Stitching Demo: Eyelet Engineering

Today, we're going to poke some holes in fabric and then we're going to reinforce the holes so that you can poke a bit of ribbon or cord through the hole repeatedly without tearing up the fabric.  There's a trick to this that makes it very similar to making button holes but also vastly different.

The difference is engineering.  

Yes, engineering. Go with me on this one.

The similarity is the stitch we're going to use. Depending upon whom you rely, this is either called the buttonhole stitch or the blanket stitch. The only difference between the two is whether the knot is at the top (away from the edge) or the bottom (on the edge). Call it by whatever name pleases you.

Since we're trying to make a hole and keep it open and fairly large, we're going to opt to not have the knot in the opening.

If you go to this website: The Wonderful Microworld you will find some beautiful pictures of various fabrics placed under a microscope. Most fabrics, at their basic structure, form a grid pattern, which is why I usually use plastic canvas for stitching demos.  The longitudinal threads are called 'warp' threads and the latitudinal threads are the 'weft'.

Because this demo will require me to move threads out the way, plastic canvas won't do it, so we're going to dig into the kitchen cupboard for some cheesecloth.  Cheesecloth is fantastic for this because it looks like a blown-up picture of a piece of fabric, so you will be able to see what's going on to a degree that a more densely-woven fabric would hide from you.

It also acts quite a bit differently than a more densely-woven fabri in many ways. It stretches and pulls and snags and otherwise fails to keep its shape without a bit of help.  You certainly wouldn't want to sew a doublet out of it. For the purposes of this demonstration, however, it will perform on a large scale just as a denser fabric will.

For making eyelets, the toolbox is pretty basic. You just need a long pointy thing like an awl. I got mine at the hardware store.  (Actually that's a lie; my wife bought it at the hardware store and I swiped it out of her sewing box. Don't tell her.) If you don't have an awl handy, just about anything will do: a knitting needle, a pencil, a chopstick, a sharpened dowel... you get the idea.

The reason we're going to study how to make them is because men's clothing in the 16th century required a lot of eyelets. And they have to be made strong and made correctly because they're going to be keeping your pants from falling down.

You're going to be making a lot of them, so get used to the idea.  Honestly, they're a lot simpler than button holes, but you'll be making a lot of those too.  If it makes you feel better, you can use the machine for the buttonholes if you feel the need.


I've never had much luck with machine-stitched eyelets. I advocate doing them by hand.

NOTE: We're going to be poking holes, not cutting them. Put away the hole punch and grab out the pointy things.

Why not use a holepunch? We cut buttonholes, after all. It would be a lot easier to make them whatever size I want if I can just cut a hole and sew around it. For an explanation, take a look at the professional, no expense spared, professional illustrations below.

A punched hole is surrounded on all sides by broken threads. 

Even metal reinforcement (grommets) will eventually pull out.
An eyelet can be pulled in any direction, unlike a buttonhole.

In a button hole, cutting the fabric will not compromise the integrity 

of the fabric.  When the fabric pulls left, the button (the red circle in the 

image above) holds fast and the stresses are borne by the uncut threads

perpendicular to the cut (highlighted in yellow).

See? I told you this was about engineering. Like anything you build, you want as many support structures intact as possible when you are done and as few as you can get away with.  In other words: thread good, grommets bad.

STEP ONE: Poke a hole

When poking your hole, work carefully, slowly, and breaking as few threads as possible.  The idea is to push the threads aside as best you can. Use steady pressure and twist as little as possible.

What you're striving for is what you see below: A hole with very few broken threads, where the threads have been pushed aside to make a very dense ring of compressed fabric around your hole. 

This reinforces the eyelet and makes it as strong as possible.

Remember that eyelets might be stressed in any direction, so you need them reinforced on all sides.


STEP TWO: Sewing
You're going to be making a buttonhole stitch just like we did the other day, only this time with the knot drawn away from the hole.

Begin by passing the needle through your hole and up through the fabric.  The point of the needle will always point away from the hole. 

Loop the thread over the needle and let it trail away, drawing the needle through the fabric so that the trailing thread makes a loop around your sewing thread.

Let the trailing thread form the loop.

Repeat this stitch all around the hole (these are exaggerated as always for the sake of clear photography) turning as you go, always drawing the thread out and away from the hole.

 
The finished product should look something like this.  


The knot is away from the hole, so it's not narrowing the aperture. The stitches are holding the warp and weft threads away without breaking them, so it's strong.

Buttoning Up, Part III: Buttonfinger (Sort of like Goldfinger, but with 99.9% less atomic peril.)

As I mentioned last week, I'm in  the middle of making a lot of garb very quickly, both because I need new attire for my new character and to test drive my new patterns and instructions for drafting jerkin/petticoat and Venetians.

The patterns are turning out well, certainly easier to learn than the way I did it.

My wife is also creating a new wardrobe from scratch, but whether or not she blogs it is up to her.

To add an element of adventure, we have challenged one another to use only materials already at hand for this. We are allowed to purchase thread and lining fabric if necessary, but everything else must come from our existing stash.

And that means making buttons instead of buying them.

Now, my memory of the Jetsons is faulty at best, but at some point I seem to recall George Jetson complaining to Mr Spacely about the crippling occupational disorder of his time 'Button Finger'. His distress was from pushing buttons; my pains are caused by making them. Pinching the beads between your fingers as you cover them in thread starts to hurt after awhile.

So here's the caveat I didn't think to make last time: Button maker beware. Fashion can truly be a pain.

In my tutorials "Buttoning Up Part II" I mentioned some of the options for thread-covered buttons and demonstrated them with yarn on a large bead. A great deal of variation can be achieved by using different colors of thread or by adding a bead to the end instead of a knot.

Here are some pictures.

The fly of these brown wool Venetians are set off by a two-color checkerboard button 

achieved using a basket weave pattern. Tan and chocolate brown.

Ribbed in a tan thread, these have a loop worked in buttonhole stitch for attaching them to the jerkin.  They are also adorned at the tip with a bit of coiled copper called 'purl'. Both the attachment and the purl echo the buttons on the extent green velvet jerkin that I posted pictures of last week.

These gold-toned buttons are made using a basketwoven pattern, though the weave is less obvious because I alternated every row and used a single color of thread for a more uniform look. Each is adorned with a small glass bead instead of a knot. I made these specifically to catch the light just a little on a doublet that will otherwise be a bit plain.  Subtlety is important to me. 

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

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.

Maskmaker, Maskmaker V :: Making the Final Cut

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:

1. Start small. Practice wetforming smaller pieces of leather before you commit larger and more expensive portions.
2. 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.
3. Skive your leather to a workable thickness.
4. Wood matrices are more forgiving, but require more work. Choose your molding method to fit your available time and talents.

Tools of the Trade :: Garb Carpentry

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.

Leatherworking: Wetforming Leather

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.

Pad-stitching (With Demo)

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