What next?

I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by health and trying to finish any project at all right now. I have a few projects I feel I should finish before starting anything new. But the reality is I have stalled on them for the same reason: health.

This doesn’t make it easier, it feels like more pressure. More pressure to do something really great before I can’t at all. More pressure for each event I miss because I fear I’ll still miss the next. This isn’t FOMO like we know it, this is real, this is genuinely not seeing people I care about due to predicatbly unpredictable health issues.

So what would that be. Do I want that to be a project I have been working on for 10 years or start something new that might be easier or more fulfilling.

I have most of my projects in one place, but I also have the clay and plastic and paint stuff out of sight as it’s winter and my workroom is not fun in winter. Especially not mow!

So Maleficent? Ahsoka? Sunburst? Spanish silver ensemble? The Mina? Elissa… Elissa could work. I finally bought another 10m of netting for the support. Just have to figure out where to put it! Probably another layer of short ruffles. I think that makes it 40m of net in total! And then Maleficent horns. Then it’ll be warm enough to go out and work on Ahsoka. I need to wait until my rib heals before even thinking of The Mina as It really feels like the end of the bone of the rib is exposed.

Do I want a break?

I do want to get my Cleves perfect so I am about to sit up in bed and get warm and watch Netflix. I need to clip fabric from the haube as it’s too bulky and I want to also line the neckline jewels properly. SO happy with how beautifully I finished the gown and sleeves 🙂 Might just do some tidying of the shirt sleeves though.

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Cleves approaches

I was going to do a lot of machine sewing to get her ready for Coronation so I instead took the time I had to sew by hand. Some of it went really welll, some like the haube is fiddly because the accessories are just not the way we are used to. I need to make my haube tie and also make sure all the gathers are near the crown. I may wind up pleating on my head form instead.

There may even be time to get pearls on the partlet. What is weird is I have a very long neck so I can wear my collar and show the full band of gold.

 

Okay, I now have my second lot of antibiotics 9note, not for the flu but for the secondary bacterial infection I have had since day two of the flu!)

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Cleves gown made

My Anna von Kleve Julich & Berg gown is done aside from some hooks and eyes in the skirt.

The bodice and sleeves fit nicely but I am ver narrow, and after the flu moreso… so today I get to hunt for all the wool shoulderpads I can as I will need enhancement.

The hanging sleeves are finally hemmed, woohoo, and the chemise just needs a button and some seam finishing (the sleeves were french seamed originally and so I need to just tidy a few inches between the cuffs and up the arm. I really want to take some excess linen out but will leave that until I’ve worn it a few times. The sleeves look so pretty though and will make a lot of garb look really good. And I know what my nest two frocks are 🙂 So excited.

So it may be that I will have to use a lot of cunning machine work in my velvet Cologne so that I can actually get her done 🙂

And I may be able to get my documentation for her up fairly soon. But I want the Spanish stuff up first as a handy practical guide 🙂

And I’d like to get all my garb patterns webified especially with so many lovely extant patterns out there now to use as references and (please buy these!!!)

 

I do have my haube. I may use my machine and then hand stitch over the top. That’s how I did my belt. The machine acted like basting which is hidden by gold braid. So I’m just waiting to hear back from some people who want to see this in the next few days and then I can have a proper rest and start collection info for my final workshop 🙂

Oh and my jeweled neckline. That’s a lining. Same with my frontal decoration on my stickelsche.

 

Ah yes. The three panel skirt pattern too.

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Cleves updates

Firstly some headgear progress 🙂 Becase my pearlwork is so dimensional I need a flat brocade front, and then am able to have a flat but slightly more texture brocade for the haub.

Then we have the brocade for the collar and neckline. Yep, pressed the brocade into a curve! Ditto for the piece above actually 🙂

I’m super happy about the collar 🙂 I keep readjusing the neckline though.

 

I have tried it all on and I think I’ll just do some judicious padding of my inner layers as I am rather not as wide across my chest.

The skirt has a flatlining, and I kind of wish I hadn’t but it would require some serious careful unpicking because I used a triple stitch. This makes the diagonal seams as strong as if I had used a backstitch- I’ve had side seams pop a few times and the weight of this hem would definitely do that!

And yes, I have been working on her distinctive partlet 🙂 Pearling is not going to be fun but what the hey?

 

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Flu sucks

Wound up coughing and nearly passing out a few times. One thing is good- I got antibiotics on day one. Secondary infection kind of hit about the same time! That was scary fast.

 

But take care.

MacDowell system tool

Well, 44 psd files later… I have the pieces ready to cut. I have not, i repeat not tidied these ready for use! But I am going to do so 🙂 SO that means hunting down a Illustrator clone.

Oh here I get to complain about my printer.

It will not print in monochome if any colour ink is out. Oh, some versions of this model can do monochrome (ie it won’t attempt to use colour ink) but not this one. And those inks are of course not actually empty either. I mean I have to assume this troubleshooting page actually isn’t specifically for my model but instead a generic in disguise.

 

Not only that, you cannot turn it off using.. you know.. the power button. But I have been able to get it to work when turning the wall switch on and off. You know. A hard boot.

So, no. I do not recommend it. Two major issues that affect nearly every print job?

And the price of those inks!!! oh no you can’t buy them individually either.. It’s a feature.

 

So my cunning plan to have the cutting machine ready for my workshop has failed. No way I can run out get the ink and then print and then cut out before midday tomorrow :/

 

Accuracy and accruacy

While working on Padme and All Those Stamps and teaching Victorian patterning workshops and interpreting a portrait of Anne of Cleves I’ve been really able to think about the phenomenon of Accuracy again.

I am not sure how many people have pondered the inner workings of my mind but as a laurel, as a very long cosplay judge, and currently learning the Legion Costume Judging ropes for the Rebel Legion I’ve very definitely had lots of opportunity to take what feels intuitive and apply to the work of others- in a way that is not Judgey(tm).

 

I have seen a perfect description of reproduction vs replica but it’s been a while so to summaraise: you can try top reproduce an item as it was made, with exact dimensions and exact materials but is that actually accurate?

Extant objects (and character design) are specific objects for specific people.

So for anyone who is not an exact match there is always going to be interpretation.

What makes something more or less accurate is really down to understanding what the original creator thought was most important. Even if that goes against what current thinking is. It can be very hard to go against What Everyone Knows.

So I hoard patterns and tailors manuals not just because I like them but because they tell me what craftspeople in a region or time would know. So that I know what the ideal is. I look at how objects are manufactured (fabric widths, twists of yarn for sewing by hand versus machine, loom types.)

And then I go looking for extant items to see the reality.

And the reality shows where shortcuts are taken universally, Where the most mistakes are made, and where the most care is taken.

I want to think like a professional not as a modern person with the advantages and limitations I have in a workshop. Most of what I make has been the result of dozens of people. I am one person.

So to this end I have not just learned how individual objects that interest me have been made but I have an idea of what people wanted and expected and actually experienced.

One of the complaints of tailors in the 16thC was that fabric merchants sold fabric folded- because of the folds you expect there to be more fabric than there is so the client would buy the wrong length (due to the inner curve of the folds, I think.) This is super important when you are butting pattern pieces next to each other to use every scrap. A few inches shy and you can wind up way out.

Dressmakers of the 19thC flipped skirt pieces so often you see enough to think it was a fashion option not a common error- unless you read the manuals they were supposed to work from.

 

So accuracy or ideal, and what compromises need to be made now.

In deciding some scale or texture or fabric options I tend to prefer to use what I know a designer would do.

So for my Marie Antoinette gown I am basically only using historic patterns for my panniers. Everything else is from early costume history books and pattern books from the 1930s. My wig will be pale blonde vs powdered and I have to make concessions with the lace to be able to afford it. A few kilos of actual silver? Not really possible!)

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IG update- Padme

I don’t want to have to keep changing my sharing settings so rather than add posts here are all my IG updates in one place 🙂

 

Draping work.

Each pleat/gather has been counted and carefully stitched to stay in place. Even the direction of the knit was carefully full aligned (the hood especially needs this as the front is stitched down to hold a specific curve in the neckline and the front of the hood.

The bodice piecing is to match the original. If you look for those seam lines you’ll find them, but what you may not see is that the hood has to be cropped on one side of the neckline.

Why?

The hood is self lined and so once gathered creates so much bulk that overlapping all that fabric would create a a very large bulge. It is possible the overlapping hood piece is also spliced a little to thin it out. I’ve managed though to not nee to do that 🙂

The stamping! This was so scary I nearly didn’t make the dress. There are over 80 stamp impressions on the back and a good several dozen on the edge.

I knew eva foam holds a good amount of paint and creates nice clean lines so after testing a hand cut stamp I tweaked my line art and created a new slimmer stamp to account for paint spread.

Then used my cutting machine. Hint- if using an online SVG converter select to only cut the inner or outerline in your machine 🙂

So stamping actually required inking each stamp with a little sponge to the same thickness. I knew from the original these were stamps as you can see classic tells such as some stamps being pressed more or less evenly than others.

yes, there are two stamps and I laid out my paper copies to match the irregular not totally planned originals!

This is how I lined said paper stand ins. Also note how the colour changes depending on how the camera is used and how the sun is positioned in the sky.

This was seriously nervewracking! But I was methodical. I did stamp one first then stamp two.

I found my previous version in my archive so she now has a page 🙂

The hood and cloak are just pinned in place. But the cloak sleeve seams have been reshaped and the sides of the body sewn up. Now it’s a case of last round of stitching!

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Anne of Cleves back on track :)

I finally bit the bullet and am going to have my own Fealty Chain for the SCA 🙂

I have several enameled medallions on the way to mix in with my hand wired roundels already shared.

These are going to be used to make a full set of neckline jewelery as per the Bruyn and Holbein portraits or Anna von Kleve Julich und Berg 🙂 I’ll be aiming more for the Holbein style as it is very obvious as to the solidity of the border versus the main body. That little wrinkle at her right should (our left) shows this so very well.

I’ve also cleaned brass leaves and flowers and will work on my kranz (wreath) as I should be able to replace nearly all those leaves.

I love this book. It was a very lucky find a good decade ago. It does suffer from an Anglo centric view though. Calling Anna’s clothing unfashionable and not tasteful is just not correct.

She was incredibly stylish.

She just happened to live in a region with nearly equal influence from the Burgundian courts and Saxon courts. And her dress right here? Exactly what you’d expect! The other Bruyn portrait, and less successful copies, also show pretty much what you’d expect!

This is why I love Koehler and Boehn as resources- very continental so you see the general shapes from the Italian states, from the Burgundian/French/English courts, and also Saxon. All those Cranach beauties.

But more to the point there are still assumptions that the annulment was all her fault for not being pretty enough, not being “stylish” enough, not being clever enough.

Need I say more than that she wound up an independent woman with enough money that she was able to spend poorly and still be safe politically and financially? That even though she didn’t know English she managed to survive insulting Henry (by accident but in front of lots of people)?

I suspect then as now it is much easier to understand Dutch if you are used to English and vice versa than it is to speak either. The language Anna spoke is much closer to Dutch than Deutsche then and now.

Sentence structures are so similar I can read personal documents of the region and understand them. Yes I’m looking for clothing terms but I’ve read a heck of a lot of gossip in doing so! And so I think Anna was not only much smarter than the English have made her out to be but understood what was happening right then and there. yes, she would have needed help to write her letters, but she knew the content.

Obviously she couldn’t go back home- but by staying she also had to survive conspiracies. And the court was absolutely full of very dangerous intrigue.

To survive that takes more than just luck or a yielding nature. If she was that easily manipulated she would have been so the rest of her life. And we know she was used politically. A pamphlet written as if it was her was shared on the Continent and yet she survived those too. Not many people survived one bout of politcal manipulations, let alone several attempts to get her back in the marriage game. Yes, there were people who wanted her to be queen long after. In the English court that is.

So no, I don’t think she has had fair shakes!

Okay so this is one of the roundels 🙂 It is a circular pendant with a brass flower in the center, a moonstone bead in the flower, and 6 large pearls around the outside. The laurel medallions are bout the same size so will have the same brass lowers in the centre with garnet beads in the centres. And I’m going to try and get the extra beads and flowers on my stickelsche.

Or I may wind up putting the garnets on these to make them look even less like the white rose used for another order 😉 Six petals vs five and obviously not roses, but sumptuary laws are sumptuary laws.

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My fatigue is not your fatigue

Over the years I’ve had a few misunderstandings about what I mean when I say I’m tired.

 

For most people being sick or tired means staying at home and watching tv, probably playing a game on their phone or console.

I often read about these activities as part of the resting and recovery process. And I used to experience that too. It’s a good thing.

Those are things I can do when I wake up, usually, but am too tired to do by the late afternoon.

On a reasonable day.

 

A lot of days I start the day that tired already and simply cannot shake it. It physically like wearing a full body weight belt that I can’t take off, so over time it’s draining and very hard to re-energise.

Today is proving to be one of those days. So I am sneaking in a post before I have to go to bed. Maybe. Sometimes I recover but it’s very hard to predict.

 

Once I am in bed, there is no browsing on the computer. I am so tired moving my blankets away to reach a keyboard is so draining and so painful that I avoid it as much as possible. I will play an entire series on a streaming service. I don’t have to watch I can just listen.

 

But it is not restful. My body fights this tiredness, it is not welcome, it is not a relief to lie in bed. It is stressful as it means a day that feels wasted. My brain and my body don’t care that it is needed, they still operate at odds to what I am experiencing. There is no energy to spare but they remember the time when it was possible to dip into reserves or they are expecting the adrenaline to kick in.

It doesn’t.

 

If I try to ignore what I need and do what  want I wind up confused, unable to complete tasks and so make messes or if working on a project I wind up having to undo all that work later. And I have repeated that cycle numerous times in the past.

 

No matter how much sleep I had the night before it feels like I have been awake for 20 hours.

 

Much as my body fights sleep it is needed. Which is very hard for friends to understand. When I need to be in bed by 9pm it means in bed. Not leaving a venue. And I understand it is hard to remember. And communication can be difficult when you have people trying to be kind on the one hand and on the other trying to be polite and not a burden. And everyone having their own lives that operate at different paces to each other.