Yesterday, the shire of Aros had a potluck get together. We started at 1 pm with crafts and then we ate potluck dinner together. I brought the red petticoat and stitched all the godets onto the big pieces. I also discovered that one part of a hem had some jagged cutouts, which I disguised with another small piecing. 

I opted to wear my ancient Roman garb for the day, because it's an easy outfit to wear, and I rarely pull it out. I remembered a set of earrings and other jewelry pieces from Pennsic.

At the potluck I also took delivery of my new handmade shoes! I wanted a pair of shoes to fit my 14th/15th Century wardrobe and I had previously commissioned a pair in exchange for medieval pillowcase fabric. I finished the yardage in February 2024 and finally, at the beginning of this year, the person admitted they would not be able to finish a pair of shoes for me. At that point I asked Erik Dalekarl if he had space to make me shoes in exchange for some handweaving and he said he did. 

They fit me, and they are an appropriate style. I am super happy with the exchange. 

Check out the insta-post with pics

Today I continued on the skirt for my petticoat, stitching the panels together along the side seams. As I was finishing the first one I realized I had forgotten to add pockets. I did not rip out my stitching, instead I marked out the other side seam for a pocket there. So, I will only have one pocket on this kirtle, just like the first red petticoat. 

The skirt now has two panels in the back and one panel in the front, I have not yet stitched the centre back seam because I can't make up my mind what to do.

I could turn the skirt around - put the seam in the centre front. Holding it up around me makes this a very tempting option. 
I could attach the skirt as is, stitching up the back seam and cutting a slit at centre front so I can lace it on. 
Both of these options means that I have to attach the skirt on fully flat - because I do not have enough width in the waist to add any pleats.

The third option is to add in a rectangular panel in the centre back seam - because I have a small piece of cloth left. In order to fill in the centre panel I would have to cut that remnant which is basically 70 x 50 cm in half and make one long skinny piece 25 x 140 cm which would expand the waistline by those 25-ish cm. 

I'm not sure how to proceed, so I've laid it down again to ponder the issue.

It is going, but slowly. I finished sleying the reed for the main fabric. Now I just have to add the frilled edge. It has its own cross, and has to be threaded in like the rest of the warp.

I did discover, while threading heddles, that I was two ends short in the end on my entire warp. Not sure if it was the final bout, or the first bout missing one full lap = 2 warp ends. It should make no difference whatsovever though.


Today, I was mightily distracted from this linen project with the thought of a silk one. Someone posted their weaving of a silk veil (Julia's instagram) to recreate the textile seen in Holbein's portrait of Dorothea Meyer (see right)

I have white, yellow and also green silk.


Eventually, when my camicia is finished I want to make a new Florentine gown to go over it, and it needs a partlet - and I think a white silk partlet with wide-set green stripes both weft and warp-ways would look wonderful. Something like the lady on the left here, by Allori (San Diego Museum of Art - Portrait of a Lady).

A couple of people expressed an interest in possibly buying the veil version off me if I were to make it. However, I am currently working on the kruseler. I haven't even thrown the first shuttle yet! And I have quite a bit of wool yarn to use up too.

But silk was high on my list of things to weave this year. We shall see.

 It turns out I actually have 2.5 meters of the plum wool. It would be a shame to only make a hood with it, leaving only just enough to make another one.

However, I do also have my Bob - cross-dressing 16th Century outfit. The waistcoat for that is made out of this same wool. I could use this new fabric to make a matching doublet!

I also leafed through Alcega and Moda a Firenze looking for inspiration and I was reminded that I want to make a Dutch cloak. I think I might use my burchat fabric that I wove (silk warp and worsted weft) which I have just over 5 meters of at 60 cm wide to make a dutch cloak. There is also 1 meter of all silk at the end of the yardage, which I wove to coordinate with the mixed cloth. I could cut a lot of bias strips for decor out of that.

I was working on my camicia today, and Moda got me thinking again about the gown to go ontop of the camicia. I think I landed on simply re-making the same style of dress that I retired. The model works, but the fabric was all dead dino, so I let it go on to other pastures. I will probably not finish the embroidery on the camicia this year, so this gown is still a ways off.

Sunday I hopped on to a Zoom-social, Fancy Hat Tea, for two hours and managed to cut out and stitch on a collar for my doublet gown.
Today I had the afternoon to deal with seam allowances, pin and stitch trim around the collar, and start a dry assembly of the lining.  I am nearing the stage when I can close up the front of the dress rapidly.

I still have to set in the sleeves, decorate the skirt and attach it, and add a bajillion hooks and eyes down the front.

I also suceeded in cutting down the very wide trim into three separate pieces of trim. Two identical with a silver-gold-silver pattern, and one simple gold braid. I used the simple gold braid to go around the collar, and the two silver-gold-silver trims will go on the bodice as diagonals from the front centre, over the shoulders, and down the back. I have -just- enough length for it to do that, if my test-assembly continues to hold.

I'm starting to look forward to being able to wear this ensemble.

 At the beginning of social distancing in Sweden, and just when term was getting the busiest, I still managed to host and attend a sewing circle Zoom weekly. As of one month ago that all dried up again, and I haven't done nearly as much online video meetings. I have also lost all speed on my sewing projects.

I got going when a friend asked me about making breeches, which inspired me to pick up the doublet bodiced gown (inspired by the extant Dorothea Sabina gown at the Bayerishe National museum) that I had cut out and started a year ago or more. That project had stalled because I was unhappy with the padstitching on the bodice, and I needed to make a decision on what to use as a lining. I determined I didn't care about the padstitching enough to re-do it, and the fashion fabric wasn't worth lining the while thing with silk, so that meant I could go over the top and use a fabric I got as a birthday present.

The gown will have long open hanging sleeves, and the skirt will be open in the front so that the lining might be visible, and I'm going to cover the whole thing with trim on bodice, sleeves and skirt. It's now stalled out on the installation of sleeves. Which is always a pain in the ass, and might have to be re-done for me to be happy with it, and I need to do it by hand, and that's going through so many layers - ugh.

So, maybe I'll set up a zoom call this weekend if someone wants to join me in the sewing room?