, with a little 40s styling.

Now I am going to get christmas dinner finished for my family.

Attending Drachenwald's Kingdom University this weekend

 So, in this year of no physical events a dedicated group of people in the SCA Kingdom of Drachenwald set about to arrange an online version of the annual Kingdom University event. Making it online made it bigger than physical event in winter could possibly get, and in the end there were 600 participants from all SCA kingdoms and all continents except Antarctica.

And it apparently was just what I needed, even if I am zoomed out and very tired today. It was lovely to put on medieval clothes and to see and talk to people also in medeival (or early modern) clothing.

I arranged a corner in my kitchen (where I have my desk and computer) to have a nice background for the zoom classes and discussions. I think it looks nice, despite being a 1970s flat, with an early 20th century oak cupboard in the background.

Here's me for the opening ceremony and hang out on Friday evening. Early 14th century wool gown.

On Saturday the event started in earnest. For this I wore my c. 1300 Italian cotton gown during the day. 

And I learned so many new things! Many of the classes were recorded and will show up on Drachenwald's youtube channel when edited - there's a bunch of them over there already.

I took the following classes:

Saturday:
"Scappi: An overview of a 16th century Italian cookbook" by Baroness Magdelena Grace Vane. Interesting, and I will have to buy the book. Magdalena has a blog about period cooking too: Magdalena's medieval kitchen

"Medieval make-up and skincare" by Honourable Lady Katherina Mornewegh, baroness of Knight's Crossing. It was super interesting, and this is one of the classes which will be put on youtube as soon as final editing is done.

"From the West to the East - the art of perfumery in ancient Rome" by Dúgū Jìnán. This was really advanced, scholarly stuff, so it took a lot of concentration. But oh so interesting! So interesting in fact that I am seriously considering attending the Kingdom of Northshield's event next weekend: "That's a Beautiful Event - The Perfumery, Beauty Care and Adornment Virtual Symposium" and this from someone who almost never wear either perfume, and rarely make-up.

"Introduction to early Roman and Greek dress"  by Contessa Saxa Amelia Africana. And now I finally have a good way to tie my girdle with a Ionian chiton :)

While doing this I cooked a medieval feast for me, my friend and neighbour Anna, who's part of our isolation bubble, and two of our kids.Though the kids weren't required to join us at the table for the online feast, or wear medieval clothing. Cooking is one of the reasons why I wore my cool, cotton gown, the other being the excellent central heating in Swedish blocks of flats.

To be able to cook while attending classes I "medeivalized" a little more of my kitchen to include my oak table, and hide modern stuff from other class attendees.

Here I have started on the dessert (though the way we serve dessert isn't really a period practice): Hazelnut tarts with rose water. Esau is "helping".

The recipe is from a Swedish book: "Grevarna Brahes Vinterbok", which unfortunately doesn't give the sources for the individual recipes. I am guessign, however, that the original source is the 16th century cookbook of Anna Wecker. I used the modern type pastry from butter and flour for this one, since it was known in the 16th century. For my herb pie I used a hot water and flour dough instead. that's the larger pie pan. In the photo I am mixing roasted and ground hazelnuts, egg, rosewater, cream and sugar.

The herb pie was a take-what-you-have version of an Italian recipe for herb tart from Lombardy. There's egg, mozzarella, cottage cheese, chopped spinach, some parsley and soem rosemary, salt, and pepper and just a very little saffron. Most of my saffron I used for a cabbage and leek soup that started off our feast.

Here you can see the finished pies, plus cabbage, leek and onions for the soup, and the minced meat with poudre fort, salt, pepper and raisins for the meatballs that I also made.

Some feast photos:

Socializing with other feast-eaters on zoom :)
There were recipes if you wanted to make the same feast as others, but I am too tired to think much these days and just made stuff I felt like making.

After the feast there was court, and  here's me and Anna at court.

After court there was a ball, which we didn't attend, but we hung out with friends, old and new, in a zoom break-out room. There was also a bardic cirle that aparently wnt on until the wee hours. I was very, very tired however, after being on my feet cooking AND taking part in classes all day, so by ten we called it a day.

Sunday
On Sunday I actually only took part in one class, except my own, but it was a heavy one: two hours of expert scholarly work on early Tudor female headwear and gowns by Dame Margaret Wolseley: "Which hat should I wear with this gown? Early Tudor fashion advice from dead people".


Then I took a walk outside, I had hardly been outdoors at all on Saturday, before (again) getting into early 14th century Italian and giving my own class: "An introduction to the medieval history of Sub-Saharan Africa"

I talked too much and for too long, as usual, but people were interested and it went well, despite my class notes being in Swedish, since this is a lecture I normally give at work.

Then it was only the bittersweet ending ceremony and a lovely, and incredibly well orgazized event was over.