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liadethorneggeI had a very clear image, fairly soon after I got my writ, of what I wanted to look like at my vigil and subsequent elevation.
I listened to Sir William who said I surely had something in my wardrobe, and decided to add the finishing details to my Green English fitted gown I made for Double Wars 2006.
It was always meant to be finished off with a suite of ruffs, as shown by my source image
Making a suite of ruffs was going to be tedious, I knew, so I started with that before anything else. I cut two strips of loom width linen and appropriate width (I don't remember anymore, but about 15 cm) and stitched them together to form one 3 metre long strip. Then I hemmed all sides.
I then cut two strips of loom width linen to about 8 cm wide and hemmed all sides to make two separate wrist cuffs. I was always going to make double layer ruffs, but I disregarded any issue of up or downside and just hemmed everything to the same side.
Then I went about attaching 3 + 3 + 1.5 + 1.5 metres of cotton lace to the long edges of these three strips of linen. I worked on that for two months. Tedious, is the word.
After that was done I cut out more linen to a collar length and proceeded to use foul language in an attempt to gather the much too long ruffs into much too short collars and cuffs. Before attempting to do the gathering I folded the strips double of course. I did not measure, more than to find the half-way points, on the cuffs I did run a gathering thread. I actually first did that very carefully with the running stitches about 2 mm long. I had to re-do that because there was much too much thickness of fabric to be physically possible. I re-stitched the cuff taking stitches about 4 mm long. Equally impossible, and in the end I stitched it a third time with stitches about 15 mm long. This was at least possible and the other cuff I started with the right length of stitches.
On the collar ruff I did not bother with a gathering thread, instead went for the divide and conquer method. Pins, pins and more pins. This was my task the weekend before Kingdom University, and I am very glad for the moral support of Aros sewing circle thay day, because I kept being so frustrated with the entire concept of ruffs I threw my work across the room several times.
In the end I triumphed, and got both edges of the collar and wrist-bands attached to the ruff, and closed them up. I did it as shown in Arnold, PoF 4, stitching each pleat to one edge of the band, and the other edge of the pleat to the other edge of the band so that the pleated ruff takes up the pleat-depth between the two sides of the band. It ended up being about 1cm on the collar.
After finishing the collar and wrist-band attachment I only had to starch the ruffs. But before doing that I ran a thread through the lace edges to create the perfect figure eight pleating. On an Elizabethan Costuming group I'd picked up the tip to use the very regular lace to help me determine depth of pleats, so I simply did a large running stitch through the peaks of my lace (5 peaks per stitch for the wrist ruffs and 10 peaks per stitch for the collar). I tied this off and finger-formed the two layers of ruff into rough figure eights. Then I could proceed with the starch.
I managed to miss Baroness Margaret Walsingham's class on starch at Double Wars this year, but I persuaded her to send me her handout and had purchased barley starch (Ohrakas-fi, Kornstärkelse-sve) at Midsummer coronation in Finland, because in Finland they still use that stuff for baking. Her recipy called for one part starch and four parts water to be heated while stirring. It formed a lovely wall-paper paste type gloop, into which I mixed another eight parts water. Into this starchy bath I dumped my collar and wrists, wrung them out, and then hung them up to dry, after again finger-forming the figure eights of the ruffs.
They dried over night, hung by clothespins upside down. By morning they were satisfactorily papery in feel.
I found a small bowl with the right circumference for the collar ruff and a wine bottle for the wrist ruffs and then lightly sprayed smaller sections of the ruffs to finger-form them into the right shape. I first had to moisten the bands to be able to pin them around the bowl and bottle respectively. Then I could start on the double layer ruffs. I went around once, carefully spraying and pulling out the lace as well. When I first stitched the lace on it was very narrow, after starching and pulling it out it ended up about twice the width it was when purchased. I went around twice on all three ruffs to get the figure eights to look somewhat decent and then I let it dry again for most of the day. In the evening I again carefully sprayed and finger-pressed the figure eights. I would have liked to have a heat source to help in this, to get the linen very flat and orderly, but I think I succeeded fairly well even with just my fingers. At this point you can see I left the lace guiding thread in, to help me keep the figure eights orderly.
So, on Friday evening, Their Majesties held court, with only a couple of things on the agenda, one was to send me off to vigil, and my vision there was to come dressed in my new white kirtle, but the Green English fitted gown would be the overall impression. I had to pin the ruffs into the gown on site, they had been transported in a large paper bag to keep from smooshing in transit. I could pin through the picadil edges of my gown around the collar band to attach the ruff there. On the wrist I similarly pinned through the picadil edges to fasten the ruffs to the gown. The right way would probably have been to pin the ruffs to the shirt - but I wanted to shed the outer layer, including ruffs, once in the vigil room, so I opted to make them easy to remove as once.
I had to have help to close up the collar ruff in front. One straight pin right in front to close the band up (before next wearing I have to make either lacing holes, or stitch a hook and eye pair there), and two straight pins to make the two layers of ruff into a circle of figure eights around my throat. Once that was done I felt like I was being hugged by my gown and I was very pleased.
Of course, the ruffs were not all, the headwear had to be right too - and after looking carefully at a bunch of portraits of 1560s and 70s ladies I discovered that they not only had ruffs, but also wore a typical French hood. I had wanted to try out the new theory of French hoods (pdf from Sarah Lorraine) which works from the layers of headwear already in use from early in the century and constructed of many parts, rather than the slightly older theory of building a solid single-layer millinery hat. So I put my hair up in two braids, tied around my head, put on the forehead cloth, and coif (pattern #48 in PoF4) and then tied on a bandana of the same purple and green silk I'd used as picadil edging on my vigil gown on top. I carefully folded an edge in as it was a completely raw piece of fabric (no time) so that the front of this piece of silk showing behind the line of the coif would be neat. Over the top of this, and covering the fact that it was just a piece of fabric roughly tied around my head, was a black velvet veil with billiments attached at the front edge. This veil I had from my first Tudor gown and attempt at a French hood.
In the end, I this my attempt was wholly successful, and my Lord Edricus took a number of photos of me before court where I look pretty much like a portrait or effigy of the time.
On Flickr, better image 
On Flickr, better image 
On Flickr, better image
I listened to Sir William who said I surely had something in my wardrobe, and decided to add the finishing details to my Green English fitted gown I made for Double Wars 2006. It was always meant to be finished off with a suite of ruffs, as shown by my source image
Making a suite of ruffs was going to be tedious, I knew, so I started with that before anything else. I cut two strips of loom width linen and appropriate width (I don't remember anymore, but about 15 cm) and stitched them together to form one 3 metre long strip. Then I hemmed all sides.
I then cut two strips of loom width linen to about 8 cm wide and hemmed all sides to make two separate wrist cuffs. I was always going to make double layer ruffs, but I disregarded any issue of up or downside and just hemmed everything to the same side.
Then I went about attaching 3 + 3 + 1.5 + 1.5 metres of cotton lace to the long edges of these three strips of linen. I worked on that for two months. Tedious, is the word.
After that was done I cut out more linen to a collar length and proceeded to use foul language in an attempt to gather the much too long ruffs into much too short collars and cuffs. Before attempting to do the gathering I folded the strips double of course. I did not measure, more than to find the half-way points, on the cuffs I did run a gathering thread. I actually first did that very carefully with the running stitches about 2 mm long. I had to re-do that because there was much too much thickness of fabric to be physically possible. I re-stitched the cuff taking stitches about 4 mm long. Equally impossible, and in the end I stitched it a third time with stitches about 15 mm long. This was at least possible and the other cuff I started with the right length of stitches.
On the collar ruff I did not bother with a gathering thread, instead went for the divide and conquer method. Pins, pins and more pins. This was my task the weekend before Kingdom University, and I am very glad for the moral support of Aros sewing circle thay day, because I kept being so frustrated with the entire concept of ruffs I threw my work across the room several times.
In the end I triumphed, and got both edges of the collar and wrist-bands attached to the ruff, and closed them up. I did it as shown in Arnold, PoF 4, stitching each pleat to one edge of the band, and the other edge of the pleat to the other edge of the band so that the pleated ruff takes up the pleat-depth between the two sides of the band. It ended up being about 1cm on the collar.
After finishing the collar and wrist-band attachment I only had to starch the ruffs. But before doing that I ran a thread through the lace edges to create the perfect figure eight pleating. On an Elizabethan Costuming group I'd picked up the tip to use the very regular lace to help me determine depth of pleats, so I simply did a large running stitch through the peaks of my lace (5 peaks per stitch for the wrist ruffs and 10 peaks per stitch for the collar). I tied this off and finger-formed the two layers of ruff into rough figure eights. Then I could proceed with the starch.
I managed to miss Baroness Margaret Walsingham's class on starch at Double Wars this year, but I persuaded her to send me her handout and had purchased barley starch (Ohrakas-fi, Kornstärkelse-sve) at Midsummer coronation in Finland, because in Finland they still use that stuff for baking. Her recipy called for one part starch and four parts water to be heated while stirring. It formed a lovely wall-paper paste type gloop, into which I mixed another eight parts water. Into this starchy bath I dumped my collar and wrists, wrung them out, and then hung them up to dry, after again finger-forming the figure eights of the ruffs.
They dried over night, hung by clothespins upside down. By morning they were satisfactorily papery in feel.
I found a small bowl with the right circumference for the collar ruff and a wine bottle for the wrist ruffs and then lightly sprayed smaller sections of the ruffs to finger-form them into the right shape. I first had to moisten the bands to be able to pin them around the bowl and bottle respectively. Then I could start on the double layer ruffs. I went around once, carefully spraying and pulling out the lace as well. When I first stitched the lace on it was very narrow, after starching and pulling it out it ended up about twice the width it was when purchased. I went around twice on all three ruffs to get the figure eights to look somewhat decent and then I let it dry again for most of the day. In the evening I again carefully sprayed and finger-pressed the figure eights. I would have liked to have a heat source to help in this, to get the linen very flat and orderly, but I think I succeeded fairly well even with just my fingers. At this point you can see I left the lace guiding thread in, to help me keep the figure eights orderly.
So, on Friday evening, Their Majesties held court, with only a couple of things on the agenda, one was to send me off to vigil, and my vision there was to come dressed in my new white kirtle, but the Green English fitted gown would be the overall impression. I had to pin the ruffs into the gown on site, they had been transported in a large paper bag to keep from smooshing in transit. I could pin through the picadil edges of my gown around the collar band to attach the ruff there. On the wrist I similarly pinned through the picadil edges to fasten the ruffs to the gown. The right way would probably have been to pin the ruffs to the shirt - but I wanted to shed the outer layer, including ruffs, once in the vigil room, so I opted to make them easy to remove as once.
I had to have help to close up the collar ruff in front. One straight pin right in front to close the band up (before next wearing I have to make either lacing holes, or stitch a hook and eye pair there), and two straight pins to make the two layers of ruff into a circle of figure eights around my throat. Once that was done I felt like I was being hugged by my gown and I was very pleased.
Of course, the ruffs were not all, the headwear had to be right too - and after looking carefully at a bunch of portraits of 1560s and 70s ladies I discovered that they not only had ruffs, but also wore a typical French hood. I had wanted to try out the new theory of French hoods (pdf from Sarah Lorraine) which works from the layers of headwear already in use from early in the century and constructed of many parts, rather than the slightly older theory of building a solid single-layer millinery hat. So I put my hair up in two braids, tied around my head, put on the forehead cloth, and coif (pattern #48 in PoF4) and then tied on a bandana of the same purple and green silk I'd used as picadil edging on my vigil gown on top. I carefully folded an edge in as it was a completely raw piece of fabric (no time) so that the front of this piece of silk showing behind the line of the coif would be neat. Over the top of this, and covering the fact that it was just a piece of fabric roughly tied around my head, was a black velvet veil with billiments attached at the front edge. This veil I had from my first Tudor gown and attempt at a French hood.
In the end, I this my attempt was wholly successful, and my Lord Edricus took a number of photos of me before court where I look pretty much like a portrait or effigy of the time.
On Flickr, better image On Flickr, better image On Flickr, better image
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no subject
Date: 2012-11-17 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-17 10:24 pm (UTC)Those are just my guesses, though. I just followed her description :)
no subject
Date: 2012-11-17 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 07:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 02:22 am (UTC)You looked beautiful, just like you stepped from a painting.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 12:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 08:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 03:43 am (UTC)You look beautiful. Your whole ensemble is lovely, but I am especially envious of your ruffs, which I have never had the patience for in any way.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 07:50 am (UTC)I don't often sew to a deadline, but sometimes it helps having one.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 08:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 06:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 11:16 am (UTC)