the codpiece

Haldo! And here we are with another installment in the never-ending thrills of "Making the Most Boring Outfit On the Planet" starring, my husband's butt. Happily, no pictures of his backside today. No pictures of him at all, as it happens. Today's feature is about the making of the codpiece. I'm going to have to say that this has been the part I've been dreading the most, primarily because I had zero idea how to make one and also because this is the one piece that I really didn't want to screw up due to the pointing-and-laughing potential. I mean by others. I'm allowed to point and laugh. And after Julie's not-so-little misadventure resulting in the walrus (point and laugh! point and laugh!), I was especially apprehensive.

Here's a brief description of how this came out. I'm posting this because I think it's moderately period, mostly because it's based on a period pattern.

I started with the first codpiece depicted in Patterns of Fashion, belonging to one Cosimo I de'Medici (drawing on page 53, pattern on page 54). This one is possibly more modest than those shown in the Flemish paintings, but suits my modern sensibilities. I did a little mockup with a straight enlargement of the pattern, to which the husband cried "make it larger!" Well ok then. The second mock-up I made a bit larger and with a bit wider pouch. I also added more length to the bit above the pouch, since Cosimo's doublet came down to somewhat of a point in front whereas Aaron's will be quite short. I wanted a little more fabric there to work with. (I ended up shortening it by an inch or so, incidentally).

 


Possibly because I'm not too bright, it took me a bit of effort to visualize how these two pieces would go together to make this 3d object. So although I suspect most people would find this obvious, here it is, stepwise. Mind, I'm not entirely sure this was what I was supposed to do, but it seemed to work.

1. I sewed the two pieces together around the curved part and up the center front. After clipping the curves, I turned it right side out. This made an amusing little puppet. Sort of like a walrus.

2. I then made sort of a pleat across the bottom and basted it into place. This is equivalent to the underfold that Janet Arnold depicts on page 54. I also ran a line of stitches about halfway down from the end of the curve to enforce this fold, making sure to leave an opening for stuffing. This isn't how I was supposed to do it, but it made the whole thing much easier to work with.

 


3. Once this was done, I flipped it around and sort of gently flattened the pouch into shape, like so:

 


4. Then, working by hand, I stitched it down into the outline I wanted. Mind you, I have no idea why the outline I wanted was so asymetric, but, ahem, that must have been what I wanted.

 


5. After this, it was a simple matter of stuffing it lightly with leftover scraps of linen, whipstitching the opening closed on the back, adding a backing piece (the original had a lining that showed through some slashes, but since this was plainer, I thought the backing would simpler), then making some bias tape to bind it with. The bias tape I have no real justification for except that I thought it would give the edges a bit more form. Possibly I should have just stitched the front and back together and flipped them, but I kind of like the effect:

 


So there we go. One codpiece. Pretty modest too. Not yet attached to the peasanty short-shorts, but hopefully I can get that done today.

Ok, you can start pointing and laughing now.

jolly green pants

Haldo! I finally remembered to take a picture of Aaron's spiffy green hose. I'm using "spiffy" in a pretty loose kind of way here. Loose, unlike the hose. They're better than the mockup. Not perfect, but better.

 


Why is the dog in every picture I take?

I did one thing that I sort of regret. I decided that I was afraid that the seams might give since they're fairly fitted and movement might result in a rip. I thought that I'd reinforce them by using a stretch stitch on the sewing machine, then trimming the seam really close to it. Sort of like serging, but without the cool machine. Anyway, I'm pretty sure this will make them sturdy, but it also means that the seams don't lie flat. I decided that since this was the base layer and would be mostly covered by the peasanty short shorts, I wouldn't worry about it.

The yellowish overshorts are underway as well, but naturally, I forgot to take a picture in progress. I just did a normal seam on them and pressed the allowances open. It's much nicer looking, and since they're somewhat looser, I think it'll be ok. I'll take a picture once I get the hem done. Oh and Julie, I chopped off too much from the top too, resulting in what would be ye olde plumber's butt if it weren't for the lovely green underpants. So I think I'll be unfolding the hem at the top and using a narrow waistband to make it work. The non-bias waistband is pretty helpful for keeping them up anyway, although I'm not sure it's period. I figure it'll be a good place to put the eyelets. To tie the pants to the jerkin. Aaron's still somewhat bemused about tying his pants to his jacket. Heh.

why knits were invented

So.....we have a mockup of the Aaron's hose. These will be the bottom layer, underneath the peasanty short-shorts. And huzzah for peasanty short-shorts, I say! Nice argyles, no? And everybody loves tight pants in shiny cotton-poly blend prints. So very nice!

 


These were based on a very handy-dandy diagram located at the Devil's Nightmare Regiment (a landsknecht group - look under resources, then clothing, then patterns, then Mina's patterns). It's gets you pretty darn close for a first try!

Here's a bit of a close-up showing how much fabric I ended up piecing in (and chopping out for that matter). Fitting hose is no laughing matter. Ok, possibly it is. Possibly there was a lot of laughing. And possibly, somebody's behind got called "Franken-butt." It's remarkably challenging trying to fit things like legs and behinds reasonably closely without things ripping when the victim (um, I mean model) does crazy things like, oh, say... sit in a chair. Or walk. Or, heaven forbid, squat.

pic - closeup  


So then, in principle, all I'd have to do here is dye up an appropriate amount of linen, wash it 18 times to prevent future shrinkage (oh my!), and zip up the real things. Yeah. I'm so sure it'll go that way.

Dexter, meanwhile, is happy to serve as a coat-rack of sorts. Or rather, a pants-rack.

 

hats and knitting

So I've been ruminating on hats a bit. I'm really quite fond of the silly little bowler-esque hat that spoon guy is wearing (previous post). And that particular hat seems to wander through a number of period paintings. Mostly, I'd like to know what it's made of. I'm guessing wool? Perhaps felted wool? Hat-making, you see, is one of those slightly intimidating parts of the costuming process. I have a thought though, which is that I could knit this thing. I went through a phase a couple of years ago wherein I would knit giant shapeless things and then felt them into smaller, also rather shapeless things (like handbags mostly), then block them into shape and foist them onto people since goodness knows I don't actually use anything I make. The key point is that if you knit them huge enough, necessitating that you felt them a lot (thereby filling your washing machine with scary little drowned mouse looking bits of wool and your house with the stench of wet sheep), the stitch definition just about disappears, particularly if the yarn has a bit of a halo, as in one with a touch of mohair. As in, Lambs Pride. Which reminds me, Anita, do you have any black wool? (Shopping at Anita's house is the very best way to acquire yarn.)

Speaking of knitting...I wonder whether their stockings (netherstocks?) are knitted or linen or wool or what. I could do any of those, provided I have enough time. And the knitting could wander about with me, unlike the rest of the costuming stuff. Maybe I should also be looking for natural wool in a gauge larger than sock yarn.

Ok that was astoundingly boring, but I'll leave it anyway. So that later I may have the pleasure of looking back and saying "I thought I would do what???"

peer pressure

Hello. Long time no post. That would be because of the whole "long time no sew" thing. Which would probably in turn relate to the perennial "long time no faire to go to" issue of winter. However, the illustrious Julie has been poking at me (read: e-mailing me interesting pictures of attire) to get moving for this year's faire season. She's switched gears from the planned fancy-pants menswear to a theoretically shorter project. She's doing a Flemish working man to compliment her peasanty goodness. As I have a bit of peasanty goodness myself, as well as a known susceptibility to peer pressure when applied by Julie, I'll be following suit. There's a deadline of course. Conveniently left a bit nebulous at the moment, but sometime in May we're going to hit the Virginia faire in Spotsylvania. We don't really accomplish anything without a deadline.

So then, true to form, Julie put together an informative post wherein she describes how she and Adam carefully chose from different varieties of pants, doublets, hats, etc. It's really nice; take a look.

I looked at every picture from the time period that I could find that featured peasants being their lusty little selves. Did everyone just wander about with some guy's hand casually draped over their bodice? Or casually on their bum? Or something? Seems like it would be hard to get ones marketing/cooking/other peasanty tasks done that way. On a side note, the dress engineer seems to like that feature of this costume. Someone better tell him that this is not so much included with the clothing. Um, sorry, I digress.

And I was where? Oh yes, the patented "research" that goes into every costume...reading Julie's blog, daydreaming over paintings, and writing none of it down. To sum up, for the pants she found that one can have either hose, big baggy pants, or sort of medium baggy pants. The medium baggy pants are the most acceptable from the modern perspective, so she and Adam cleverly chose those. I'm not so big on the remaining options: the huge baggy pants because they would be hot and not so body-conscious, and the hose because they would be a wee bit too body-conscious. However, I think that this guy (from Pieter Bruegel's "Peasant Dance") is a good option:

 


He's got hose on, yes. But he also has what I shall dub "peasanty short shorts." I shall also call Aaron "Rather Dashing" the entire time he wears this costume and say "Haldo!" a lot, but that's quite another matter. Are these not the cutest short shorts ever? I love the soccer shorts over upper-stocks with cuffed nether-stocks look (yes, "soccer shorts" is the period term, why do you ask?). I have not so much seen this style worn out and about, although in all fairness I may have just overlooked it.

So yes, I pretty much picked out this outfit, THEN showed it to Aaron, who liked it (I'm getting better at this game). He only vetoed the hat, which is fine. Myself, I think he's going to get a spoon on his hat, like the other guy in the picture.

 


I already have the fabrics for this I think. I had a lucky streak at the local (terrible) fabric stores. First I found several yards of lightweight cream-colored wool in a plain weave for 40% off. I have a whole rainbow of fiber-reactive dyes in my kitchen from dyeing wool roving for spinning, so I should be able to make the wool pretty much any color I want (famous last words no doubt). I subsequently found half a bolt of medium-weight white linen marked down to $5 a yard, which was kind of weird. I suspect that was an accident on Joann's part, but who am I to argue? That I'll need to get some dye for, but I think it'll work out. I believe I'm going to more or less to the color scheme in the picture. I was originally going to do one of the almost-red colors that were so prevalent, but I really like the ugly green and yellow combo. I might change the doublet to something a little brighter. We shall see.

cuff # 1

The design proceeds apace:

 


Laren very rightly pointed out (thank you!) that I should have tested the silk floss for colorfastness before beginning. Oops. Anyway, I took my hideous test swatch, doused it in soap, and scrubbed it under hot water for a good bit. This got rid of the pink transfer pencil but didn't seem to cause any bleeding of the black. I got lucky I guess. Hopefully I won't do anything worse than that in laundering it, so I think I'm ok to go on.

As Laren also pointed out, this isn't a good choice of design for non-counted work. I agree completely, but I really wanted to work Julie's design. I tried counting threads and it didn't take very long to give me a headache, so I think that's out. I made a few changes to the design, mostly because I couldn't really get the fine detail to work out. Too many stitches in the same area just kind of made a mess. This is just boring ole backstitching (because double-running drives me mad). The Soie d'Alger is sort of slubby and annoying, but for backstitching I think I can deal. I'll just go ahead and pretend that this is the reason my other stitches looked so poopy. Julie, don't buy this stuff. Buy the one Laren recommended.

 


It goes reasonably fast. It would go faster if not for my newly renewed obsession with knitting socks. Something about the leaves turning makes me want socks. Which has nothing to do with period costuming of course, but should make the Niter happy. Yes, Niter, I'm knitting. And your birthday present is finally done.

artigranites and flaming pinapples

So a long long time ago, in a state far far away, Julie designed for me several very exciting, somewhat mutant-looking blackwork edgings, like so:

 


These were supposed to go with my Venetian outfit, and I believe at the time, I selected the middle one. I thought I was going to do counted blackwork on my camicia. Yeah. Har. Har. So that didn't happen. However, this time around, for Aaron's shirt I'd like blackworked cuffs and collar, and I'm not counting. Thank goodness. Counting on linen that fine is an exercise in minding one's temper. This time I'm actually doing the one on the left, which was originally my least favorite of the bunch, but it somehow seems to fit Aaron's style. He likes the slanty-twisty columns too. He was smart enough to have no opinions on which of these designs (and various others that I was trying out) he preferred until I had already decided. And then he wisely chose that one. Such a smart guy.

Anyway, this time I'm actually using silk embroidery floss, which is a first for me. I got it from Hedgehog Handworks. It's their Soie d'Alger, which according to their website is a 7-strand divisible silk, even though I thought I counted 8 strands. It was chosen from the options pretty much at random because it had pretty colors. Although how important that is when I'm only using black, I couldn't say. Many thanks to Laren for her advice on the marking pencil and use of the hoop. Both seem to be working out really well, although having read her post this morning, I'm starting to have "is-this-pink-stuff-going-to-come-out?" anxiety. I'll find out soon enough I guess! (What, you say that I could try washing the horribly crooked samples I did yesterday? Come now, that's not sporting!)

Julie - I know you were wanting to know what I thought of the silk floss and I have to say that I'm not sure yet! It's not really what I expected somehow, although I'm not sure what I expected. Something silkier I guess! It's actually a bit rougher than plain ole synthetic DMC floss, and is not so shiny. It took me quite a while to figure out a stitch and corresponding number of threads that would go down smoothly. Part of that was me and my lack of skills of course. I wanted to try some new stitches: chain stitch, stem stitch, satin stitch...something, anything!!! In the end, I did get to where I could do chain stitch reasonably, but I think I'll save it for something more freeform in design. This one just looks best in Holbein (well, backstitch really, as I'm a cheater, but the back will be hidden anyway). And may I say that I'm just plain disappointed not to be doing it in some new-to-me stitch? I think the next thing up may just have to be some little accessory type object for me simply so I can play with stitches. I'm looking around for historical designs that are less counted-looking so I can play with that.

So I know, all weekend fooling around with thread, and all I have done is one motif, and no picture. I'll work on it this evening and see if I can't snap a shot. Blame it on Niter for having a birthday this week; I was trying to finish her present. Yes, Niter, if you're reading this, that does mean I'm working on a present for you. Present present present!!

three for me, one for him

So I did some thinking over the weekend, and I think I really am going to follow the "three for me, one for him" rule that Julie instituted. Actually, I think it was going to be "two for me, one for him" originally. And considering that, I suppose we could go for the 4-1 ratio next, which is tempting.....but no. No. Certainly not. We're going to be good and next make updated outfits for our loyal husbands, who have to put up with all of this costuming stuff strewn about our homes. Right Julie? Um....Julie?

Ok then, so the plan for the guys is for them to have sort of generic late period doublet/slops/capes ensembles with pinking and embellishment and fun stuff like that. With any luck, these will be sufficiently middle-of-the-road to be wearable alongside our existing Venetians and various planned English and Spanish stuff. Which we are definitely not doing until the husbands get their new duds. Definitely not. Right Julie? For Aaron, the faithful dress engineer, I'm planning on using as a basis on of the outfits from Patterns of Fashion. It's the first doublet and slops in the drawings section, one of the Medici kids. I can't for the life of me remember his name at the moment. At any rate, I'd like to scale that up and then see what sort of waist and shoulder treatments I'd like. That sort of thing. For the cape, I persuaded him to look at various styles in PoF, and he prefers something circular and about hip-length. He particularly likes the dark red velvet one with yellow satin appliques. I happen to have some dark red cotton velvet (or maybe velveteen, I don't actually know the difference, sadly), so he might be getting it in that. I think I'm going to hold off on deciding, though, until I can find some appropriate fabric for the rest of the get-up. I am having some difficulty deciding on a color scheme, so it'll probably just be whatever I find. Adam's "thunderhosen" will be in a severe black and cream combo, so I want to make sure I pick something quite different. Aaron's pretty partial to color anyway.

It may take me a bit of hunting to find fabrics that I like, so in the meantime, the first step is going to be a new blackworked shirt. He likes his old shirt, but it's on such a heavy linen that it's rather warm and drags down some. Also, while I do like the blackwork on his first one,

 


 


I also don't like his old doublet due to a lousy fabric choice; I'm kind of bummed about that, since I do like the couching and the thread-wrapped buttons. I digress. Hopefully this evening, I can swing by and pick up some linen to start on the shirt. And also perhaps whatever supplies I need to transfer designs....many advance thanks to Laren, who is being so kind as to tell us how she does it! I've always either counted or free-handed before, so I'm looking forward to trying this.

venetians take 2

 

As I mentioned in the last post, we decided to spend one day at the Maryland Renaissance Faire (in Flemish garb) and one day at the Pennsylvania Faire (in the Venetian outfits we'd worn once before to the Virginia Faire. We were a little iffy on driving to PA, since it took two hours, but by doing it in our period underwear, we were able to survive the "little red oven," as we fondly called Julie's car. We both loved the PA event. We both recalled it as having paved walkways and had the idea that this would really detract. However, the lovely scenery, presence of water fountains, and (now here's an idea) abundant shady seating more than made up for the pavement. For that matter, it was pretty nice not getting so much dust in everything. We were also impressed with the quality of the shows and the street acting (my favorite part). The team does a great job and are really friendly! The jousters are just plain nuts. There was actual falling-off-of-the-horse and bloody-nose-streaming-on-face. Not to mention blowing-up-of-stuff and really-hot-fire. The fight was to the death. And nobody stopped that for the kiddies. It was kind of appalling, which I thought was great!


 

As you can see, we pretty much wore the same thing as last time, except that since I still haven't gotten around to making a replacement partlet, I just wore the Flemish one from the day before. I actually really liked it. I think the shape is good, and I'm considering doing the same shape in a finer fabric for this costume. Perhaps with some embroidery. I think it made a pretty substantial difference in how I felt wearing the outfit.


 

We didn't have a photographer along with us on Sunday, so we tended to find a pretty spot, then take a picture of each of us. We did, however, do a decent job of not taking pictures with trash cans sprouting from our shoulders this time!


 

I really liked Julie's hair and veil combo this time. We won't mention that there was sewing going on in the car on the way. No, definitely not. We don't do things at the last moment, right?


 

Here's Julie with her new basket. We were really pleased with our new baskets. So pleased that we traipsed out to the car to dump our old baskets.


 

And of course, the obligatory "laughing like an idiot" picture. I think I'm laughing because Julie narrowly missed taking a picture of me with my tongue stuck out.

So then, we shall have to see what is next up. I think it might be time to make the dress engineer his new outfit if I'm going to keep to the "three for me, one for him" rule.

peasanty pleasantries

 

Aren't Julie and I cute? Here we are at the MD Faire last Saturday. We're pretty pleased about the whole "getting our dresses done on time" bit, although to be fair, we were up until 2 the night before sewing up sleeves and hems and so forth. Much to the dress engineer's disappointment, we seemed to be enjoying it. I actually put together a pair of black linen sleeves using Julie's pattern, after midnight, and without sewing them together backwards! I was pretty amazed. Here are some shots of us with sleeves, squinting in the sun. Julie's hat is very cool, no?


 

As Julie mentioned in her post, although some of the faire folks recognized our Flemish-ness, several non-costume types pegged us as Amish. This was kind of funny, but actually, considering the back view, I can rather see it:


 

Here's another shot showing our headgear from the side.


 

And one last shot of us laughing about something. Probably the pinching gesture I seem to be making.


 

We definitely enjoyed wearing these for the day. They were very comfortable. I'll post later on day two of our adventure: Venetians in Pennsylvania.