A veil with beads

The king of Drachenwald, as well as my own baron of Gotvik, are going to Estrella war in the US next month. As is the custom the king will bring gifts to another kingdom and the whole of Drachenwald is contributing. This is my humble contribution: a linen veil edged with glass beads in blue and yellow, the colours of the kingdom kingdom.

Worn with my not-so-medieval Jesus and Mary Chain t-shirt. Though since you only see the neck you have to trust me on that.

And no, I don't really have documentation of beads on the edge of veils. Ribbons or embroidery yes, and spangles. But at least glass beads are period, as is decoration of edges; and I think it's pretty

Historical Paisley shawls

I love it when museum's digitize their collections! This time it's the Paisley museum and Art gallery. The project isn't finished yet (should be finished by June 3rd), but here's a nice newspaper article about the project.



And here's me, in my only Paisley shawl. Though made in India, as they originally were, and not in Scotland. And new, it's from PACS (Pan Asia Cooperation Society), an organization that has craft centres and schools, support women's health services etc in Pakistan and India. They're non-religious and non political, and in 1992 I had the privilege to visit some of their schools in Lahore, Pakistan, as part of my teacher's education. They have two shops in Gothenburg, and one of them had the shawl.

A great photo of me from Coronation

At coronation I got to know a lot of new people, and it was my great luck that I had Mistress Margaret de Mey as my lady in waiting for parts of the afternoon - we had SO much fun.

And she also took this great photo of me after court the court and feast.

A yellow and red mi-parti gown

The cut, which skims the body, but isn't tight, and the modest neckline would probably place this one in the 1330s or thereabout.

Maja didn't really need more clothes right now, but then I bought this lovely, soft and draping yellow wool from Italienska Modetyger at a sewing faire. I bought all there was, but it was in no way enough for a gown. So mi-parti it had to be, and with Maja's arms being in red and yellow, red wool was an easy choice. It's no way near as soft as the yellow wool, but since the whole gown is lined with blue silk habotai  even a kid may be able to wear it without dying from wool itchiness ;) (Except the yellow sleeve, I ran out of fabric and had to use red habotai in that one - contrast was important in the Middle Ages, so of course I couldn't use red in the red sleeve.)

As you can see I also cut her hair on Monday night, so I have to come up with some cap and/or false braid solution for the next event.

A few photos from Drachenwald Winter Coronation and from Åbo/Turku Castle

Since I don't like taking up my cell phone in public during events I mostly have posed photos. Of course I also sat in front at court and at the high table so it would have been absolutely impossible. I'm sure that there will plenty of good photos that I can direct you to later.

So most of the photos are of Åbo/Turku castle and it's collections, and of nature. But there are a few posed ones of me.

The first leg of the trip was train to Lidköping, some 130 kilometres north of Gothenburg, leaving at 1 pm on Wednesday. There my friend Vanna picked me up and we went to Karlsborg 100 kilometres roughly to the east, to pick up another friend: Jovi. From there qwe proceeded to Stockholm, more precisely the beautiful island of Ekerö, about 315 kilometres to the North and East. The roads were bad due to heavy snow fall and we weren't there until maybe 22 pm. There we stayed with another friend, Annika, over night, and until half past five in the evening on Thursday when we got into her car and went in to Stockholm to the ferry to Åbo/Turku which left at eight. It was very cold, around -15 C/5 F and a rather strong wind. It was also rather cold in the house where we slept, around 13 C/55 F, but with a woollen blanket and a woollen cloak on top of the quilt I slept well.
And it was stunningly beautiful.

The ferry takes about 10 hours and most of that (though not enough of course) was spent sleeping. There were lots of us going to the event on the boat and much merriment was had, as well as last minute sewing ;)

Since we arrived in Åbo/Turku before dawn we couldn't go directly to the site, so after breakfast at a hotel people set out to look at things - in my case I went to the castle with my friends Gudrun and Leif.
I hadn't been in Finland since 1979, and then I didn't see the castle, so I felt that it was a must. There are lots of stairs, so it's not for the faint of either heart or body.
It was also -22 C/-9 F and windy.

And of course there were collections in the castle. They had lots costums, but mostly from the 1830s onward and it was hard to take photos through the glass cases.

Here are some 16th, or possibly early 17th century objects:

Belt plates from gilt silver.

Necklace

Spoons with pine cone tips.

After the castle people had a late lunch and then we went to the site in Ahtela, which is a kind of scouting camp in the forest in Sauvo at the coast. It was snowy, but much warmer then - just below zero /32F.

I could write so much about the event, and I may do so later, but I am still very tired after the trip home - we left the site at 6 am Finnish time on Sunday and I was home at 00.15 on Monday "morning". The trip included car, ferry and a train which had to be restarted several times so that we were 20 minutes late to Gothenburg.

So I end with a couple of photos of me in garb:

Friday night court

After watching the tournament over the honour to be the Queen's Champion.

And for court on Saturday evening (I wore the same at the morning court where the old king and queen stepped down and the new were crowned, just a different veil then)

The rosy cheeks comes from my second visit to the sauna that day :)

2016 sewing/knitting recap

I like making a list of everyhting I have made (in sewing) during the year, so here goes:

January
I wrote a lot of posts about different aspects of 13th-early 14th century dress. A lot really. I made several posts on patterned or lined veils.


Things made:
A new belt pouch

I finished my Eleonora di Toledo stockings in silk.

I didn't only write about lined and petterned veils, I also made one. Info about both cotte and veil here.

I finally photographed some of my old clothing from this period, and replaced worn out, too tight sleeves. Here's about all garments in this ensemble, though only the sleeves are really new. But the post is new :)

In all there was a lot of research posted this month, even if I didn't make that many new clothes.

February

I made a pink veil, inspired by an image in the Codex Manesse.

I also started working on embroidered wool gowns for me and my friend Måns. That really took up most of February.

March

Måns and I were invested as baron and baroness of Gotvik (SCA) . I made these oufits for us, from silk/metal brocade, lined with plain white silk. More photos and info on their page.

I finished my embroidered gown and started working on Måns' matching tunic.

Wrote lots of research-y posts about clothing from this period.

April

I finished Mån's embroidered tunic and wrote a documentation page about these outfits.

The photos were taken at Drachenwald's Spring Crown Tournament, whihch was great fun. More of my photos here.

Having worn out quite a few shifts this year I made a new one, based on a 13th century preserved Spanish shift.

Since I was giving a lecture on renaissance knitted garments at Double Wars I test knitted a swatch based on 17th century knitted waistcoats. I had spent quite a lot of time researching them for a projeectthat I made for our local museum.

Posts on knitted waistcoats: 1, 2.

This month I also spent a week in Florence together with my friend Sara, it was lovely.

May

In May we went to Double Wars. 

Since the night can be very cold in the beginning of May I  knitted a new pair of 16th century mittens for Maja.

I also made her a new, checked wool 16th century kirtle.

An old interest in printed medeival textiles was rekindled and I made this cotte from offwhite wool printed with red.

During Double Wars I hand sewed a new pair of hose for Rickard.

I also made quite a lot of scrolls and painted glasses for the baron and baroness of Gotvik.

June

Gotvik had a lovely picnic where I wore my printed gown.

I wrote about later 14th century headwear, mainly for my friend Katarina Krognos. And quite a few other research-y posts.

But apparently I didn't make any new garments this month. I did knit a lot of dish cloths though.

July

I made a new ca 1300 gown from thin red wool, with a lovely trim I found when I was in Florence in April. Documentation.

My husband got a mi-parti tunic from the remnants of my printed wool and the red wool I used for my new red cotte. Wrote some documentation and discussion on the gowns, and on printed fabric in the Middle Ages.

August
I made beaded circlets. Discussion and documentation here.

September

In September I went to Bologna for a conference and got slightly carried away by it. If you use the tag Bologna you will see lots of photos of both buildings and medieval art.

I made a pouch and a set of embroidered napkins for the king and queen of Æthelmarc.

October
I made a pair of 13th century linen braies with printed ermine tails as a birthday present for the baron.

I made a new pleated fillet

And a new c. 1300 hood.

Read more about both here.

I also made a linen coif, a beaded circlet and a veil for the autocrats of Festivalo de Caderas, but apparently I didn't take any photos of them.

Since they include sewn napkins I am showing the boxes and napkins that I made for the baronial glasses.

More about making the boxes here.

Not something I made, but soemthing that I will "make" - Mistress Helwig Ulfsdotter took me as her apprentice on Festivalo de Caderas, an event in Gotvik.

November
After visting Bologna in September I got totally obsessed with Italian dress from the late 13th century to ca 1350. This resulted in several posts about high-waisted gowns, surcoats with split sides (and occasionally fronts) and about headwear in the period (use the tag Italy to find them).

And I made my first (all hand sewn) Italian ca 1330 silk gown with split sides.

 A ten year old, not much worn silk cotte got printed pattern in "gold".

A hand sewn mi-parti wool dress in the early 14th century Italian style.

And a weird ca 1300 gown with a "bust seam" over the bust.

December

And in December I didn't sew much because I was busy making Christmas presents. Though I started on a new mi-parti gown for Maja as well as a 16th century waffenrock for Måns (he's doing the sewing, I'm doing the patterning). And I did make this christmas present for my husband: a quiver based on finds from the Mary Rose (this is the really good research post that I used). The round disc is thick leather (originally bought for making soles for shoes) and the bag is waxed linen canvas, both a gift from my friend Anna. It's hand sewn, which was a right pain the *****. The red fabric is thinner linen and the ties are finger lucet from wool.