another pillow cover

I remade this pillow case because I found enough pictures to know I made a mistake last tame. So I removed a portion of fabric and left only classic criss-cross pattern.


Parzival, Hagenau, 1443 - 1446, Cod. Pal. germ. 339 fol.147r
(Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg)

Tod Mariens, 1495, Reichenbach, Deutschland

Hl. Urlich, 1480 90, Kaufbeuren, Schwabien
(IMAREAL'S Image Server)

Wurzach Altar-death of Mary, Hans Multscher, 1437, Berlin Staatlische Museum
(Web Gallery of Art)

Linen pillow covers

Pillow covers are made from hand woven, vintage linen fabric.

This is the earliest example of this kind od striped pattern I found. The illustration is from Toggenburg Bibel dated about 1411 (source: Bildindex).

My baroque earrings

I spend a lot of time looking for iconography of baroque earrings. When I ordered my earrings (it was 6 months ago) I had only one historical example of design which I want to have. I spend loooong hours discussing with my friend Kaya about types of pearls, gems, sets, fittings used in early 17th century. Thanks God we have beautiful set of jewellery found in Cheapside Hoard, London dated 1590-1620. There is an example of earrings and we also found another example from private collection (now in National Historic Museum in Moscov) and we started to design a new version of my jewelly.

A pair of earring from The National Historic Museum in Moscow


A sourse for my earrings fittings (www.bildindex.de)

Kaya made for me a pair of hanging earrings with a pearl and amethyst. They are similar in shape with the earrings of Margheritha Gonzaga, Princess of Mantua from a portrait painted by Pourbus (you can see it here).

Of course I'm not a princess so I can only dream about a teardrop pearls.

Sunday in Landhaus

The Landhaus in Graz is a beautiful example of North Italian Renaissance architecture in heart of Austria. Inside the building you can find arcaded courtyard which was designed in 1557 by italian architect Domenico dell' Allio. It's really amazing!

I also tested how my supportasse works with completed early 17th century flemish outfit.

Supportasse is ready

the topside of the supporter


the underside

Finished pickadil is 40 cm wide and 26 cm height. It consists of two layers-top is stiffened by reeds and two layers of paper covered with blue linen. Rows of tiny stitches holds all together. Bottom layer of pickadil is stiffened by 3 layers of paper stitched to linen, with iron wire caught into the seam around the outer edge. Both layers of the supporter are stitched together. At the center back there are a pair of eyelet holes to tie it to the collar of my dress.

Supportasse project

My new early 17th century dress desperatly needs supportasse/rebato/pickadil (collar supporter) for a proper look. It will be a second pickadil-I've one as a collar of my dress but it's not enough for me. I start with an example from V and A Museum which was made of linen, paper, iron wire and whalebones (T.62-1910), good described in "Pattern of Fashion 4" by Janet Arnold.

A pair of bodies

I finished another part of my new 17th century outfit-a corset or pair of bodies based on a survived example worn by Pfaltzgrafin Dorothea Sabine von Neuberg.
I used ivory satin for cover, strong linen for two layers of interlining and fine white linen for lining. All stitching are in linen (originally the rows of stitching formed the casting were in silk). The stiffening is made from a bunches of bents (9-11 reeds per casting).

The raw edges on the waist, armholes and neckline are bound with a strip of bias-cut satin instead of heavy silk ribbon. The lacing is at the center back (so unfortunatelly I need a helping hands to wear it) and the eyelet holes are worked over brass rings for reinforcement.

First time I used bunches of reeds for stifftening (usually I worked with plastic boning or cords) so I worried about durability and flexibility of construction but finnished corset works great.

My new "pair of bodies" with drawers.

Spanish influences

For few days me and my friend are talking about spanish historic food. We are looking really old recipes and infos about ingriedeiences which were used in 16th and 17th century in Europe and especially in Spain. Yesterday I found "Manual de mugeres en el qual se contienen muchas y diversas reçeutas muy buenas" from 16th c. translated from Spanish into English here.
I promise my friend to prepare a dish from "Manual de mugeres" named Cazuela de arroz ("Rice casserole"). We looked for quite simple dish, easy to prepare it in a small field kitchen in the garden of the castle. I think it will be OK for an elegant birthday feast dinner for a merry company of friends ( it's not a pretty thing but very tasty).

Bargain...

We found wooden casket in traditonal shape. It's need a work and patience; I must remove a layer of old varnish, find new hinges and think about some kind of lock...

Silk buttons

Slowly I started to prepare passementerie (buttons and ribbon) for my new early 17th century outfit. I need 8-10 silk buttons to fit cuffs in very fashionable but close-fitting sleeves characteristic for gowns and women wams/jacket dated 1610-1625.
I used very simple and popular method of wrapping the silk thread over wooden core to create the button. This method is described in details in The Tudor Tailor book and also mentioned in Patterns of Fashion v.3 by Janet Arnold.

My new plates

A few months ago I saw very decorative serving (?) plate found somewhere in Holand, (now in Amsterdam museum collection). During the last The Company of Saynt George event in the Castle Haut-Koenigsbourg in Alsace/France I bought two marvellous reconstructions of this plate made by Jimmy the potter from Trinity Court Potteries

Pelicea for Tommy

Finished sheepskin gown

and a spiral lacing detail: 5 mm wide silk ribbon lace with brass fitting

Pewter excellences

I ordered spoons and a pewter cast needlecase from The Lionheart Replicas. Those things are georgious!

And my precioussss...

Early 17th century underwear

Slowly I collect my new set of early 17th century clothes for the upper middle class women from Prussia. I have two linen shirts with little ruffles on neck and wristbands, made from fine of-white linnen cloth. Yesterday I started to work on drawers (women underpants). It's perfect for winter time.

My inspiration was an example from Metropolitan Museum of Art, dated c. 1600:

The pattern and all necessary information which I needed for reconstruction I found in "Patterns of fashion 4" by Janet Arnold. I used this pattern but I decided not to decorate the drawers :

Orginally this drawers had two worked eyelet holes and string to tie the waistband but I made button (wooden base worked in heavy linen white threads) and buttonhole fastening on the waistband:

Torlop pictures

First is scene from the altar with 12 scenes from life of Christ, from Koeln, dated 1450/1460 (source: Bildindex web page).

Second example: Passion of Christ by Conrad von Soest, 1401/1415, Rauschenberg.

Next is my beloved "Altar of the ten commandments" from Church of the Holy Virgin in Gdansk (Danzig). It's dated about 1488 and was painted by Unknown Master from South Germany. The man in torlop also wear black hood and have axe so maybe it's a sailor.
The last you can see here: Web Gallery of Art (very short jacket worn by kneeling man).

Tarte of chese

My diner today was inspired by recipes from "A Propre new booke of Cokery", England, 1545

To make a Tarte of Chese
Take harde chese and cut it in slyces / and pare it / than laye it in fayre water or in swete milke the space of thre houres / than take it vp and breake it in a morter tyll it be small / than draw it vp thorow a strainer with the yelkes of vi egges and ceason it vp with suger and swete butter / and so bake it.

Last friday we bought delicious local made styrian hard cheese from sweet milk with black pepper so I used it instead of tudor "harde chese". I soaked cheese in milk and this method really works! After 2 hours cheese became much softer and it was easier to mix together with yolks and butter.

The pastry dough for this tart I prepared using the recipe from the same book:

To make shorte paest for tart.
Take fine floure and a curtesy of faire water and a disshe of swete butter and a litle saffron and the yolkes of two egges and make it thin and tender as ye maie.

(Both recipes from Gode Cookery web page).

Update

I started to sewing together all pieces of sheepskin gown for my son. I'm using the felled (overlapped) seam which is a combination of running and oversewing stitches. I hope it's strong enough to survive.

Something new, something old...

Last week I started to work on sheepskin gown known in medieval times as a "pellicea" (in Central Europe named "torlop" or "kozukhy"). The most characteristic for this kind of clothes is that they haven't outer layer of cloth, just one layer of fur (the visible side of garment is leather not hairs). In polish medieval chronicles "torlop" is mentioned from the end of 14th century as a garment of court and nobility members. The "torlop" made from sheepskin was favorite gown of polish king Vladislavus Jagiello at the beginning od 15th century and the same type of garment was also worn by sons of king Casimir at the second half of 15th century.

I found just 4 fine pictural evidences of this type of clothes from Koeln/Cologne, Darmstadt and Danzig/Gdansk. All of them are from years 1430-1490. The most interesting for me was example from Darmstadt because it's example of children garment:

Of course I know that it's just a symbolic picture of Apostel Jacob the Minor but with written evidence of shippskin clothes worn by sons of king Casimirus it's quite possible that this garment was worn by children also in real life.

I also finnish my first embroidered woolen cushion: