Medieval eating and serving utensils - thrift store edition

Unlike when I started playing in the SCA, an later in the Swedish group Nordrike, in the 1990s (and now I am back again in the SCA), you can nowadays get replicas of virtually any type of plate, glass, pot, dish etc that you want, from different centuries and localities. 

But that was not the case when I started, and I am conditioned by my early experience into looking for suitable things at thrift stores. Everything in these photos is from thrift stores. Most of it, including the table cloth, from Mölndals secondhand. The glasses are painted by me, inspired by Italian 14th century glasses - I have a blog post about them with sources and close-ups here. 

We're a family of five, so of course we need more stuff than one person. I am also fond of cooking in camp, which means that you need bowls for preparation and serving. My pots and pans are not in this photo, they're in the basement. 

The wooden plates I've had since we were only a family of four, probably 20 years now. Two of the dark ones are broken, but luckily I still have five left. I have also broken two of the matching glasses, so I will have to paint more.

Photos from slightly different angles:

I have replicas too, glass, and some pottery, and my beloved cooking pot from Krohns Krukmakeri. But lots of stuff is just things that look medieval (or renaissance) enough. 

The Water Elf photos

Hubby took lots of photos, and I am very happy with almost all of them. Since I don't want to bore you I won't post ALL. Just too many ;)

The cloak that I am wearing in some of the photos is my husband's wool cloak that I made over a decade ago. The belt is a piece of trim, that I beaded last week. And the gown is actually a 1930s gown from rayon satin, that I also made, and beaded. I made it with the photoshoot in mind, but I thought that it would be nice to make something that you can use for other purposes too. And this satin just screamed to me that it needed to be a gown with the skirt cut on the bias.

I felt like a very pretty water elf - and with the sword, like the Lady of the Lake.

This is how the gown looks when not used in a fantasy setting:

And in this video, which I haev shown on the blog's facebook page, you can see why I love a bias cut gown - the way the fabric moves is amazing. Also, the gown has no zipper or buttons, the bias makes it elastic enough to get into anyway.

Going fantasy again: wire crowns

 So, I continue with my fantasy costuming. This flare of interest in fantasy outfits comes from when I "needed" a fire themed crown for an Elf king in August. So I thought: why not try making oen from aluminum wire and glass beads, the latter I have more than enough of.

So I made this crown:

And, which is not uncommon, I got really inspired and ordered lots more wire in different colours.

And I made a earth element/forest crown:

Both these have braided wire as foundation, but for the water crown I used another technique, that I have use previously for circlets to wear with veils - though that was more than 15 years ago.

Here you have two rings of thicker wire, and use thinner wire to weave beads between the two thicker ones. The aluminum wire is a little soft and bendy for this, but it is okay, especially if you add other things to teh circlet, as I did.

Finished:

I am working on an Air crown too, but got sidetracked by making a water gown, so that I could have a photoshoot last weekend, when Rickard and I had rented a cabin by a lake.It is easier to take water themed photos with a lake at hand ;)

This is the beginning of the air crown - I am working with clear, and iridescent glass beads to get a light and airy feeling.

Wanna hear me talk? About cotton?

 Tonight at 7 pm EST (European Summer Time) I am giving a lecture on Cotton in the Middle ages as part of Virtual FrockCon - if you're at all interested in historical costume, which I assume that you are since you are here, you really should check out Frock Con, there's lots of interesting stuff.

Anyway, my class is here, on facebook live . It's my first time using facebook live, so let's just hope all goes well.

A late 16th - early 17th century kirtle from linsey wolsey

I haven't done much 16th century the last years: two German gowns, one more for fun than anything serious (it was a rose themed party and I made it in a week), and a Venetian gown which has now temporarily been turned into a fantasy gown. 
But once I had lots of 16th century garb (well, technically I still have it) and once in a while I feel the urge to make something from this period. Now I feel it stronger, because I miss my Mistress Helwig, and the other members of House Duck and Three Scissors, people who often wear and make 16th century clothing. So one reason why I started this kirtle is to connect to SCA friends that I can't see in person now.

The other reason for making this is that next year Gothenburg celebrates its 400th anniversary and I have planned to make a burgher's class outfit from 1621 and luckily the shape of kirtles, as far as we can deduce from artwork from the period didn't change that much, or at all, so with thew correct jacket and headwear, apron, and ruffs it ought to work. It is nice to be able to wear the things you make more than once.

Except for the boninng channels in the linen lining - I used the layout of Dorothea Sabina's stays, it is all hand sewn. the lining f the bodice is two layers of linen and the top fabric is a 50% linen 50% wool fabric. The guards at the bottom of the skirt are fulled wool.

Obviously I am not correctly dressed in these photos - my hair is put up with a scrunchie!

Under the kirtle I am wearign my first hand sewn linen 16th century smock, which is now 20 years old, and a rather stiff fustian petticoat. In the photo to the right I am also wearing a small roll stuffed with cotton batting, but not in the left, I have lots of fluff, so I really don't need much help in that department. In the photos below I have  the roll in the photo to the left, but not in the one with the 20 year old jacket. Which is based only on Drea Leed's doublet, I had no research on my own about 16th century costume when I made it ;) 

The coif and forehead cloth that I am wearing is machine embroidered by my friend Alfhild as a gift when I became a member of the Order of the Laurel. Hair is still in a scrunchie under it ;)

18 years in the life of a dress - a story in images

In 2002 I made this dress for an event in March. Our whole local group were making clothing inspired by images in the early 14th century manuscript Codex manesse, or Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift.
It's made in green thin wool, and it has been used A LOT. You can read more about the dress here.

Here are photos of me and my husband, and lots of our friends. Back then I didn't have a digital camera, so I have very few photos from this time. More photos from this event can be seen here.

The trim at the sleeves is made with brass thread woven into it, but I never really liked how it looked, so I removed it in 2007, five years later

Here are some photos me in it without trim.

2007

2007

2008

When Måns and I became baron and baroness of Gotvik in 2016, I decided to bling it up a little again, and added a much nicer, vintage trim that I got from Passamaneria Valmar in Florence.

Here I am wearing it for a masked ball at Double wars in 2017:

Last week I decided to use it for Gotvik's second summer picnic this year:

And I noticed, that 18 years of dragging the hem on the ground had unsurprisingly caused some damage.

Since it was about a foot longer than to the floor anyway, there was enough fabric to cut off about 2,5 cm/an inch and re-hem it.

But, since the dress had been made when I wasn't as I am now at both this period of dress, and at constructing patterns, I decide to change some other stuff: I took it in 2,5 inches/ca 6-6,5 cm at the bust - yes, it should be loose, but this was enormous, it fit me better when I weighed 98 kilos - and I scooped out the armscyes more in the front to make it look more like preserved garments, and I also took it in a little at the shoulder, so that it fit my shoulder width, I have rather narrow shoulders, especially for someone my size.

So, this is how it looks now - still a loose fit, but better fitting.

I was inspired by this image from the Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift for the photo.

As you see: green cotte, pink cloak, fillet with wavy edge, and a veil with trim along the edge. And a dog. I don't have a dog. But I have two cats, this is Esau, who doesn't want to be there.

And a few photos without the cloak.

It is still very wide.

Close up of the trim:

My new green wool 12th century gown has its own page now

The 12th century used to be one of my go to periods twenty years ago or so, but since than I haven't worn it much. However, having a baron and baroness wearing 12th century styles for hteir investiture inspired my to wear some of my old stuff, and then to make some new stuff. It also helped that I had found this gorgeous thin green wool fabric. The dress was finished a few weeks ago, but I also needed the under layers - and for it to be cool enough for me to want to put it on.

Yesterday was that day, so hubby and I went out to take photos.

Since I am on sick leave for exhaustion/burn-out I have plenty of time to sew, but very little energy to start projects - not to mention reading or writing, which is really, really hard. But given enough time some things actually get created, and even written about, which this is the proof of: A page for my new gown with some info on how I made it and lots of pretty pictures.