14th Century Cap/Coif

For Egil's this summer I decided to start trying to make myself period head gear. I had been reading the Medeival Silkwork blog and saw her information on the cap of St. Brigit and I decided that I had to have one to go with my 14-15th century persona.

The visual sources for the cap are the Maciejowski Bible of the mid 13th century, of which, if you are interested, pictures can be found here. This source has several caps with ties looping several times over the head and the body of the cap.

Another source is the Tacuina Sanitatis of Vienna from the late 14th century. Images of the Tacuina can be found through Wikapedia here at the bottom of the page.

There are several other images of such caps which are discussed at Medieval Silkwork, but the two I have listed are the most pertinant to my persona.

There is also and there is an extant cap that looks like the pictured caps, the Cap of St. Brigit which is extensively discussed in Medieval Clothing and Textiles IV and is discussed more briefly (but very helpfully) at Medieval Silkwork.

The feature that I find so appealing as opposed to other types of caps is the bands that loop over the head and crisscross to hold the cap in place, rather than tying the strings under the chin.

My first prototype worked wonderfully for Egil's and I have made several since as gifts (and as a nicer linen one for me.

I cut my linen to fit my head (one side of the square to equal half my head measurement with no seam allowance). I later made a bigger cap out of linen, and you want a nice snug cap because the linen will warm up and stretch as you wear it.

After I rounded the two halves and hemmed all edges I did an embroidery insertion to connect the. To save time, this cap has a modified embroidery insertion, I did a simple double herringbone instead of the interlaced herringbone stitch of the original cap. I like the way this looks, but I have also done the cap with a seam connecting the halves and like it as well.

The pleating I used was cartridge pleating because I recently learned how, and I have found that it creates nice even pleats with little effort. Also I have found that it is the best way to gather a lot of fabric into a small amount of space.

In the extant cap, the binding over the edges and the ties for the cap were done in a different fabric than the original (both are linen, but the thread counts are different for the cap and the ties) so I had a little fun and put some inkle woven trim on my cap. None of the caps I have found images of indicate that this was done in period. I did this partly because I wanted a pretty cap with a nice edging and partly because I was out of the linen I had used for the body of the cap. Plus I had just made some inkle woven trim. The inkle is sewn to the brim and then I pleated the bottom of the one side of the cap (that goes at the neck) into the trim which then also forms the ties.

And voila! I have a nice cap to keep my hair clean (or pin a veil to) at events. This is me at Festival of the Roses in Caid knitting a medieval pouch. This is not the cap pictured so far, this was my first attempt with out embroidery and with just a plain linen band for the ties.

I have since been able to read the article from Medieval Clothing and Textiles IV, which has a wonderful article on this style of cap and have a few adjustments that I will be making to future caps. In the extant cap it looks as if the back seam wasn't sewn up/embroidered all the way down to the neck (pictured in other people's reconstructions and the diagrams in medieval clothing and textiles IV).

Knitting Humor

So, someone just sent me this through one of my knitting lists, you should watch it too. It think it contains humor approachable even by the non-knitter.
Just a happy little break from a hectic day.

End of Days

Well, work continues apace. I will have pictures to amuse people with soon, but not yet. I have explained my lack of posts by: A picture is worth 1,000 words, and since I have no pictures, I have no words. Therefore, no posts to regale people with.

But, on to the exiting news from LA and Mirm.

This weekend is crown, we will be traveling to Fresno (4 or more hours I hear) and I am frantically trying to work on my outfit. Yes, I know, how frantically can I be working if I am typing on my computer? But I have fixed my shift so that the arms are no longer skin tight and I can actually move. I am quite impressed with the results, I added gores into the cuff of the sleeves.

My Gothic Fitted Dress needs work on the sleeves. I was unhappy with how my inset sleeves worked out the first time through, so I am attempting sleeves version 2. The sleeve caps were just a little too poofy, so I am taking off a little of the sleeve caps so they wont have to be eased in so much. Also, the dress needs to be hemmed. Doubt I will get around to actually hemming it by the event...My plan is to make my sleeves lace up too, wont get to that by the event. I might have enough time by crown labour day weekend.

Yes, I will be going to Caid Crown, and then 2 weeks later, attending Antir Crown. I am well traveled. For those of you who dont know, Caid is the SCA kingdom of Southern California, and Antir would be Oregon/Washington (and some other bits).

We have one week left in work before I head back to Eugene, we are not going to finish the tapestry (we really were hoping to) as there just isn't time. I did finish 3 areas in the past two days, so I am feeling good about that. We had a party today at work at a lovely restaurant called Samosa House that has wonderful food. And I got prezzies for my birthday! The first was a beautiful book on cheese types (a conosieurs guide) for my kitchen and the second was:

A magnetic wand!!!! So excited. I am going to go back to Eugene and D will be so incredibly jealos of me. It is the coolest for picking up pins and needles and makes an awesome noise when it extends. It makes me happy.

See you all in September.

***8/22/09***
By magnetic wand...I mean a wand with a magnet on the end. It is teh awesome. I can use it to pick up the multitude of pins and needles that I have dropped over the past 6 months in our house.

If I told you I would have to kill you

And by that I mean that I don't have much to say with the job front. The studio is fun and awesome and I adore the people I work with (all except for Kim of course). We are putting patches on the back of a textile and I am helping to stitch them down. The excitement of our days is when we get to make off a section as done. I am on a large patch so that may be awhile.

One of my coworkers' birthdays is tomorrow, so we shall be celebrating with a "green" birthday. My contribution is an apple pie, fresh out of the oven (okay it is fresh right now, wont be tomorrow). The "green" part will be green food coloring in whip cream if P & B have food coloring in their cupboard. I may fail and have to bring ordinary food coloring.

Am trying an experiment, I will wait to see how edible the pie is before I tell you the secret ingredient. It looks pretty though. No pictures as I do not have picture capabilities currently.

I was bored and made a batch of whipped cream (even without food coloring) and so tonight we will be having strawberry shortcake.

Everything is good, I am missing my kitchen though, P &B's kitchen is tiny.

LA

So, in crazy news, I may be going to LA for the next couple of weeks. Haven't finalized details, but I did get the okay from work (and there will be a job when I come back to town if I wants). Don't have tickets yet, or know when I am leaving, but it will probably be in the next week or so.

I will miss D (my housemate) because this is the sort of thing we do if we have too much fruit on our hands:

And now, since I don't have any pictures of cute puppies, you get pictures of bears:

This is a pouch I made with the baronial crest:
see Jane, see two headed bear, hear two headed bear tummy rumble...run Jane, Run!

Egil's

Another Egil's has come and gone. This is the primary reason for my lack of up-to-date posts recently - that, and I'm lazy.

D and I decided that we needed new outfits for Egil's. Well, I decided I needed a new outfit, D decided she needed a new outfit for her friend L, and her fellow. Her fella' ended up in a hand-me-down of mine, go figure. This dress was somehow made with 14" of ease on me about 6 years ago. For some -bizarre - reason, I never finished the outfit. When D first moved in, her fella' was on a pink kick. And so, she thought it would be fun to see if my enormous dress would fit him, since the dress is pink.

It fit. And he adored it, so it went to a good home, with a few alterations. The sleeves were admittedly short, and the hem was long for a guys tunic, so D took the extra from the hem and added it to the sleeves with some piecing.

We wont even go into the horrors of the other outfit D decided to make for Egil's. Which, by the way, turned out beautifully, just took way too much brain power trying to make it at 5 am the night before we left.



On to my outfit. Here is me at the event trying to stand still as L (out of frame) bastes the hem so the safety pins don't show. This is a gothic fitted dress (gfd) based on Robin Netherton's notes on the construction in Medieval Clothing and Textiles I. D helped me fit it - and did a splendid job of it. The second and third pics are of my new pretty cap for my GFD. This is also based upon an article in Medieval Clothing and Textiles IV on the cap of St. Brigit. The cap is quite easy to construct. I had fun figuring it out, with very few instructions in English, but it is such a simple construction. I would like to make another with my handwoven fabric at somepoint and try the herringbone embroidery used to connect the two halves of the cap.

On another note: Things are growing in our garden!!!

Of Dancing and Sewing

A quick summary of my weekend. Saturday was spent sewing in preparation for The Regency Spring Ball here in town. Sunday was spent sewing and in fun at the Arts & Sciences Social/Baronial Birthday Bash.

Above are two pictures of my finished Regency Gown. Last time I wore it (in winter), I hadn't finished any lacing for the dress, and it was held together by safety pins. D was awesome though, and came home early and finished my eyelets for me this time! And look! They are spiral laced. This is my new favorite technique. For it is awesome, and totally period.



I then took that finished dress and went to a ball. See the dancing and merriment? We danced for 4 hours, and I didn't sit out any sets. So much fun to be had.

Sunday's picture (right) was me teaching 5 people how to fingerloop braid. Which is wonderful. I was so happy so many people wanted to learn. What is fingerloop braiding you ask? Fingerloop braiding is a totally period way of making trim/laces. They have extant period instruction manuals for this technique. Again, wonderful.

I have to work in the morning, so it is off to bed for me.