New Projects

This past weekend I showed Philippa how to do pewter casting, and she made a whole pile of bling for her Eleanora de Toledo gown. I’m looking forward to seeing how the rough castings turn out once they’re all assembled.

All of my old brache (linen drawers) have been wearing out, so I decided I needed to make some more. I’d been using a pattern with two tubular legs and a strip that went all the way through the middle from front to back. It works well enough, but tends to wear through at the top of the inner thigh. This time I switched to a square gusset in the crotch, and so far it seems comfortable enough, with less bulk at the waist. This weekend will be the test to see how it works in real life. I have high hopes.

I also finally started a pair of wool hose. I have some tropical weight worsted wool suiting that I bought at least a year ago from fabric.com. It’s very light and drapey, and I’ve been putting off using it for far too long. I cut out the legs (on the bias, of course) using my trusty old hose pattern, sewed up the back seam, and pinned them on to an old doublet. I am ashamed at how long it’s taken me to try this, as they look, feel, and fit wonderfully. We’ll see if that remains true once I get the feet and lacing holes in, but I suspect these will be my favorite hose. One step closer to a decent pair of full hose…