Greet's Middle Ages

North Sea dress, experimental

The blue woolly debuted at Menhir, and People Who Know Things liked it.  Photography light was Not So Great - someday I'll be more rigorous about modeling/archiving my garb.

    

The blue-green color is awesome.  It's nice and cozy.  I like the front opening cut.  I like the tubular tablet weaving on the neckline.  The skirt is as full as I could ever want it (it's a bit heavy when I turn quickly running to fetch something).  I love the brooches and want more.  And some beads.

The sleeves are too long, and having them vented doesn't help.  The next one will have an ordinary curved back-of-the-neck, rather than a single vertical slit - that back slash has to be that deep in order to drape correctly, and then there are tearing issues.  Also my neck would be cold if my hair was up.  The headband for my veil wouldn't stay put - it needs to be a fillet across my forehead.  And my hair tangled horribly by the end of the day - I'll try a ponytail per Rogers' drawings next time.  I'd like a belt with a buckle, too, and a proper shift with a higher neck.

So, I'll make a few changes (sleeves and shift) but then I think I'm happy with this as Kent-inspired 6th c Anglo-Saxon.  I liked wearing this so much, I think I'll make another for next year.

(edit - thanks, Lorenzo, for lightening the full-length pic so everyone can see the royal purple/fuschia seam stitching.)

6th C Jutland

I've been working on an experimental woolly dress, and sort of lazily back-documenting aspects of it to 6th c Anglo-Saxon features.  Had it with me at the household gift steal, and Mistress Wuennemon (sp?) and I gushed over two books that I had just gotten (actually these were Maudey's copies).  Wendy says that the garment I'm working on reminds her of Jutish costume...so now I'm chasing What That Is.

Resources:

• Owen-Crocker (from Maudey)
• Penelope Rogers (from Maudey)
• Thor Ewing's Viking Clothing (from Gwen)

Early Period tunics...or properly 'gunna'?

I decided this morning that I will get two more t-tunics to handsewing this week and then no more garb until my A&S project is ready. The moss linen is nearly assembled, and the other is a muted blue wool twill coating that I really need for cold weather.

The moss linen is just a narrowly cut gown in a very fine linen, with a keyhole neckline. No idea how I'll trim it yet, so I guess I'll just roll the edge and go on for now. If I can dig out the remainder of the silvery gray silk from TM coronation trim for flatfelling, I'll use that, which will seem white against the darker green.

For the blue twill, I'm inspired by the brooch-fastened garments described in Penelope Roger's "Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England." I think I'm going to cut this gown really deeply down the front, to deal with 'how do you get in and out of an hourglass shape', trim the edge with tabletweaving, and look for a set of 3-4 brooches to fasten it. I'm also going to put larger underarm gussets, trying for what is sometimes called a 'magyar' sleeve, since I have 4+ yards to play with.

The blue is the result of a dye experiment...the wool was deeply discounted last spring at Joann's, and was originally that classic camel color. Until I washed it with a full bottle of Rit, in Royal Blue. Now it's rather the color of my veins, a french blue, fortunately very close to one of the woad variations in a natural dye book. I'm going to use an intense yellow ("Armor Yaller" per mom) to flatfell the seams and yellow and madder-russet to do the tabletweaving.

(And I know just how I want to the tabletweaving to go, because I'm actually making PROGRESS on learning all these skills! It's just so cool to think back a year ago and compare. Have I mentioned that I've mastered the lucet now, including mistake-recovery? The 90+ inch lace needed for the back of my 1550 Flemish kirtle is luceted.)