like swimming upstream

Life with chronic pain and fatigue is complicated. Especially when that interferes with day to day activities. I had a bit of a wake up call recently as I tend to not think about where in the disability spectrum I reside. But it turns out I fit this “more-disabled women – defined as having their day-to-day activities “limited a lot” by their health.”

I mean. I know that is my situation. But it still is a bit confronting.

I have to limit slightly more than I want to as well, because there is usually a sharp drop if I meet a limit rather than avoid it (PEM.)

And I have to be honest, I’m now a few years down a path of increasing difficulty with even small projects.

Today I edited a blog post to republish on my new site. It is an important one for my Anne of Cleves research.

Actual progress

I have managed to transfer my Anne of Cleves sleeve mock up! It took a bit longer than expected as a certain spotty cat thought that a single layer of paper was a better litter tray than the litter tray. Sadly my copy of Mary Saaler’s book on Anne was caught up in it- it was out because I wanted to reference the sleeves easily.

But the pattern has been replaced, and I am super happy with it. Really happy. It will be going into my pattern book.

This is obviously quite a small achievement but we have had a fair amount of stress the last three weeks which culminated in a nationwide alert for a Tsunami (the surge did arrive but was more of a marine disturbance.) The earthquake that trigger it was off shore at Rangitāhua (Kermadec Ilands, and luckily no one was there at the time) but there have been a rolling series of quakes and aftershocks alone the fault line. I’m far enough away to not feel them but other people who live closer or on it are.

perception

I am one of those people that really struggles with the smell and taste of coriander. What a lot of people don’t understand is that is is not a choice for many of us, it is mostly down to the receptors in our noses (and mouth I think.) But worse, it means that many detergents and perfumes are also overwhelming to us, over and above what most people experience*.

So when something smells or tastes of soap to me? It is not what most people experience as soapy taste or smell. I have to use something like mint and/or eucalyptus oil to act a bit like mouthwash for my nasal passages (side note it has made me really wonder what smelling salts actually were for!**) But it also means I am so frustrated about missing out on the joy of coriander and what it does to the balance of a dish, so that I have really tried to understand the context.

As someone who has to do a cost/benefit analysis of every moment of every day, I like to make sure I have a good stash of spices and herbs. There are times when fibro makes textures or flavours overwhelming, so I like to have some very bland protein (tofu, egg whites, chicken) that is very fast to cook, that can then also be made more interesting at other times by spices.

For umami I have a few kinds of soy sauce as well as maggi seasoning, for heat I have sirracha, and then spice pastes or powder mixes and then also individual spices and herbs.

But fresh coriander? It will never not fill all my nasal spaces with the sensation of being submerged in dishwashing soap. But I keep trying to understand it so that I can recreate my favourite dishes with something that comes close to what most people experience.

Most people experience the citrus notes, and that was a bit of a revelation! Sometimes citrus peel is also overwhelming in the soapy sensation, but I do still experience the citrus notes enough that it helps to understand the role of fresh coriander.

I think I can use lemon peel (not pith, not juice) with dried coriander to get closer to the experience of most people. I have tried a few times and oh wow, so delicious.

But this also explains why I love the smell of lavender and roses! A lot of people hate them as they smell of perfume. But perfume to me is overwhelmingly of the soapy parts. So fresh lavender and fresh roses are a delight. Perfumes that are supposedly lavender and rose to me are soapy. And that probably means that people who are more immune to the soapy smells associate the experience with the floral notes.

Anyway, I’m currently sipping some Earl Grey tea with some lavender in a tea infuser and wondering what that experience is to most people. This is an attempt at recreating an Imperial Grey tea from a few years ago. I hoarded as many as I thought was reasonable but am now really missing that hug in a mug it offered. I do wonder if my tea fiend friends would like this as well. I know most of us love a specific cinnamon blend, but now I am asking myself if we experience that in the same way?

*There are other social factors, but I have genuinely tried so many ways and still am stuck. This is definitely made worse in a fibro flare, to the point even avocados wind up a truly negative experience.

**There are times I need to use these very volatile scents for sinus pain. It is usually due to inflammation of nasal passages (sinuses are connected via very fine channels, and the ends that start in nasal passages can be clogged with mucous or inflammation) and so it makes me really ask if people in the past used smelling salts for the same reason! We think of them in terms of rich white ladies who can’t handle reality, but what if it’s purely somatic?

updates

I finally have several patterns from manuals and extant garments in a format and folder to add to my pattern book. All require my own work to turn them into the actual shapes as would be marked out before fitting. I also need to find a way to help people use these patterns, I already call my entire system The Modular Frock but it still doesn’t quite convey just how differently we approach the entire process compared to a busy workshop with many people working on any part at a time.

But it is very exciting as the garments do absolutely match the patterns. And so that means some garments we do have in poor condition could probably be reversed engineered still, and that some garments that are extant could reflect missing patterns.

This will mean I need to be rigorous in citing within my book, and not simply copying either. So far my patterns compliment Alcega and Burguen (a rather more extensive book that is very easy to read) sleeves, simple bodices, skirts all match my own patterns almost exactly. My skirts include extra length for turnings, I use a hand width so that once the hem is turned there is a lot of room at the waist for length adjustments (whoops I forgot my shoes for instance) and to both resize the waist and to shift pleats to wherever is desired.

So right now I need to turn my basic bodice into the all in one bodices of Schuster and Kisszeben books. It will look a bit different as my book starts with the shapes, and then will explain layout for piecing etc. The Schuster one in particular does a kind of piecing that we would find unacceptable today.

a new project

*Galinda ting*

No but I have used all kinds of drafting systems over the years, only to find my draped pieces universaly work out better. Not just to a modern eye, but I get a much closer fit to the originals. Whether on me or laid flat.

So drafting systems need a lot of work to do what they promise.

Do yourself a favour and grab both the high res and lo res copies of this book. One for a little reader, and one for full monitor zoom.

Cutting a Fashionable Fit: Dressmakers’ Drafting Systems in the United States
Kidwell, Claudia B.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5479/si.00810258.42.1
Date: 1979

https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/2441

And if you are still sure drafting works this little nugget my help “In the last quarter of the 19th century, hundreds of drafting systems were invented to help the professional dressmaker cut the complex patterns of the fashionable dress of the period.”

Hundreds.

I love collecting them in part to match patterns of extant garments to work out how well they were used the time.

And there are some books that I look at and just sigh in bliss because I can tell from one page just how well the test pattern and the approach will work in general.

I really want to do this a series- one mannequin all the systems. Because you should not have to rely on be the idealised body type for a system to work..

But I also collect all the patents of the pattern tools (one even in 2004!) So I’m pondering if I could make one.

There are some rules in the tailor manuals after all (actually, all rules, not much freedom.)

I think I can do this. But I think my blend of drape and draft works well.

pain

I’ve been trying to accept that the stress right now has a direct impact on what I can do. I had a few days where I could Do and it was great.

The problem is that stretches between good days is getting longer. While not as full of days where the kind of pain I experience requires a warning (no really, it’s like being in a horror) it is now harder to treat.

What that means is that any progress I make in good days can be undone in days between. I can ruin progress, but I also have to repeat steps in future good days that I have done in previous good days.

I’m not sure if that makes sense. If I can only sew a single seam in a day I still have to prepare for that. So the fabric may need pressing, the sewing machine threaded, or my thread and tools tidied.

I am now in a bit of a loop of more effort spent on readiness and tidying than on progress. To the point I’m also in that habit and defaulting to it as a kind of calming therapy, but not very well.

I can’t even figure out ways to leave notes for myself. But I think I might even have sorted that out.

For now I need to recognise that while I am struggling to even write notes I have actually done a lot for my two big projects. That projects on hold are taking much longer to get back to, but they are happening.

Doing

So having already had a tiny infection in one finger interfering with life, I have a second one on my opposite finger (I think a paper cut) that has done the same thing. Luckily I’m on antibiotics for my cough, and so I just need to let that process happen.

So there has not been a lot of doing but I have got my Anne of Cleves skirt pressed and am tacking the underlining to the shell. Just through the joints in the shell rather than everywhere, my hands just can’t. I want to preserve function for as long as possible, so that means stopping Doing or typing etc.

I’m also trying to get the rest of the pearls on the hat, and that is going to be very tough, but will be worth it. I have enough jewels as well- again pacing and it did take a year to get through bite by bite as it were.

Anne of Cleves update

Due to a rather spectacular set of circumstances I did not get to do my Stickelchen talk- I was on site but was readying to head home. Luckily all my notes and images for that talk are backed up and are setting me up for my big talk in April. I’m nervous, so am really trying to work on that.

Fibro does a thing when I am nervous which is to make me flinch- full body- and exaggerates my neuropathy in my hands. I cannot use a phone.

So this mostly means building on exercises to lessen stress.

Anyway.

Since I first wrote about North Rhine dress so many archives have opened up, copyright has ended for earlier works, and so

updates- updates across the board

I managed to get to Canterbury Faire after all 🙂 And taught two of three classes and then had to come home due to a truly minor infection (from sewing, hand sewing, not even machine sewing) and so didn’t get to preview some of the Anne of Cleves context. I might have to do my presentation at the conference then get it into some SCA context 🙂

But I started that journey in part due to the so called Rule of Three that meant many of us my generation missed out on reproducing her garments.

The rule of three says that you need to find three iterations of a Thing before you can recreate it. Or that’s how it has been used, in the past. The rise of viral social media has pretty much erased that. I saw it really rise with cosplay and especially with the Star Wars costuming clubs. The cache with being the first to recreate (and yes, I have managed that and there is a lot of social currency that follows) has meant not many people even know this was a thing.

But it really was.

Anne of Cleves in her two portraits wears garments of a Princess of Cleves between 1500 and 1550. We have so very little visual depictions of any princess of Cleves in that time frame that this was always going to be an impossible task.

So I started there. I think I genuinely have enough for a dissertation of my own. It would be faster to do it as a Masters and then get all my appendices in that rather than try to find a Ph.D superviser at this distance from.. you know… the actual paintings and archives.

But I did get to teach from my iPad a quick intro to my basic patterns. I know what I know about extant garments and tailor manuals, but there is a lot of work to turn that into a really useful book.

I am centered on frocks. But will include some outer garments and can probably get in a little info on bifurcated garments and doublets. There are some fairly easy to apply fitting bits.

But again, I want to get my reference ducks in a row so that it has very solid but easy to read support.

So I’ve been collecting all my Burguen notes (I started transcribing several years ago but redrawing all the line art has been perhaps the most useful contribution) and found some rescaled line art of some of the Northern manuals.

But also so many extant garments have been described so i need to do some transcribing and translating to make sure I’m not missing anything. But some is really exciting 🙂

Meanwhile my cough has gotten worse so am in the middle of some tests (including stuff like liver and thyroid functions) and I’m hoping it’s something really simple. As embarassed as I will be if all of this is simple to fix it’s much much much better than having some nodules or scarring from coughing (as yes, that is very much a thing and scarring from coughing is very easy to do!)

making

I have not had much luck with making anything for the last few years. Multiple health matters that ultimately lead to a deep undermining of my confidence. So I have started to work on a very fun project that doesn’t have much in the way of high stakes and it seems to be working.

I’m making a fluffy frock. This is my own term for a style of frock that appears in mostly Northern Renaissance art, in both portraits and historical or allegorical figures. There doesn’t seem to be a positive or negative connotation, and they are depicted with a texture similar to images that are mostly likely pleated linen items such as sleeves or aprons.

At this point I only have enough sheer fabric for the skirt and fitted but puffed sleeves and just enough to cover the bodice. But hopefully soon I will be able to justify 4m of fabric for the sleeves.

These figures are Judith and Salome respectively (the foreground figure in the painting could be Salome but the figure with the winged headdress seems to be directing the other two figures.) And both are by Niklaus Manual. Only the painting seems to use a fluffy frock.

It appears I have not created a gallery for fluffy frocks. So…

I’ve stuck with the very clearly pleated examples as they are treated to a degree that makes it clear they are made from a fabric that is somewhat light and creases even in a pleat, possibly pleated using stitches and then pressed, then the stitches removed. This is not all I have in my files but the most clear.

Further to these are the images depicting very full sleeves that are finely or coarsely pleated, again in portraits and representative art.

There are images that depict either sleeves or full loose single layer garments in a delicate peachy pink (usually) but not pleated, so there are a few more leads to track down in that regard.

So far I’m using some medium weight linen to support the body and am using a cotton voile because it’s what I have and it handles like my sheer linen anyway. I do know that the different linens I have been lucky to have and to handle suggest that I could possibly simply starch this at a later date if I want to try for some nice crisp pleats.

I will try to match fabric if I can for the full sleeves as one of these portraits is of Sibylla, sister of Anne of Cleves. And I’d love to make that at some date.