Crafty Agatha

The dress is finished!  Except for the seam finishing, it’s all done.  I discovered that I had cut the dress too short, so I added a strip of maroonish linen to the bottom edge, which I think actually looks quite nice.  Simple enough.  I also decided to sew the bodice shut almost to the top, with eyes to lace up the topmost part.  There was just too much of a puckery gap when it was laced shut.  The left side of the dress is closed with hooks and eyes.  I’m not completely happy with the fit, so there will be more adjustments. I will also be making a hemd (gathered neckline chemise) to wear under it.    Here are pictures of the finished(ish) dress:

Next, I set the pleated panel into the bodice.  This was a big moment–I’ve never done this before!

After I set in the panel, I hand-sewed the top and part of the sides.

The rest of the panel was carefully machine stitched.  Some adjustments to the pleats were necessary to get a good fit.

This is the back panel, pinned and ready for handsewing.

One of the front panels set in place, seen from the inside of the dress. I cut the front panel in half down the middle to make the finishing easier. I haven't decided whether to make eyelets or hooks and eyes for the closure.

The front panels sewn in.

Sleeve ties were made with red and white silk square fingerloop braid.  The ends were finished with brass chapes from Historic Enterprises.  I could have probably made them myself, but I didn’t think I’d have the time before Great Northeastern War.

After cutting out the pieces for the lining (yellow), I cut out the dress pieces in dark blue linen.  I chose to use linen so that I could wear this dress during the warm summer event season.

Left, front panel, right, back panel

I have such a great helper

sleeve with yellow lining showing, back pieces, sleeve with outside showing

front panels with side gores

I sewed the lining into the bodice at the same time that I stitched the bodice together. The sleeves are completely hand-sewn. The long seams are machine stitched.

back of bodice

The back panel has been marked for pleating. The stitches will be at 1/2 inch increments, the top part to be pleated is about 7 inches.

The panel has been stitched

The back of the panel, showing cartridge pleat stitches, ready to be pulled tight. I used cotton quilt batting to create a firm, full pleat with definition.

This dress has fascinated me for months. I love the pleated detail found both in the front and back of the dress.  These (I think) were panels inserted in the bodice as separate pieces.  My theory is that these dresses were worn by women of childbearing age to allow for pregnancy, the pleated panels may have been adjustable to accommodate a growing baby bump.  Stehfaltenkleid means “standing pleat dress”.

Young Woman with Her Hair Done Up by Albrecht Durer

Nuremberg Virgin in Dance Dress by Albrecht Durer

Master of the Housebook "Aristotle and Phyllis"

Back pleated panel

I saw a wonderful tutorial/blog about how to make it here:  http://www.bettinaschreier.com/clothing/c_duerer.html

Much like Bettina, I fitted a bodice to make the correct shape for this dress.

Thanks to my husband, the chalk lines marking the front, back, and armholes are even!

X marks the side that looks the best

I used a pattern piece from another dress to draft from, which worked perfectly.  Note the top back neckline  —–>

I lowered that later.  When I used the pattern pieces for the final dress, I used only half of the front and back, making sure they were symmetrical.

The next challenge that I was really worried about was the sleeves.  I’d never drafted my own sleeve pattern before, and I knew I’d have to create grande assiette sleeves.  These are sleeves with big arm openings to allow for range of movement.  I saw Bettina use a t-shirt as a pattern. I didn’t get a picture of it, but I put on a fitted old t-shirt with long sleeves, put on my bodice pattern (I had cut the new arm openings and sewn the pattern pieces together), and had my husband trace the arm openings and draw a line down the back of the sleeve of  my t-shirt with a marker.  I took off the t-shirt and cut out the sleeve:

I placed the sleeve on a scrap of linen, making sure to make the sleeve slightly shorter for the 3/4 length sleeve.

Using the sleeve shape as a guide, I created a sleeve pattern that would fit the larger sleeve opening, and adding a small gore in the front and a larger one in the back.

Luckily, Bettina is much the same size as me, so the measurements she had, and the measurements I had matched pretty closely.  Just in case, I measured the armhole (25″), and the sleeve pattern’s top edge (19″)  That means I needed to add gores.  One small gore in the front that measured about 3 1/2″ along each side, and a larger gore in the back of the sleeve that measured about 6″ along each side. Seam allowances take up some of the extra fabric.  The back seam of the sleeve will actually be open and laced, so a curved cut was made about 6″ from the top of the sleeve edge.  Everyone’s measurements will be different, so my measurements should not be used as a guide.  I hope that at least my process will be helpful.  Bettina’s website tutorial was invaluable!

The sleeve mock-up. It fits perfectly! Sorry, no back shots...I couldn't reach behind my back with the camera.

From left to right: back bodice, sleeve and gores, front bodice

After cutting out the areas where the pleated panels will be inserted.

More to come…..

For the past several months, seemingly nothing.  Which is SO not true!  I’ve been busy learning illumination:

An illuminated "E". My first attempt at illumination. Not perfect, I know.

Someone FINALLY taught me how to nalbind:

Master Cedric of Thanet (who is also a Syr, but let's not complicate things) showed me a basic stitch. I think the Oslo?

I figured out how to work it in the round using this video:

I finally started on my Nuremberg dress, which I found out is called ’Stehfaltenkleid’ in German.  I found Bettina’s Pages (http://www.bettinaschreier.com/clothing/c_duerer.html) to be so helpful in figuring out how to go about making it.  I have made my bodice pattern and started drafting a sleeve pattern as well.  Next I will figure out the pleated panel on the front and back, and creating the full length pattern for the dress.

My friends Anya and Alys and I decided to make more soap, and to make it a demonstration workshop for anyone in the shire that wanted to come try out making soap.  Some lovely ladies and a couple of fellas showed up!

First, we wanted to make a more “period” soap by rendering fat to make tallow for the soap.  We’re not quite ready to make our own lye, but that will probably be our next step.  We used commercial lye (sodium hydroxide).  Baby steps for now.

A day or two before our demonstration, Anya rendered the fat for  the tallow.  It started out looking like this:

Beef tallow before melting...

And melted:

Tallow has mostly melted

And after it was strained, it looked like this:

This smelled weird. I was worried at this point that I would smell like meat after washing with the soap.

The strained tallow is on the right and has cooled. The bits that didn't melt are on the left...

Beef tallow makes the hardest soaps, so Anya chose beef fat from around the kidneys.

We made two kinds of soap: a very small batch of lavender and orange peel, and a larger batch of patchouli.

filling the 'mold' with the lavender soap

The lavender/orange peel hardened very quickly, so when Anya went to cut it, it was too hard.  A band saw will need to be used to cut it!

The patchouli/clove soap did something very strange.  It bubbled and expanded after it was poured into the molds.

The foaming looked strangely like root beer floats.

We now think it was doing something called seizing, which can be caused by certain oils or spices.  We think it was the clove that caused it.  When Anya cut the soaps, though, they seemed fine.  A little squidgy on the outside:

Strange formations.

Petra filling some molds with patchouli soap

But probably it will be fine.  We are definitely still learning!

Right now, the soap is curing for a couple of weeks before we can use them.

*UPDATE*  It is now May, and we’ve shared and used our soap almost all up.  I have one bar left .  We’re planning on another soap making adventure in the summer months, hopefully before it gets too hot.  The patchouli soap came out great, with a nice, mellow, non-overpowering scent.

knitted "Dwarven Battle Bonnet" from Ravelry

Closeup

I found this awesome pattern at Ravelry.  It was too cool to pass up!  Otto loves it, and has snowblown while wearing it.  He loves that it has more space around the eyes than a regular balaclava.  He’s driven to work wearing it, and has startled some fellow commuters!  It’ll be a great thing to wear at cooler events up here in Maine.

pretty quick and dirty wool kirtle for a fall event

Chalking in the changes.

Taking it apart.

The front with new neckline and panel cut out

The back before the new armskye.

A panel insert. It will be cartridge pleated along the top edge.

The new armskye. This is a little scary--I'm not sure if this'll work.

I’ll be drafting new sleeves to fit the new armskye (sleeve opening)–luckily I have just enough of this wool to do that.  I’m using scraps and leftover gores to create the pleated inserts for the front and back of the gown.  My theory is that the inserts were there to accomodate pregnancies.  I’m not planning on any more babies, but my guess is that these dresses were worn after childbearing as well.  The plan for drafting sleeves is pretty clever I think:  put on an old shirt with sleeves that fit appropriately, put the dress on over, mark out the armskye on the shirt and cut out the sleeve to create a pattern.  I got the idea here:  http://www.heatherspages.net/Nuremberg%20dress/gown/gown.htm

Before sewing the whole thing together, I need to line it, so I will use the wool pieces as a pattern for the linen lining, which will be brown.

I’ve also been working on the headgear, called a wulsthaube:

The pieces for the unterhaube and the wulst (bulge)

Unterhaube with wulst (bulge) attached

The steuchlein (kind of like a kercheif) tied over the unterhaube

Crazy evil head wearing the headgear

The bump is a little too subtle.

Overall, I’m happy with the wulsthaube and steuchlein, but I think the wulst should be bigger.  This was a prototype, so changes are bound to happen.

So I’ve decided to work on Persona.  My official persona is German, living in Nuremberg in the late 15th century.  Exactly when Albrecht Durer was around! This is also about the same time as the Master of the Housebook was working.  Both artists left us with a plethora of images of a very specific kind of dress:

Nuremberg Virgin in Dance Dress by Durer

Portrait of a Young Furleger with Her Hair Done Up by Albrecht Durer, 1497

So that dress I was planning on revamping for the Burgundian dress will be revamped into the Nuremberg style dress of the 1490s.  I have to take the whole ding dang thing apart!

I have to add in those weird pleated-looking panels in the front and back, as well as lower the neckline and line the whole thing.

Portrait of Elsbeth Tucher by Albrecht Durer.

I’m hoping it’ll work–it’s a complete experiment!

To go with the complete look, I’ll need to make the following:

Steuchlein (pronounced [stoy-ch{sh or ch in the back of the throat}line]; seen on the pretty lady’s head above–it’s a padded head-covering); made up of a padded piece called a wulsthaube [vulst-how-buh] and a covering called a schleiertuch [shly-er-too{sh or ch in the back of the throat again}].  Here’s a great website with good information on German headwear:  http://www.hartwoodcastle.com/classes_german_hats.html

Hemd (the underdress chemissey thing)

In all of the pictures, the ladies seem to have a connecting set of brooches or some-such; I’ll have to rig up something that will work.