Photo courtesy of Terrill Johnson
A week ago at Menhir, I had the pleasure of announcing the impending elevation of my good friend and foster apprentice Ginevra Brembati. I can take no credit for her many talents, only for encouraging her to put them on wider display.
At Golden Lily this weekend I took Philippa Kempe as my second apprentice. Instead of having to make her own belt, she drew up her own contract (in duplicate). We’re excited to have another fine addition to our household!
picture by Jerusha Kilgore
I went up to Thor’s Mountain for the weekend with Serafina and Philippa in tow, and we had a lovely time. It was a small event, but the company was excellent, the weather gorgeous (despite dire predictions) and the food plentiful and tasty. Wearing the toga was an interesting experience, but not one that I foresee repeating anytime soon. It is not intended to be a practical garment, and it certainly was not. Many thanks to my lovely companions for constantly re-draping me every five minutes.
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…
This weekend was the first chance I was able to get together with both my new student Philippa and my apprentice Serafina. We met up at Philippa’s house to work on various projects.
A couple weeks ago I helped Philippa drape a body block for herself. We used that to work out patterns for a kirtle and loose gown modeled after a portrait of Eleanora de Toledo. After a few iterations of drafting and test fitting, we arrived at a pretty good shape.
Serafina brought along a new pouch that she’s been working on, and made good progress on it. It’s shaping up to be very close to the period examples she’s working from.
After we finished sewing for the day, we went over a few dances that Philippa wanted to teach her students later this week. Despite having to imagine most of the other dancers in our sets, I think it went pretty well.