Mad as a...

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...

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

Site Recognition and such like...

I found out tonight I'm listed on Festive Attyre (along with scores of other costume diaries) but the really great bit was when I realized my friend Guy finally updated his site to include his new leather Ramirez-inspired 'hunting costume'. Guy's a great... um... guy (sorry) and I am always happy to see him at fair. It annoys me that he lives down the coast a piece, so we only see one another at faire because there are so few fellows out there who can (or will) talk costuming with you.

Anyway, it's great garb, I've seen it and I highly recommend his site. He also did a great red silk Sir Walter Raliegh sort of court garb that has won a boatload of prizes.

There aren't enough male costumers out there, we have to stick together!