Garb For Guys

Stitch demo: Handsewn Button Holes

2012-01-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

There are several great demos already for making button holes. There's even a great one for making them in a period fashion by Jennifer Carlson.

But I want to make my own. Why? Because most of the ones I find are either done with thread on fabric (as Ms. Carlson did at the link above) or illustrations. And that's not optimal for me. Illustrations rarely work to teach me anything and for photos, I need things biggie-sized a bit.

So out comes the plastic canvas and the yarn.

Because I'm me, that's why.

Some simple rules:

Always work toward the cut. This means that your needle points toward the cut edge of the button hole.
Use the thumb of your off-hand to hold a loop of the thread down so that the needle always passes in front of it. (see the pictures below)
Use the warp & weft of the fabric to keep your stitches evenly-aligned. Naturally this is easier with linens and even-weave fabrics and almost impossible with velvet. Do your best.
Practice practice practice.

Let's get started...

Cut a button hole first.

With needle threaded, make a small stitch at one end. Either end will do, I prefer working left-to-right.

Poke your needle through the fabric and up through the cut, passing the thread behind the needle.

You will need to keep drawing the thread over like this to maintain tension and keep your knot at the cut edge as shown.

Do this repeatedly, using your off-hand thumb to keep the loop out of the way and to maintain tension on the knots.

When you reach the corner, just turn it around and keep going.

Work your way back across to the original edge of the button hole.

To create a bar along the side (as shown in many extent garments, many documented by Janet Arnold's "Patterns of Fashion") move from your final knot and make a stitch at the end of the first knot you made. Try to only bite as much fabric as you have been to keep things looking tidy. Work across to the bottom of your stitches.

As you make the last stitch in your bar, pass the needle through the row of stitches to the other end of the button hole.

Work across that side and then tie it off.

Annnnnnnnnd you're done!

Now make a dozen more just like that.

A lot of people who are quite good at sewing gripe that they're not good at making button holes. I am good at making button holes. Sure, it's monotonous, but what else are you doing with your hands as you watch television?

Without any statistical basis or scientific investigation I feel that the reason most people aren't good at the finicky things is because they don't practice the finicky things. They say "Oh, I hate doing that" so they avoid doing it.

As with anything, we improve with practice. If you want to get good at playing an instrument, or drawing, or sculpting, or riding a bike, you have to practice. So to it is with stitching.

So grab some plastic canvas and sit down to a How I Met Your Mother marathon and make some buttonhold stitches. You'll be glad you did.

Buttoning-Up Three (The Button's Revenge!)

2012-01-13T14:02:00.000-08:00

Mea Culpa... during a discussion on the Elizabethan Costuming Facebook group, I realized that I prepared this demo on cutting and sewing buttonholes by hand but never posted it! Well here it is. Better late than never, I suppose...
- Scott

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In the previous posts, called "Buttoning-Up 1 & 2" I discussed making your own buttons out of beads and thread. Rest assured that at the end of the day, the pain pays off, as we sew them onto the doublet and undertake the tedious and often nerve-wracking task of cutting and sewing the button holes...

The buttons in situ.

The first step in the process is figuring out what size they need to be. You can just measure the button with a pair of calipers if you have them, or you can do what I do and grab a strip of paper.

Remember, cloth stretches. Ideally, a button hole will be just the size or even a hair smaller than the button that it's supposed to accommodate. Make a loop with your strip of paper and wrap it around the button until you're certain that the loop you've made is just the right size for the button to pass through, but only just.

The length of button hole you need is the length of the 1/2 of your loop.

Measure the button.

Flatten the loop and measure

Transfer your measurement to the garment using a fabric pencil.

I've seen a number of people discuss a number of ways to cut buttonholes. I've heard passionate arguments about whether you should cut them before you sew them or after. Likewise, I've heard the same for how to cut your pinks and slashes and whatnot.

So you should know that there are many ways to go about this,and as always this is how I do it.

I cut them first because it's easier to work with if you are sewing them by hand. Your mileage may vary.

The period method of cutting button holes (as well and pinks and slashes for that matter) appears to be the chisel. I've tried various ways of going about it and keep coming back to using a chisel. It's easier to cut a straight line than when using a razor, it's faster and less finicky than scissors, and it's the period method of doing it anyway.

When I'm pinking or slashing, I use a woodworking tool that I've sharped to razor sharpness. For button holes, especially those which need to accommodate homemade (non-standard size) buttons, I can rarely find just the right size of chisel in my toolchest. So for button holes, the 'chisel' I use is a chisel-tip Exacto blade.

The blade.

The blade in the holder.

Because it's an Exacto blade it is razor sharp, so no need to get out the mallet. Just lay it along the line you just drew and press down hard. Note that there's a cutting mat under my fabric as I am doing this.

Then make your button hole stitches all around the hole you made until you're done.

It's a good idea to check your size to make sure you're still on track.

Come they told me, pah-rum pah pum pum...

2011-12-25T13:01:00.000-08:00

What do you get a toymaker for Christmas? A drum!
An EMS Renaissance repro drum to be precise. (The hat was also a gift, lest you think I was going completely beatnik on you.)

My sister is awesome... and doesn't live close enough to us to have to listen to it.

Happy Christmas to one and all. And if you don't celebrate Christmas, happy December 25th.

Pennywise Peasant: Reenactors on a budget (Updated 01/13)

2011-12-23T20:42:00.000-08:00

Should you spend top dollar on period-accurate items if you can afford it? Yes. Especially as a craftsman, I wholeheartedly endorse spending the money on the handmade item from your local potter or woodworker. If you know a local pewterer, them too.

However... Quite awhile ago (has it been ten years? I think it might have.) I wrote this page to guide my guild members on "How To Do Faire Without Mortgaging the Castle". That is to say, how to create a period impression from the thrift stores.

Recently, I was critiqued on its content by a fellow member of a Facebook group dedicated to 16th & 17th Century Artifacts, and his points were fair. Many of the items pictured aren't 100% accurate to the extent items present in museums and woodcuts from the 6th century. However, many of them are. As I say there and elsewhere on that site, the goal isn't to get you 100% accurate, it's to get the new faire persona up and running as quickly as possible with the bare minimum spent on kit.

I have said many times that the simplest concession a reenactor can make to his or her audience is in the manner and style with which they consume thier meals. Assuming you're following all the other rules... nothing will be more jarring to a patron at faire than watching a peasant eat a snowcone out of a plastic cup.

You could wear Nikes with your garb and I think it might elicit less comment.

My philosophy on props is simple: Spend the money and time on the items that are of the greatest impact. Unless eating or cooking is your main gig at the faire, your utensils will probably make at most a 20 minute cameo each day. Spend the money on things that are out and center stage most and work your way outward from there.

Some disagree with me; that is their right.

The renaissance faire isn't reenactment, it's theater. And the goal of any prop in theater is to either sell the performance to the audience and at a minimum to not detract from it. Without a prop budget to work with, my goal becomes and remains verisimilitude: the appearance of truth. In this case, that means choosing pewter or wood over plastic and paper.

I wrote this almost ten years ago. A decade years is a long time and the reenactment community is not what it was, nor are the thrift stores. Goodwill's prices have changed and their selection is variable anyway. So is it possible to be period-accurate while working from thrift stores?

To add a level of difficulty, can I do it with documentation that connects our finds directly to similar actual museum pieces?

Is that level of accuracy possible on a pennywise peasant budget?

Never one to turn down a challenge, I went through the faire ware and selected out only those items that have joined our collection in the past two years. This is what I found...

WHAT DO I LOOK FOR?
As with anything, it begins with research. What are the appropriate types of item should you be looking for? What is or isn't a period-correct material? What shapes are correct for my period? When in doubt, head to the museum. If there isn't a museum near you with a collection of 16th century household artifacts on display, well there's this funny thing called the Internet.

Here's a by no means all-inclusive list of links to get you started.

Museums

Surry/Hampshire Borderware - 1480-1650 (Museum of London)
The kilns of this region supplied most of England with tableware and still do.
Tinware - 1480-1650 (Museum of London)
NOTE: Not made of tin, 'tinware' refers to a glazing/decoration technique where a flat white tin-based glaze is applied and then painted over, often quite ornately. In Italy referred to as "Majolica" these pieces were often coveted above platters made from precious metals.
Imported Pottery - 1250-1650 (Museum of London)
The trade in pottery across the continent was quite robust, especially the salt-fired crockery of what is now Germany.
Potash Glass of the later Medieval Period (Museum of London)
Appropriate glass pieces are some of the easiest to find, and a great conversation-starter with the public, who falsely believe that glass is a modern invention.
Italian Ceramics of the Renaissance (National Gallery of Art)
Mostly Majolica pieces, which dominated Italian ceramic culture.
New York Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met has an extensive collection of European artifacts, including pottery and some metalware.

Auction Houses

Pewter spoons and sundry tableware sold recently at Christie's

Collectors Groups & Appreciation Societies

Antique Metalware (UK based site for collectors)

Artwork featuring period pieces

Larsdatter.com (Links)
Karen Larsdatter's site may well be the single greatest resource of links to images from the medieval through renaissance periods, categorized by items that appear in the image. A one-stop shop for practically anything.

CERAMICS
Below are two pages from my sketchbook, scribbled while looking through museum catalogs at a college library. I was studying ceramics and pottery for art school at the time.

Note the shape of the period jugs. The same shapes are repeated over and over in metal and ceramic across England and Europe. The jugs shown in the sketches are extremes of the type. now known as the 'Bellarmine' style, after a cardinal of the 17th century. The faces aren't always there, but they often were.

But regardless of whether or not they have a face, the shape is the important thing: narrow at the top, with a big round belly. Actually, the Bellarmine jugs tend to have a very narrow neck and an enormous belly, but the narrowness at the top is quite variable, as is the placement of the handles as you can see in the links above, especially the one to the Museum of London (MOL).

These shapes persist from the 14th century well into the 17th.

PITCHERS

Below is a salt-fired pitcher and two mugs. The pitcher is tinted red with an iron-oxide wash. The inside is glazed with a green glaze (a popular combination of the period, echoing the 'redware' styles) and the mugs are salt-fired stoneware. Salt-firing was probably a German innovation, and is obvious in a finished piece because of the pitting and color variations you see below. Salt firing was a fiercely-protected trade secret of the German potters, but as noted above, there was an active international trade in ceramics througout the renaissance.

Estimated Cost: Probably $12.00 for the set at Goodwill

Similar jugs, pitchers, and mugs HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

And because thrift shops are the eventual home of many an amateur's experiments with pottery, you might even find faces on some items. No, the item below, isn't period or even close, but I've seen ones that are.

I bought it for $.99 at my local Salvation Army store, just to prove the point.

Other fun items you can often find are the sort that no one else around knows what to do with. The item below is a watering pitcher, obviously. It is also an almost exact reproduction of THIS watering pitcher at the Museum of London. They were used on flowers and herbs, yes, but mostly to water the rushes on the floor to keep the dust down.

The piece below is mostly here because I like it. The glazes are modern, but the designs are timeless and the shape is perfect.

It was also about $6.00 at Goodwill.

OTHER ITEMS
Below is a fun piece. It's obviously a watering jar, but what most don't realize is that it's a reproduction of an Elizabethan piece like this one HERE at the Museum of London. The repro is slipcast rather than thrown on the wheel, but the shape and glazes are spot-on. I applaud the maker, whoever they were.

Cost: $2.99 from Goodwill

METALWARE
Plates and bowls of the English renaissance tended to have a wide, flat rim. The most common pewter plates you'll find at thrift stores won't be actual pewter (more on that in a minute) and won't have quite as wide of a rim as the period pieces.

My guild presents themselves as the artisans, yeomen, and other working-class peoples of the renaissance. Therefore most of our goods are unpretentious and utilitarian. That translates to: "cheap and easy to replace". Wood, earthenware, and some limited pewter are the name of the game.

The bowl below (without spoon, I'll get to it later) is as close as you'll usually come to the correct size and shape.

Cost: $2.00 from Goodwill

According to finds on the shipwrecks Mary Rose and the Alderney shipwreck, the porringer is basically a metal version of the noggin. That is to say that it's a bowl with either one or two handles attached to the side.

The porridger below is a one-handled version of the one seen here from the wreck of a ship off of Alderney Island, dated to 1588.

WOOD
Most feast gear sites focus on wooden items because they are so very cheap and plentiful in thrift stores and so rare in archaeological digs because wood rots and England has a moist climate. It's best to avoid the wood known as "monkey wood" because it's too light and doesn't look anything like the woods of Europe.

Thankfully, the Mary Rose sank and preserved a significant number of everyday artifacts, such as these plates and spoons which are almost identical to these plates (below).

Cost: $2.00 each from Value Village/ARC

While the popular conception of trenchers is that they were square, they were often imitations of the popular varieties of metalwork that were also around at the time, face-turned on a lathe. These were made on a lathe. Here are some lovely and elaborately decorated wooden trenchers from the latter 16th century at the Victoria & Albert museum that you can see HERE, HERE, and HERE

Bowls were similarly styled in a fashion that you and I would find familiar, as seen in these bowls, also brought up on Mary Rose. The bowls tend to be rather shallow, similar to the bowl of an Elizabethan spoon.

Official reproductions of the bowls can be had via a woodturner certified by the Mary Rose trust for £27. They are beautiful. If you can afford one, I encourage you to buy one.

These are mine. Made in an almost identical fashion but purchased at the local thrift stores.

Estimated cost: $.99 ea
(Sand them down and treat them with a coat of food-safe 'salad bowl' finish available from your local hardware store. These need to be re-treated.)

SPOONS
Wooden spoons are used by most people in reenactment. They're easy to come by, read well at a distance and are cheap. Look to pay about a dollar for one at most thrift stores. Possibly less. Many spoons would probably be made from horn rather than wood, but several wooden spoons came up in the Mary Rose wreck.

I have never found a horn spoon at a thrift store since they're something of a commodity to those who have them, so I don't feature them here. I've recently found some good local sources for them and they're not terribly expensive so contact me if you think you need one.

The seven matching "Apostle" style spoons shown below came from the thrift store.

Estimated cost: $1.00 ea (bought as a set) from Goodwill

You probably won't find a set of apostle spoons at your local Goodwill. I was somewhat surprised to see them there myself. That said, there are a lot of repro spoons and a lot of spoon collectors in the world, so who knows? I did.

In the meantime, a wooden spoon will suit you just fine. Are they perfectly period correct? Probably not. Most are the wrong shape. If anyone's interested in a spoon-carving demo, I can provide one. The proper shape for a renaissance spoon tends to be very shallow with a fig-shaped bowl (shown below).

Once again, it's the shape that's important. Wooden spoons ape their betters.

TANKARDS
Here's where most of us sin and fall short of the glory and I for one, could not possibly care less. The price of 16th century reproduction pewter tankards is so exorbitant that it's absurd. Especially when there are alternatives that meet the 'Close enough' test easily at hand.

This is evident in the complete lack of period-correct tankards that I found in my search. The closest I got is this one. It's similar (though much less adorned) to some German ones that I've seen from that period like THESE. Note that it is essentially a metal cast replica of 16th century wood and leather tankards like this one from the Mary Rose and this reproduction sold by the Tower of London.

Nevertheless, it's still a 17th century reproduction. And it doesn't matter to me. I refuse to haul around a hundred dollars worth of pewter at faire.

Cost: $6.00 at Goodwill

And these are reproductions of American Colonial pieces... except the horn-shaped one. I'm pretty sure those are fantasy.

Average Cost: $4.00 each

Want to be accurate and cheap? Stick to the ceramic mugs that I showed you above.

Want to make your own leather one? I can show you how. Get together with your friends and buy a share of a vegetable tanned hide. We'll make a leather jack sometime in the first quarter of 2012.

Wood is good too and wooden tankards like the Mary Rose tankard I linked to earlier are certainly plentiful at the faires.

All of them perform the function of getting beer from the tap to your mouth quite well. (I checked it out for you, no charge!)

REGARDING PEWTER SAFETY
For "pewter" items, I generally seek out the work of the Wilton Armetale foundry of Columbia Pennsylvania. They do fine work and most of the tankards you see here are theirs. If you buy one of their tankards, you can rest assured of its lack of lead. Look for their hallmark which looks approximately like the one below.

Wilton-Armetale is still a thriving concern and available new from their website and at retailers everywhere. (Though some of the designs shown are no longer made.) We are not paid for this endorsement or we wouldn't be telling you to hunt them down at Thrift Stores and Flea Markets. Buy them where you can find them. They're functional, durable, lead-free and we're enthusiastic consumers and collectors of their wares.

If you buy it new, it comes with a sticker like this one affixed to the bottom. Take heed.

So... did I succeed?

Well, that depends on the level of authenticity you demand. Personally, I think these wares are as close as needs be. Certainly within my acceptable fudge factor.

Other items will occur to you the more you eat at faire and you may decide down the road that a fine polished pewter tankard is what you want. Or some forged utensils to replace the wooden ones. It's up to you and it's your money, honey. The things found here are simply a good way to get you on the road to where you want to be.

The Fez of Christmas Future

2011-12-18T18:15:00.000-08:00

I haven't forgotten about you, dear friends. It's winter with a vengeance here in the Pacific Northwest, so anything involving outdoors is curtailed until the dank weather recedes a bit. Every iron I have in the fire at the moment will require a bit of the great outdoors, or at least not so much with the great indoors. In fact, a couple of the things I've got going will require actual irons in an actual fire... but more on that another time.

We're putting together a proper workshop here at Fool's Paradise, so we can work in all weather conditions. Starting in January, we'll be stretching and forming more leather, hand-building and blocking felt hats, and otherwise getting our hands dirty.

In the meantime, it's the only time of year you can walk around wearing jester's bells and not get stared at... um... as much. So enjoy it!

I doff my fez to one and all. May the seasons be merry and bright.

See you in the new year!

Scott

Maskmaker, Maskmaker V :: Making the Final Cut

2011-10-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the delay. Ren faire was followed closely by the chronic-but-mostly-annoying illness that dogs my footsteps. When it rears its ugly head (and swells mine to an uncomfortable degree) there's not a lot I can do.

And then there was a steampunk convention.

Anyway, a deluge of posts is in the pipeline covering all those things and more. But first... let us finish the mask that we left drying on the matrix back in August.

When I left you, we'd taken our wet leather and by pushing, pulling, poking, prodding, and pounding, we got it to conform to the dimensional planes of the matrix that we had carved. In the areas that don't matter we have used staples and brass nails to affix it to the wood. In areas that we can't poke holes in, we have used bands of cloth to hold it in place as it dries.

Ironically, the larger you work, the less you need the cloth strips and the more you will use the horn mallet that I will show you how to make sometime next week.

It has been sitting in a sunny spot for a day at most (not for a month and a half, that would be crazy) or if you are in a hurry, you have carefully applied a cool hair dryer. Carefully remove all of the nails, tacks, brads, and whatnot that you used to hold the leather on the matrix.

The dried leather will hold itself in place on the surface of the matrix. The consistency of the leather will remind you of thick, heavy cardboard.

It is time to set it free and for that, you will need a pencil and a sharp shop knife or razor blade.

Examine the mask and use the pencil to draw a line where you are going to cut. This is not the final cut, but you should be thinking already about how this mask will follow the contours of the wearer's head.

Photo by Chris Yetter, CJYPhoto.com
Used with permission.

Take a good look at this mask's edges where it meets my face. Note how far back along the temples it comes and how far down around the mouth. Note that traditional Italian masks come even farther down over the upper lip, but I don't really like the way that feels, so mine generally do not.

How it fits is up to you, and it starts at the point where you are removing it from the matrix. Slice carefully. Go slowly. Use a sharp knife. Don't cut yourself with it.

To start the eyes, you might need to use a smaller blade like an Exacto knife or even a hole punch. Just take your time. When you are done, it should look like this.

The nose is the hardest part of this operation. Click on the first picture above and look at it large-sized. The flap of the nose overlaps the end. I used an Exacto to skive the leather even thinner than it already was and then used contact cement to adhere it into one solid piece.

Don't forget to punch holes at the temples if you want to have ribbons to tie it to someone's head.

Red leather dye and a coat of brown shoe polish for aging, and it looks like this.

That's maskmaking!

Tips:

Start small. Practice wetforming smaller pieces of leather before you commit larger and more expensive portions.
Mold something else. You can start leather molding on anything from a soup bowl to your own face. (Fair warning: this feels kinda funky). This will help you get a feel for it before you commit to a more complex shape or project.
Skive your leather to a workable thickness.
Wood matrices are more forgiving, but require more work. Choose your molding method to fit your available time and talents.

A Fool In Spite of Himself

2011-08-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

Chia pays Calabash's nose a visit Sunday
afternoon. (Photo by Kristin Perkins)

About halfway through my Sunday routine, it occurred to me that I've been a fool for ten years. That is to say, it was ten years ago that my character Calabash sprang, fully-formed, from my forehead.

Not bad for a character that came entirely off the cuff... or perhaps just out of a mask.

I won't go through the full story. If you want to know how Calabash came into being, you can read the full story here: Years of a Clown.

Next year, the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire will be an entirely new place. The location will shift to England, under the rule of Good Queen Bess (to be portrayed by Victoria Dzenis). Calabash was the MC of many a morning atop the front gate, and now his voice will be replaced by another. So too will we lose the stern presence of our John Knox (which only makes sense, really) and many other large and vocal street performers are taking the opportunity to either switch characters or downshift to a less active role.

New queen, new fool (at least I hope someone takes up the standard) and a whole new cast of characters in need of actors to fill them. A whole new faire indeed.

Never one to leave quietly, Calabash got in one last run, capering before the village gates, haranguing the privateers and pikemen. Even got to deliver his spiel with a sound system! (Luxury!)

Then he wandered the faire and bade a quiet goodbye to his friends and supporters. On the final day, I delivered two tiny masks of Calabash proportions to the two ladies who made the world safe for fools, his beloved queen: Melissa Haffly, and Mary Dixon, she who first recognized Calabash and called him out "I know you, mischief maker!"

I will miss him more than even I can say.

Then it was a round of hugs and back to the workbench to take up my new role as the village toymaker.

After all, there are are marionettes out there, waiting to be made and fairies aplenty, lying in wait to turn them into real boys.

Like I need the extra mouths to feed.

Toys won't make themselves, after all. (Photo by Greg Martin)

Maskmaker, Maskmaker... IV :: Molding the mask

2011-08-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

I wanted to see how much thickness I took out of the leather, so I grabbed the calipers... er... rather, I asked the engineer to loan me her calipers.

The image below was taken before skiving. The leather is .116 inches thick.

The second, bottom image is after. The thickness if .0785. It's only a difference of 0.0375 inches, but what a difference that makes when it comes time to sew or fold the stuff.... or get it wet and work it over a mold.

What I'm about to tell you to do doesn't lend itself to photography, but it's pretty easy to explain.

Fill a sink with water as hot as your tap is able to produce. Keep in mind that you're going to have your hands in this water soon, so don't burn yourself. You want a nice hot bath for your leather, but DO NOT BOIL IT. That's a different thing and it may make dandy Roman armor, but not so much for masks.

Toss the piece of leather you've cut and skived into the sink. If your sink is not deep enough or large enough for the leather to submerge completely, use a washtub or bucket. I've been known to use a large mixing bowl.

Go and get a sandwich or trim your fingernails; you need to allow the leather to sit in the water for a good ten minutes before you start to play with it.

REMINDER: Once it is wet, everything that comes in contact with the leather might leave a mark. This includes your fingernails and your rings. Trim your nails and remove your rings before you begin.

When you come back, it's time to get your hands wet.

Start working the leather with your hands in the water. Crumple it up and squeeze it. Keep doing this until the leather is fully saturated with water.

You will notice that the leather has become elastic and just a little spongy. That's the collagen warming up and leaching out into the water. Time to take the leather out of the bath and roll it up and squeeze as much of the water out as you can.

Because you followed the principle of mise en place your mold is sitting right next to you as well as some brass nails, a stapler, and a tack hammer. Right? Good. Remember not to put any nails or staples anywhere that you don't want to cut away later. These holes won't heal.

Drape the leather over the mask and arrange it so that its oriented just as your pattern (piece of cloth) was. Pull one edge or corner over and staple it to the back of the mold.
Push the leather down into the eyesockets with your fingertip or a piece of wood and nail them in place.
Working quickly, start stretching the leather over the mold, and nailing or stapling it to the back of the form.
Do one widely-spaced circle and then come around again, always pulling the leather taut across the form.
If you have an extra-long nose like mine, you will need to have a fold where the bridge of the nose meets the eye brows. This is okay, it lends to the maniacal look of the mask, which is desireable.
You might need to use a strip of cotton or (as I did below) even a wire tie padded by another piece of scrap leather to get the desired drape and tightness, especially on a long nose like his one. Remember to pad it, because the ties can mar the leather.
Italian trained maskmakers use a mallet whose head was made from the tip of a cow horn to lightly pummel the mask down into the creases and grooves of the mask. This also helps drive water out of the leather and compacts it, making for a stiffer mask. On a larger mask than this one, I would do that.

When you get to a point where the mask is fully nailed in place, pummeled and/or lashed into place, put the mask out in the sun to dry.

Some maskmakers use a hair dryer at this stage. You have to be careful doing that, because you can dry out and crack the leather with that much heat. Best to let it sit in the sun for a few hours while you make the next mask or go do something else.

The Toymaker's First Weekend

2011-08-19T12:51:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was my first full weekend as the toymaker. My friend Christa snapped this picture of me using a small trim plane to shape my new marionette.

Photo by Christa Smiley

I set up my table and tools on the edge of the main path, not far inside the main gates. Just sat down and started making wood shavings.

It's been a long time since I sat still at faire. I'm reveling in the opportunity to really talk to the patrons rather than just making a quick joke or teasing them as I fly past on my way to the next place where the queen will need me.

It's a lower-key experience, to be sure, but I am enjoying it immensely. And it tickles me a bit how many people tell me that they didn't know anyone knew how to make things with hand tools anymore!

And when I get bored sitting still, I grab that cage you see on the ground next to me and shoulder my large net and go looking for all of my many escaped marionettes. (Bloody fairies never ask permission before turning them into real boys. Like I need another mouth to feed...)

BONUS!
A trip to our faire inspired a series of renaissance faire related comics over on Scott Kurtz's PVP webcomic. Check them out over at PVPonline.

Yes, we really are that close to Target. Well... almost.

This weekend is the final weekend of faire! Come one, come all!

Maskmaker, Maskmaker Part III :: Preparing the Leather

2011-08-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

At the start of this sequence was a post called "Tools of the Trade :: Garb Carpentry" which laid out and discussed the supplies needed in order to complete the mask project.

If you have gotten this far without reading it, it is time to go back and read it now.

The leather used for our mask is a "vegetable tanned" cow hide. Most mask makers prefer the bellies because the leather is stretchier at that end of the cow. Bellies are often cheaper than tooling leather because it is thinner and doesn't take well to tooling and impressions. It is mostly used by folks who make knife sheaths, holsters, and masks: all things that benefit from the stretchiness of the bottom of a hide.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Once it is wet, everything that comes in contact with the leather might leave a mark. This includes your fingernails and your rings. Trim your nails and remove your rings before you begin.

How do I know how much leather I need?
Take a scrap of cloth and drape it over your form so that you have a generous amount underneath. Cut away the excess and then spread the cloth out. That is the amount and shape of the leather piece you will need to cut.

Skive (thinning) the leather
In the aforementioned post, I ranked a skiving knife as "nice, but optional".

I'm rethinking the "optional" part, but I will still leave it up to you. If you buy carefully, you won't need to do much skiving, because you can chose he thinnest hides you can find. It depends on how much use you want this mask to endure.

I tend to buy entire hides or bellies and worry about thickness when I decide which project I'm going to use them on. One end of a hide may end up as a mug, and the other a mask.

Skiving is the act of scraping away the back of the leather to make it thinner and more flexible. There are an astonishing number of types of blades used for skiving leather, ranging from half-moons of steel to something that looks like a vegetable peeler to a sharpened butter knife. There are also complicated machines to do it for you.

Ideally, when reducing the thickness across the entirety of a piece of leather, you would use a splitter, essentially a wide blade that can split a hide in one big swoop. If you haven't the room for such a contraption, do as I do and stick to either a knife or what I call the razor blade style.

Razor style: Pictured at right, the razor blade style has interchangeable blades so that you never have to sharpen it. You just drag it across the back of the hide in exactly the way you wouldn't want to if you were shaving hair off your skin. The blade will dig in and shave away thin layers with each pass until you've achieved the depth and consistency you desire. (All the shavings next to the hunk of hide in the photo are leather shavings.)

A lot of leatherworkers don't like these because they're not as quick as a splitter, and consistency can be a bit of a problem until you get used to using it. Nevertheless, for the hobbiest, it is an inexpensive, serviceable option for you. The holders and replacement blades are sold at most leather stores and suppliers.

Knives: There are almost too many varieties commercially available these days to enumerate them. They are mostly used to pare edges to make stitching easier. To skive a large piece with just a knife would be a feat. Not impossible, mind you, just difficult. Most of the people I know who use these are bookbinders, because the edge of a piece is the main concern with leather book covers.

Mine began its life as a butter knife that was subjected to a series of files, sharpening stones, and emery cloth until you could shave with it.

Whatever you choose to use, be careful with it! These things are, by necessity, very, very sharp. If it's not sharp, sharpen it or change the blade. Dull blades skip and skitter and the cuts they deal out are far worse than the cuts you might endure from a sharper blade.
Practice on a scrap before you screw up your nicer stuff. Use the thing like you would use a razor on your skin and begin pressing down until you get a feel for how hard you can or should press to take off just enough leather. It may take some practice

DIY Skiving/Paring Knife
If you want to make your own paring knife for your leather working toolkit as I have done, this video from master bookbinder Peter Goodwin will show you how...

Next Step: Mise en place
Mise en place usually shows up as a cooking term used to remind cooks to have everything in place before you start. Before you begin any recipe, you have to make sure you have all the ingredients ready and easily at hand.

Leatherworking is no different and in wet forming, this is especially important. While you can skive your leather out on the back porch to avoid a mess in your living room, you need to have your mold and tools at your elbow before you begin wetting the leather. So, sometime between steps one and two, you need to acquire the following and lay them out so that they come easily to hand.

Your mask form
Some kind of skiving knife
Tacks, preferably brass
Tack hammer
Stapler with extra staples
Box knife
Some strips of cotton cloth or gauze bandages
Extra leather

The next step will be to get the leather wet. Once that happens, it's a race to the finish, so get everything together, get your leather prepared and get ready to spend up to an hour manipulating wet leather with your hands and tools.

The implicit agreement between the actor and the audience.

2011-08-17T08:13:00.000-07:00

Henry V is my favorite Shakespeare play. It is most often remembered for the Saint Crispin's Day speech given by the king ere the close of battle on the field of Agincourt (and re-cast by Captain Splinter at opening gate, I might add). But as a writer and an artist, good as it is, that is not my favorite Shakespearean speech from my favorite play.

There is another.

I was reminded of this recently. On a Facebook group for ren folk, a fellow from California posted a complaint: Why should we even bother trying to breathe some life into the sixteenth century when our efforts are beset on every side by port-o-potties and ice cream vendors and patrons on cell phones?

Why even bother?

Seriously?

Oh, ye of little faith.

Shakespeare would have understood as well as anyone what we're trying to do. Better, I'd wager. If you do not believe me, look no further than my favorite part of my favorite play: the introduction. Right there at the beginning, he implores the audience to multiply the one actor into multitudes, to see a man in a paper crown and clothe him as king, to see a wall of canvas and supplant it with a castle.

Everything you need to know to write a novel, short story or play is encapsulated in those lines. And more importantly for our purposes, it contains everything you need to know about the implicit agreement between the actor and the audience.

As we gear up for third weekend, entering our third act if you will, these are words it would do us great service to remember, to hear echoing in our heads when doubts assail us or if we hear someone mumbling about tents and Honey Buckets.

Earlier this week, my wife asked you to post your favorite memories of faire from the first two acts. Use those memories, siphon the energy from them and close your eyes for a moment. Paint over the popup tents and the stages and the smelly blue boxes and patrons in Stargate uniforms.

Even Shakespeare had to do this. Even he had to remind his audience to help him out. So can you.

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene.
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels,
Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraisèd spirits that hath dared,
On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
So great an object. Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O pardon, since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million,
And let us, ciphers to this great account,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high, uprearèd, and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts:
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance.
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hooves i' th' receiving earth.
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
Turning th' accomplishment of many years
Into an hourglass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history,
Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray
Gently to hear, kindly to judge our play.

Or you can always watch Derek Jacobi do it from Branagh's Henry V movie:

Maskmaker, Maskmaker Part II :: Carving and Completing the Form

2011-08-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

To make the mask mold for this project, I've been using carving knives like the one shown at left. You don't have to. My grandfather would have made this entire project with his pocket knife, been quite content doing so, and done a better job than I have.

Use what is most comfortable for you. Carving knives that are worth your time start at about $20.00 and go up from there. Spend less than that at your own risk. The carving knives I use are "Flexcut" knives sold by Rockler woodworking. It's a nice level of tool for the serious hobbiest.

It's been pointed out elsewhere that when I talked about doweling a nose-piece in place last post, I did not complete the thought.

Why didn't I just use a larger piece of wood and carve the whole thing in one piece? The short answer is grain lines. Whenever you are carving, life is significantly easier if your blade is moving parallel to the grain.

Also, if I was to carve from a larger block, I would have to remove several times more material to get to the final shapes I wanted.

In order to keep the grainlines aligned to the path of the blade, it's sometimes better to make the wood match the carving rather than vice-versa. When your goal is to have a finished display piece, this might not be a desirable thing to do, but in this case, we're just making a form for leather to stretch over.

I did this by doweling a nose piece perpendicular to the face so that whether I was carving the cheekbones or the nose, my blade is carving cross-grain as little as possible.

Once I was finished with the blade, I used a sanding wheel on my Dremel tool to round and smooth the planes of the face. If you don't have a Dremel tool, you can do this with sandpaper, it will just take a bit longer.

Honestly, you could probably just skip this part, because theoretically, the goal here is to have something to stretch leather over, not to make something to sit on the shelf. I like to make them suitable for the shelf because the more of these I make, the harder it is to avoid looking at them, so I might as well make them pretty.

This is the final form once it has been sanded and finished with spar urethane (above). I used spar urethane because the leather is wet when it's applied to the wood and the added protection helps the mask form to last longer.

I then traced around the mask on a 1X4 and cut it out, attaching it to the back of the form with screws so that I can change it out. This is a waste piece of wood into which many nails and staples will be driven, so it's important to be able to swap it out if you want to make more than a couple of masks from the same form.

NOTE: If you watched that video and chose to work in concrete for your form, Thurston James advises leaving a hollow in the back of the form and in the eyeholes to be filled with Plastic Wood for the same reasons. You will periodically have to refresh the plastic wood in that case to allow for future nails to be set.

Maskmaker, Maskmaker, Make Me a Mask :: Part I

2011-08-10T01:15:00.000-07:00

The number one most requested thing for me to teach is leather maskmaking. I learned by reading books and screwing up a lot. With any luck, I can spare you some of that.

Commedia del Arte is a form of theater designed to be performed by a limited number of actors in a setting that is less than ideal for theater: The Renaissance marketplace.Each actor wears a specific mask and adopts certain prescribed poses that are universal to the form.

The characters bear names like Pantalone, the unscrupulous and grasping old man; Capitano, the strutting braggart; Arlechinno, the clever and (more or less) innocent servant...The iconic masks, poses and well-defined characters allowed the actors to perform amid the bustle of marketplace and festival in a time before microphones. The cavernous noses of the masks have even been alleged to magnify the voices of the actors. . . though I've worn one for years in performances and I can't say as I buy that argument entirely.

Even if you could not hear every word or see them clearly, you knew who was doing what. Even from a distance, there was no question which actor was playing which role, so well-known were the archetypes they portrayed. Even today you would recognize them whether you realize it or not. Harlequin came from commedia. Punch & Judy as well. Shakespeare borrowed shamelessly from his Italian counterparts. Pants are called "pants" as a short form of 'pantaloons' named for the costume worn by Pantalone.

In more theatrical and modern(ish) terms, The Marx Brothers, Monty Python and the Muppets all owe an enormous debt to their frenetic forbears in commedia del arte.

Traditional Italian commedia masks were leather like the one I am wearing above, wetformed over wooden forms. That's the sort that I'm about to show you how to make.

If you don't have the knack or the interest in carving, rest assured that you can create a mask in clay and then make a positive mold as shown in the YouTube video below, only instead of using fiberglass, fill your mold with the fine concrete used to make stepping stones. You can then form your leather over that.

The video...

Not only is that okay, it's how Thurston James advises you to proceed in his book The Prop Builder's Mask-Making Handbook (sadly out of print, but still available here and there if you look hard enough) which many consider to be the book on the topic. He hates carving things out of wood, but advises leaving hollows in the back of the mask and eyes to fill with plastic wood for the later steps involving nails.

Unlike Mr. Thurston James, I actually enjoy hand-carving and own all the necessary tools to do so, so that is how I intend to proceed. If you don't care to join me, you're on your own, I fear, though later lessons about the molding are universally applicable.

But I'm getting ahead of myself already.

So many people protested when I said I was giving up fooling, I wanted to create a poppet or doll in the costume of Calabash.so that he'd still be around. So I'll be making a 1/3 scale version of my mask (pictured below).

All of the following steps will be identical on a full-sized mask, or even for a smaller one. These things can get as small as you choose to make them, though the smaller you get, the less you shall be able to attain intricate details.

When asked how he sculpted The Thinker, Rodin said he just cut away everything that wasn't his statue and when he was done, voila! I'm not sure that a blog like this is the place to learn woodcarving, but I shall do my best.

The tools I used were a saw, a rasp, and a knife. Keep them all sharp. Be cautious. Wear protective gear as appropriate. Proceed at your own risk.

All carvings begin the same way as Rodin. Woodcarving is just sculpture in a reluctant medium... with a simple block of wood. In this case, I used a chunk of scrap pine.

As the Maestro said, the first thing is to draw the shape on the block and then cut away everything that is not mask. Use a coping saw if you're attached to the notion of period perfection or a power saw if you have one.

Use a rasp or file to begin beveling edges and beginning to shape the cheekbones, making the mask into a three-dimensional form.

Once I had the basic shape, I used dowels to attach a piece of 2x2 to make the nose as shown in the profile plan below. I don't have any pictures of that, but the it's really just drill a hole and insert wood and a dowel.

Then continue carving until I had this...

Next, we'll get into some leatherwork, at long last

Tools of the Trade :: Garb Carpentry

2011-07-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

Things you need to make garb: Cloth, sewing machine, needle, thread, scissors, coping saw, drill, hammer, drawknife...

We're not going to build a house, but we are about to get into some fairly involved leatherworking here. "Wet forming" leather requires something to form it around. Usually, this is made out of wood. So, a certain amount of miscellaneous carpentry will be necessary.

It's either that or cast your molds in concrete.

I'm an avid woodworker, so I already have a lot the tools I needed to make the things we'll be talking about in the next month or so. Some of you will too, or someone in your family or close circle of friends will have tools you can borrow.

There are always things that will make a task easier. A jigsaw is faster than a coping saw just as a lathe is faster than whittling. I'll stop periodically and talk about tools if it's necessary, but here's a very minimal list of what you'll need from the hardware aisle.

Wooden or plastic mallet
Coping saw
Scratch Awl
Tack hammer and/or staple gun
Sharp pocket knife or woodcarving knife
Sandpaper
Care, patience, and a First Aid kit

Universal Caveat: If you're not sure how to use a tool, don't. Find someone knowledgeable to help or show you how. Keep all of your tools as sharp as possible. Be careful. Think twice, cut yourself not at all.

If you're really lucky, there's someone you can show a picture of what you want and have them come back in a few hours and hand it to you.

NOTE: None of this is terribly complicated. I was 13 when I learned most of this in a shop class at school. If dorky, awkward, 13-year-old Scottie can do this, you probably can too.

As always, if I can think of an easier way to do anything, or find a shortcut for you, I will post it. Even if it's a link to what someone else did.

As far as leatherworking tools go, a lot of what you need you'll already have in your sewing kit. Even if you decide to tool any of the leather, a nailhead or anything can be used to make marks in the leather. Tools specifically to leatherworking can be expensive and if you're not going to use them again, you can skip them.

Yes, you can do leatherworking without buying stock in Tandy. There are some specialized tools that will make all of this easier if you have them, but they're not strictly necessary. You cannot, however, do it without buying leather. For that, you will need to find a local supplier or order it online. I encourage you to check online or in your local Yellow pages (remember those?) and see if you can find a local leather supplier. Most larger cities have them. Here in Seattle area, we have McPhereson's leather.

The leather used for all of these projects is "vegetable tanned" leather. That means the tanning process used tannins from natural vegetation to effect the tanning process. Some places sell it as "tooling leather" because it's perfect for these projects because it's non-toxic, easy to work with and takes tooling and shaping well.

NOTE: Leather is not sold by the yard. The price on the wall might tell you how much per square foot, but that doesn't mean you can buy one square foot of leather. Leather is sold as hides (whole animal) sides (half the animal), bellies (just the belly bits), and scrap. Scrap is usually sold by the pound.

At the moment, a mid-grade full hide (veggie tanned) will probably run you about $140 online. Many if not most of the projects here can be done with large scraps, so you might not need to buy an entire side.

If you want to do a lot this, it's more economical in the long run to buy the entire hide, but it's up to you and your budget.

Go ahead and select some dyes and a sealer as well while you're there. Tell the folks who work there what you plan to do and they'll advise you. Generally, anything that will touch food or your skin should probably be a non-toxic as possible, so pay attention to what's in the dyes you buy and think about how you'll use them.

To work the leather, you will need a couple of tools, some of which you'll already have:

A knife (I usually use a box knife)
An awl
A plastic spoon (yes, really)
Glover's needles (available at most leather or sewing stores)
Sinew or strong thread
A ruler.

Things you might want that will just make your life easier:

Skivving knife
Stitch-spacer

If you have those things, you're ready to start.

The Clown and the Toymaker :: Exit stage left, pursued by bear.

2011-07-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned, I've been having back problems. Between May 5th and July 3rd, my spine went into meltdown until I was walking with a cane. Since then, the cane and the pain both went away, but it was an eye-opening experience.

I can no longer keep up the level of physicality that my role as fool requires of me. Or -- more to the point -- that I require of me. I cannot meet my own standards and that means it's time to hang up the mask.

This year, my fool will play his usual role of Master of Ceremonies atop the castle gate for the opening ceremonies at the Washington Midsummer's Renaissance Faire, but that will be it for me.

Next year, Calabash the fool will be retired completely.

That is not to say I'm going anywhere, but I just can't caper like I used to or rely on my body to carry me through the run of a faire without crapping out on me.

In the immortal words of William Shakespeare, "Exit stage left, pursued by bear."

What's next?

I needed something to allow me to keep doing the stuff I love, but also to take my time about it. To be able to entertain and interact as I always have, but at a rate and level that will accept whatever is happening to me at that moment. And I also wanted the flexibility to take my inner Davinci out and take him for a walk.

I toyed with the idea of doing a potter or carpenter/joiner sort of thing, but those involved hauling too much crap out of the faire every weekend. But I still wanted to do something artistic, or at least artisinal. Something that incorporated all the stuff I really love to do...

Enter the Village Toymaker.

Forget Davinci, I'm about to let my inner Jim Henson out to play.

How it impacts this blog...

This is to your benefit, dear reader, because this blog is about to get active again. The next series of posts (beginning with the long-promised leather-working tutorials, I promise) will be about creating the toys and oddments that will sell the role of toymaker to the crowds.

I need to make shoes, toy drums, little leather masks, and a boatload of period encampment stuff that I've never really worried about because Calabash was a mobile character. He didn't need a work table, a leather bottel, or a marionette...

Well, maybe the marionette.

So coming soon will be costuming for me and for dolls. (Shoemaking post coming soon!) Discussions of period toys, marionettes, and the clothing of the merchant and artisan class of the renaissance.

I hope you will join me.

Scott

Benched

2011-07-12T09:49:00.000-07:00

Technically, I'm no longer a member of a guild at WMRF, in the parlance of this particular faire, I'm an independent player. However; I still retain close ties with the guild I helped create, Hearth of Saint Brigid, and when they need set pieces or camp furniture, I'm always happy to help out.

For myriad reasons, this year they were facing the unpleasant choice of either bringing modern chairs and trying to disguise them or sitting on the ground. As an alternative, I offered to make them a pair of long benches and to take apart a table they already had to make it usable as a dining table. In the end, we decided the old table was far too heavy to do anything with (the previous carpenter was a bit too enthusiastic about heavy materials) and that two 8-foot benches would be less useful than four 4-foot benches.

There are a number of period images depicting people sitting on simple "five board benches" and the inestimable Karen Larsdatter has cataloged most of them (at least the ones available on the internet). I had my pick of designs to choose from.

Five board benches are a standard of basic carpentry, so I was confident that they would knock together fairly quickly.

Since these would see heavy use and be used primarily outside, it was requested that I make them sturdy, so rather than the more typical 1X lumber, I chose to make them out of 2X stud lumber. This meant a bit more work to shape them, but the end result is a very sturdy piece of camp furniture that will weather any storm or any butt that comes along.

These are doweled together with hardwood dowels and once the trestles are complete, they will be stained a dark brown to make them look a bit more appropriate to the setting. The tabletop will be given a matte polyurethane finish since it will be an eating and food-prep surface and the rest will be sealed with an eye toward minimizing shine.

This has been fun for me, if for no other reason than the fact that I've never tried to make a matched set of anything before. At least not out of wood. As is the case when trying to throw a set of mugs or goblets, getting them all to match without making them so plain as to be forgettable is the challenge here.

More pics when I have them stained and paired up with the new table.

Art, Ideas, and the Approaching Flood

2011-07-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

Most of the things which delineate between "art" and "craft" is a judgement of the results, rather than the creation of them. In the end, it boils down to this: Craft is useful and art has no function. Nevertheless, all acts of creation are essentially the same.

I've said before that I view writing, painting, sculpture, sewing and carpentry as different faces of the same mental process. Somewhere in the great echoing catacombs of my brain is a largish room that is crowded with ideas, each shouting to be heard above the din. Each of them carries a notebook or a roll of plans that they are waving in the air, hoping to be noticed, hoping to be next, striving to be realized. Because an idea unrealized is a wan., pathetic thing indeed. And to go unrealized until it is forgotten entirely is a fate worse than death.

I can write or sculpt or paint with equal amounts of training and love. But just as writing a story is to execute a painting in the reader's mind, sewing a jacket or blocking a hat is to execute a sculpture in cloth. The only difference is the usefulness of the results.

In truth, they are all ideas realized, one voice in the din that falls silent because it has retired to make room for the next.

I was reflecting on this recently when a back injury laid me up for three months, forcing the conference of clamoring ideas to wait until I could do something about them. Notebooks were filled, stories scribbled, and deadlines pushed back as I tottered around with my cane and wished I lived in the future we all dreamed about when I was a kid, the one where malfunctioning bits would be replaced with shiny titanium and whirring servos.

Last week, the back problems evaporated. All of a sudden, it was as if they had never happened. Back injuries, their causes and cures, are some of the great mysteries of medical science. I don't know about you, but I'm personally keeping a list in case God ever asks my opinion when the human race comes up for a design overhaul. I have a great deal to say on the subject of spines, knees and shoulders.

And now all of the ideas are shouting again, demanding to be heard at once.

So get ready for the flood as I tryto keep up with documenting all of these projects and try desperately not toscrew them up just because more ideas are jostling in the queue behind it.That's is where my viewing these things as art comes in handy. If there's onething art school taught me, it's how to ignore the next idea and focus on theone in front of me.

I hope...

Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire - Promo Video Released!

2011-03-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

The bouncy, loudmouthed fool in the leather mask atop the parapet (and elsewhere) is my humble alter-ego Calabash.

A Pause for Storytime

2011-03-27T23:40:00.001-07:00

Instructions
Written & Read by Neil Gaiman

The Worshipful Company of Glovers Museum Collection is Online!

2011-03-23T16:49:00.000-07:00

Speaking of gloves, this wonderful link comes to us via the folks over in the Tudor Discussion Group on Facebook. So many pretty things to look at. Most of them are sadly 17th century, but there's a good deal from the Jacobite period and (my wife hastens to remind me) more examples of early European knitted gloves than I've ever seen in one place at one time.

The Worshipful Company of Glovers of London

The Glove Collection and its Catalogue

http://2-minute-website.com/site/trustfund.trial/-23390-23417

Tell them I sent you! (It won't get you anything, but it might confuse them long enough while they try to place my name that you can get a good look around...) Cheers!

De Boekbinder

2011-03-21T19:42:00.000-07:00

I've dinked around with bookbinding a time or two as you might remember and one day I'll get my studio back and get back to it (after completing the long-promised leather wet forming lesson, of course) but this... this is divine.

A Glover, Not a Fighter

2011-03-19T17:16:00.000-07:00

Still doing remodeling and still don't have access to my workshop because it's being used to store the things that would normally live in the rooms we're revamping.

So... let's talk about gloves.

Gloves like the ones Shakespeare's dad made were probably less fancy than most of the ones we have in the Victoria & Albert museum, most of which came from the wardrobes of nobles and the crustiest part of the upper crust. The rest - such as we have - live on in fragmentary bog finds, shipwrecks like the Mary Rose, and the marginalia of Joris Hoefnagel's maps.

Paintings of the renaissance show a variety of cuts and decorative techniques, including the same pinking and slashing techniques used on other garments.

Marginal characters from Nonesuch Palace engraving by Joris Hoefnagel

As a longtime leatherworker, I have the skills and tools to make a pair from scratch... but they're a finicky sort of thing with a lot of handsewing and overall a bit of a pain in the butt. This is confounded a bit by the fact that Washington's faire season falls in the hottest part of our summertime (as do many others), so I rarely need gloves with a costume. The mornings are wicked cold around here though, so from time to time...

All of which makes it a mixed-bag spending anything like the money and time necessary to make a decent and attractive pair suitable for the time periods in which I work.

Eventually, I'll be getting around to making my own, but for now, I needed a pair of gloves that looked okay from ten paces away and won't detract from whatever costume I happen to be wearing at the time. It was time for a cheap alternative.

Which is when I remembered a costume party awhile back, where my friend Patrick dummied up a pair of gloves for his bomber pilot costume by dying a pair of standard workgloves a darker shade of brown and turning back the cuffs. They looked pretty good, all things considered.

And then I said to myself, we're remodeling. We have a lot of work gloves lying around right now...

We buy them bulk, actually. Nice deerhide leather work gloves in threepacks from Costco. So I grabbed a pair of scissors and a hole punch and started changing them from workgloves circa 2011, to something approximating the right protection for a renaissance hand.

Maybe even a steampunk glove, who knows?

Feibings "Cherry" leather dye and a hole punch

The biggest change was re-cutting the cuff in a crenelated pattern
similar to what you can see in the Hoefnagel engraving above.

I'm reasonably happy with how they turned out. The dye job was still wet in that photo (I'm wearing a vinyl glove inside there) so the colors will even out over time and then we'll apply a wax or finish to polish them up.

For something I may wear a couple of hours a year? They're perfect.

Leather Goods from the Mary Rose

2011-03-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

I found this great blog that is positively laden with great discussions and essays and experiments in period leatherworking. Cream of the crop for me was a lengthy gallery of pieces salvaged from Henry VIII's lost ship the Mary Rose.

http://leatherworkingreverend.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/mary-rose-leather-gallery/

Weathering the Leather

2011-03-11T22:23:00.000-08:00

I remember the debut of Indiana Jones & the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was too young to go see it on that first round of the theaters, but I remember most that almost overnight, new-looking things became passe... especially leather coats.

There was no way I could do this without taking at least some inspiration from the illustrious Doctor Jones.

According to the extras on the Indiana Jones DVD set, the original coat for that movie was bought new and then distressed in one night sitting around the pool at a hotel on the eve of filming. As I recall, the costumer, Deborah Nadoolman, used a Swiss Army Knife that she borrowed from Harrison Ford and a wire brush to make the jacket look like it had fallen to earth from orbit.

And the rest was cinematic history.

The good Captain may not be an archeologist/adventurer/tomb robber or whatever, but has been throwing himself out of airships with a jet pack strapped to his back for some time now and his jacket has taken a beating.

Talk about action garb.

The paint job isn't finished, but it has been completed to a point where I needed to weather and distress the jacket before continuing further. So I took a brillo pad, a Swiss Army knife, a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and an assortment of sandpaper and went to work on the thing.

It was nerve-wracking for a little while. Leather jackets are expensi... oh, yeah, I bought this at the thrift store. I wonder if beating it with rocks would make it look better...

I started by putting on the jacket and marking in chalk the creases and wearpoints.
All of the seams were given a thorough dressing-down using steel wool and rubbing alcohol.

The damage to the Gears-eye should flash happened when I put the jacket on and somersaulted
down the driveway. I love it and decided to leave it that way.

I paid special attention to places the jetpack harness would wear, up around the neck and shoulders

Some minor touch ups might be required, but only a little.
It's a balancing act... Worn is good. Worn out is bad.

A Pewterer At Work

2011-03-10T22:02:00.001-08:00

I claim no skills at metalworking beyond the most basic, but I know enough to be impressed by this.

Painting Phase II: Finishing chequered flag & left sleeve

2011-03-02T18:38:00.000-08:00

Painting continues. Note that weathering will follow, which explains why some of the coverage was allowed to be a bit mottled...

Gearseye :: Her Mechanical Majesty's Royal Aeronauts

2011-02-27T18:53:00.000-08:00

Shoulder flash design...

Painting Phase One: Right Sleeve

2011-02-26T20:30:00.001-08:00

Painting the Jacket

2011-02-26T20:29:00.000-08:00

Because it looks like this outside...

I decided to break into the paints and try my hand at decorating some leather.

To recap: Because I wanted to do a steampunk jetpacked soldier, I decided I would commit to it one degree further than the others I've seen recently. This meant thinking out the livery of the sky marines to a further degree than just colors and shoulder braid.

Anyway, having grown up admiring the painted ponies of the Confederate Air Force and the brightly-painted crop dusters that came to do tricks at the local air shows every summer back home.

The design is based upon Royal Air Force thought process for airplane livery and designations of the First World War.

My jacket will have a chequered design on the right shoulder and my number running down the sleeve in white.

For the left shoulder, I plan the design to the right. At the top, we'll have the British RAF bullseye superimposed by some sort of very steam punked air force design. (The air ship shown in just a place-holder.) Beneath that, the blue, white & red stripes like the tail of the Sopwith Camel up there.

On the back, I plan something elaborate and bold, but I only have the faintest of ideas as yet... More on that once I have some sketches done.

Beyond Borders - The Borders Bankruptcy As Seen By a Former Bookseller

2011-02-23T16:44:00.000-08:00

A bookish boy & his boyish books

It may surprise you to note that I haven't yet said anything about the Borders bankruptcy. In part this is because I've been focusing my writing on other things than chasing the latest business debacle down the rabbit hole. Honestly it was mostly because it's just too painful to think about.

As most of you know, I've worked for both of the major bookstore chains at one time or another and spent the longest time with Borders. I worked for them in various capacities for the better part of nine years, mostly as a manager in one of their larger stores.

It was unlike any other job I've ever had. I loved and hated it. I formed friendships there that have persisted well beyond the walls of the bookstore and I formed ideas about books, publishing and bookselling that I carry with me to this day. I also acquired the bulk of the library that currently weighs-down my house. I think every writer should serve such an internship.

It genuinely pains me to see what is happening now.

I was in my local Borders last night. My friends and I meet there weekly in the cafe to decide where to take our wandering 'supper club'. They're closing our local store, meaning there won't be a bookstore of decent size within easy driving distance anymore. It's sad to see a town lose its bookstore. Chain or independent, bookstores are the repositories of our cultural aspiration to be well-read and literate.

My wife and I usually buy a book or at least a magazine while we're there -- sometimes with a coupon, sometimes not. Last night I picked up a nice book about cheesemaking and another one about gardens and a baking book I'd been thinking about getting anyway, and for the first time in a very long time, I had to wait in line to pay. A friend of mine works nearby and she stopped in on her lunch break and she said at that time, the line stretched out the door.

A line at a bookstore that stretches out the door. Imagine such a thing.

And here's the thing: the discount was only 20%, which is less than the weekly 30% off coupon that Borders has sent out to subscribers to their email list every week in recent memory. Obviously people still value books. They were shoveling them off the shelves with an impressive zeal. And they were paying more for them than they would have a week earlier if they were really paying attention...

I wish I could tell you what that means, but honestly I don't know. Probably that people don't value something until they lose it, which is both cliche and true.

The other day, the Writer Beware blog posted a link on their Facebook page to an article written by a former Borders CEO which listed several systemic failures to manage resources and people and then argued vehemently that this wasn't management's fault. Oh, and the dog ate his homework too.

Follow the link. Read his story and tell me what you think.

To summarize his argument: Borders made a series of disastrous decisions that positioned them poorly to compete in the changing market. They built a business to compete in the 20th century and not the 21st. But it's not management's fault?

It's the same song we've been hearing from collapsed banks and other failed corporations. Apparently that "Not Me" ghost that used to haunt the kids in Family Circus cartoons went back to school and got his MBA. I hate that. Those were management decisions and management failures. You screwed up, own it, learn from it, make corrections and keep fighting.

If I had a publicist, I'm sure they would point out to me that it is ill-advised for an aspiring author to take a swipe at what will still (theoretically once they come out of bankruptcy) be a significant distribution node for my books. Maybe. But I started this blog to give my unvarnished take on publishing, writing and writing culture and here we are.

I hope Borders emerges from bankruptcy as a stronger, leaner and more agile company that learned from past mistakes. Looking forward, I don't know if there's an ongoing place for bookstores the size of barns stocking enormous stacks of whatever the next Harry Potter novel will be. I think probably not. While I don't think that print bookstores are the equivalent of buggy whip emporiums as some commentators are depicting them, I think that the day of the massive book barns is over. If the national chains have a future, I believe it means getting to a smaller, lighter, faster vision of bookstores that encourages the passion and expertise of their booksellers and makes that their mantra. Which means upper management that knows the book trade, not the grocery trade as Borders did. Books aren't just another product, they're a thing unto themselves and those who do not 'get' that are not destined to succeed in this peculiar business.

As a bookseller, I saw the first signs of the approaching wave in the droves of browsers who used the booksellers' knowledge and expertise to find the book they wanted and then put it back, saying "Cool, I'll go order it from Amazon."

I'm still in contact with one of my former store managers and he said his partner had to talk him out of standing at the top of the escalator and shout "Where were all you people six months ago?!" The answer, of course, is they were at their computers, pointing and clicking.

Last night, as I watched people shoveling books into baskets and hauling them up to the counter at Borders like they were stocking-up for the apocalypse, I wondered what it would take for a bookstore to inspire that kind of zeal all of the time... but no answers came to me.

Speaking of Jetpacks...

2011-02-21T22:17:00.000-08:00

This might just be one of my favorite cartoons ever. The artist is the wonderful Tom Gauld who also draws a lot of cartoons about writing and mad scientists and robots and other things. Check him out. .http://www.cabanonpress.com/Gallery/gallery82-letters.htm

Arbuckle Rogers -- Steampunk Flying Ace

2011-02-21T10:47:00.000-08:00

My house getting torn apart to make it more hypo-allergenic. At the end of this, I'll supposedly have a happier, healthier me to share with you and 80-90% less Lego Head to worry about. Unfortunately, this has also put some of my leather-sculpting plans on hold.

In the meantime, let us digress somewhat into the realm of science fiction for a leather working project of a wholly different sort...

One of the iconic pieces of hardware in the science fiction arsenal is the jetpack. So much so that it has become an item worthy of simultaneous homage and lampoon. Every kid wants one, every futurist, science fiction author and movie director is simultaneously frustrated and bemused by the insistence that the future just isn't the future unless it includes rocket belts.

I'm as guilty as the next for reminiscing fondly of the days of yesteryear when commuting by jet pack was always just around the corner. I featured them in my humor-laden paean for golden-age sci fi Howard Carter Saves the World (click to read it free online).

All of which handily ignores the that you can now buy a "jet pack" from these guys for roughly the price of a decent sports car.We'll bow to the zeitgeist and keep pretending that the future is still just out of reach.

Enter the Steampunks. Not content with reenacting actual Victorian history, we've made it something of a mission to imagine the greats of modern science fiction as if they'd been written by Jules Verne instead of George Lucas. I did this with my "Arbuckle Rogers" costume, which brings us back to jetpacks and leather working.

Since WWI comes right on the heels of the Victorian era, as you might imagine, there's quite a bit of bleed-over into steampunk. This is in part owing to the fact that Steampunk relies heavily on the conceit of the "Airship Pirate" which itself often means the application of 1920's level lighter-than-air rigid airship technologies.

And since the Victorians didn't have a fully-developed aviation tradition of their own to speak of (well, they did, but it didn't come with snappy uniforms) and in the adoption of the so-called "Punk" aspects of this, a certain raffish WWI Flying Ace demeanor has come about. That's where the leather biggin caps and goggles come from, mostly.

And indeed, my chief dissatisfaction with the Arbuckle Rogers costume is that I didn't -- at the time at least -- have a decent leather jacket appropriate for the milieu. But the other day, I was wandering the aisles of a thrift store when I discovered the perfect jacket to rectify that problem.

It was decent leather, a little weathered and minus the liner, so it came to only $15.00

A lot of people do the steampunk jetpack schtick. I plan to do it differently. Because I said to myself: If you really had flights of jetpacked soldiery winging their way across the skies, how would you tell your guys from the other guys? With planes it's a bit easier because since they're coming from different engineers and different factories and design traditions, etcetera, you can spot them from afar and know a Fokker from a Sopwith.

That would be a bit harder with people. Which brings us to the painting. Even though both the Germans and the Royal Air Force allowed their pilots a lot of latitude on decorating their kites during the early days of flight, they quickly devised a system of painting and numbering to keep track of them and to tell quickly and easily from the ground who was who. (At least theoretically)

I posit that this would be even more necessary with flights of jetpacked humans. So I'm devising a paint scheme for my jacket that is inspired by RAF paint schemes used at the dawn of aviation. Why? Because as far as I can tell, no one else has yet done so.

I have some remodeling work to do. I apologize for the delay in the leather sculpting demo. And I'll be back soon to discuss paints and designs.

Cheers!

Leatherworking: Wetforming Leather

2011-02-12T02:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I promised a tutorial on wet-formed leather goods. I have three leather projects on my docket right now that will call for wet-formed leather: another holster, a jack, and a new commedia mask. But first, let's talk about leather for a minute.

Because leather had the previous job of holding a cow's insides inside, even after tanning, it contains a significant percentage of elasticity. Just like our skins, leather is primarily made of a group of proteins called collagen. When you generally hear about collagen it's in one of two spheres: cooking and skin care. In cooking, collagen is that which gives broths and gravies their unctuous mouth feel and in skin care, it's what contributes to elasticity.

It's this last one that we're concerned with.

Though these projects can be done with other sorts of leather, we'll be working with leather from cows that has been "vegetable tanned", which is to say it was treated using tannins taken from plant sources, usually the bark of trees. The proteins in the tannins protect the proteins in the collagen to keep the animal skin from rotting as it normally would.

Using water -- the universal solvent -- we're going to weaken those tannins' relationship with their collagen friends. And then we're going to use that to our advantage, because the weakened bonds will tighten up as the leather dries.

Wet forming leather - to one extent or another - is used in just about every durable leathercraft from purse making to shoemaking to book binding, so its a good skill to have in your toolbox.

Holster

Leather holsters are made using essentially the same methods as masks, wet-forming the leather around a form (or the gun itself in some cases). Pictured at right is a holster and gun belt I made for a brace of retro-scifi laser pistols (cough-NerfGuns-cough) worn for the Arbuckle Rogers costume that debuted at Steamcon II in 2010.

For Steamcon III, I'm expanding the costume and for that I have a new ray gun which needs a holster and harness. Because the people who make commercial gun tactical gear don't tend to market holsters for Monsieur Buck Rogers and his friends.

The Jack

Of all the odd things said of the English, one of the oddest (at least in my opinion) is their habit of drinking beer from their boots. Which is silly, because everyone knows that's the Germans. Anyway, what they meant was that the English were fond of their leather bottels and jacks, long after the rest of Europe gave up that sort of thing. I suspect that the continent had a more abundant supply of clay.

And they looked little or nothing like the image to the side, but I didn't have a better one handy, so it'll have to do for now.

On the Mary Rose, a number of wooden tankards were recovered and one day I'll probably put one of those together too. There many leathergoods found, however, among them a leather bucket and perhaps a bottel or two as well, though I can't find the pictures online to link to for those.

I've never made one of these before, but the science is straightforward enough. The standard approach is to cut a wooden form and then wrap heavy soaked leather around them and let them dry. Then sew a bottom on and seal the whole thing with beeswax or brewer's pitch. Not all that dissimilar to the holster, really.

We'll see how it goes.

The Mask

I've been planning to make a Pantalone mask and after that, who knows? I have made a number of masks now, so I know what I'm doing. Pantalone, however is bit more expressive than the others I've made and I'm waiting for the right bit of leather to come along for this one.

Yes, I really am that finicky., I have to see the mask in the materials or I won't make it. The mask shown at right is my wife's "bubble mask" in its infancy, though I didn't know she intended the bubble wand at the time. And I'm not sure she knew it either just yet.

Pantalone is a standard Commedia character, the grasping, plotting old miser with great flowing eyebrows and warts and all the things that a 16th century mask maker would use to ape old age. This is going to be fun because I intend to get quite crazy with it.

Arbuckle Rogers - Venutian Ventilators (Nerf Repaints)

2011-01-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

Short post today, sorry. I'll make it up next week when I do the first in a series of leather demos suitable for all genres of costuming... in the meantime, hie thee to the armoury!

I didn't have the budget for one of these from the wizards at the WETA workshop (Follow that link if you've never seen the Weta raygun collection. The advertising videos alone are worth the trip!) I also, sadly, didn't have the time to trawl thrft stores looking for just the right lamp bits to make one of these beauties.

So, like thousands of raygun-craving steampunks before me, I picked up some spray paint and went hunting for just the right Nerf gun...

In keeping with the theme, they are a repaint of a Nerf gun that's rarely seen and probably discontinued, a single-shot Nerf Tech Target pistol which has delightful Atomic Age lines and once I hit it with a bright metallic gold spray paint and just as I did with the helmet, I treated it with a wash of burnt umber FW acrylic drawing ink to deaden the glow-in-the-dark shine of the gold, they look as if they're old brass.
It occurs to me that a proper "antiquing your props" article needs to happen.

I also made a custom wet-formed leather "gunslinger" gunbelt for these and between this and the leather masks I make (which use a very similar process) I think I'm about ready to do the wet-formed leather tutorial I've been meaning to do for quite some time now.

(Coming soon!)

Eventually, the mood might strike me and I'll make myself a scratch-built set of dueling pistols, but for now, I'm content to focus my attentions elsewhere and in the meantime, it's nice to be able to pummel my friends and enemies with foam darts.

Arbuckle Rogers - A Space Helmet (repaint/mod)

2011-01-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

The jetpack is, of course, the iconic prop for any sci fi setting, but when I was a kid, the thing that fascinated me the most about Star Wars and the like was always the cool helmets everyone got to wear.

Put it this way: If I'd been Harrison Ford, I'd have insisted that they add a cool helmet to my wardrobe. Sacrilege? Maybe, but it was sincere sacrilege at least...

Since I don't have the facilities to do vacu-forming (yet) all of my helmets so far have been modifications (sometimes pretty serious ones) and repaints of existing helmets.

NOTE: if you decided to do this, don't expect them to protect your head when you're done. The goal is to achieve a fun, cool-looking prop, not a piece of genuine safety equipment, even if you started out with one.

I decided early-on that in order to really sell the idea of a steampunk "Buck Rogers", I needed a helmet.

As is so often the case, I returned to the iconic "Spaceman Spiff" helmet sometimes worn by Calvin in the comic strips. I think Bill Watterson was working from the same childhood aesthetic as I when he created that (as well as most of the props for Calvin's imaginary exploits).

For my helmet, I hunted high and low for one with the right lines and ended up choosing a child's snowboard helmet that I picked up at a thrift store for a couple of bucks. I chose it for its art deco profile and resemblance to the "Spaceman Spiff" style helmets in my imagination.

The vented sides are one of my favorite elements. Combined with the aerodynamic lines, it really sells the space-opera effect I was going for. The knurled brass knob seen below is a bit of added bling that I picked up at the hardware store. It secures the lining and chin strap into the helmet.

I'm a huge fan of subtle design elements.

I've handled a number of reproduction and real helmets both real and decorative and even once got my hands on a Victorian-era brass fire helmet. All of the ones I liked most had embossed patterns worked into them, usually in an Italianate viniform motif. The Victorians loved this kind of decoration, and almost everything was decorated. In metalwork, however, they tended toward playing with light and shadow rather than gilding and paint like the suit of armor at the end of that second link.

To accomplish this effect, I painted swirling designs in thick acrylic paint between the first and second coat of metallic copper spraypaint. Then when I went over the whole helmet with washes of FW Burnt Umber acrylic drawing ink that I then ragged off, the ink remained in recessed areas and the raised areas remained bright, giving the illusion of greater depth than is actually here.

After the inkwash dried, I worked several thin washes of forest green into the creases to accentuate them even more and imply the sort of verdigris that builds up over time on real copper. This also had the effect of dulling the fake metal-flake effect given by the spray paints even further until the whole thing was virtually indistiguishable from the real copper wastebasket in my bathroom.

With all of the styrofoam yanked out, it fit my head much more closely than a ski helmet, which is one of the reasons it doesn't scan immediately as a repainted plastic ski helmet. I sewed-up a quilted cap liner out of linen to replace it. Naturally, this invalidates it as a crash helmet, but it fits more like a classic helmet this way and since it's only for costume use, I figured what the heck, why not? And Styrofoam's not very Buck Rogers anyway...

Three Recent Steampunk Costumes

2011-01-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

Capt. Arbuckle "Buck" Rogers, Aeronaut
Translating classic sci fi into the steampunk milieu is a time-honored tradition. The happy meeting between my love of steampunk and my love of fifties sci fi. So when an chance to go to Seattle's Steamcon II rolled around, I brought out a steampunk iteration of everyone's favorite time-displaced individual, Captain Buck Rogers.

Throckmorton Q. Calabash, Aeroship Gambler
I grew up in Missouri, land of river boats and Mark Twain. I envision a steampunk milieu of 19th century St Louis, port for paddlewheeler airships and haven of riverboat gamblers and hair-brained inventors of Throckmorton's sort.

James Quartermaine, "Gentleman Adventurer" (read: Feckless Ne'erdowell)
A man of means fallen on hard times and gone on the lam, James Quartermaine is a persona I've adopted off and on for years. Of James, little is known and less is understood, but his gadgetry is as ingenious as those he stole if from and often used to relieve lonely matrons of their jewels.

The Toymaker

2011-01-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

The creative impulse takes many forms and often comes from a place of frustration with what's out there not living up to the potential you can see.

When I was a kid, I made many of my own toys. All of my favorite toy guns came from the crates of miscellaneous junk beneath my grandfather's work bench, not Toys-R-Us. This isn't because we were poor, but because I thought the toys I envisioned in my head were just that much cooler than the ones you could buy at the toy store. For instance, the 1980's were woefully short of space helmets and other spaceman spiffery. I was born twenty years too late for the real teeth of the space race and all the very cool toys that accompanied that space-borne fervor.

Thankfully, my parents and grandparents encouraged this sort of thing. At least until I went as far as getting into pounding heated nails into tiny swords for my GI Joes. Dad drew the line at me becoming an eight-year-old blacksmith.

Even those toys I did buy or was given eventually went under the tools. All of my favorite GI Joe and Star Wars characters and vehicles were custom amalgamations to suit my own fancy, characters in my own extended storylines.

As an adult, I transferred this into sculpture and artwork, but really these are all extensions of the same brain frequency, the translation of a mental picture into a three-dimensional object. I've made props for renaissance faires and small theatrical productions and science fiction conventions.

My name is Scott and I like to build neat stuff. I am a Maker and a Modifier, in short, I am a Toymaker and these are my toys.

Corsetry: Just How Common Was Whalebone In the 16th Century Anyway?

2011-01-17T22:16:00.000-08:00

Corsetry generally falls outside of my realm of costuming, but I've been meaning to post this tidbit of research I did on the prevalence and availability of "Whalebone" in the 16th century after the question came up on the Elizabethan Costuming Tribe over at Tribe.com. Yes, Tribe still exists, and is still limping along as it always has. I encourage you to click that link if you've any interest in Elizabethan constuming in general or this topic in particular. A wealth of information -- an embarassment of riches to be certain.

So, on the topic of whalebone. What was called "Whalebone" was really Baleen, the fine vents of keratin that some whales use to filter krill and other organisms out of sea water as they swim. Keratin, as I believe I mention below is the same thing your fingernails are made of. (I've handled the stuff and yes, it basically feels like a giant splintering fingernail.)

The Muscovy Company held the monopoly for North Sea and Channel whaling for most of the 16th Century. The practice was regulated out the yinyang even then to control (and thus tax) the enormous amounts of revenue it generated.

Incidentally, I hear a lot in historical costuming circles that the Queen had automatic claim to any whale beached in England or Scotland. This apparently only sort of true. According to this article written by TIME Magazine at the time the law was overturned by Parliament, the Queen's royal monopoly on whales was specifically for the tails. The King (if there was one) got the head, which is where the baleen is found. Maybe the king gave it over, or had it made into corsets as a gift to his queen (or his mistresses for that matter).

I know TIME is hardly authoritative on this matter, but I found it amusing.

My favorite reference librarian Racheal dredged up an intriguing article called "A Genetic Analysis of 16th Century whalebones Prompts a Revision of the Impact of Basque Whaling on Right & Bowhead Whales In the Western North Atlantic" (Phew, these titles, I swear...). It's rather long and involved and postulates results for the entire North Atlantic from the analysis of one small sampling of whalebones recovered from a wreck off the Labrador Peninsula that cetacean depopulation predates the onset of large-scale human whaling by the Basques (the first large-scale whalers). Which is interesting enough, and certainly controversial, if only for the broadness of the authors' intent to refute what is largely considered settled history... but not really germane.

As is often the case, though, some really interesting bits are to be found in the extraordinary dissent.

A refutation of that piece, published by Aldemaro Romero and Shelly Kennada (which I, sadly, can no longer find on the open internet) pretty much tears apart their analysis and assumptions. But genetic analysis isn't really why we're here... what's germane to our discussion is the numbers they put up for pre-1611 whaling (when the Muscovy Company received the aforementioned monopoly of the Svalbard whaling grounds... The Basque whaling fleets ranged the whole of the North Atlantic, depopulating an area and moving on like seaborne locusts, killing between the generally-accepted minimum of 25,000 and what he and other historians of the topic I’ve read feel is the more realistic total of 40,000 whales.

Baleen yields for the two most prevalent kinds of whales taken are as follows (according to the delightful site for kids called www.enchantedlearning.com) Bowhead: 350 pairs and Right Whale: 200-270 pairs. Accepting the 40,000 number and assuming an average 310 pairs of baleen yield per whale captured, that’s approximately 24 million individual pieces of whalebone put on the European market put there by the Basque whalers alone. Remember that to make stays, a whole piece of baleen would be split into (at a guess) ten – twenty stays each.

CAVEAT: Corsetry wasn’t the only destination of a piece of ‘whalebone’ (baleen) but with a conservative estimate of 24 million whole individual pieces of baleen on the market in Europe from the Basque whalers alone… do the math.

Rebecca asked about processing the stuff. Baleen is made from a fibrous protein called keratin of a hardness very similar to our fingernails (hard but flexible). It was fibrous so it could be split almost infinitely, and steamed and then cooled to retain a shape. The Tudor Group - as I think I might've mentioned - gets baleen from the British Goverment and you can see some pictures of their tailors working with it on their site: www.tudorgroup.co.uk/index.html

So let’s do some math and play with the numbers a little, because math is fun, right? (crickets chirruping...)

www.Tacitius.nu estimates the 1600 combined populations of France, Spain, Portugal and England (countries where corsetry was ascendant pre-1600) was approximately 34.8 million people, over half of whom were women. So assume 34.8 million women. Even assuming a booming middle class, I would feel comfortable saying that barely half of those 34.8 million women were in the market for a corset, probably more like a quarter of that number, but that’s a guess (all population estimates pre 1800 are guesses anyway, so why not?). Take that and the fact that those 24 million pieces of baleen would be split and split again… you have quite a voluminous commodity, arguing strongly (IMO) that it was moderately expensive but hardly scarce.

http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/population/british.htm

Addendum: A link and some amazing and quite all-inclusive information provided by my dear friend and fellow costumer Noel Gieleghem: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2279/is_n159/ai_21029550/

As always, if anyone has any additional information of links, I'm happy to post them. The Tribe discussion ran the gamut and is well worth a read as well.

A message to my readers

2011-01-17T16:56:00.000-08:00

Oh dear! I have been gone a long time, haven't I?

The last time I posted was over a year ago. In part this is owing to some health issues that are finally beginning to (sort of) resolve themselves, but mainly it's because I fell down the clockwork rabbit hole into steampunk. I's still doing renaissance costuming, but I just haven't made much new stuff in the past year.

Rather than continue to allow this blog stand idle for long stretches while I'm working on things unrelated to the renaissance, or creating a whole new blog and let that one stand idle while I come back here to do renaissance or other stuff, I'll be broadening the focus of this blog to include all of my costuming and garb making.

I hope you don't mind. Never fear, my dabbling in the renaissance is not over by a long shot. As you can see below, I'm in the 2011 promotional video for the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire (Guy with a big nose bouncing around like a maniac)

Anyway, rest assured, the quality renaissance costuming content is not nearly at an end. I have a leather doublet on the drawing board that I'm gathering bits for and will begin as soon as I find the right buttons or closures to complete it! So my rennie and SCA readers can look forward to that.

Incidentally, in case you don't like pawing through the steampunk or sci fi stuff to find the renaissance stuff (or vice-versa), never fear; each period or genre will have its own tag that will be applied to all posts of that milieu.Renaissance, Steampunk, Science Fiction, Prop Making, Leatherwork, etcetera. Some of them might have more than one category, but I'll try to keep overlap to a minimum.

My standards for costuming in any period remain the same:

1. Good garb feels natural when you’re wearing it.
2. Good garb won’t kill you to wear in the August heat (or the halls of a convention center).
3. Good garb is clothing you won’t hate putting on in the morning.
4. Good garb is just as durable as the other clothes in your closet (or better).
5. Good garb weighs style against wearability and strikes a healthy balance.

Hatmaking

2009-10-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

I was putting together a little tutorial on hatmaking and then discovered that the Threadbangers beat me to it...

Role to Hit

2009-08-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

I'm working on two new articles for Garb for Guys, which will be put up as soon as a couple of photographs are fixed and/or re-shot.

In the meantime, if you're feeling bookish and/or if you're looking for me and I'm not here, you can find me at my writing blog, Pages to Type Before I Sleep... I keep an (almost) daily journal where I comment on writing, books, literary culture and the busy intersection of books & technology... the sort of things that might distract me from the book I'm writing if I let them fester. Below is a sample of what that looks like:

Role to Hit
Cross-Pollination Part IV - Lessons Novelists Can Learn from Other Storytellers

I learned to tell stories from my dad, who was quite the raconteur when the mood struck him. I learned to love stories by reading a lot of them. I learned about characterization and what made a story drag you to the edge of your chair by participating in them.

As if I haven't already made it clear that I'm a nerd, today I shall remove any lingering doubts. Today we're going to talk about... (deep breath) role-playing games.

I'm sure I have a pocket protector around here somewhere.

A table in a basement surrounded by young men, soda cans and empty pizza boxes. This raucous gathering was sterotypically the smarter kids from their school who found common cause in their esoterica. Mostly young men, they gather to breathe life back into a faded mythos governed by obscure rules and the chance roll of polyhedral dice... role playing games. About the only legal activity in the high schools of America circa 1980 that had any air of mystery about it. Movies and news reports tried to link role playing games to all sorts of satanic pseudo-mystical nonsense while most of the players viewed it in much the same way their fathers viewed Friday night poker games.

Most people know about Dungeons & Dragons, but there were far more than that: Top Secret, Vampire the Masquerade, Ninjas & Super Spies, Shadowrun, Battletech... the list seems virtually endless and at one time or another and I played them all.

What does this have to do with storytelling?

Everything and nothing.

It's axiomatic that the story looks different from the inside than it will look from the outside. I can tell you stories about things that really happened to me in the back-country during my mountaineering and backpacking days and make you laugh every time. Stories that were frightening, uncomfortable and dangerous when I was living them. I can tell you stories about bad guys thwarted, secret plans stolen and dragons slain in imaginary games and get much the same reaction. But in neither case - the real or the imagined - will it be the same for your reader if you re-tell my story to someone else. It's inherently different because I was there. I was standing in front of that bear or staring over that ledge or slaying that imaginary dragon.

The dramatic tension comes from the experience. The story would not be the same had I not subjected myself to the whims of chance, the roll of the die. And since you didn't experience it except through my narrative, you will tell it differently and with less immediacy than I.

That isn't to say that I want you to run out and throw yourself in front of a bear, or get buried in an avalanche. You don't need to do that in order to write about them. Nor do you need to put together a role-playing game based upon the novel you're writing.

Roleplaying games taught me to have an experience that didn't really happen, to watch it unfold through the eyes of a fictional character. Even if I didn't know what it felt like first-hand to stare down the snout of a black bear or free fall into nothing on the end of a bungee cord, I could create a semblence of that experiencve because I've learned the skill of putting myself into the head of a person that does not exist.

In Telling Lies for Fun & Profit, Lawrence Block talks about how finite even the most compelling life is in terms of storytelling potential. Even if you lived a life of danger as an international jewel thief, you are still - as Block puts it - sitting on a raft in cold waters, chopping bits off the back-end to feed the fire you've started at the front. At some point you will run out of boat. Being able to live through the eyes of an imaginary person allows me to build a bigger boat, feeding the fires with imaginary planks.

One last thing about lessons role-playing games can teach us and then I'll shut up about them...

In Across the Crowded Marketplace, I dwelt on the definitive archetypes, the roles your characters play in the stories they inhabit and how important it is that your readers be able to recognize them on a cultural level. At the core of that is a crucial understanding of your character and what role they fill in the story.

Part of this is the ability to play them consistently through the entire story. On page ten one ear is lower than the other, than on page 220, those ears had better still be assymetrical. I keep track of this using something else role-playing games taught me... the character sheet. Height, weight, eye color, hair color, ethnicity, skin tone, education, distinguishing features, idiosyncrocies... all on an easy-to-reference sheet of paper. This sounds fussy and even anal, and I suppose that it is. It also keeps my legendary absent-mindedness from sidelining my writing while i search the manuscript for some tiny detail from the first chapter.

Role-playing games take place in worlds that are fully-realized entities apart from ours, a shared landscape of the imagination replete with maps, politics and adventures in the offing. they are a place where we can step into other skins and other lives. A similarly-realized world should unfold each time I open my laptop and type "Chapter One" at the top of a page. I owe it to my world and to my characters to know them well enough to be able to tell their stories as if I'd been there too.

---

Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of suspense woven from the threads of history. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines.

Contact Me:
swalkerperkins@gmail.com

Contact Me

Celestial Navigation

2009-08-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

Source: Hubblesite.org

"I've loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night"
-Galileo Galilei

Yesterday was the 400th anniversary of Galileo's introduction of his telescope to the Venetian Senate.

Contrary to what you may believe, he did not invent the telescope. By 1609, relatively weak telescopes had begun to trickle across Europe. Many claimed credit for the invention and none rightly know who first stuck a couple of lenses in a tube and turned it skyward. It is a matter of some controversy, as laid out in the popular history Stargazer: The Life & Times of the Telescope. The claimants to the title range from an early British surveyor Leonard Digges & Son (who failed to capitalize on their invention if indeed they ever built one) and Hans Lipperhay who has the advantage of being among the first to file for a patent (which was denied, according to Stargazer because even then his was not the only telescope knocking around).

All the same, we honor Galileo's telescope today largely because of the man who built it and how he put it to use. It is noteworthy that when Galileo sat down to make his telescope, it was an artifact of which had had only heard descriptions: Two lenses in a tube that can view far away objects as though they were close-by. With his native intellect and knowledge of optics, the Pisan scholar assembled his telescope as a variable-focus instrument and presented it before the senators.

It was not long before astronomers everywhere were pointing their lenses skyward. It began before Galileo even built his famed stargazer, but as we know it was Galileo who led the way. His observations of the surface of the moon, that other celestial bodies also had satellites and that the sun has a bad complexion forced a reassessment of the received knowledge of the ancients. The moon was - at the time - supposed to be smooth and perfect. The Medician Moons of Jupiter were a shock, for it proved that not all bodies orbited the Earth. Sunspots marred the perfection of old Sol... the Ptolemaic model of our universe was crumbling.

Paired with the precise measurement of the heavens taken by Tycho Brahe (without a telescope, incidentally) it was readily apparent to all observers that the planets did not move in neat concentric rings. And Earth could not possibly be the center of their oblong orbits. The movement of the Earth itself was the only explanation for the aberrations, the movement of Earth around the sun.

"The scriptures tell us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."
-Galileo Galilei (attr.)

The vastness of space opened before us, a universe that went about its business with little regard for humans. In the end it was not the position that the Earth held in the universe that brought the full weight of church and state down upon Galileo, it was the position of man in that vastness that doomed his research. The orthodox view held that mankind was the center of God's plan and a vast stretch of infinity filled with planets and stars moving of their own accord did not fit into that equation.

We all know what happened next.

In a familiar pattern, the dispute became a matter of politics more than faith and Galileo had made few friends among his peers that would risk all to stand at his side. His views ran afoul of the counter-reformation, a movement fighting to keep Mother Church united against the forces unleashed by Martin Luther and those who came after him. Galileo's views could not be tolerated and he came into the sights of the Inquisition. In such a climate, even his powerful patrons among the d'Medici could no longer protect him. It was all they could do to keep him alive. The orthodox viewpoint brooks no rivals and Galileo was forced to recant his position and abandon his research to live the rest of his life in obscurity.

It was a low point for both church and state, an orthodox viewpoint scrambling to keep enough fingers in the dam to hold back the waters of the coming enlightenment.

Coffee houses soon replaced the taverns and the minds of men, awakened from the (quite literal) drunken stupor* of the previous age were not eager to return to a time when the darkness drove them indoors. The whole of creation had shifted ever so slightly and humanity was scrambling to keep up, to find its place in a universe where mankind was a part of the plan, not necessarily at its center.

The telescope was out of the bag and those whose eyes were turned Earthward could not darken the lenses turned toward the sky.

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
-Galileo Galilei

Further reading:
Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel
Stargazer: The Life & Times of the Telescope by Fred Watson
The Galileo Project online at Rice University

Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, Dies

2009-07-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, Dies
You may remember that the other day I mentioned that he had pulled through his cancer treatments only to be stricken with meningitis. Alas, we have lost a giant. A great wordsmith, stylist and the arch-nemesis of the quotation mark... He will be missed.

Crewel World II

2009-07-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

In Crewel World part one (click to go there) I talked about a rapier carrier I made a long time ago. The design incised into the leather (shown above) is drawn from a tile in a cathedral somewhere. Sadly, I've long since lost the original picture the design was based upon as it was many years and a couple of computers ago. Nevertheless, the design has been re-cast in whole or in part on a great deal of the garb I've made since then.

Yesterday, I did it again. For the lid of the purse I'm making I brought the design into a more Elizabethan vine motif and coloring while maintaining the original cruciform arrangement of the elements.

The design was drawn onto the green canvas with a stick of graphite (you can still see some of the marks in the photo below) and backstitched over the marks with crewel yarn to give dimension to the embroidery. The backstitching was covered with satin stitch, and buttonhole stitch using linen and wool thread.

I chose a darker background color that the off-white used in the inspiration garment (and other very similar designs scattered through the Elizabethan world). This is because my hand will go into and out of the purse fairly often, making this an item that will be especially prone to getting dirty.

The aforementioned inspiration garment can be found here: http://www.plimoth.org/embroidery-blog/. The folks at Plimoth were re-creating a heavily embroidered late-period jacket entirely by hand. This entailed reconstructing unknown stitches and techniques. I say "were" because the funding for the project has been canceled owing to the current economic troubles. (The embroiders involved have vowed to continue despite the lack of funding, so there's hope.) Follow that link, you will be amazed.

Site layout changes...

2009-07-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

I spent the day embroidering a lid for my new belt purse and it's almost done. Photos will be posted soon along with the Manly Pursemaking Demo. (Don't worry, you won't have to embroider anything if you don't want to. I'll show you how to get around it!)

Blog Template Updates
So... the site template is all new.
What do you think?

Is it better? Is it worse? Be honest! Use the comments below because I've never had much luck with Blogger's "Poll" widget.

These Truths I Hold To Be Self-Evident... Redux

2009-07-16T13:28:00.001-07:00

Since we began our journey back in October of 2005 (a bit earlier for me, but that's when you joined me on the road) my feelings on several aspects of this art & craft have changed. The five central tenets of my costuming mantra have not... let us review:

1. Good garb feels natural when you’re wearing it.
2. Good garb won’t kill you to wear in the August heat.
3. Good garb is clothing you won’t hate putting on in the morning.
4. Good garb is just as durable as the other clothes in your closet (or better).
5. Good garb weighs style against wearability and strikes a healthy balance.

Over the years, I've added a few addendae to support and expand-upon the central philosphy...

Nomenclature: I like the word "Garb" and use it in part to differentiate between my everyday street clothes and what I make for reenactment and/or faire. Another period-correct word offered up by the venerable OED is "Duds". I use both, but mostly I call it 'garb' or 'clothing'. I generally shy away from "costume" because I don't like the immediate association with Halloween despite its literal definition.

Handsewing: I made this doublet entirely by hand so it's not a question of ability it's a matter of the best-application of a finite resource: time. I actually like handsewing now that I've accustomed my hand to it. But I lack the time for such efforts. So I will use handsewing when it suits my whims or if it would be too obvious otherwise. Long or turned seams usually go under the frantic needle of the hotrod.

Period Perfection: All of the clothing I make is based upon historical paintings and patterns (where possible). Unlike many who perspire over handsewing and 100% period fabrics, I tend to focus more on the overall “feel” and the correct “look” of a garment. This makes me a heretic in some circles. I am comfortable with that.

Garb Engineering: My wife is an engineer. Certain terms have bled into my sewing vernacular, like "Prototype" and "Beta Test".

All of the clothing I make is Action Garb.

If I could have one overall effect on the historical costuming community, it would be this: The items we are making were the everyday clothing of the people in the historical era we are portraying. (That's tenets #1 & 4 if you're playing along at home.)

People lived in the stuff we're imitating here. The chased lovers (and were chased by lovers if they were lucky), coddled children, fenced, swung from chandeliers, quaffed ales, guffawed hearty guffaws and generally lived full active lives in their clothes... their garb. Sometimes I think we forget that in our blind pursuit of what we allege to be 'period perfection'. It is possible to "be period" and be comfortable at the same time. Even in nobles. What good is garb that looks fabulous, is made of expensive period materials, and is as uncomfortable as the Iron Maiden? If you can't feed yourself, looking pretty won't do you any good. (We lose more nobles that way)

The best advice I can think of is... Don't fret so damn much. This is supposed to be fun. Attain the look. Make it wearable. Make it comfortable. Don't stay up nights worrying about it.

A thousand “Garb Snarks” just began gnashing their teeth as I wrote that, but it’s how I truly feel. (And stop that. It's bad for your teeth!)

Scott

The DeMedici Suit

2009-07-15T13:05:00.000-07:00

Wow. It's been a long time.

As you may recall, my renaissance faire ran afoul of the local color and ended up closing last year. Well, it's received some resuscitation and will reemerge this year in a new location (though sadly not the same beautiful forested location we had spent so much time and energy renovating for the canceled season., alas.)

All the same, we have returned, and with it returns my yen to complete these projects and plow ahead into the next round of garb construction!

The fact that I was entailed to perform a friend's Shakespearean-themed wedding certainly helped me get things done too.

You may remember (or you may not, it's been awhile) that I was working on a doublet & trunkhose faithful to the extant garments of Don Garzia de'Medici. These are clothing items which had the good fortune to cross paths with both the amazing Janet Arnold and whomever is responsible for the photos you can find posted here at The Realm of Venus. (I assume it's Bella's camera, bellissima as always.)

Well... two years later, it's done. I'll be detailing it here over the course of the next week or so in my usual manner.

Fabrics
Since the design for this one is essentially done for me I got to skip directly to choosing colors (consult Page 54 of your copy of Patterns of Fashion for Janet's fantastic detailed drawings). The original deMedici garments were originally red silk which has faded to a dark rust color. I took Janet's description of that dark rust and ran straight to my favorite Moroni portrait: The unknown tailor pictured above. The white doublet and red paned slops make a wonderful contrast.

The Doublet:
Much of the doublet has already been blogged. The original idea behind this doublet was actually to make a doublet that I could show a (mostly) complete replication of some of the nubbier points of historical garment construction. It was used for stitching demos, notes on padding and stiffening, and some light embroidery.

The doublet fits better than this, I assure you. I had been ill for awhile before this photo was taken (giving me all sorts of time to do all that handsewing and embroidery) and I've thankfully gained-back the weight it was designed to cover. Think of this as a portrait in a plague year.

One of the small changes I made include elongating and re-structuring of the waist a bit. I have a very long torso and some tailoring was necessary to account for that with regard to the original garments. The line of the doubletwaist is therefore a bit less contoured in my doublet than the one in the museum.

The Trunkhose:
Slops, pumpkin pants, paynsied breeches, call them what you will. These you have not yet seen...

The fabrics are wool and linen in a dark russet, almost red. The color match is practically perfect for two fabrics that were purchased so far apart and from different retailers. The wool is on the lighter end of "coat weight" so call it a flannel for our purposes.

The colors echo the Moroni contrast between doublet and trunkhose nicely, I think.

In part because I ended up too close to my deadline (the wedding day) there is substantially less handsewing on the trunkhose and even the embroidery ended up being done by machine. I may go back over it at some point, but I might not because I rather like the way it turned out.

The backs of the panes are an identically-colored denim that I lucked out and found in the sewing room, just waiting for me to re-discover. Yes, three identically-colored fabrics in three different materials bought at three different times. Either it's fate or I'm just that incredibly boring...

Divinity is in the Details...
Or is it the devil?

I'm a big believer in small details piling up to make a better overall impression, even if the people you meet never notice them. I like embroidery done in the same color as the underlying fabric for this reason. Texture. Also little details like handmade buttons and leathergoods contribute to an overall difference between your garment and the next person's.

There are several things going on here that are often ignored or overlook at least at renaissance faire. I don't honestly know if it's just faire actors or reenactors in general, but men's doublets seem tobut rarely be pointed to the slops. The deGarcia garments are pointed all the way around and so are my renditions of them.

It's a bit like walking around wearing a jumpsuit, really and when you have to use the privy, one is well-advised to use the handicapped stall because you're going to need a bit of room to maneuver. I can see why they did it and I can see why we stopped doing it.

Belt loops are a boon to our civilization.

There are some snapshots from the wedding, of course, but the official pictures aren't in yet and naturally they will tend to focus on the Bride & Groom. So I plan to don the duds again soon and stage some photos. So stay tuned for better photos of the whole thing actually on my corpus.

Upcoming Demos...

Eyelets!
Points!
Making your own paned trunkhose pattern.
Constructing a codpiece (we had to discuss it sooner or later).
Better belts.
A most manly purse.
Less alliteration... ok, not really.

It's good to be back.
- Scott

The blog has been idle, but I have not...

2009-07-14T13:30:00.003-07:00

A lot has happened since last we met. I lost my father to cancer, which set me back quite a bit and threw just about everything into a cocked hat. Add to the fact that about nine months before he passed away, I was in a car accident and you get a bad year all the way around.

Nevertheless, I've found my bearings and come through. I hope you stuck with me through the long silence.

These are the things I've been up to recently...

I've been learning to mold and sculpt with leather. Allowing me to make some leather masks for dear friends and loved-ones for to conceal their identities mid-foolery:

Which is known far and wide as "The Bubble Mask" (bubbleblowing mechanism designed by my fair ladyfool, pictured). You can see Daf's Bubble Mask in action in the parade video at the bottom of this post.

They're getting more elaborate as I go along and experiment with the extremes of the leathern medium. I'm planning to play with the forms quite a bit. The forms will be historically inspired as any leather mask must be, but as you can see, I have my own take on things. The red and green masks, for instance, are quite goblinish. I'll post more as I make them.

I also made a snazzy new hats. When I'm feeling down I often start making hats. This hat is a pattern entirely my own and is quasi-period inspired. There's a "cockscomb" of bells down the centerline and the "ass's ears" are unabashedly curlicue (they're wired so I can move them around and they'll stay where I put them).

It isn't necessarily meant to be 100% accurate so much as draw attention when I'm promoting the faire at parades and the like.

I completed the suit of clothes I've been talking about and will post details on that soon. I hope to revive this blog in the near term with details and updates as I document that suit of duds and begin construction on my very period suit of noble silks.

I've also written another novel, painted my house, performed a wedding and started another blog specifically dealing with the things that occur to me about and while writing that updates at least three times a week if not more often.

This is our renfaire's participation in the annual Gig Harbor Maritime Festival parade... "Pirates of the Peninsula" was the theme of the event. You can see my new hat and Daf's bubble mask in action throughout the video.

Years of a Clown

2008-07-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

.

This is long and meandering. Consider yourself forewarned.

My home faire, the Washington Renaissance Fantasy Faire (WRFF) has been canceled. At least for this year. There was a battle with local commissioners over the new site. We lost. I've been absent from this blog because every spare moment has been spent flyering, marketing, leading parades, waving banners and finally getting in the middle of a multi-car, terrible, awful auto accident. Head injury, neck and back. Not conducive to sewing during recovery.. I was pushing my physical therapy, in fact, to get back up and running in time for the first weekend of August. No one wants a limping fool, after all.

There are many and varied "shutdown" events being planned to keep everyone together for the weekends in question...

I don’t really know what most people get out of faire. I assume that if you’re engaged in this enterprise at the level of a volunteer performing artist in for a for-profit enterprise, then on some level what you get out of it is more than the sum of its parts. We are unpaid actors entertaining a paying audience, after all.

There are several ideas being bandied about for reproducing the salient aspects of faire that most people will miss: period camping, campfire cooking, after hours at the alehouse, and even jousting. I don’t know what – if anything – will come of these ideas. All of these messages begin with the same message: “Find what you will miss about faire and we’ll figure out a way to reproduce it…”

I don’t think I can.

I will miss the camaraderie of my fellow actors, to be sure. I will miss the evenings of talking around a campfire (or lantern in the dry years), drinking with my friends in the Nunnery, and the low chatter of voices beyond the canvas walls of my tent as I surrender to sleep, the morning groggery, the first cup of coffee out of the French Press passed around, the dyspeptic grumble when people realize that if they want more they must grind their own beans and all I brought was a mortar and pestle.

I will miss those things and a hundred more. And I will attend as many of the shutdown weekends as I can make it to. Because all of those things that can be reproduced in a campground or the back forty of someone’s land. I will attend because we are friends first and Ren Faire Actors second.

But that’s not the sum of the pleasure I derive from those three weekends of August. What I get out of faire doesn’t happen after hours, in a camp (period or otherwise), an alehouse, or on a horse in the list.

I’ve told this story before. My ‘career’ with renaissance faire almost died the first day.

I started faire as a generic ‘Guy With A Sword’. Officially, I think the roster said I was a mercenary named James Wylde, but the mercenaries weren’t an organized guild and for all his historically-correct backstory, James wasn’t a character with a pulse. We didn’t gig or have anything assigned to us to do. There was a lot of time sitting in the guildyard. My wife was in the same boat, playing the ‘Pretty Girl in Noble Dress’ (on the roster she was Princess Claude de Valois) and the nobles didn’t do much that year either. They were hired outside players and snubbed the volunteers at every opportunity. If it wasn’t for Richard Curtain taking her under his wing, loaning her his two footmen to wait on her, I think she would have been even more upset than I was with that first day.

We tried to fit in, to find our niche, but it was for naught. I distinctly remember talking about not returning the second weekend.
Several things happened the night of that first disappointing Saturday of faire that brought us back. The first was that Mary found us. As the irrepressible Mistress Sophie, Mary was the heart and soul of The Hearth of St Brigid, as she had named our peasant guild. She led the wayward wenches and it was through her that we began to see not only that we had miscast ourselves as princess and pawn but that there was a *way* to do these things. The Tao of Renfaire. We also discovered that we had friends there. We met Zoe that night. Malakai fell asleep wrapped in my cloak. We sang songs we’d learned at the Kansas City Renfaire and found Charles when he and his group walked over and joined in the song. There was David, Mel, Holly, Denise… and many others who aren’t around anymore. And many, many more since. And where there are friends, there is a way.

When Saturday morning dawned, we gave it a second try. We had been attending ren faires forever, as patrons whose costuming made even the actors – and once the directors – think we were actual actors. We knew how to milk the life out of even the smallest faires and festivals. We spun away from our alleged guilds and walked together through the shops, Kristin played princess to every little girl who cooed over her gown, and we generally found our own faire… but we noticed that the people who were having all the fun were in Mary’s guild. They were the peasants. They climbed trees, tussled on the ground, quaffed ales in the alehouse… and they interacted with the patrons. The only guild that seemed to be doing that with any regularity.

That was when the last two things happened that rescued our faire experience and cemented forever what we would derive from faire – and I suppose what faire would get from us too.

Escorting Kristin through a booth, a leather mask caught my eye. It stood out among the flaming faces, fairies and green men and standard tissues of modernist whimsy. It was simple, yet distinct among the others. Dark reddish brown commedia-style leather, prominent nose, flaring nostrils and arching eyebrows… perhaps Pantalone without the bushy eyebrows, or a particularly disdainful Capitano had been in the mind of the maskmaker. Among the stonefaced bland masks surrounding it, this mask had character, cheeks drawn up in mischievous glee, one eyebrow arched in perpetual amusement.

I was entranced. I paid $85.00 for it. Today I can’t find any like it for less than $125 and they haven’t the quality and my mask is quality. And even though I can make my own now – and probably could have then – it was worth every penny paid for it. Last year, I spoke with that merchant and she told me she still occasionally got catalogues that had a mask like mine in it and decided not to order another one. Said she only knew one person who wanted one and he already had one. Then she winked at me.

All the following week, that mask sat on the shelf above my computer as I worked, drawing my eyes away from the screen. I turned it over and over in my hands, examining it from every angle. It was sturdily made from heavy leather, sealed inside and out. An elastic headband was attached… I put it on and stood in front of a mirror, frowning at my reflection. The mask looked manic, a pent-up id waiting to escape.

Saturday of second weekend dawned. Kristin dressed and got out of the tent as I sat staring at the mask, questions tumbling over themselves in my head. I hadn’t asked permission to change characters. I was in the mercenary guild. Could I just create a new character and slip away from my guild without getting in trouble? I should ask Amy, she’s the director. I didn’t care. Forgive me, Amy, but at that point I was fed up with my faire experience and needed to change or leave. I had nothing to lose. I needed a name. What was my name?

I put the mask on and stepped out of my little tent. Mel laughed when she saw me and I felt better. My mind still a-twirl with questions, I sketched an elaborate bow to Mel, waved to Kristin and the others and skipped away down the trail toward the faire site. I needed to be alone on the faire site. See if I could do this. What was my name? Who was the guy in the mask?

As I traversed Shadow Glen, Mary was standing talking to someone. As I stepped onto the troll bridge, still wondering if I was going to get into trouble, Mary hailed me.

“I KNOW YOU, MISCHIEF MAKER!”

It all clicked.

I whirled into a clumsy pirouette and favored her with an even more elaborate bow than the last.

“I am Calabash!” I called. And I was. In that moment, it happened. No longer a man in a mask, it was all of one, a character whole. Mary saw it happen, I think. She laughed. No one can laugh like Mary. There’s something about it. Something infectious. It should be studied. If you could distill it, reproduce it, we would have world peace (or maybe three billion Calabashes… who knows?) I stopped questioning and capered away across the bridge and up the hill onto the green for the morning meeting.

There have been years since where I didn’t get what I came for. I was captain of the Queen’s Guard once upon a time. I had fun, playing an actual historical role. Tromping around in my big boots and pumpkin pants, pike held high as I shouted for people to get out of the way. But that’s not really my thing. I didn’t get out of that role what I got from playing the fool, which is why I passed it on.

I have since led the reincarnation of The Hearth of St Brigid with Mary’s blessing and tried to honor the ideas she taught us, the atmosphere she created before she moved on to other things. At times – when I have been ill or it has been too hot to wear the mask – I have taken back the mantle of Seamus the Scrivener. An upstanding man of the village, an artist and natural scientist and I enjoy that role, derive great pleasure from the intellectual aspects and teaching children to write with a quill, or demonstrating period optics or whatever.

Always I come back to Calabash. The unbridled id. Fascinated by children. In turns, playing each role of the Commedia as well as some maniac cross between Bugs Bunny and Harpo Marx. It took me about eight hours to realize I needed to make the mask somehow less intimidating to smaller kids, and a favor from the Green Seattle Knights (who were our jousters at the time) went up one nostril to trail in the breeze as I capered and spun. These many boogers later, the mask looks naked without it.

I don’t know how others will distill their main pleasure from faire into something reproducible in the context of another event or private gathering. But it is through the lens of Calabash that I get from faire that which keeps me coming back. Children giggle when I chew on my booger, or pull it out and jump rope, or pull a coin out of their ears… or whatever. I lead processions in manacles and run away from the guards, trying to sell the manacles to patrons as I dance around them trying to get away from the guards. “May I interest m’lady in a nice matched-set of bracelets? Chained together so you cannot lose one…”

There’s an energy created by the interaction between actor and act, between the stage and the audience. It’s ever the more intense when there is no division between the recipient of the actor’s attention and the actor, no footlights to blind us to their presence. It cannot be quantified, or measured. Some tell me that it generates more light than heat, that it’s somehow beneath other forms of art… and I smile because they do not know. They cannot because they don’t have a Calabash.

How do you get from a private gathering what I get from the patrons as Calabash? I don’t think I can.

I will attend these shutdown events and I shall enjoy the presence of my friends and the camaraderie of the campfire. I will sleep in my tent and drink from my tankard, sing the songs we all know, and dance the dances forgotten by the world without. And it will be fun. I will enjoy myself thoroughly.

Calabash will sleep in his box, waiting for the next faire or parade or folklife event. The next gathering opportunity to emerge into the light of childrens’ smiles, and the incredulous stares of parents or gasps of teens as he slurps a meter and a half of booger out of his own nostril.

A Bone to Pick.... (Herringbone Stitch Demo)

2008-03-22T01:08:00.001-07:00

The "Herringbone Stitch" is quite possibly the second most useful stitch in the book, right after the running stitch. It's used as a decorative embroidery stitch and a constuction stitch and sometimes both. The Herringbone's raison d'être is to join two pieces of fabric together in a manner in which allows them to lay flat, but may easily be parted when the need presents. This is why it's used so often for linings and hems

1.) Working left to right (if you're right-handed anyway, if you're a southpaw, do all of this backward, sorry.) start with a backstitch, down and up through the top fabric (white). Pull the thread diagonally to a position ahead of the starting point and make another stitch in the bottom fabric (black) returning to a point just in back of the starting knot...

2.) Pull your thread forward and up so that it forms an uneven "X", as shown, and take another bite of the top fabric (white), backstitching as before...

3.) Up and another "X", coming down to the bottom fabric and backstitch again...

4.) Repeat and repeat and repeat, keeping stitches even and thread tension consistant so that you form a row of little overlapping X's on one side...

5.) ...and a row of offset stitches on the obverse side. (NOTE: when you are stitching a lining into a doublet as I will be doing, these stitches do not show on the outside of the garment.)

This is what they look like - as applied to a garment - in this case, my Medici doublet...

Inside front. The button hole placket folded back and sewn to the lining.

Green damask collar lining joined to the body lining of the doublet.

Making an Ass of Myself

2008-03-22T00:56:00.000-07:00

Just for the heck of it...

In period, fools usually wore hoods adorned with asses ears and/or coxcombs as well as the more usual bells and the like. Based partially on the painting "The Bean King" (Background, viewer's left).

(Yes, I know it's 17th century, mostly I chose the colours from the fool's hood in this painting and ignored the rest) and partly from the engravings of the book Ship of Fools (Stultifera Navis by Sebastian Brant) I concocted a hood for myself...

It's made from plum and camel coloured wool with a coarse woven raw silk lining. The buttons are actually bells. I wanted to be able to take it off without removing my mask, hence the choice to include buttons.

Collaring (Redux)

2008-03-05T13:13:00.000-08:00

So... it's a few years on, and here I am, back at that finicky collar again. I just can't leave it alone. I was amused recently to read the notes for Margo Anderson's 'Gentleman's' doublet pattern and find that she too had the problem with the pucker and from her research so did the period tailor. I have no idea if that's true, but it certainly makes me feel better!

It's the 'grown-on' collar (as the Tudor Tailor ladies call it) that is a collar cut-in-a-piece with the body pieces of the doublet (and frequently cussed-in-a-piece for good measure). My troubles last time I messed with this consarn thing led me back to my original source for this, The Tailor's Pattern Book by Juan de Alcega. Alcega pretty clearly lays out the pieces I've drafted for my doublets for years now. Front, side, back, curved sleeves and... wait a minute... a curved collar!? (far right, top row)

Odd. I've never noticed that before. Going back through the men's renaissance clothing patterns I have in my library, neither does anyone else. All of the patterns I've reviewed have the collars either entirely separate, or the front pieces are cut from straight rectangles...

So maybe that's the secret? It stands to reason that the off-square piece would be easier to ease into the curve of the neck and account for issues as they crop up.

Final Thoughts Before Sewing...

I decided to go with the patterned white velvet I showed a picture of earlier. I liked it better than any of the others I looked at.
I did an informal pole on one of the costuming sites over at Tribe.net and overwhelmingly people expressed a preference for hand-sewing only when it would be glaringly obvious if it wasn't or they couldn't avoid it. So for the record, I'm aiming for the happy meeting between hidden machine stitching and visible hand-stitching.
I'm going to figure out that damn collar or I'm gonna quit show business.

So it begins...

Using the hotrod, the body of the doublet goes together quickly... all nice long seams.

After messing with this &$@% cotton velvet for a bit I came to the realization that I was going to need to reinforce some of the seams that bear the greatest amount of stress. Janet Arnold, thankfully, shows this practice in many of the garments she examined. Some of them look rather like patchwork quilts on the inside with all the padding, reinforcing tapes, et al. Here's a glimpse of what that looks like...

This is the inside of the shoulder seam with the lining herringbone stitched into place. The canvas will not only reinforce the seam, but also help stiffen the collar.

Speaking of collars, I cut my two front pieces and they are decidedly un-square. With two layers of cotton batting padstitched into place, I'm ready to give it a go...

This is the first fitting, with Tigger doing the honors. (Kristin was using her dress dummy, what can I say? I improvised.)

When I'm wearing it (instead of the Tigger), the pucker isn't there either... well, mostly. By cutting the collar off-square, and indeed curving the piece - at least a little - I had more going for me as I eased the piece into the body of the doublet.

As you can see, there's some residual pull across the back of the neck in the picture below, but a bit more tailoring on the next one and I'm there.

It's almost time to get down to hand-sewing and our next hand-stitch... the Herringbone.

Pad-stitching (With Demo)

2008-02-26T17:13:00.000-08:00

The stitch at the top of the list of stitches I don't usually use but should has to be the pad-stitch.

If you have been with me for awhile, you'll remember the jerkin I made with the quilted collar and all of the fussing I did with that collar to get it to work. I cannot tell you how much better that garment would have turned out had I used the pad stitch to arrive at the effect I wanted instead of machine stitching the thing... well actually I can tell you, or at least I'm going to try.

What is a Pad Stitch?

The Pad Stitch is a method of bonding several layers together - without applying adhesives - into a single unit so that they move as one piece and are stiffer than they would be individually.

That's a long, technical, way of going about saying that this is the period method we imitate with fusible interfacing. The pad stitch can bond as many layers as you like together in such a way as they will move as if it's one thick piece of cloth. Janet Arnold notes one such application in a period doublet in which the collar bears "striped wool pad-stitched over two layers of linen, and another layer of wool." This is just the stiffening layers for this collar and does not include the outer fabric, interlining or silk lining! Now that's a collar that's not about to flop around in a breeze!

Pad-stitching is a simple zig-zag stitch. Essentially you're making "Z's" with the diagonal on the front and the horizontal arms underneath, connecting them, like you see in the image above or the illustration at the right (click for a larger image).

The pad-stitch can be used anytime there are multiple layers of fabric to be bonded together and can even create a quilted look if applied correctly. Had I pad-stitched the collar of the aforementioned jerkin, there would not have been as much loss of girth and I probably would not have encountered some of the issues that I had to cope with.

Why Bother?
Even if you machine-stitch the whole garment, pad-stitch the collar and belly by hand. The stitch tension is infinitely easier to maintain and the final effect smoother if you're in full control of the thread with every stitch, varying it as the sewing demands. No machine I've ever encountered can do that... not even the Hot Rod.

As you can see in the orange doublet (left) I blogged about awhile back, the straight channeled stitches pull the fabric down into a 'ditch'. This is fine on a flat quilt because quilters know to account for this 'shrink' as each successive line of stitches pulls the fabric across the entirety of the quilt and accounts for a 'loss' of several inches of fabric on a side. Quilted garments made in this fashion did exist (hand-quilted, of course), but the stitches were comparatively loose and the garment oversized to compensate for the rate of shrinkage.

Pad-stitching the same part of the same garment would have drawn in less fabric, thereby creating less shrinkage problems and been appreciably more period in its final effect. These stitches are normally hidden in the inner workings of your doublet, but the 'back' of the stitch can also surface to create the quilted effect, as Janet Arnold noted on the collar of the 'Nils Sture' leather doublet and as you can see on the garment to the right. (click for larger image)

Tudor Tailor, Margot Anderson and many other pattern makers and books on costuming covering the 15th and 16th centuries advise using a natural cotton quilt batting to stiffen collars, peplum, and fill out the bellies of peascod doublets. This is what I tend to do. You can resort to period stiffeners if you want. As I mentioned, Janet Arnold specifically notes the prevalence of multiple layers of wool, linen and buckram in the extent period garments she analyzed for her seminal work Patterns of Fashion. That's all well & good for you, but it sounds a little too hot since I mostly wear these garments in August. One layer of cotton batting breaths a mite better than multiple layers of wool.

Where should you use it?
As I already mentioned, the collar and the belly are the two most common places you will find padding and therefore the pad-stitch. That being said, it can be used just about anywhere that two or more layers of fabric need to be bonded so as to move without hindering one another. Another common area is the back, and I tend to add a stiffening layer in the belly region even if I'm not padding it out peascod-style.

How do you do it?
I haven't done a demo in awhile, so I thought this might be a good time and a good subject for me to begin again with...

As I said, and as you can see from the illustration up above, it's pretty much a simple matter of even zig-zags in parallel rows up and down the garment, each penetrating only deep enough to catch the next layer.

For this demo, I used plastic canvas in two different colours to better differentiate the layers, and substituted red yarn for the thread to make certain the images are clear. The only difference between what you see me doing here and what you will be doing on your garment is the regularity of the holes in the plastic. As with any handstitchery you do (outside of embroider on even-weave linen) you won't be able to count holes to keep your stitches nice and even.

Start your first stitch by making a "Z" with the top and foot of the
letter on the back and only the diagonal showing on the front.

Continue down the row as far as the size of your fabric or your
desired design allows or calls for. (Notice how when I hold it up
to the light that you can see the full zigzag? This is what you
want to see.)

End each row with a long horizontal stitch, bringing you in line
with your next row. Some people like to work these so that the
diagonals form chevrons. It doesn't make any difference unless
someone's going to be able to see it.

If you're going to make your stitches visible from the outside of the
garment as on the collar above, you should practice making the
back as even and careful as the front. I confess that when these
stitches will be hidden I don't spend a lot of time sweating such things.

The end result is two pieces of fabric that move as one.
Nice even stitches in parallel rows will bond the fabric together
until it moves as one unit, as you can see above.

NOTE: If you're doing a piece that will have a permanent curve on the final, you can further eliminate wrinkling and shrinkage from 'quilting' by working the piece over a curved surface: your knee, a bolster, a rolling pin or whatever maintains the desired curve as you're working. I've even appropriated a kitchen cannister before to act as a stand-in for my neck. A smooth final product is the desired result, use whatever you need to achieve the best possible result!

Fair warning... This activity is known to attract onlookers!

Good luck!
- Scott

DeMedici Doublet...

2008-02-23T09:54:00.000-08:00

So I want to make a 'sampler doublet' to practice and test techniques prior to making the final outfit based on the historical example of the DeMedici grave goods. A wearable prototype of the final so I can fully test the outfit beyond merely making a mockup or muslin which shall henceforth be known as "Medici Mark I".

According to Janet Arnold, the original garment was probably of crimson stuff that has since faded to russet. That being said, russet is a better color on me, and I like it better, so I'm going with it. The final will be made from russet silk and velvet but otherwise I shall stick perilously close to the original... I hope.

A Whiter Shade of Pale...
It's time to choose the fabric for the prototype. Since all of my prototypes have to result in wearable garments, fabric selection is as important as for the final. It's also a grand opportunity to reduce the bulk on the shelves of fabric in our sewing room. Yes, prototyping masquerading as Stash-Reduction!

I begin the choosing by tallying what I want from the final...

It must be white.
It must have good texture from a distance but the texture cannot overwhelm the final embroidery.
The design-if it has one-must be acceptably period so I can wear the final garment to faire.
It must not be so friable that I cannot pause mid-stitch to take pictures for this blog without coming back to a mess. (ahem)
It must be from the shelf in the sewing room and not the fabric store. I want this project to reduce the stash, not add to it.

I was reading through a book called "5,000 Years of Textiles" and marveling at the breadth and depth of the weaver's art in the 16th century and especially their ability to get textured effects using cut and uncut velvets. One of these was an imitation of strapwork with alternating velvet areas and smooth areas.

This upholstery fabric from my stash bears a striking resemblance and at the moment it is the frontrunner...

Because I want to do a white-on-white embroidery to the final garment, my wife asked why I don't simply use a plain white canvas (which she then handed to me). I might, but the reason I've been mentally steering away from the idea is that I didn't want to do that much embroidery. I was looking to do accents and patterns and generally practice my stitches as you do on a sampler.

So... I think I may have found my fabric! I'll keep digging and let you know how it goes.

NEXT: Construction Stitches, why they're important and how to use them...

Doublet, Jerkin or Jack?

2008-02-21T18:54:00.000-08:00

Here’s something interesting I didn’t know until I looked it up today… the word ‘Jerkin’, which causes so much confusion in period, is the newer of the two words. I have – to this point – always operated under the assumption that they were two regional words for roughly the same thing that eventually grew to such commonplace usage that they lived on to confuse future costumers.

From the Oxford English Dictionary… (In order of precedence by first appearance)

“Jack: A short and close-fitting upper garment of men & women; a jacket. […] Ultimate origin uncertain, but app. French: thought by some to be identical with the proper name Jacques, perhaps as originally worn by the peasantry.” First documented appearance: 1375

“Doublet: A close-fitting body-garment, with or without sleeves, worn by men from the 14^th to the 18^th centuries (rarely applied to a similar garment worn by women)” it goes on to say… “The doublet had many changes of fashion, being at one time with, at another time without, short skirts. In its various sleeved and sleeveless forms, it was the prototype of the modern coat, jacket and waistcoat.”

“Jerkin: A garment of the upper body worn by men in the 16^th and 17^th centuries; a close-fitting jacket, jersey or short coat often made of leather.” First documented appearance: 1519.

So… there you go then.

A jacket is a unisex item of utility, thought to denote a peasant garment of French extraction. The Doublet is a man’s garment, with or without sleeves. (Note that the women’s ‘Doublet’ bodice was apparently rarely referred to as such in period documents, but no citations noted.) And a Jerkin is a later appellation most often referring to a leather garment, though bandied about quite a bit to cover jerseys and just about anything else. One of the citations (from 1599 by Thynne notes: “A common garment dalye used such as we call a jerken or jacket without sleeves.” (emphasis added by me) so at least by 1599, in common parlance, the ‘jerken’ (sic) had become synonymous not with the doublet, but with the jacket as a utilitarian garment.

The Ghost of Projects Past, Present & Future

2008-02-21T01:02:00.000-08:00

Time to recap (since I've been only fitfully keeping this updated this past year). The prototype suit of clothes I have dubbed the "Moroni Suit Mark I" is complete and has withstood rigorous field trials at the various Renaissance faires and miscellaneous events throughout the summer. I must say I've been quite pleased with the entire outfit... as a middle class costume.

Perhaps I've lived with it too long and familiarity has bred contempt or something. Whatever the psychology of the thing, I've become so comfortable in the outfit that I can't conceive of turning it into something anymore starched and velvety than it already is. There's a certain simple elegance to the lines of this outfit that drew me in the first place, and they seem to beg for the treatment I've already applied. Since I never intended to make the paned sleeve, there is little else I can do to this suit of clothes, save wear them until they fall apart. I love the outfit... but I fear the prototype has performed so admirably that I simply have no desire to take it into the realm of silk and velvet and starched ruffs.

There are other considerations as well...

I want to create a 'Sampler' doublet of sorts, to try out period stitches, embroidery and various styles and techniques that I've hitherto ignored (such as peascods) or allowed the machine to do for me (such as pad stitching).
I've always wanted a white-on-white embroidered doublet.
My requirements have altered slightly to require a slightly more Italian silhouette.
There are pages and pages of sketches in my sketchpads that are begging to be tried, which puts me off the idea of repeating something I've already mastered.
I'm still determined to master that grown-in collar!

So it is that I find myself sitting with Janet Arnold open before me, stacks of art books displaying various museum collections of period portraits, and did I mention all the sketching?

In the middle of all this planning, I happened to pay a visit to Bella's beautiful website and noticed her new online "museum" of extent garments and textiles. It was there that I discovered that the museum housing the grave goods of Don Garzia deMedici (featured prominently in Janet Arnold's POF) had reconstructed the doublet and trunkhose! I had found my next project!

All that remains is to select fabrics and get to work!

Updates soon!!

Buttoning Up - Part Two

2008-02-15T15:26:00.000-08:00

Part II of an ongoing series of making your own buttons in a period fashion...

Sorry it took so long. On my first try at this, the pictures didn't turn out so well. Getting my little camera to focus on thread is a no-go. SO... for this post I used a larger bead (3/4 inch) and some cheap yarn I had lying around to improve the picture quality.

As previously noted here and elsewhere, the easiest way to 'button up' is to go to your friendly neighborhood cloth retailer and peruse the button aisle. A multitude of perfectly-acceptable metal and wood buttons are available for the purchasing.

The problem lies in that this embarrassment of riches open to the modern costumer is not necessarily reflective of what the period tailor had to work with. Portraits indicate that even among the hoity and the toity metal buttons weren't the most common application. Only the most notorious clothes horses like Leicester seemed to go for the jems and fine metals. Metal buttons are found by metal detectors in Europe all the time, so they weren't rare, but many of them have been cast to resemble the threadworked variety, which I find noteworthy. Also, threadwork or cloth buttons make up the bulk of the buttons I see in the paintings and on the extent period garments examined by Janet Arnold and others in the available texts.

There are three basic styles of threaded bead-buttons I can find readily-available documentation for and I'll focus on those. There are hundreds of possible permutations of this style of button and they're in use through the victorian era. Today I will work a 'corded' design, a 'faceted' design, and a 'basketweave' design here and leave the rest to your imaginations...

Historical Notes:
In Janet Arnold's "Patterns of Fashion 1560-1620" are several images of buttons worked in thread (usually silk) over a wooden core. Based solely on her documentation it appears that the basketweave seems to be the most popular into the early 1600's, often done at an angle to give the weave a more diamond look rather than squares. Following that, I'd say the faceted design is next, and I've only found a couple of examples of the 'corded' look.

The core-shape of course dictates the final shape of the button, and they seem to have been primarily spherical with a couple of flat ones here and there. A quick survey of period paintings will confirm this.

Getting Started...
Each button we'll be talking about begins the same way. Select a bead of appropriate size and thread that will match or contrast with your garment as suits the effect you're trying to achieve. On period garments, the sizes seem to run the gamut from 1" on down.

Take your bead and run your thread through the center hole several times, laying nice flat cords longitudinally around the circumference of your sphere as shown below...

Each design is determined by how you then weave the chord through this base layer. The more wraps, the smoother the final product will be and the longer the design will take to complete. If you wrap it enough and weave carefully it is possible to have your final results be - essentially - as fine as the cloth your will be sewing them to. I never do this, as I believe that the texture of the button adds to the final garment. If I wanted cloth buttons I'd use cloth to cover the bead and save myself some time and handcramps.

The Corded Design
I'm not sure if there's a better term out there for this style, "ridged" perhaps? I call it the 'corded' design because the final button looks like it has corded ridges radiating longitudinally around it.

Start by determining how many ridges you want on your button and lay that many longitudinal cords. Too many and the button will look solid. Too few and it will look unfinished. I find 6-7 to be optimal, but do however many suits you.

Lay each stitch underneath the longitudinal cords...

And comeback around and loop back so you can pass under the same cord, laying the stitch 'south' of the previous one to keep them laying flat without gaps...

Repeat over and over again until the bead is covered and finish...

The 'Faceted' Design...
I call this the faceted design because the finished buttons (when you're using finer threads than the yarn I'm using here anyway) look like they're faceted due to the cords laid underneath drawing the overlaid threads taut to break up the spherical symmetry of the button.

Begin just as noted above. The more cords you lay, the smoother and less faceted the finished product, so keep in mind just how smooth an appearance you want to achieve ere you begin...

Instead of going under each longitudinal cord, go over it and pass your needle back under as shown...

Over...

And pull it tight...
Draw tight so that the loop is hidden from view as you move on to the next cord, hiding the 'cording' I mentioned in the previous button under the layers of thread.

Finish as shown below.

The Basketweave Design...
This is the button that takes the longest of all of them in my experience, simply because you're laying more stitches. Janet Arnold documents these with any number of strands from one to six in each course of the weave so you can do as you see fit.

When you start you want to almost completely cover the button with the longitudinal threads (see left).

I also find that this design goes faster and more smoothly if I'm working with a doubled thread, but you need to be careful not to twist the strands as you're weaving them. Simply hold them flat in place with your thumbnail as you pull each stitch tight and that will help immensely in the quality of the final product.

NOTE: you will want to make an odd-number of longitudinal cords for your weaving or you won't get an even weave when you get to the next part. Just trust me on this one...

The rest is simple, if tedious. Weave the doubled-thread through the longitudinal threads, forming a basketweave pattern as you go. Each weave will be two threads wide if you're working with doubled thread as I am here, and I find you can go as high as six before you start to lose the pattern altogether.

Weave...Weave...

And finish as noted below.

Repeat as often as you desire or for as long as your hands hold out. Twenty-thirty is average, especially for English attire, which is notoriously button-happy.

Take medicinal herb or alchemic concoction of choice to deal with the hand cramps this inevitably produces.

To Finish the Buttons (all)...
Once each button is completely covered with your thread, you're going to find that the hole at the center of the bead is still visible unless you've pulled your stitches tight enough to force the hole closed. As far as I can tell from looking at Janet Arnold, this was usually attended to by tying a big knot and pulling it down tight to fill or cover the hole...

Start by passing the needle back through the hold from bottom to top. There are several fancy knots you can use and at this point I'll refer you to every embroidery and knot book in the world so you can boggle at the sheer number of options available to you.

For the simplest solution, simply wrap your thread around the needle three or four times as shown...

Then pull tight, keeping the knot where you want it by using your thumbnail to hold it in place as you tighten...

Pass the needle back through the hole and snug down so that your knot is either in the hole, flush with the surface, or (if big enough) sitting atop the surface like you see in some buttons pictured in Janet Arnold.

And another finished example...

For the basketweave design, I like the look better if you just pull the weave snug enough to cover the hole, but the knot looks fine too.

Sometimes people use another bead to finish the button. Passing the thread through the bead and pulling it tight instead of making a knot. Aside from the fact that I've not seen any period examples of this yet, I simply prefer the knotted finish anyway. I have tried the beaded solution and played around with it quite a bit out of curiosity and simply don't find any of my results compelling. I've also toyed with the idea of schwanking these up a bit using metal jewelry findings and such, but nothing yet has really looked right to me. If you use a bead of a contrasting color, however, it gives you a really neat effect so I leave it to your own aesthetics...

Worked in finer threads, the final is more impressive than the yarn-covered ones in the tutorial. It's even enough to impress my notoriously finicky marionette...

Too pooped to post...

2007-08-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

Phew! That action garb takes a lot outta ya!
(LOL)

Action Garb!!

2007-08-07T12:26:00.000-07:00

I said it a long time ago and I'll say it again... All garb should be action garb! Good garb doesn't impede what you want to do at your event. It doesn't get in the way any more than the laws of physics mandate and doesn't have to be stripped out of to do what you want to do at any given moment. Not even the buttoned-up noble garb needs to put that tight a constraint upon you. Even my wife's noble allows her to do whatever might strike her fancy.

So it is that I advocate putting it through its paces before you finalize the design, prototype and beta-test your costume! Can you dance? Quaff and ale? Prepare a meal? Eat a meal? Drag a fallen comrade to safety? Swing from a chandelier? Ride down a sail on the point of a dirk? Jump on a passing horse? Do a backflip? Catch a golden snitch? In short, can you really do all that you need to do in it?

Remember that these aren't Halloween costumes! People lived in this stuff. These were the clothes they wore as they danced, played, quaffed ales, wrote letters, cooked, fought duels, and even swung from the occasional chandelier when the situation warranted it.

Here are some pictures from last weekend of my new suit of clothes in action at WRFF this past weekend...

Penning a letter of protest 'gainst the tyranny of Henry, Lord Darnley "Does anyone know if 'doody head' is hyphenated?"

When I am not in my fool's motley, I play the character James Bynder, Bookbinder, Natural Philosopher, Anatomist. He writes letters and acts as a legal counsel for the unlettered villagers and takes a ghoulish interest in all manner of things, being especially interested in finding bodies to further his scientific research...

How would you like a nice career as an anatomist's skeleton?

Could I perhaps interest you in donating your body to science?

And here are some additional photos taken by Chris Yetter, a professional photographer who covers our faire. He got some good action shots of the sort of things I expect from my garb (and arrogantly think you should too). He has kindly given permission for our actors to use images of themselves for non-commercial blogs and so forth...

Staring pensively out over the approach hordes of... patrons!

Um, you know I can recommend a good poultice
that will take care of that rash on your leg...

Helping a fallen fighter back to his feet during the closing battle
against Lord Darnley and his mercenary army...

"Now get back in there and fight!"

Celebrating Darnley's demise outside the gate...
"Ding Dong, the tyrant's dead!"

Mad as a...

2007-07-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

I busted a rib last week. Bad pain. No sleep. Good drugs, though! Henceforth shall I be known as Vic Odin, private eye... okay if you've been living in my head the past week or so, that's hysterically funny. Otherwise probably not so much.

So anyway, as you've seen from the handsewing I've been doing, I've been couch-bound for the better part of a week now and still the needle keeps pulling thread. I can't really lean over to cut out new patterns much so when Kristin - my saintly wife with patience like Job - isn't home to cut things out for me, I'm stuck with either small projects or things that have already been cut out to work on. Or I can surf the internet, which I actually don't so much like doing.

Luckily for me, awhile back my wife asked our friends to donate scraps to a project she was working on and the scraps came pouring out of every costumer we knew. Calabash now has a coat that boasts a sample of just about every bodice in the faire (Woo Woo!!) and we have a big bucket o' random scrappage. Oh, what to do with these odd-size small bits of fabric? Hmmmm... What garby bit of business usually utilize small pattern pieces?

One of the first things we see, one of the prime things we complain about reenactors ignoring, hats. I love hats in general, though I've never really enjoyed making them before. Now that I'm under the influence of the hand-sewing bug and my buddy Vic, I decided what the hell. The pieces are small enough to cut out on my lap and there's plenty of oddments of wool!

Calabash is Venetian and came to Scotland (the site of our faire) by way of Paris in the retinue of Her Most Royal Majesty, Queen Mary of Scots. Yet he's never worn much in the way of garb that really told this tale. So it is with this in mind that I turned my hand to hats...

The Renaissance Tailor

I like to think of this as my Venetian Dockworker beanie. The pattern was modified from the one at the link above. The authoress of the Renaissance Tailor website describes as a Russian hat. So if anyone quizzes me on it, I got it from one of the Muscovy Trading lads when I was in London on a mission for the queen. There's a little machine stitching holding the upturned brim to the main body of the hat, the rest was handstitched. The pin is a winged lion that I've had for quite some time, symbol of La Serenissima (Venice).

Sempstress

This is a sort of floppy-brimmed Italian bonnet. It's done up in scrap wool that I pieced together to make large enough pieces for the pattern. Small, delicate stitches. The crown is lined in greenish linen and cartridge-pleated into the brim. There are no machine stitches on this hat. (I'm rather proud of that). Small glass pearls are interspersed into the gathers, alternating with some stone beads and metal beads.

The two websites linked above gave me the impetus I needed to make two hats (respectively) though as ever I've worked them as variations on the theme. Their directions were so good I feel that I cannot improve on the theme in those two regards, so I encourage the millinerily-inclined rennie to head to one or the other for the tutorials.

It's fun making hats. I especially like digging through my collection of odd pins to find suitable adornment for the feathers. I've been trying to steer away from the ubiquitous pheasants and ostriches, keeping in mind that Calabash may be a member of the court but he's really not noble. He's a bounder and a bit of a cad who attached himself to Mary in Paris and has followed her since, trading on her patronage like a true Renaissance Man.

Washington Renaissance Fantasy Faire is less than a week away!
Huzzah! (ouch! Gonna go back to the couch now...)

Source Materials...

2007-07-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

A new feature...
There are numerous garby blogs out there. I am no longer singled out even by my focus on male costuming, which is a wonderful thing in my view. But I still wish to be singular and so I am growing the idea, moving into new categories, all still within my overall mission of improving the sort of historical costuming I see at ren faires and making it easier for the newbie to attire themselves appropriately the first time.

I have been whetting my arguments on fashion and attyre in the Northern Renaissance for some time in the whetstone of open debate. My opinions are fluid and my debating style tends to lean heavily to being able to back up what I say with references to primary sources, period texts and relevant paintings, manuscripts and bathroom wall graffiti if necessary. So from now on I shall begin regularly (as regularly as I post anything here) posting links to interesting period resources that many people either miss or are unaware of.

Period Fashion Critique
In particular, I love some of the period source material such as Stubbs and Holinshed where the set out the attyre of their time by complaining about it in their smug puritan manner. The following is from "Holinshed's Chronicles" which goes much farther afield than bitching about the perilous audacity of the Elizabethan tailor. He is cited by most as Shakespeare's main source of historical material for MacBeth and most of the Histories...

"An Englishman, endeavouring sometime to write of our attire, made sundry platforms for his purpose, supposing by some of them to find out one steadfast ground whereon to build the sum of his discourse. But in the end (like an orator long without exercise), when he saw what a difficult piece of work he had taken in hand, he gave over his travel, and only drew the picture of a naked man. Unto whom he gave a pair of shears in the one hand and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end he should shape his apparel after such fashion as himself liked, sith he could find no kind of garment that could please him any while together; and this he called an Englishman. Certes this writer (otherwise being a lewd popish hypocrite and ungracious priest) shewed himself herein not to be altogether void of judgment, sith the phantastical folly of our nation (even from the courtier to the carter) is such that no form of apparel liketh us longer than the first garment is in the wearing, if it continue so long, and be not laid aside to receive some other trinket newly devised by the fickle-headed tailors, who covet to have several tricks in cutting, thereby to draw fond customers to more expense of money."

Full E-text of this invaluable resource is available from www.gutenberg.org
Stubbes' harangues on Elizabethan fashion can be found in a well-organized format at www.elizabethancostume.net

Buttoning Up - Part One

2007-07-27T03:44:00.001-07:00

There are three methods of making your own period buttons that I am going to discuss.

Soft Buttons made from fabric scraps
Thread-covered buttons with a wooden core
Buttons fashioned from beads

I rather like the idea of making soft buttons. As I mentioned previously, Alcega and other renaissance tailor's books go to some length to show you how to lay out your pattern to utilize as much of the yardage as possible. Some of these layouts have pieces lying with, across and diagonal to the grain of the fabric. While I cannot imagine going to quite that great a length, in threads that unraveled from the edges of the cloth! On this project I have taken every opportunity to reduce waste, reuse scraps, and recycle even the little end bits of thread left over from hemming and gathering. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle... a very sixteenth century idea wedged into a twenty-first century framework.

Of all the buttons I've experimented with, this is by far the easiest to master and the quickest to make. All it takes is a little practice (which is a lie, I fooled around with this for quite awhile before I consistently got spheres) some basic stitches and scraps of your "fashion" fabric!

Please note: There are many places to learn to do this. Tudor Tailor has some instructions, as does the fantastic Renaiss ance Tailor website. Both are illustrated and both contributed in some fashion to me learning how to do this prior to posting this tutorial here. I'm putting this up not because it's never been done elsewhere, but because no one I've found has done this with actual step-by-step photos and even though illustrations are helpful, I've always found it more comforting undertaking something new to see it laid out in actual pictures. Keep in mind that I'm a trained illustrator when you read that. So here we go...

One
If you're using a light fabric such as the linen I used on this doublet or even a light woolen, cut the fabric into squares approximately one inch wide. The Tudor Tailor advises using the bottom of a thread spool as a guide, but considering that there no longer seems to be a standard size for this, I came up with the dimension of one inch as making a finished size and firmness that I'm happy with.

NOTE: when using a heavier fabric, such as canvas or even a wool flannel for this, you might want to nip off the edges and make a circle as shown below or it'll be too bulky later when the time comes to stuff it.

Two
Using a piece of thread roughly a foot long (you want a little extra) run a circle of stitches around the center of the square as shown above. Keep the stitches as even as possible and keep in mind that you're going to be using these to gather the fabric into a ball, so don't make them too tight or they'll do you little good when the time comes.

ThreeDraw up the gathering stitches until the square looks like a little bag. Don't pull it tight, though until you...

Four
...stuff the corners and edges inside. Then draw it as tight as you can without tearing or distorting the fabric. (I imagine great care would be needed if working with silk) Take the remaining tail of thread and sew some stay stitches into the resulting ball to keep it in a ball shape.

Five
Working from the bottom (the wrinkly bit) sew back and forth across the axis of the ball three times, leaving the stitches loose, forming a loop which will be used to secure the button to your garment. Gather the three into a single strand and go over them using a button hole stitch as shown below.

Six
Repeat as often as necessary and sew them on...

Hold the Mustard!

2007-07-26T17:00:00.001-07:00

Changing course now, just a little bit. My apologies for the lengthy delay in getting back on course. I you are still with me after all this time, I give you thanks. If you are new, having found me by way of my presence on Tribe.net or elsewhere, then welcome and well met! You come at the turning of the tide.

Note the divot I carved into the tip of my wooden thimble in the picture above.
It's especially useful when sewing through canvas or leather. Since I
made that adjustment, I've reduced considerably the number of
slipped-needle injuries I sustain in a project like this.

Since we began this journey, the book Tudor Tailor was released. For those who have not yet read it, the book goes a long way toward pulling back the curtain on certain salient aspects of all we strive for, sort of a user's guide to Patterns of Fashion in a very real way. But I came here not to sell you books, I came hence to tell you that the book changed my mind in a couple of ways on the final outcome I hope to achieve with this garment and certain long-held beliefs on the construction of period-seeming garments for the reenactment set.

And so I resolve to complete the journey, a journey now refined by the passage of time and the introspection brought on by long hours wreathed in plaster dust as we continue to remodel our home, by the rumination over illness and injury, and by the letter R.

I have long thought that handsewing was just a pain in the @$ and little more good could be said of it. I was wrong. My wife tried to tell me that it had its place, and I thought she meant in areas were a machine could not go. What she really meant was that there were marked differences in the results achieved by the slow & steady approach versus sticking layers of fabric under the frantic needle of the Hotrod. I stand corrected.

As such have just completed the garment I began here this long while ago. When last we met, I was using plum-coloured canvas to draft a new pattern for a mustard-colored middle class doublet. A close-fitting affair with set-in sleeves and a grown-in collar.

Changes:

I set aside the grown-in collar after the difficulties I experienced with the rust-colored jerkin. I never completely resolved the pucker at the back and muslin after muslin repeated the problem, so for now I have set aside the notion entirely.
I came into a stash of 100% linen in natural and a pale green. I have traded in the mustard-coloured brushed cotton for the natural linen as an outer material and the pale green as lining.
I have - for this project as an experiment - set aside my usual Pellon fusible interfacing that I have hitherto used in lieu of canvas interlining and subsituted it with canvas 'Duck' since I couldn't find anyone selling proper fustian (a heavy cotton/linen blend).
I will be making cloth buttons out of scrap linen instead of using the wooden bead buttons I used on the rust-colored jerkin and was intending to use again on the doublet.

The pattern piecing was very similar to what I have shown before. Using a combination of the machine and hand-stitching, I laid out the pattern I drafted and cut interlining, lining and outer fabric. Making a sandwich of the three, I sewed and turned them so that the interlining is caught between, providing structure to the doublet.

(Note: I will be making a new jerkin of green wool soon using this same method and will go in-depth on that, perhaps sometime this fall)

The more seams you have, the small pieces you piece from,
the more points of adjustment you have to work with, and the
better fit you can manage in your clothing.

The piecing of doublets is a subject I have been thinking on a great deal this past year. I have studied every painting from the period I could get my hands on, perused a borrowed copy of Alcega, read Tudor Tailor and internally worked the seams in my head during the quiet moments of the morning when the novel wasn't singing to me and sleep was elusive.

Doublets of our period seem to have been made from many small pieces, some smaller than others. Leather doublets seemed to be even more prone to this almost quilt-like piecing strategy. It's all about making as many clothes from one ell of cloth as possible, you see, The smaller the pieces, the more you can fit them on the cloth ere you cut, like the pieces of a puzzle. The period tailor books were full of illustrations of how best to eke the most out of a single length of fabric. And so shall it be with me...

Note the unaligned seams where the sleeve meets the doublet body.
These became rarer as more and more machines replaced tailors.

During the industrial revolution, patterning of clothing changed to accomodate the machines being used to manufacture them. Seams such as these would slow production, so they were aligned so as to be sewn in a single pass, or as few passes as possible. So it is that machine sewing of Renaissance clothing seems so awkward, the machines constrained.

When easing curved seams I use as few pins as possible, giving me
as much play as I can to stretch and turn the fabric as I sew. This
allows better alignment of layers, I think, and a nicer finished look
to the final garment.

I am not so reduced that I will set aside my hotrod entirely, but it will definitely be utilized in the main for sewing long straight seams, or pieces that will be turned and the machine sewing hidden. As I went along in this project, I was surprised to find that I did more and more by hand as I developed a feel for it, and acquired a rhythm for the movement of the needle, thread, and beeswax.

I must cogitate some more, and I've buttons to make and buttonholes to sew as well. I'll be back soon with more pictures and more in-depth maundering of the like you're used to on the myriad subjects that spring to mind as I stitch...

Next: Making Buttons!!

In Case Anyone Was Wondering Where I've Been...

2007-04-17T02:03:00.000-07:00

The trouble with taking pictures of your house is that you notice things you might not otherwise be bothered by (or you spouse will). Things like the huge piles of books you could glimpse in the background of the most recent pictures of the mustard doublet. Needed bookshelves? Needed to build a library actually.

You see, I used to run a bookstore for one of the major bookstore chains.

Dreaming of someplace else for all those books to go...

Now, you might think it a dream job, especially for someone like me... then again, you might be mistaken. I stuck it out for five years, promotions, transfers to new states to open newer bigger stores in more obnoxious shopping districts... Anyway, five years of bookselling amounts to taking home a lot of books. Add onto that my collection of fine firsts and my penchant for trolling booksales and used bookstores... and it adds up to a house full of books.

It all amounts to this... For years we've been lugging these crates of books all over the country as we moved from state to state, and all that time I've been promising myself a dream library when we finally settled down. More to the point, I've been promising Kristin the same thing, someplace for books to go that will get the stacks put away (finally). Bay window with a window seat, built-in bookshelves (handmade by yours truly), French Doors, new lighting and insulation, wainscoting... the to-do list seems endless.

Kind of like making noble garb. And - much like noble garb - as the man said "God is in the details."

To think, a hand-rubbed finish that requires actual hand-rubbing!
The very idea!

So I've been busy the past few months making good on my word... In case anyone was curious.

My beloved wife pulling up carpet tacks...

Shoe Redux Too

2007-04-16T23:23:00.000-07:00

That first pair was mainly an experiment to see if I could do it (create a plausible faire shoe for under ten bucks). Now that I know it's possible, I've taken a bit more time, spent an extra dollar (This pair was $3.99!) and made a pair of shoes more appropriate for my current noble efforts... so to speak.

I'll publish a more in-depth how-to when they're finished over on the same site where I put the last one. For now, I'll note the following differences between this pair and the last...

I began with a pair of men's dress shoes already blessed with a buckle latchet and began cutting away from there.
Utilizing what I learned on the first pair, I made smaller cut-outs
I'm still considering whether or not to do pinks or 'cuttes' across the toe-box. I'll probably do some small cuttes, but from past experience that makes for an odd, boxy fit for any shoe you do it to, so I plan to keep them small and to a minimum.
I had to replace the buckle because the old one was emblazoned with the shoemaker's logo and because it was mounted on an elastic band (yick).
Rather than tacking down the seams I had to cut, on this pair I'm re-sewing the seams I pulled out because I want them to last and because I'm a masochist.
In response to Abigail's question about the last pair, this pair has finished edges which I will go back over with leather dye as soon as I find a good match. In this case, by "finished" I mean edged (with a leather edger) and burnished.

Overall I'm quite pleased.

The soles are leather this time... or rather a leather midsole welted to uppers with a rubber lug sole attached-- and re-soleworthy I might add-- with a nice low heel and visible topstitching. Also the color has a definite reddish hue that goes well with the fabrics I'm working with.

Shoe Redux

2007-04-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

It might amuse some of you to know that after all my kvetching about
men's shoes and the difficulty of finding same at reasonable prices,
yesterday I found a perfectly serviceable pair of men's 'earth shoes'
with a buckle in my size at Goodwill. Little or no alteration needed
to make them faire-presentable.

Never happened before.

The internet costuming demons showing their sense of humor I suppose...

Granted, they were $15.00 instead of $2.99... so now I have a black
pair and a brown pair. And two pairs of cavalier boots. And... Hmmmmmm... I need to stop before I become the Imelda Marcos of the ren faire set.

S

Scottie Needs a New Pair of Shoes!

2007-04-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

I've been remiss in blogging, but not in working on my garb!

Yesterday, I "made" a pair of latchet shoes! Okay, well I actually modified an existing pair of modern shoes into period approximates, but it amounts to the same thing... a new pair of ren shoes for $2.99!!!

I posted a complete "How I Did It" on my guild's website at Pennywise Peasant Projects if you're curious, with links to the people who inspired the project.

Cheers!
Scott