Update on the folk costume page

 The page about my folk costume has now been updated with info about, and photos of, the new bodice, and some new photos of the older pieces.

Making a new folk costume bodice

 Unfortunately both bodices that I made for my folk costume have shrunk in the closet ;)

This summer I inserted panels at the side of my newest bodice, to be able to wear it for midsummer. But since most of my weight is gained in front this isn't optimal. But it was wearable

I am also wearing a new silk kerchief, and a new reproduction cotton print apron. Both these were found at charity shops. I have also made a new linsey wolsey skirt in green, which is  avery popular colour in theprobate inventories from this time and place that I have been working on the last two years.

Anyway, while I can wear the dark blue bodice there is no way I can fit into my old checked one. And I like the checked ones better.

The original for my old checked bodice, called "Viste"

Since the fabric for both bodices and skirta have to be hand woven, and I don't weave, I am lucky that there is some of the  fabric for the other variant of the checked bodice than the one that I already have available.

This one I can buy fabric for, it is the bodice variant called "Åse"

When I did my first bodice I mainly enlarged the original. Now I have both changed shape and become better at pattern making, so for the new one I will adapt it more to my large bust. The other one worked, and looked good, but since my weight gain isn't symmetrical it will look better if I add more in the front.

So after my first preliminary mock-up from a sturdy polycotton twill. Then I also made a wearable mock-up, intended to be worn as an example of popular dress in the period, if not part of the actual costume. For this I used a hand woven half linen, and a piece of rust coloured wool twill, both thrifted.

I sewed most of it on machine, though none is visible on either outside or inside now that it is finished. 

There are some smaller things that I will change when I make the real thing, but I am happy enough to use it as a pattern for the new bodice. 

The "real" one will be made from much stiffer fabric, and have more boning - the embroiderycontaisn boning channels.

The Viste bodice was lined with unbleached linen, but the Åse one is lined with a striped fabric. I am not going to look around for hand woven linen for this, but will use a thrifted striped cotton.

To make the birght colours a little duller I soaked the cotton fabric over night in strong tea. Not as dark as the original, which had black as groudn colour, but good enough for me.

I have cut out the lining now, so that I can place the pieces on the hand wocen fabric on Wednesday when I go to Nossebro and will be able to buy tthe fabric.

Folk dress of the late 18th century

 While working on a lecture about my folk costume and the studies I have done of rural manners of dress in that area i realized that I never posted photos of my green frieze (vadmal) skirt and jacket that I made about a year ago. The fabric is from Korps. Jackets and skirts made from green frieze is very common in the probate inventories from the time and period that I have been studying. It is a very strong green, but it is close to preserved frieze skirts from another part of Västergötland, and it was as close as I could get.

I made the pattern based on several preserved alte 18th century folk jackets, and the skirt is made the same way as my red folk costume skirt. All hand sewn of course. 

The jacket is closed with lacing in the lining, and then pinned shut.

The jacket is worn instead of the sleeveless bodice in colder weather. The apron is striped cotton, a thrifted curtain, the head scarf is also thrifted, but the neckerchief is bought from Folkdansringen Göteborg.

My folk costume

 I have made a new apron for my folk costume, and I have updated the page for it so much that it is virtually a whole new page. Now it also has lots of preserved garments which I could/will add to my costume eventually.

New Regency underwear, and revisting a very old gown

 Since I took in my old c. 1805 stays from 2006 two years ago when I lost so much weight I didn't have any that fit me now that I have regained some of that weight. I have a pair of transitional stays that I cobbled together for my riding habit, but there were several problems with them - they were really just a wearable mock-up - so I thought that I'd make a new pair. 

My first pair actually also was a a wearable mock.up in a way: they were made from an old cotton damask table cloth and sewn on machine. My new ones are hand sewn from cotton broadcloth and instead of hemp cord, which was a bit thick compared to the preserved ones that I've seen it has cotton yarn in the channels. I am re-using my old busk.
But I used exactly the same me-made pattern as in 2006, only adding gores in front at the bottom.

I also made a new shift. The old one is still going strong, but I had tentatively planned to visit an empire event in Lucca in June and tehn you need more than one shift. Considering the current pandemic state I find it unlikely that it will happen next year, not for me with my compromised immune system, but one can never have too many shifts.

Old stays (and shift). I have bigger boobs now.

As I was already dressed in my underwear I decided to take some more photos. This is the first time I've worn my first Regency gown (link at the top with more info about it) since the early 2000s. It could be a little tighter at the "waist" and I desperately need to iron both the skirt and the frills.

These are taken as a part of an Instagram challenge where the thee for today is "Be more Jane". Since I don't really know waht Jane austen did except write I thought that housekeeping tasks like taking inventory of things in your cupboard might be a thing.

I am wearing the apron that belongs to my folk costume, and of course a cap. But no shoes - bad Eva! ;)

The cupboard is also 1910s-1920s Jugend inspired, I'm in a 1970s flat, and the cream and green jars are 1930s. But I like the photos.

In Sweden it was common among the lower classes in towns to wear a hard cap called bindmössa, today mostly associated with folk costumes (link to my folk costume) with modern clothing, so I took tow such photos too. And it is not only the gown that needs ironing, but the apron too. The cap would probably have been in a lighter colour at this time.

Costuming year in review 4

Costuming year in review 4 - my biggest regret:

Taking in this one so much, because I have gained back some of the weight that I lost (mostly in the boobs) and now I can't wear it, but have to make a new kirtle for that outfit.

On the plus side the new one will probably be made from silk, not rayon curtain. But it's such a lovely damask.

Re-making.

I had hoped that it would be enough to take in the bodice of this gown only in the sides, and not have to unpick the gold trim and all the fake pearls around the neck, but unfortunately not. I tried, and I tried, but in the end I had to cut off the straps in front and move them closer to the middle.

Yesterday I sewed the skirt to the bodice by hand at Gotvik's sewing meeting, which I hold bi-weekly at my place.

The sleeve bands are too wide over the biceps too, but I'm not sure if I want to take them in permanently yet, since I have started going to the the gym every second day.

This is how it should be worn: with a loose gown over the kirtle and with some kind of headwear.

The page where I discuss the outfit more in detail.

Today this arrived:

Costume, with my latest article! *bounce* bounce*

I also got a hat in the mail

It will probably be remade heavily.

Midsummer in folk costume

If you have a folk costume, Midsummer eve in Sweden is the traditional day to wear it. Which meant that I spent last week taking in the bodice sothat I could wear it today ;) This one comes from
Åse and Viste, which is close to where I lived when I was younger, and I've made it myself - for more details and information on this costume, and general information about Swedish folk costumes, look here.

Iwent with my best friend, her family and her sisters and their families to a Midsummer celebration at Gunnebo House, a lovely 18th century house and gardens. There was a group showing folk dancing, which really is the one thing I don't want to miss at midsummer.

Folkdanslaget Näverluren:

I even shot a very short video (despite being a total luddite when it comes to using my cell phone)

And my best friend inger took some photos of me in my costume, before it started to rain...

And after

The last image really show how the headwear should be worn; historically the cap was always covered out of doors, to protect i from both sun and rain.But nobody does that nowadays. And it would be a waste not to show the pretty cap.

Ten years (and a day) ago...

...I defended my PhD dissertation Kläderna och människan i medeltidens Sverige och Norge (clothing and the individual in medieval Sweden and Norway).

It is in Swedish and apart from an article in the 2013 issue of Medieval Clothing & Textiles called "Clothing and textile materials in medieval Sweden and Norway" I haven't published about this in English. But there's at least an 18 page summary in English. And you can download the whole thing for free here.

So, I probably should celebrate this in some way, but I am too tired from teaching a lot this week and have more work to do, so it is likely that it will be celebrated the way it was concieved: with lots of tea and work ;)

Gratitious photo of yours truly in costume, just beacuse I can:

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.

Another example of 16th century separate sleeveless bodice and skirt

Going through som of the newer the images on Livinghistory.dk yesterday I found another example of a lower class woman's costume with a sleeveless bodice (livstycke in Swedish) worn with a separate skirt. It's from interior decoration paintings showing the different seasons and dated to c. 1585

You find the rest of the images, which include a lovely winter scene and the Goddess Diana presiding over Spring, here.

Since I am especially interested in Scandianvian and Swedish manners of dress this one made me happy.

Images of people in 17th century Sweden

Lorenzo Magalotti was an Italian philosopher, diplomat, author and poet who in 1674 was sent on a mission to Sweden by Cosimo III, Great Duke of Florence. His impressions of Sweden, Notizie di Svezia, which is kept as a manuscript in Florence was translated to Swedish and printed in 1912.

He did not only write, but also made drawings from his travels (Sweden wasn't the only one) and the "book" on Sweden has 21 such. This one, from Wikimedia Commons, show a sauna with bath attendants.

And all these images can be seen on Uppsala University Library's web site, here.

A 1570s Swedish woman's costume

It took quite a few hours to write, but now anyone interested in this costume, or in Swedish women's dress in the 16th century in general can follow this link to get lots of info and images.

Some fixes later

Well, I did all three changes, while having a friend over for tea, later dinner, and Elizabeth R on DVD. It does look better and I can live with the pelatign in front, especially since I intend to wear a narrow damask apron with it, like the Swedish woman in Jost Amann's Book of Women's Costume, that I posted in a previous post. Or this one, which is from Hans Weigel's 1577 Trachtenbuch and shows an unmarried woman from Augsburg.

Photo credit: Nordiska Museet

Much better in the back.

And in the front.

The fact that I'm trying it on with a low smock makes it looks rather Italian really. Still not perfectly happy with the pleats in front, but it's good enough. And there will be an apron, as said previously.

The velvet dress is (sort of) finished

So, I finished the dress today. But I'm not totally happy with it. The things that I don't like are:

* The bodice is too high in the front, making a sort of peak.
* The skirt needs to be be mor cut out in the front, In the photos it is folded under the bodice.
* The bodice is too long in the back

The first two I aim to do something about immediately, the last I don't know. I have just sewn all those cartridge pleats in place by hand and I don't feel too enthusiastic about ripping them upp right now. We'll see if I can live with it.