Ooooh - shiny!

Today my mint green silk viscose blend (so I like regenerated cellulose, so shoot me ;) Besides I can't always afford 100% silk) arrived from Pure silks  arrived. That means that I can make a mid 14th century Italian outfit based on this painting (and a few others).

It's a bit stronger green than I anticipated, but I look good in mint green, so I think it will work out nicely. The gown will be lined in pink silk and I'll use some of my 50 metres of gold trim.

Happy Holidays!

Snow fight from the ca 1400 frescoes in the Eagle Tower of Castello Buonconsiglio in Trento, Italy.

Judging from their dress it's a rare occasion with snow, and probably not colder than around frezing, the kind of weather where you run out to have a snow fight, but don't have to put on thick winter clothes. It can't be much either, judging from the green brush showing through the snow. This is actually somethign that we're used to here in the southwest of Sweden, so I can relate :)

There's no snow here now, and while this is not that unusual, but the lack of snow further north is a worrying sign of the Climate Change cause by us humans. I am trying to limit my personal contribution to this by making most of my christmas presents, limiting my consumption in general (obviously not of fabric though ;) ), eat less meat and usually travel by public transport. So I hope for more Yule eve's with snow in the future.

I hope you all have a joyful and relaxed Yule, or whatever you celebrate - focusing on friends and family.  I might actually get some medieval sewing done - I've been very busy with making presents lately.

And finally, som photos from the Barony of Gotvik's Yule party last week. The surroundings were where un-medieval, but in candlelight you could ignore that :)

As you do...

So, a friend is moving and I bought her stash of gold trim, over 50 metres of it.

Painting another glass, and lots of scrolls

So, it's time for another non-textile post. On Festivalo de Caderas Maja's glass was accidentally smashed to the floor, so I pained a new glass for her:

When I'm not sewing I am usually making scrolls, so I thought that I would share the latest ones:

These I gave out on Festivalo de Caderas in October:

Gotvik's Wayfarer, for those who have moved away and we miss.

St. Egon's Heart, for service. For Cis de Conway and Jacob Gareys.

Scrolls made for the Queen and King and the Princess and Prince of Nordmark to use:

Award of Arms for Aerin of Varovjie. My first on real parchment, and first using uncial script, to match the early period favoured by the recipient.

Blank scroll. I don't know if it has been used.

Award of Arms for Jens Bentsson

Orden den Lindquistringes for Barbara von Krempe

Saladin's Ring, for Alma von Hardewyk

And a mundane one, made for my friends Edward and Suzanne's wedding.

Another new Italian gown, from c. 1300

To those of you who know me it comes as no surprise that I had to give the extremly short-waisted Italian gowns that I discussed by the end of this post a try.

The gown is hand sewn from a very thin teal silk, and lined with a printed cotton. Cotton was both imported, usually very fine cottons with printed patterns, to Italy from India or the Islamic world, and woven in Italy in the 13th and 14th centuries. The fabric made locally was usually either in a solid colour or with woven patterns and usually heavier. Mostly they were half-cottons, with linen warp (fustian). My lining fabric, which can be seen further down the post, is of the type that would have been imported from India, and while not a perfect copy of period printed fabrics the scroll-like pattern at least resembles medieval Indian cottons. Fur, or another silk would have been a more easily documentable choice, but I'm using stuff I already had. And it does make for a both warm and still extremly lightweight gown.

The tie which doesn't align with the bust seam I got from these women:

Though, since I have much larger boobs, it looks a bit different. Most like the girl in red I think. I wasn't wearing a bra under it, just a shift with a belt under the bust and I think it would require something really tight flattening the boobs to look right, almost like breast binding.

It is obvious from this painting that neither the bodice seam, nor the tie should go under the breasts, but across them.

Or you can wear it without the tie, like on this image, which was my main inspiration:

Like that gown my gown is slit all the way up to the seam of the bodice. You can see the lining in the photo below.

The tunic worn under the gown also is my old blue silk tunic. A tunic from another fabric is much less common than both the tunic and the over gown being from the same fabric. But I didn't have more of the teal silk.

The seam above or across teh bust really seems weird and contra-intuitive to us, but it is not unknown in the history of costume. One of the oldest Swedish folk costumes, Vingåkersdräkten, is made in this way:

It is of course not documented before the 18th century, and has no conenction to Italy. But that it existed made me more confident about cutting my gown at least.

Incidentally his folk costume is also often described as "medieval in style" in older books about folk costumes. To  this I usually respond - bah! There are no medieval gowns either depicted or preserved from Northern Europe with this construction. But maybe the Swedish scholars writing 70 years ago or so had seen images of these Italian gothic frescoes, and not knowing much about medieval dress at all, thought that this was a typical medieval dress for all of Europe. With their ideological bias which prescribed  ancient roots to the clothes of the peasants, they were ready to track almost anything to the Middle Ages given half a chance anyway.

Instant love

Found this amazing image in a book yesterday and fell in love instantly. It's by the workshop of Bernardo Daddi and dated to 1334. This is a donor.

I mean: Look at the fabric! And the side and front slits. yes, there appears ot be a front slit too. It is the lining, probably fur that we see at the side and front slit, the tunic worn under the surcoat is, like in most of the images, made from the same fabric as the surcoat.

But this surcoat has a front slit! And side slits, but as I've discused previously in the blog, they are common.

Front slits are less common, but I've found a few:

This surcoat, painted, by Giovanni Baronzino, may also have both side and front slits, if you look closely at the front.

And the saint to the right in the yellow gown, on this painting by Paolo Veneziano.

Anyway it was not the many slits that made me fall in love with it, but the colour and pattern of the fabric - swoon! I love checks! And checks with dots is even better.

Trim with a pedigree

I went to the haberdasher in town to get som "gold" trim for my newest gown (pics soon, I finished it today) and found this lovely trim. It's not gold, but it's real metal, and it's made in a mill close to where I live in Gothenburg, which is now a museum.