Sunny Venetian prettiness at Spring Crown

Last  weekend - the 10th to 12th of April - I made the nine hour train trip down to Hamburg for Drachenwald's Spring Crown. I planned this as sson that I realised that it was only nine hour on train from Gothenburg where I live. I want to go to events in outher countries that are opartof Drtachenwald, but I also want to avoid flying for envinronmental reasons. I DO fly occaisonally, but if I can, in a reasonable amount of time, I take the train or carpool.

Then I got this honour of being an opponent on a PhD viva in Iceland in late March, and held (with a colleague)  a workshop at Lund University about clothing and textiles in probate inventories yesterday, the 18th of April. So there has been  a LOT of travelling. But now I am staying home for three weeks before the one week camping event that is Double Wars.

I am busy now too, but at least at home, or close to home. But enough of that, here are some photos of me in my new Venetian, and of the tournament. Which was won by my good friends Sir Padraig and Master Elsa.

A green velvet 16th century Venetian gown from thrifted materials

 I have finished the gown that I have been working on on and off since before christmas. AND I have finished a page with loads of information about how I made it. And more pretty pictures. That page is here.

This gown is made from old velvet curtains, sateen bed sheets, pieces of sturdy cotton, vintage bobbin lace, and other stuff gotten from charity shops. I like making things from thrifted materials: not only is it much better for the environment, it is also much cheaper.

Hanging upside down

When I make costumes with modern tools and techniques, and my green Venetian is definetely one of those because I am not going to hand sew a gown made from second hand velvet curtains, I have a few tricks that I use. One is to sew the lining and skirt together at the hem and then let them hang for a week, to ensure that any stretching is done before I start pleating the skirt to the bodice.

So here you can se 3,5 metres of skirt hanging. The lining is a thrifted cotton sateen bed sheet.

My plan is to wear this at Drachenwald's Spring Crown Tourney in Hamburg in April. It doesn't take a lot of time to finish it, so even including me working on the opposition for a viva at the Unviersity of Iceland, and going there in the end of March, that shouldn't be a problem. However, I am currently working hard to lose some weight, so I can't start on the bodice yet.

I will probably start making a lace partlet for it, because that is also less size sensitive.

Another Italian 14th century gown

As you might remember I got tipsy from mimosa in Hans-Gunnar's market tent on Tuesday of the Medieval week. And ended up buying this fabulous wool fabric from Historiska Rum.

I had first planned to make a pretty straight forward late 14th century gown with horisontal stripes, maybe buttoned. But then I remembered this fantastic gown on a fresco by Bonamico Buffalmacco.It is from the Piazza de Miracoli in Pisa, an dwas made  between 1336 and 1341.

And the idea wouldn't go away. This gown had been a part of my life since I was a child in the 1970s. Because in my mum's "Housewives's lexicon" in four volumes there was an article about fashion history. There were modern drawings of clothing from different eras, and one of those representing the Middle Ages, was this one. Though I didn't realise this until maybe ten years ago.  

So the idea to make a diagonally striped gown kept living in the back of my head.

I knew that I would have to be extremely careful when cutting out the fabric, and test carefully if it was even possible to fit it on the fabric. This is a little unusual for me - I usually freewheel a lot of my cutting. But I now I had to actually make a full size pattern, and a full size mock-up. After fitting the mock-up I unpicked the seams, so that I could use them as pattern for cutting.

That wine red linen is actually going to be a non-medieval dress.

There was enough width to make a diagonally striped dress, and enough remnants to make short , hanging sleeves. After I have made mock-ups for that too.

I am not particularly good at focusing on one project at a time, by the way. I have finished one of my cut work sleeves, and I am working on the other one. I am also knitting a fair isle slipover; because why not?

Third time's the charm? - another green Venetian 16th century gown

 So the 16th century Venetian that I made this spring is too large. Not by itself, it has taken some effort to lose some of that weight.

And the one that I made in spring 2019 is (still) too small.

So here we go: another green Venetian gown. This time from second hand cotton velvet curtains. The inspiration is this fresco by Giovanni Antonio Fasolo, from c. 1560-65

Since I have white cinquefoils (five petaled flowers) on green in my heraldic arms (for the SCA) I tend to be drawn to anything with white flowers, especially on green. 

The fresco isn't detailed enough to show how the flowers were made. It appears to be the same fabric as the gown, just with added decoration; so I think we can exclude woven pattern. That leaves embroidery/applique, and cut out patterns. Both are known techniques from the periodm but I have decided to go for the cut out patterns, which is very common in portraits.

This is my trial, on scraps of red cotton velvet.

Yesterday, when I really needed a break from reading up on the Cold War for a lecture that I am holding on Friday, I constructed a sleeve pattern and cut out the sleeves. First in white silk dupion (of the even kind), and then from the green cotton velvet.

And today, having another break from the Cold War, I started marking where to cut the flowers. With the help of a gingerbread cutter.

Now I will return to the Cold War, but this will be an excellent hand sewing project while I watch costume films with my neighbour, as we do every New Year's Eve.

A Venetian gown from the middle of the 16th century

 I made this to wear to the Barony of Gotvik's investiture (SCA) in March, when my friends Alfhild and Mattis stepped up as baroness and baron. She is mostly doing 16th century, and I wanted to match. 

 Due to unforseen circumstances I ended up working in the kitchen instead, so I never got to wear it.

And then things happened, and Double Wars, and more things, so I never took any photos of it. 

But today hubby and I went out to the yard outside our block of flats and snapped some. 

My inspiration was images like this from the middle of the 16th century Venice.

There may even be a page about it later, when I am out of the madness of grading that always comes with the end of the semester.

Summing up 2021

 At first I thought that I hadn't done much in 2021. Except for hiking, biking, ice skating, swimming, and slowly getting back to working.

But apparently I did quite a lot of stuff, and unusually much for other people.

Last year's summing up was thematic, but this year I will do it by month instead.

January
In January I started on my biggest costuming project this year: what ended up to be not only one, but two Spanish 12th century outfits. Or one and a half. I spent much of the time embroidering on the sleeves on my shift.

The first part to be made was the surcoat, which is called pellote. All hand sewn, from silk and lined with wool.

February
The embroidered 13th century Spanish shift, which I made slightly supportive by quilting to layers of linen together in over the bust area, and making it tight was finished in February. And it turned out that I shouldn't have bothered: the saya keeps everything in place just fine.

I also made an everyday dress from Indian cotton. It took some clever pieceing to use the borders.

This dress was part of an obsession with making modern wear inspired by c. 1900 reform dress. This obsession continued into March, where I made three reform inspired dresses for everyday wear.

The coldspell in February put a little bit of fire under me, so I also made an early 17th century doublet, and and attempt at 17th century Dutch headwear, to take some photos of me ice skating. 

More about that here- with a video!

March

The obsession with reform dresses for modern wear continued.

Here I am actually two of the dresses at the same time. A pink cotton dress with painted flowers on under a blue dress in cotton batik from Bali. I lived in that blue dress much of the year.

The pink dress on its own, I mostly wore it with the tie belt.

The third dress is also from cotton, with a lovely flower trim that I bought in a charity shop. There is also vintage two-coloured cotton fringe at the bottom, from Göteborgs Remfabrik. In the top photo I am wearing a grey jersey top with a slight puff sleeve, that I also made. The belt is borrowed from a coat, since I hadn't made a belt yet.

With a blouse from H&M and a tie belt.

I also made a new regency petticoat in March, since I felt that I couldn't use the same petticoat that I made in 2006 to all my dresses. This one is in silk, so a little bit more fancy.

And I made a new, totally insane dress from c. 1815 (more here). 

It still lacked the insane hat, from the fashion plate that was my inspiration, but it will come further down in this post.

April
I made a red blouse to wear under the blue reform dress. Here yopu also can see the blet that I made for it with the same trim as on the dress.

But mostly I was busy with work training, and as much hiking and swimming as was possible ;)

May

In the beginning of May I made my first 15th century Italian dress for a couple of years. It was also the first time I did hair taping for many years. It is hand sewn from hand wocen cotton and cotton/linen mix ( the sleeves). The bodice has a lining of tightly woven linen to make it more supportive.

I also made a reversible sleeveless spencer and a turban to wear with my Regency ballgown that I made in December 2020. (Page about the whole thing here)

The other side of the spencer got its first outing when hubby and I went to a cabin in the woods, and took some fairy inspired photos - you can see them here.

June

In June I finished the first of my 13th century Spanish saya encordatas. It is hand sewn from striped wool. And I made the rather special headwear.

I also made a dress for midsummer. It's a lovely, thin Ajrak cotton from India.

July

I went on a biking holiday. And made new shorts for this, from an African print that I bought when I visited a flea market at an allotment garden.

I made a hand sewn medieval linen shirt for my husband from linen sheets (modern, hardly used) that I found at a charity shop.

I also finally acquired fabric for the everyday apron, and and another bodice for my folk costume, more on that later.

August

By August my 13th century Spanish clothes were all finished.

These outfits have quite a lot of documentation, and detail images on their own page.

While I didn't blog about it until September I made a new white muslin dress, and a petticoat which only has straps insted of a bodice in August.
I also made a canezou  (a sort of over blouse)  from old linen curtains that were a gift from a neighbour, and a cap from some kind of weird broderie anglaise pieces that I found at a charity shop, plus remnants of an old dress.

Photos with various accessories: the canezon, my sleeveless spencer from May, and another velvet bodice from last year.

In August I also made modern garments:

A skirt for me from green cotton, and I painted a border with flowers and grasses along the hem.

I made a skirt for my best friend, because this piece of batik fabric that I found at a charity shop just screamed her name.

My mother's partner, who flies a lot and has his own small plane turned 75, so I made him a shirt.

And I made the everyday apron for my folk costume, and also gave the web page for it a much needed overhaul.

September

September was apparently a month dedicated to two things: empire, and my folk costume.

I finished the insane hat for my checked dress from c. 1815, and took photos, but I apperently haven't posted them, or updated the webpage.

 

I also made a 1790s round gown. Bad photo showing the whole thing:

Photo and video when I have actually put on some more appropriate things to wear with it.

In the folk costume field I made the new bodice, and two new aprons, and also embroidered a piece of tulle that is part of the headwear, and which I have had the material for for 20 years, but never got around to making. I thought that it was going to be more difficult than it was.

Again, much more info and images here.

I also started on 16th century (and viking) clothing for my friend Måns and his son Vidar.

October

In late October I went to the Netherlands for Drachenwald's Crown Tourney (SCA stuff). I have some photos here, including of my outifts, which weren't new, but I looked pretty.

I made matching waffenrocks for Måns and Vidar, plus a shirt, and a viking wrap coat for Vidar. Unfortunately I have no photo of the viking coat. You can see the waffenrocks if you follow the link to the photos from the Crown Tourney. Here is a photo of Vidar's waffenrock.

I also made a spencer from pinted cotton.

Finally I took some new fantasy photos that I am very proud of, even if the only new thing really is the black belt with silver paint on.

 

November

November meant lots of inspiration for SCA things, and mostly sewing for other people. I made another shirt and two braies for Visar, and a shirt and a pair of braies for Måns.

I then realised that I also needed new underwear, so another shift was hand sewn from the same thrifted linen bed sheets that I made Rickard's shirt from in the summer.

Wearing 12th century to Autumn Crown also made me realize waht I wanted to make from a piece of really thin turqouise silk that I had: A 12th century undergown.

The wool belt is from Svetlonoska Weaving.

I also made no less than four red caps. You see, when you travel almost four days together in a car to and from an event with the same people you are bound to become very silly. So durign the trip my travel companions and I founded the informal household Haus Rotkäppchen (Red Riding Hood), named after the cheap, but good Germna bubbly of that name. And of course everyone needs to have a red hat when drinking.

So I made viking caps for Erich and Elisabet, and a bycocket for Daniel.

For myself I knitted a small cap, based on Italian 14th century art. 

I have made a pattern fopr it, which will be posted here in February.

My friend Johanna liked my cap so much that I knitted one for her too.

I also made a modern apron dress.

December

December means making the annual christmas themed photoshoot - and clothing.

The cape and skirt are made from an old 14th century wool gown that I made in 1998, and which doesn't fit me anymore.

I also made a christmas apron from a thrifted curtain, and a wool skirt for my folk costume and a modern apron dress. And knit a new scarf from thrifted yarn.

 

And finally: I made a very ...erhmm... useful headpiece from a plastic diadem, cable ties, spray paint, glue, star foam stickers and insane amounts of glitter.