Embroidering 13th century sleeves

 As you can see on the images I shared in this post many of the ladies in the images have decorated sleeves on their shifts. And soemtimed on the body of the shift too. Like this:

I thought about weaving trim, but I think that embroidery is a more likely technique for this. Especially since there is decoration on the chest too.

This is a small scale illustration, so any pattern would probably be very stylized, but I still used this painting as inspiration for my embroidery.

As you may see from the not yet finished sleeve to the left I use a type of Aida where the threads are glued together with a water soluble glue. After embroidering you put the fabric in water and dry it, you can then pull out the guiding threads. Not even before old age started affect my eyes did I have very good eyesight, so I can't really do counted embroidery on linen without help.

The embroidery threads are cotton. Silk, or even wool, would probably have been the period choice, since they take dyes so much better than vegetable fibres, especially linen. But cotton is actually not htat hard to dye, and cotton was both grown and woven in Spain in teh 13th century, so I could make some kind of argument for using it. But it's really because I already had the yarn, from thrift stores, and because I want to be able to wash my underwarm in hot water.

The embroidery is extremely simple brick stitching, since I saw it used on some 13th century German textiles when I was looking around for period embroidery stitches.

Now I need to finish the next sleeve embroidery.

Ice skating Regency style

I've wanted to do this ever since I started making Regency clothes again two-three years ago. But Gothenburg doesn't have very cold winter so most ice rinks are indoors, and not very pretty or historical. And of course they are closed now due to the pandemic. Even the one outdoor rink is closed, which I think is rather silly.

Luckily we have a cold snap right now, around - 6 C, and for the first time I tried skating on the pond by the University. Since there are so many plants in it I thought the ice would be full of debris and very uneven, but it was actually rather good, some arts even enough to make som more advanced things on skates, like standing on one leg with the other one lifted. Not advanced for a real skater, but for someone who is over 50 and hasn't skated regularly since the early 1980s.

I did some skating last evening, since I had noticed people walking on the ice when I was out hunting Pokemon during the day and thus knew that it was thick enough to hold. I haven't done much skating on nature ice, so I am a little cautious.

Since these cold snaps usually don't last long, it's supposed to rain on Tuesday, I decided to make to best of it and asked hubby to accompany me to the pond and take photos. And I can't really choose, so you'll get lots of them. I'm wearing shift, stays, petticoat, chemisette and my checked cotton gown under the redingote. And of course a small line cap under the bonnet.

I had planned to wear a "nicer" dress, with long sleeves. But then I realized that it was only 2,4 metres wide at the hem, which is a bit narrow if you want to do some more vigorous skating ;) 

Which I did.

This is how happy I get from skating.

After the photos were taken I took off the bonnet and put on a knitted cap and changed the redingote for a knitted cardigan, giving me a  sort of 1910s look.

But now I have rather sore thigh muscles after skating two days in a row after not skating for a year. I hope there will be more cold days however, I want to skate MORE!

The finished pellote

In the end I decided to line the pellote with thin wool, because I had it at home. Some reading about the tighter sayas from Las Huelgas showed that they were lined with "Anfalusian cloth", a term that isn't explained, but since they did make wool fabric in Spain (like everywhere else in the Old World) I decided that it was good enough for me. I am waiting for Vestiduras ricas: el Monasterio de las Huelgas y su época, 1170-1340 on Interlibrary loan.

Here I am modelling it with my newest jersey dress. a christmas dress with holly, mistletoe and lingonberries on it.

Both to protect the fabric and because it looks nice I sewed a cord to the bottom hem.

Silk taffeta from puresilks.us, cord from the museum store at Göteborgs Remfabrik.

First project of 2021

 And technically the last of 2020, since I cut out the pieces before our New Year's Eve dinner, so that I would have some hand sewing for after dinner.

Yes, 20 years after Ingeborg, Arnaut and I, had the idea to have a 13th century Spanish themed party in the medieval group Nylöse, I am finally starting on a 13th century Spanish outfit.

It really is the best time and region for a themed party: there are lots of period images of clothing, and there are preserved garments, there are cookbooks, books of music to sing and play, and there is of course Alfonso X's "Book of games", so you can be period in everything you do at the event.

Well, the party never happened, but the clothing has been in the back of my head all the time. When I turned 50 I got a gift card from a fabric store from my friend Anna, and spent it on blue silk for the saya encordata, the laced garment you see here:

Photo from the Museo de Burgos

Being plus size, with 36 G bra size I need to work on the cosntruction of the shift, which will need to give some of the support, and the saya encordata, which will give most of it, so since I am mentally exhausted right now, I started on the simpler of the garments (simpler cut I mean): the pellote.

The book in the frst photo is Clothing the past by Elizabeth Coatsworth and Gale Owen-Crocker. It only covers some of the royal clothing from the las Huelgas monastery in Burgos, but it is very useful. For example it tells us that the pellote I am using as inspiration for the cut was lined with rabbit fur. I actaully have a white rabbit fur coat that used to belong to my mother, and which is older than me. However, even if teh fur is in good shape for being so old, there's no saying how long it will reamin so, and if it's one thing that I hate more than sewing fur it is removing dried out fur which crumbles into fragments.

I could use fake fur, slightly less annoying, but I don't like using fake fur when I am hand sewing and using real silk taffeta (from Puresilks.us), it just feels wrong. So I will probably line it with silk, linen, fustina or even a thin wool. I need to have a look at more of the preserved garments from this time and place before deciding.

The saya encordata above was worn with a pellote (sleeveless surcoat). The one depicted above used the same fabric for both, but there are also examples with contrasting fabric in contemporary art. Just as you see with tunics and surcoats in Europe north of the Alps, though the matchign sets seem to be more popular in Spain and Italy.

These images from the Book of Games show women wearing shifts decorated with embroidery (or woven trim), tight saya encordatas, pellotes, and cloaks.

Red sleeveless saya encordata, blue pellote and blue cloak on the woman to the left. The woman to the right have a more general medieval outfit with a pink gown with gold trim.

The woman to the left is a littel bit unclear, but she might be wearing a dark green saya with sleeves, and a matching cloak, but I need a better photo to see this. The one on the right has a white shift with embroidery, a red saya, red pellote with white trim and a red cloak, probably lined with vair.

The woman to the right wears a red saya encordata with sleeves and gold trim along the arms and around the wrists. She has a light blue pellote with striped trim, and no cloak. The woman to the left wears some kind of Muslim dress.

One woman and at least one man, probably the other one too, judging from the fit, wear a saya encordata. The woman furthest to the left might be wearing a looser tunic in pink with her blue pellote, but the woman playing wears a white shift with embrodiered or woven trim, a red, sleeveless saya encordata, a blue pellote, and a red cloak, draped over her lap. 

The woman to the right wears a white shift with black trim, a pinkish saya encordata and a light blue pellote with white and black trim.

This woman wears a sleeved saya, it is unclear if it is tight and laced or not, and a green pellote and cloak, both with white and black trim.

Here we see a white shift which only trim is two rows of black tape or cord at the sleeves. The saya has no visible lacing, but is very tight, and the pellote is a greyish blue with white and black trim.

Anyway, this far I have sewn most of the seams on the pellote and now I have to decide on whether to line it before hemming.

And I really want an SCA event to wear it to.