#medieval garb

[scorpionm]

rip cersei Lannister you would've loved ozempic big brother and antipsychotics

[archerinventive]

New Limited Edition Sorceress Stone Bag (SOLD) and small pouches now in the shop. :)

For over a decade, I've been holding onto this red central button, just waiting for the right moment to use it. I'm excited the day is finally here. ^^

The three small pouches can currently be found in the shop while supplies last. https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArcherInventive

New Bloom Bags coming later this week to Patrons first.

Have a lovely Tuesday all!. ❤️

Sorceress Stone Bag: SOLD

3 small pouches in stock

[jortschronicles]

Dressing the Despencers, pt 2

Part 1

And so it continues. With the supportive underkirtle complete and worn at an event (under a different kirtle of mine) to make it relax the rest of the way, I got the measurements for our Edward and Thomas Despencer and started marking and cutting materials. While I originally believed I would have more than enough of the bronze patterned fabric, I was proven quite wrong and resorted to piecing together several gores and small extensions in the front of the body for Elizabeth and Edward Despencer. The planned change in the last post (bronze body with blue sleeves for Edward and green sleeves for Thomas) was shifted again, back to my ideal of particolor for the married couple and coordinating for the brother in law. I also realized halfway through marking that I was 2 gores and a sleeve shy of enough of the blue, which led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I found a similar-enough-at-a-distance blue satin at OKC fabric market, pictured on the right. Flash makes the differences obvious, but there will be very few flash photos taken of this. It'll be fine. I'll be fine. I'm so normal about this.

Because all 3 outfits have similarly sized pieces in similar fabrics, I've taken to organizing them in 3 individual cubes to keep everything straight. It has been a real game changer, and I would recommend it to everybody.

Having cut out and serged everybody's blue and bronze fabric, I dug through my stash of scrap linen to make the lining. I worry the bronze especially won't hang exactly right without lining. Additionally, I'm making the cotes for Edward and Thomas Despencer for a pair of high school seniors who, while I hope they wear an undertunic at the NMF, I plan and prepare for them not to do so. For reasons I cannot fathom, I chose not to serge the lining pieces for Edward Despencer's cote, seen below. Yay, hand finishing.

I usually bag line lined garments, but I also usually make garments in 2 layers of linen. I didn't want a bag lined garment to sag weirdly, so I sandwiched each seam, treating the lining and outer together as one piece of fabric each.

The picture below has two notable features: first, the blue of the body and the blue of the gore are the two different blues. This was proof of concept enough for me to accept the differences aren't terribly noticeable. Second, I did not bother pattern matching the various pieces of of any of the garments. Working from two extremely limited quantities of fabric, I found myself in the position I'd imagine many tailors in period would know well. Laying out pattern pieces over and over, I found the only way to effectively and efficiently use as much of my material as possible is to squeeze things in where I can (while still respecting the grain). I would like to find documentation on this speculation, but I would not be surprised if it is more period to not pattern match fabrics for anything less than a royal coronation garment. And the Despencers, while being played as nouveau riche landed nobility and close friends of the heir apparent, do not have pattern matching and wasting fabric money.

With Edward Despencer's cote largely assembled and waiting until I can do one more test fitting before I add button holes, I started assembling my/Elizabeth Despencer's outer gown. By this time, I decided for the remaining two Despencers to only line the 4 body panels, since that will help the drape enough in my humble opinion.

Don't worry, those gores get scooted up to a better height. I found myself working from Morgan Donner's example of a supportive kirtle, where her gores start where the flare of the bodice in the 4 body panels stops and turns into the straight lines to the floor. I still haven't quite figured out why mine looked so bad and noticeable in comparison to hers (seen below), but my best guess is the difference in drape of material, the fact that Mistress Donner is significantly smaller / less beefy in the hips than I, or that I just straight up placed them wrong.

I do love how much space the dress makes me take up though. It makes the transition from street to court feel a lot easier, I'm playing nobility and I take up space.

Tragedy struck and I realized I was short about an inch across the bust. Still not sure how I managed that, but it was time for a fix. Piecework is period, and I maybe panicked a little and overdid the width, but I added plackets to both sides of the front closure to give me more working room.

Then came the buttons, which I purchased from Bad Baroness buttons. I. Am. Obsessed. I wanted enough to do my front closure to the waist, both boys all the way to the hem, and sleeves for everybody. So I overdid it and bought 150. On my bodice, I spaced them about a button and a half apart to avoid gapping. Because the fabric doesn't play nice with chalk, I ran loose basting stitches to mark my button holes before I made them. Rather than using my wife's fancy new brother with an automatic buttonhole function, I learned how to use the button hole stitches on my old Janome (finally.) Overall, not a bad experience, and it means I don't need to borrow a machine to do buttonholes.

Then came what has been the most stressful point so far. Mistress Elizabeth Caton and Countess Amelot Lisette joined us for an unrelated sewing weekend extravaganza, and I took advantage of their expertise to help with fitting. Thus, the gores got moved up, and the sides taken in more. I really over did it with those front plackets RIP. But tragedy of tragedies, in moving the gores up, I left the dress 4 inches too short in places. Upon consultation with my trusted countesses and friends, we reverted to the original design with the red band and lions at the bottom. I was hesitant to do this because of the cast's restriction of true crimson to the royal family for readability reasons, and because it's not something I see much of in period depictions. However, the rest of the costuming committee reminded me of my own "10 foot squint rule", where if the costume isn't overwhelmingly crimson at 10 feet and squinting, it's fine. And this contemporary depiction of Mary of Waltham (Princess Mary) has a surcoat that appears to have a contrasting band at the bottom which may match gores going up the sides. The decision was made to cut myself some slack and get this workable ASAP.

Much appreciation to Halldora for loaning me her machine and helping me embroider these godforsaken Burghersh lions.

What comes next?

I need to finish the lions on Elizabeth's dress and hem the excess.

I need to add buttons and buttonholes to Elizabeth's sleeves

If the sleeves are too short, I may add contrast red cuffs of the same fabric as the hem, or gold cuffs and embroider them with the Glamorgan chevronelly in the Despencer arms

Buttons down the front of Edward Despencer, and close his sleeves. It's been fitted, and I had to add the button placket of despair to his garb as well.

Seam finishing for Edward :) since I didn't serge the lining for some reason :) I hate myself :) i've at least already started this.

Assemble and line Thomas's cote. I will definitely need a button placket on his too, I girlbossed too close to the sun and made the chests just a wee bit too tight for their comfort. For Thomas's, I'm going to embrace the pieced look and use some dark brown linen for the center closure.

Dye and attach the false sleeves for Thomas, they're going to be a lovely green :)

Hems and necklines for everyone!!

If i have time and spoons, I would LOVE to put some mammen scrollwork embroidery on at least one of the boys' cotes.

I am attending Ansteorra's Laurel's Prize Tournament this coming weekend and hope to have enough done on the Despencers' clothes to present them, so fingers crossed!

[ilsa-makes-things]

How to Run a $20 Garb Challenge

WHAT IS THE CHALLENGE?

The $20 Garb Challenge is a costuming contest that I’ve run for the Dagorhir community for the past five years. The idea is to make the best possible garb outfit you can, using only $20 of materials and in only 30 days. It’s organized by a host/administrator, scored by a panel of three judges on three categories, and the winners get faaaabulous prizes. Entrants have to acquire all materials within those thirty days (they can’t draw on your existing stash of materials), and a third of their score comes from how well they explain their process.

I (Ilsa of Drentha!) started the challenge because I was tired of hearing “good garb is too expensive!” I also wanted to see more garb tutorials that would help new players. The Challenge is meant to prove that you CAN make a fantastic Dagorhir/LARP/foam-fighting costume on a budget. You really don’t have to be rich to play these games!

If you want to run your own version of the Challenge for your local group, here’s how to do it! You can change any element of the contest to suit your needs, but these tactics have served us well for the past few years. :) So!

1. Decide where you’ll host it.

The Challenge is an online contest. I've run this on a group forum before, but I've since found that Facebook is a great platform for it, instead. Each entrant submits an album of photos to the group’s albums, so the judges and observers can find all the entries in the same place.

HERE is our group from 2017. Click around a bit, and you’ll see the entries in the albums, the FAQ and rules in the “files” section, and posts with questions and remarks from participants. These are easiest viewed on desktop Facebook-- mobile FB makes it hard to find some of these elements!

2. Decide WHEN you’ll run it.

The Challenge is a month long. That’s because your contestants need time to put together their entries. I run ours in May. This is nice because it’s right before Ragnarok, Dagorhir’s huge June event. This gives everyone an incentive to join the contest— you always needs extra garb for Rag!— and takes advantage of pre-event excitement. If you have a local event that people are already preparing for, I highly suggest running the Challenge before it!

Alternatively, if you have a slack time of year, like winter, you might want to run the Challenge then. This keeps your locals excited and engaged with the game, even when the weather is too nasty to play outside.

2. Figure out your prizes!

The contest is most fun if you can compete for prizes, so you’ll want to offer up goodies for your winners. A month or so before I launch that year's contest, I privately ask in-game merchants that I'm friendly with if they would consider donating a prize. In exchange, we always make sure to link to their shop page when we announce the prizes— it’s good advertising for them! If you’re a small group or just starting out, you might make the prizes yourself, purchase them from merchants, or ask other members of your realm for donations.

We typically aim to offer prizes for the top three contestants, but it’s fun if you can offer more, too. We’ve had merchants put up 4th and 5th place prizes, too!

The best prizes are things that will be useful to anyone who wins it. Items that can be customized for the winner later, store credit to shops, or pieces that can go with any kit always go over well. We've had sponsors contribute foam weapons, costumes, jewelry, pottery, etched glass vessels, tankards, and more!

Since the winning entries are picked by a panel of judges, I like to also offer an extra “people’s choice” award. This award is the crowd favorite, and anyone can win. This is announced on the 1st of June (a day after the end of the contest). The Facebook album that gets the most “likes” before the end of the week gets this prize. (THESE are the rules we use for People’s Choice.) This helps fill time between the contest ending and the judges filling out their scoring sheets. You can also offer a raffle prize— everyone who enters gets a chance to win it, because it’s randomly drawn! This encourages everyone to finish and submit their entries: even if they’re not perfect, they still have a chance to win something nice. :)

If you have an in-person event coming up that your sponsoring merchants are attending, your winners might be able to collect or pick out their prizes in person. If that’s not an option, ask if the merchants will be willing to ship the prizes to the winners. If not, set aside a budget for yourself so you can pay to ship the prizes to your winners.

4. Pick your judges.

Your judges should be respected and mature members of the community. If you’re running your contest for a group that covers a large geographical area (ours involves all of Dagorhir, from Alaska to Maryland!), try to pull your judges from a variety of places, units and backgrounds— not just from your local realm and friends. Merchants (who aren’t already sponsoring), skilled craftspeople, veterans who are heavily involved in improving the community, past winners, and people who help run A&S competitions are all great judges.

You COULD pick winners for the Challenge by popular vote, but I always worry that the winner the winner will always be the vet with the most friends, not necessarily the best entry. If you want to do popular vote, again, consider running that as a separate thing— you could offer an extra prize for “People’s Choice!”

5. Set up your group.

You’ll set up a Facebook group for your contest. You’ll want to set up the group at least two weeks in advance of the start of the contest, so you can advertise it, get people to join, and build excitement.

For the first week or so, you might want to keep moderator approval turned on for posts to the group— it lets you answer questions before the post goes live to the group, so you can catch issues and weigh in on them before everyone else weighs in.

Use the “pinned post” option to tack important announcements to the top of the page.

You’ll upload a couple documents to the “files” section. These are your vital documents, like “How to Enter + Judging,” and Rules/FAQ. (See links for our current versions of each.) You might also include a list of the prizes you’re offering here, but I think it’s more fun to announce these over the course of a week or two, to keep people excited about the contest.

If your group gets big, you might consider adding another moderator to help you keep track of the posts. This should be someone, ideally, who isn’t a judge or a sponsor— just another respected, responsible member of the community who can help herd the cats and answer questions.

6. Spread the word!

Share your Challenge group with other areas of your community! If you have a website, group forum, or social media page for your game, be sure to post about the Challenge there. Tell your new players in person, and encourage your friends to spread the word. The more, the merrier!

7. Run the contest!

The contest runs for 30 days, and the contestants can upload their entry album as soon as they’re ready. These 30 days are a great time to share resources, tutorials, hype your prizes, encourage your entrants, and build community. Your contestants will probably have a fun time talking about their successes, the materials they’ve found, and the plans they’ve made. Give them a chance to do just that by prompting them with discussion questions!

Don’t be surprised if you get lots of people who join the group just to observe— lots of people are interested in budget garb, even if they don’t have the time to join the Challenge! Be sure to remind everyone that the Challenge is also a resource for new players, and encourage them to share it with their friends and local players.

8. Judge the entries...

Towards the end of the month, remind your contestants when entries will close. We use “midnight on May 31st, wherever you are,” so no one has to worry about time zones. As soon as the contest is officially closed to new entries, your judges will start recording their scores.

Your judges will be scoring each entry on three categories— creativity, use of budget, and write-up. Each subcategory is worth 10 points from each judge, so you’ll be awarding each entry out of 30 points. Since there are three judges, a perfect score would be 90 total points.

Judging usually takes at least a week, because your judges are probably very, very busy people!

It’s up to you whether you want to share everyone’s final scores or just announce the top winners. These days, we announce the top five winners and privately send everyone else their scores. They then have the option to share these, or not, with the group.

9. ...by using the spreadsheet...

The spreadsheet is HERE. Please copy the spreadsheet to make a master sheet for your contest. (Go to File --> Make a Copy.)

The scoring sheet has four sheets that your judges will use— one for scoring each subcategory, and one master sheet for you to enter any comments you have. You can toggle between these in the sheet at the bottom left. The comments aren’t necessary, but entrants really appreciate them. Try to keep them positive!

Your judges each have a color-coded column on each sub-sheet that highlights where you’ll be putting your scores. Judge #1 is always green, Judge #2 is always mauve, and Judge #3 is always yellow. If the column is white, it’s either something that will calculate automatically or be filled out by the non-judge admin/host.

The “ranking” column in “Total scores (updates automatically) and comments” is the most important one, and it should update automatically. It will show you which entrant has the top score, and if there are any ties. “1” means they’re in first place, etc.

If anything looks broken, it might just be that the sheet wants values it hasn’t been given yet. Certain things will update automatically as you enter your scores. Remember that it ain’t over until it’s over— if just one judge, say, has entered their scores, someone might look like they’re winning, but that might change before the scoring is over!

Each entrant’s name should be updated by the admin/host to link to the Facebook album of their entry in the Facebook group. This makes it easier for the judges to figure out who they’re scoring at any given moment.

Alternatively, you might want to give each judge a copy of their own sheet, so they can't be influenced by seeing the scores of other judges. We may try this, next year, so there's no peer pressure to reach a consensus. :)

10. ...and this bare-bones scoring rubric.

Each judge scores each entry out of ten points in three categories: Creativity, Use of Budget, and Write-Up. There are three judges who can each award a maximum of thirty points. Their scores are added together, so the highest possible score for any entry is 90 points. Each judge will score slightly differently (in fact, we try to pick judges who have different backgrounds and tastes!), so I created this rubric, based on other A&S contests, to help them in their judging. Note that this rubric mentions Dagorhir a lot-- if you’re running the Challenge for a different community, edit that out!

Creativity:

1 point: No thought put into choice of materials and design-- very basic default garb put together in a standard way, ie, a two-seam tunic with scrub pants, or made of the first things grabbed at the thrift store. Also includes garb that fails by the Manual of Arms for obtrusive modern components, illegal colors, etc.

3 points: Passes by the MoA, but is boring and made in standard ways. Brief thought went into the design process, but it produced generic garb-- ie, you used your personal colors but produced a “generiViking” kit.

5 points: Concept OR use of materials are original, but not both. Wouldn’t give it a second look on the field, either for good or bad reasons. Decent “background Dagorhir character” garb. Standard garb made with standard materials. 

7 points: A new spin on construction and concept. Delved deeper than the standard resources. May have set an interesting personal challenge (garbing multiple people, a whole week of garb, etc) or tried to tackle a kit not normally seen in Dagorhir.

10 points: Wildly original in both concept and use of materials. Is aesthetically impressive. Something we haven’t seen in Dagorhir before. 

Use of Budget:

1 point: Materials wasted, went far over budget, OR entrant did something that feels cheap and unfair to other contestants-- shopping from their pre-established materials stash; large gifts of materials from friends, etc.

3 points: Materials wasted, paid too much for materials. Slightly over budget or had $10 or more left over.

5 points: Entrant paid standard prices for standard materials. Anyone could get these materials on any day of the week. Had $5 or more left over. 

7 points: Some cunning put into acquiring materials, but methods were standard (ie, JoAnn’s coupons, waiting for sales, etc). Very little left over. 

10 points: Entrant got an objectively impressive amount of material out of their $20. May have gone to new lengths to stretch their resources (making components from scratch, dumpster-diving, extensive thrifting, repurposing, upcycling, etc). Patience and cunning were used in putting together this kit. Used every bit of their money.

Write-Up:

1 point: Write-up is incoherent or nonexistent. 

3 points: Write-up doesn’t credit resources used or describe the creation process. A new craftsperson following this would be utterly lost.

5 points: Write-up mostly links to tutorials written by other people. Explains design process or construction, but not both. A new craftsman following this would struggle to replicate your results.

7 points: A solid walk-through, well documented (ie, lots of process pictures). A new craftsman could get through it. May explain processes already extensively documented elsewhere in the garb-o-sphere (ie, describes how to sew a basic seam), but explains them well. 

10 points: Write-up provides extensive documentation of design process, construction methods, and resources used. A high-quality tutorial with original content that doesn’t already exist on the internet. A new craftsman could follow this with no confusion and use the skills learned to make different things later.

11. Announce your winners!

People will REALLY want to know in advance WHEN you’ll announce your winners, so be sure you let them know when they can expect to see the prizes go up!  The host will announce the winners on the FB page and get them in touch with the merchants who are sponsoring prizes. I like to start with fourth place (or whatever the last place I have prizes for is) and work up to announcing first. It’s fun if you can get winners’ certificates made for your winners! This also helps the sponsoring merchants know who the winners are: the winner just displays their certificate when they go to the merchant to pick up their prize.

Be sure to thank your entrants, judges, and sponsors! This is a TON of work for everyone involved, but it’s huge fun and it’s great for the community.

12. Wrap things up.

You’ll wrap up the contest by announcing the winners, putting the winners in touch with the sponsoring merchants so they can arrange to receive their prizes, and thanking everyone for their participation. It can be fun to start a discussion about what everyone liked best this year, and what they want to do differently next time. Encourage your participants to keep it positive— even if they didn’t win, they made a great outfit for the cost of a large pizza, and that’s always a plus!

If you have an in-person event coming up, encourage your participants to meet, enter any Arts and Sciences contests that are running at that event, and thank the judges and sponsoring merchants in person. It’s also a nice touch for the host to personally thank the judges— they volunteer a lot of their time, and without them, the Challenge would be impossible!

13. Tell me how it went! :D

I’m always curious to see peoples’ entries close-up, so if you’ve entered the Dagorhir $20 Garb Challenge, you’re always welcome to come by to Drentha camp and say hi! If you’ve run your own version of the contest, please let me know— this is a cause I really believe in, so I really want to hear how it went, wherever you run it!

Thanks, and happy garb-ing!

[archerinventive]

Happy Workshop Wednesday!!

It’s been super busy in the workshop as we get closer and closer to the first event of this years faire lineup. :)

That being said I managed to snag a  couple photos of a few of the items that have gone off to their new adventurers this week, and photos of some bread I recently made, because carbs are life. :)

Just a friendly reminder that there are less than 7 days left to snag items from the online shop before I temporarily close it down and take everything to faire, so if you desire any of the Limited Edition items this may be your last chance to grab them.

Thank you all again for your support and kind words!

Lots of Love to you all. ❤️

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArcherInventive

[archerinventive]

 Happy Makers Monday!

I hope the start of the week has been treating you all well. :)

I actually remembered to take photos of a few of the items in the workshop before I sent them off to their new adventurers this past weekend.

Just a quick reminder that there are less than 17 days left to snag items from the online shop before I temporarily close it down and take everything to faire, so if you desire any of the Limited Edition items this may be your last chance to grab them.

Thank you all again for your support and kind words. I can not express how much it means, especially to a small business owner like myself. 

Lots of Love to you all. ❤️

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArcherInventive

[jortschronicles]

Dressing the Despencers

Another post that's more of a costuming diary than anything else, to be added to as I get further in the process.

BACKGROUND

Since 2016 in the Medieval Fair of Norman (my gateway drug to the SCA) I have been cast as a street character named Margery Arkewright, the ditzy, excitable, joyful shepherdess of Avalon best known for her frequent proclamations that she is the Best Shepherdess in All of Avalon (the only shepherdess there) and her inability to keep track of her sheep. I could probably write an entire book about the development of Margery as a character from "<Mundane Name> - peasant townswoman" to the beloved sheep lady, and how that growth has helped me find myself as a person, but that's for another post. The original goal of Margery was to be as brightly colored and loud as I could be allowed. Pictured below are the original outfit I made in 2016 (with the wool blend felt "cloak" i regularly wore when chilly or to just have a huge storage pocket), and the updates to the outfit as of 2023. Even in that short time, I've grown as a costumer and amateur historian. If nothing else, I know how to put my sleeves in right and I know how to cover my hair so it doesn't get icky at the fair.

Being Margery has been a joy, but Margery takes a lot of energy that I just don't have anymore. In discussion with my casting director, we've put Margery on the shelf for a year or so to age like a fine wine, so when she comes back I can be a little less bouncy and not have it be as much of a shock. As far as the town is concerned, Margery is off trying to woo one of those muscley Bretons in the fleet of Captain Jeanne di Clisson. She'll be back.

On top of everything, I accidentally stepped into the position of Costuming Director at least in an interim. I've been handed certain goals to push for improved costuming standards across the board, as well as implementing some specific standards to improve readability to the audience.

DESIGN

In the meantime, I'm taking a step back to play a member of the court of Edward of Woodstock, Crown Prince of England, war hero and darling of the kingdom. For the time being, I am Baroness Elizabeth Burghersh, First Baroness Despencer. I decided to take the chance to really up my 14th century garb game with some Noblewomen's garb. I knew I had some lovely navy blue satin in stash that had just the right drape I wanted, and dug around to find some fabric with similar drape so I could make some particolor.

<insert picture of test wash>

I wanted to incorporate some of Elizabeth's armory as in 1369 (9 years after the medieval fair of norman is set) she inherits the title of Baroness Burghersh and is a heraldic heiress in her own right. I also have some red polycotton velvet that i wouldn't want to wear all over, but I would be more than willing to wear it on hems or cuffs. Some of the big pushes we're making in costuming direction are more heraldic designs, more silhouette varieties, more historical cuts and designs, more couples with coordinated outfits, and restricting large swaths of true crimson to the immediate royal family to improve readability to the public. My initial design below includes gold double-queued lions from the Burghersh along the hem. Shortly after, I adjusted the design to my formal submission (to my committee, I don't like the idea of approving my own stuff) on the right: the lions on lozenges, fitchets in the gown, tippets, and a wimple.

As it currently stands, a pair of new cast members are playing my "husband", Baron Edward Despencer and his brother, Thomas Despencer. Due to their inexperience with both med fair and costuming, I offered to make at least one tunic for Edward in exchange for creative control of the outfits. Due to a very limited quantity of this blue satin, I'm going for a particolor gown for myself buttoned halfway down, and using what's left on the false sleeves for Edward's cotehardie. I want to use a similar-- probably not the same-- bronze on the cotehardie for Thomas, and use green false sleeves. I really wanted to incorporate their family arms, but dear god they're miserable to depict.

I included headwear options to provide the boys with some suggestions and some embroidery options to dress up their cotehardies. The second version, below, should be a hot day version on the off chance we have a truly miserably hot day at fair. Fewer layers, and all linen.

I've got hand me down tippets and an oval linen veil to use for a wimple / veil combo, that I added a gorget of a 2x3'linen rectangle using this method to secure.

Halldora obtained a light weight, barely opaque creamy white silk for me to make a new wimple / veil combo that has more of the drape I really want to have. My problem is I'm obsessed with the fillet + gorget style of wimple with ramshorns braids, but some kind of scalp covering is practically mandatory with our role in the NMF. Sunburn on the scalp is miserable, and direct sun on the scalp can exacerbate symptoms of heat exhaustion, and I'm not looking for my third heatstroke.

Barring this, I am working with the other directors to obtain new and improved crowns for our royal family to justify a fancied up filette/barbette combo inspired by the fabric coronets our court baron/esses in Ansteorra tend to wear. While the pointed coronets of Ansteorran court nobility may be out of period for my goal here, I think adding some embroidery, pearls, cabochons, and the embroidered horribleterrible despencer arms (seen at the top of this post) may dress up Elizabeth Despencer even more. This is all pending new crowns for our royal family, of course, as a big goal is readability and identifiability for the average patron.

CONSTRUCTION

I have begun drafting the undergown using Morgan Donner's supportive kirtle tutorial. As someone who hates shapes and struggles with tailoring, the first pass at this was already impressively fitted. By round 2, I made the armscye a little larger. For the third round of fitting, I added a small kite shaped gusset to the armpit and rolled the shoulders back further onto my body.

I made one last sanity check that the blue polysatin had sufficient yardage to make both Elizabeth and Edward Despencer coordinating outfits, and was satisfied with the resulting layout. One whole gore to go on the side, and two half gores, one each for the front and back.

In a fit of utter hubris, I decided I would completely hand sew this supportive underkirtle, a little bit to prove a point but also largely so I had something to work on during NMF rehearsals and Pathfinder games. I am using a single layer of medium weight linen, with a second layer of the same around the torso for reinforcement and to make everything lie just a little nicer. At the advice of Asa in Blindi, I have been finishing seams as I work, especially along edges I already know to be fitted as needed. One final double check on fitting before I secure sleeve seams, which will be obnoxious to undo--

I'm satisfied. It's not perfect, and I'll tighten the cuff some more and get rid of the back pucker on the outer garment, but I'm rather pleased with this. I did not think i would do gores in the front as historically I don't really like the silhouette it gives me, but this outfit was just begging for full, huge skirts, so I scurried back to the workshop to piecework another gore together, just for the front. Now I'm working on the eyelets, which I'm poking through with a sharp bone awl and widening with a us7 knitting needle. I'm sewing each eyelet with 2 strands of dmc embroidery floss.

I'd originally wanted to lucet some lacing for this gown but mastering tension on crochet thread is eluding me, so I am doing a 7 strand kumihimo braid in white size 10 crochet thread, using these aglets to cap either end rather than my nice ones from Bad Baroness.

Things I've learned so far:

The smallest measurement on my torso is NOT where I thought it is

French seams make hand sewing less miserable to do

Waxing your thread (with a little cake of beeswax) is worth every second and makes life so much easier. And periodically you should run a flame over the sides of the cake so it doesn't start flaking and falling apart

It's worth working with shorter pieces of thread you have to secure more often, i now max out at 2/3 of my armspan for thread lengths

knots are for scrubs, sew 2 stitches in the opposite direction of your intended seam and live your best life

[encasedinpermafrost]

It's been a while since I posted anything personal, how's everyone doing?

I hurt my back a few months ago but I'm fine, I had to take time off of lifting which sucks but I'm slowly getting better. I've been super fatigued and haven't really worked on music in a while which is a pain since I was hoping to have my EP done in September. Getting ready for my darkwave set in October, and still vibin

⸸ KΣΣP ▽▽1🜊CHØÜ§Ξ DÆD ⸸