Doublet

The pine green velveteen has now arrived for Percival's doublet. The pattern was cut - for interlining - on Boxing Day, and I have been working since on the trimmings - a flying geese pattern of ruched grosgrain ribbon in tobacco brown. There is an extra set of sleeves in cocoa brown with black trimming.

This doublet is much more subdued than last year's red and gold brocade, which attracted censorious attention from The Management, though the materials are no less rich, as are suitable for the son of a minor noble.

Scottish bonnet

So, Percival asked for a Scottish bonnet for his Ren Faire persona, so I got out my wool and needles, looked up an 'authentic' pattern and began. It was meant to be fulled (felted) and was to be at least two inches larger than wanted; I used old sock wool in a forest green from Percival's great grandmother, which I inherited, and size 10 US needles.

Well, I am convinced that the person who wrote the pattern as well as the peeps on websites who talk about stove-top fulling have never actually done it because I had very little shrinkage and a lot of colour loss with the addition of castile soap - which several recommended to 'aid in fulling'. Not a problem - it's a nice sea green colour and the pattern calls for a drawstring in the ribbing anyhow - but I have had to boil the yarn to stitch the ribbing into a binding, so it matches.

The old way to full things was to dampen them (with old urine, but I figure an ammonia solution would work) and 'waulk ' them across a big table with about ten or twelve others - push pull. No heat. Adding soap or alkali of any kind really takes down the colour, which is great if that's what you want, but a nasty surprise if you paid $25 a hank (or two) for Jameson's wool, as the pattern recommended.


Certainly it was not worth throwing this one small item into the washer, even on extra small, as the pattern recommended. Very wasteful of resources, and unScottish. I am glad the bonnet is floppy, as it would have been at the time, not the tight little thing they became. Next time I will know if I want to make a classic blue one to simply make it the size I want.

Adventures in Corsetry

The lovely lady at Corsetmakers has some fascinating advice - and a vavoom figure! - give EASE at bust and hip and reduce only the waist. This gives somewhere for the flesh to go - even on slender figures, avoids the dreaded muffin top, and allows a smaller waist.

This is why in such shows as the 1900s House when the Mrs went suffragette and refused to wear a corset (because she and her daughter couldn't swim due to their periods, even in period dress) - her
clothes did not fit - and she was pretty rangy. They were loose at the bust and hip and gaped at the waist - exactly the result of the advice given this sempstress.

I could easily go down from 27(natural) to 24 - the 'beginner's waist training reduction - with no prob. Could I go down to 22.5?  (yer wan's additional reduction upon tight-lacing)  I'm excited to find out!

All of my handmade corsets have thus far not been waist reducing, per se, just to get the period silhouette (most people did not tight-lace.) But I remember fondly how GORGEOUS one of the principals looked when I tight-laced her for Little Mary Sunshine - I pulled the waist way in - meeting - and left the top
and bottom at flex (it was not a fitted to her jobber after all). O my goodness! Lillie Langtry would have envied her figure (which was not naturally spectacular)

Aran Jumpers - A Different View

In Ireland, everyday Aran jumpers were made from blue wool or dyed blue (with woad or indigo paper from sugar cones) inasmuch as everyday Ganseys and smocks. As with Ganseys and smocks white was only worn for Sundays. When the Clancy Brothers became popular, with their signature white Arans, a tourist industry was spawned (piecework Arans before this were blue or brown) and now it is rare and difficult to find them in colours for sale, in tourist or other venues.

Wessex Memorial Update 14 April 12

Room has been left for when Sandy is discovered (as I am confident he will be). I was VERY tempted to say 'they likely summited about 5:00 PM' but there really wasn't room for that and Sandy's discovery, and the latter is more important; enough name-brand researchers on the 1999 expedition agree with my thesis about their summit time that I don't need to prove anything to anyone.

The lettering isn't really as complicated as it looks. One bottom blue line of stitching in the starry sky and the lettering took six hours.

Progress on the Wessex Sampler

The images, which I thought were sticky-backed, are not thus had to be pinned, but are attached by the buttonhole applique method, which is also used with Morris designs for quilting. Embroidering each of the squares in the Lindisfarne takes an hour. The Dunstan pattern at the top is meant to resemble a starry sky; the Winchester motif in the middle of it, the full moon on the night of 8 June, 1924. Clearly someone has done entirely too much research on the expedition! Nerdy as it is, yes, I can tell you what they ate, what they wore, what they read, all on that last day - and for the rest of the expeditions....

Wessexwork Memorial Sampler

When I first discovered Wessex Stitchery - invented by Margaret Foster in the 1910s - I thought immediately of a memorial sampler for George Leigh-Mallory and Andrew Irvine, who perished on Everest in 1924.

I drew up the plan on graph paper immediately.


It is full of little puns in the stitches - Winchester for George's public school, Pacific with its waves for their both being in their respective college boats, Lindisfarne for its stained glass effect [there is a stained glass window at the church in Mobberly of George as Sir Galahad, his nickname], their respective college colours. It is meant to emulate that stained glass window, and give a sense of the magnificent colours of the Himalayas, while imparting some knowledge of their lives, in the ways that they were similar (many.) It ends with the closing line of a poem, written in 1909, by George's dear friend and climbing partner, the great Geoffrey Winthrop-Young (who dubbed George Galahad):

'Brothers 'til Death and a windswept Grave.
Ye who have climbed to the great white Veil -
Heard ye the chant, saw ye the Grail?'

Below is a picture of some of the stitches - my working sampler - and also a pic of George 'looking as if he's been dragged through a hedge' as one English friend of mine said.