Since catlins2busy helped me hem the bottom, I've a dress in a wearable state. I've yet to do the tippets and fitchets, but I'm waiting until I have the fur to do that properly. Am debating whether to reinforce the buttonhole side of the front opening with tablet weaving--I did it in the underdress, and I like the look, but I haven't any string in an appropriate colour for the green layer. Might wear it as-is, or with just faced fitchets, at Pennsic.

Have the seams all finished, the sleeves hemmed, and the facings installed around the neckline and the left front opening. (The extant Herjolfsnes clothing all seemed to have the buttons on the right side as worn, hopefully corroboratable with London material, so that's what I'm planning.) I've made all the buttons with the scraps left from cutting the dress. I have those to sew on, as well as sewing the buttonholes and probably adding a little tablet weaving to that edge of the opening, and then hemming the bottom (for which I'll probably offer a local friend a bribe of baked goods) and it'll be wearable.

Am still having difficulty planning the tippets and fitchet outlines, mostly because while I understand how to sew fur to itself am not too sure whether it all translates to sewing fur to cloth. I've found remarkably little information about it on the internet, even from PrimitiveWays, my usual first stop for bushcraft. Am hoping to order How to Sew Leather, Suede, Fur to see if it has useful advice, and look for recommendations from other enthusiasts I know.

After two separate chalkings of the pieces, I've finally cut and started putting it together. I did most of the long seams with the machine, but have done the two side seams and the centre front seam--as well as putting the sleeves together--by hand. I think all the rest of the sewing will be by hand, as it's all finicky stuff like setting in the sleeves.

I used the same pattern from my red dress, but added a much larger seam allowance so it'll be just a teeny bit bigger--hopefully enough to fit over the red dress without incident.

Am still not entirely sure what to do about attaching the fur. I think I'd like to make it removable so that I can machine wash the linen part of it after Pennsic.

I think I've had a major breakthrough with my understanding of tippets. Through a rather enlightening converstion with gwacie, I'm agreeing that tippets are much more likely to have been integral pieces to the garment, comprised of a turned-back sleeve lining and extension--very obvious in pieces like Machaut's Le Remède de Fortune where a little seam line appears down the back of the tippet that seems to indicate it was pinned or sewn to show the lining off most effectively.

What was sticking in my acceptance of such a construction for tippets shown after 1360 or so was the fact that most of the earlier garments showed the tippets hanging down behind the elbow, while most of the monumental brasses for 1365-1390 showed them hanging down before the front of the elbow: the ladies Foxeley, Joan de la Tour, Joan de Ingham. I couldn't necessarily say that the sleeve opening was being turned back to show the linings in these because they hung differently, and none of the monumental brasses I've seen show that seam.

Now, however, I've seen a brass for Joan de Cobham, wife of John de la Pole, from a brass c. 1380. The tippet for her left arm hangs down in front of the elbow, but her more active right hand (holding that of her husband) shows the tippet hanging down exactly where it seems to be in early-14th-century depictions of tippets. This seems to be my missing link in accepting the construction method for the later-14th-century tippets, so I'm convinced that's a plausible way to do it for my 1365 gown.

Fitchets seem to have been done in a similar material to the tippets--most of the depictions I've seen seem to show the tippets and fitchets in coordinating colours or patterns, so I think I'm going to follow suit.

I just hope I have enough white rabbit saved up to make all the pieces big enough. If not, I may have to find additional quantities of dead bunny.

I found the correct attribution for the monumental brass that shows the dress I like! It's of Sir Miles Stapleton and Lady Joan de Ingham, dating to c. 1365, from Ingham Church, Norfolk. The brass itself has been lost, but I've ordered a book though ILL that's supposed to have a clearer illustration, so I can see whether there's any kind of closure to the front of her dress.

Have a much clearer design now that I've stared at my fabric for a while. I'm glad that staring at it, rather than cutting it, is what gets creativity going.

Am intending, as of today, to do a short-sleeved GFD with tippets and fitchets, like in the oft-reproduced effigy of Joan de la Tour as a weeper on her father's tomb. Admittedly, that representation is at least a decade later than the 1365 date for my red dress, which I intend to use as an underlayer--not to mention that her underlayer doesn't have buttons on the sleeves like mine. I have found a representation, however (digitally reproduced in a Swedish reenactors' forum), that's supposed to be of "Lady Joan Ingram" and her husband from 1365, which shows the tippet and fitchet elements I want in combination with sleeve buttons on the underlayer, and exactly the right date, but I can't corroborate its attribution. Shall have to continue to search for it. ETA: The Church Monuments Society not helpful for this brass.

Have never done tippets before, but I should have enough white linen still stashed to do them (and the short sleeves might save me a little more of the green linen for an extra tunic). Re-read Robin Netherton's MC&T article on tippets where she suggests they were a fashion afterthought, so I'm wondering whether it might be a good idea to sew those entirely separately, then baste or pin them on.

As far as the fitchets, intellectually I might like to embroider them, but nearly all of the fitchets I've seen today that have some exterior embellishment are a plain solid colour. One of them looked a little looping, like it might be embroidered, but I can't be certain. Worst-case, I've done set-in pockets for one of smarriveurr's 18th century waistcoats, so I can put in a facing that way and leave them as slits if I have to. Have any of you worn 18th-century style pockets under fitchets?

Yay for having a plan!

I've decided to cut out a new green linen cotehardie/gothic fitted dress, and I've the hard pieces plotted out in chalk already. Now, I'm considering godets and gores, and the most economical use of fabric. It's hard to get out of the starving artist mentality.

Would appreciate a second opinion: ought godets and gores to be the same width, or doesn't it matter? Was thinking of using thinner godets than gores, as I've a very long, narrow strip of fabric down one selvedge and I'd rather use it up.

...not least because I may still be able to get a Viking tunic out of what I have left!

There's finally enough light to shoot, today.

I like the result, definitely.

Having installed an aiglet on the lace today, I've put my finished dress to the test by wearing it about the house. The lacing went much, much more easily with the aiglet, and will take about half the time as sewing the dress up would. The lace and eyelets look handsome together, though the seam no longer extends straight down my front (oh, well) but curves around the breast a bit. The top of the lace doesn't need much in the way of securing, so I've just used a slip stop and tucked in the end; the loop left makes me want to hang something pretty from it, but I think that's the Viking aesthetic coming through.

Tried to get a photo of the finished seam, but it's dark as twilight out (it's lashing down rain) and none of the light in the house (or the flash) is good enough to get good focus...except for maybe the task lights, and they're down in the cellar for the great hole.

Lots of work, hopefully worth it.

Over the past several days, I've turned out about 1.75 m of tubular card woven red cord for a dress lace. I used 12 Z-threaded cards with two opposing strings in each, turned 180º forward each turn, with a warp twined left to right.

I like the result. The cord is has both good tensile strength and a bit of stiffness. The weave is rather elegant, though a bit too tiny to capture with the not-great macro setting on my Kodak. The look is surprisingly modern, nearly like rat-tail cord, but the coefficient of friction in my cord is higher, and it doesn't slip so freakishly easily as rat-tail cord, which I consider definitely to be a feature.

To anchor the bottom of the cord inside the dress, I've used a slip knot that tightens toward the end of the cord to form a stable loop, and passed the working end of the cord through that loop. This created a rather easy way to fix the cord without worrying that a knot would pull through the eyelet and cause social difficulties at awkward moments (because Murphy's an Irishman, and if there's a poster child for sod's law, it's me).

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to lace the dress the whole way up with the new lace, yet, as the knot at the end has been difficult to get through the eyelets; I've already broken one of my lovely bone needles trying to poke the knot through this many holes. Am hoping to drive down to South River* tomorrow to get a metal aiglet that will fit the tip of the cord, so that lacing the dress will not, as I feared last night, take twice as long to lace as it did to sew it shut every time.

Overall appraisal--should be great, with the right technology.

*Grannd Companies is advertising etched silver aiglets for extremely reasonable prices, and they should be less than an hour's drive from here.

Have finished all 71 hand-whipped eyelets, and the dress laces nicely. Not entirely certain how I ended up with 71,* but that's what fit along the opening, and I can't complain too much. During test-lacing there was only a slight bit of gapping between the two bottom-most pairs of eyelets, which may simply have been due to having laced the very bottom backwards; shall see if this corrects itself with truer lacing. Otherwise, devreux' recommendation of cm spacing was spot-on, as the edges butt nicely together. The lacing itself lays a little more regularly than is shown at right; I was dodging cat claws, as I hadn't shoved the excess lacing into my dress to keep it from enticing catly mischief.

...which brings me to several questions.
1. In order to lace myself in comfortably--i.e. thread the lace loosely for 10 holes, then tighten for support--I'm going to need about 180 cm of lace, which is probably around half a metre longer than I really need for the finished lacing. Does everyone else just use a shorter lace, or do you hide the excess somewhere (and how, for bog's sake)?
2. What's the best way to anchor the stationary end of the lace?
3. catlins2busy, you'd mentioned top-down lacing being more useful for those of us who are well-endowed; was this just in the later-period dresses Her Excellency was making?
4. Also, I need to figure out the optimum lace itself. I've done my practice lacing with a bit of scrap cotton 2 mm in diameter and 2 m in length, and while it will stay laced without even knotting the top pair of eyelets together, it does not come undone easily at all. Want to experiment with a lace done up from the same thread with which I whipped the eyelets, and from Crowfoot et al., I've come up with the idea to do a tubular card-woven lace, with 12 cards threaded each with 2 threads and given a 180º turn each iteration. Has anyone experimented with cord-making this way, or does everyone use either finger-looped cords, or boughten string?

*I have a theory that involves the sheer mass of my rather abundant cleavage bending the fabric of space due to gravitational pull, but it remains just a theory.

The fact that I haven't finished the eyelets for my red dress has been preying on my mind, but I wanted to do it correctly, and this meant a little bit of research.

I'd designed the dress to have straight seams, following the c. 1395 Kent funeral brass of Lady Cobham, but the funeral effigy of the Countess of Warwick, dated c. 1370-1375, is a little bit closer to the date from a number of the other elements of the dress, which broadly date from 1325-1365. I'm under the impression that a lot of the mid-14th-century dress interpretations out there are Warwick-based--and I tend to prefer less widely-disseminated interpretations of dress (see my latest 10th-cen West Norse outfit!)--but I have a good photo of the effigy and can't complain too much, I suppose.

Catherine Beauchamp's dress is spiral-laced, with the same number of holes per side (26 visible per, but her arm is in the way of some). The bottom-most and top-most pairs of eyelets are parallel, while the rest of the eyelets are staggered evenly up the front closure. I think I'll be sewing the eyelets in the manner described in Crowfoot et al.'s Textiles and Clothing, offset about a cm apart though I've never been exactingly precise in my other spaced closures.

Any suggestions on how best to know what size to make the eyelets, though?

(Note to self: this is starting to look an awful lot like the dress on the effigy of Philippa of Hainult. Maybe attempt the headdress, too?)

I've been making some slow progress on reworking my red linen dress, especially now that I've finished the drywall mud and paint in the bathroom closet. The two new panels are in, and are apparent in their newness only to me, according to Himself. I've done finishing work on all the seams that don't require facings, hemmed the front, and have pressed the neckline and front openings as prep for sewing the facings. The front hem hangs as low as it used to, from what I can tell, so I'm quite happy.

Am partway through sewing in the neckline facing--have finished the line of stitches closest to the opening and am currently partway through the median-line of stitching, and hope to finish the outer edge with a hem stitch tonight, as this is the technique I used for the facing when I first made the dress, and is what I'd been able to document from the late 14th-century London textiles I saw last year.

Shall only stitch the inner- and outermost edges of the facing for the front opening, I think, and possibly to either side of the eyelets, as I've seen that technique in silk for woollen ground for that period in London. Even small eyelets may get in the way of a third line of stitching through the midline of the the facing, like I had when I was sewing the dress closed. The extant eyelet facing on which I took notes had eyelets 22 mm apart, which is rather wider than I anticipate using, but I think that may be a logical difference between linen and woollen fabric, or possibly between inner and outer layers of clothing.

Once I get the facings in it'll be wearable again as per its previous state when I sewed myself into it. This state, hopefully, is not far off.

Hindsight is a bear. So, in assessing the wear and cut damage to my red cotehardie/gothic fitted dress (what's the current jargon? And I thought the switch from Hiberno-Norse to Hiberno-Scandinavian was awkward....) I've decided that had I the wherewithal to have switched around the neckline a bit, I could very well have altered the dress from a sew-up to a laced style with minimal effort. Oh, well.

At least I have discovered the weirdness that was going on underneath the neckline facing at the front seam while I wasn't looking: some of the fabric had begun to fray, but I imagine that's because it kept pulling in odd directions as I worked the dress on and off. Have also sewed up a couple seam pops at the arm gussets behind the shoulders. Those had come undone a bit also during the awkward off/on procedure, I think. May try reinforcing those later with some topstitching (or whatever else I can think of) to keep that from happening in future.

Doing a quick comparison of the well-loved dress to what I have left of the original fabric, the red seems to be wash/light-fast, so this process will be slightly less painful than anticipated. Shall iron that fabric out soon. May have "probably" enough to switch out the two long front panels as planned. Once I unpick the seams from these two panels, I'm planning on using them to cut pattern pieces instead of the original toile, as I lost a considerable amount of weight after the toile was made up. If I can find the muslin, too, I'll trace out the pieces for additional future use.

Am figuring on using approximately the same seam allowances as in the sewn-up version, as the centre front was already turned back and faced and fitted rather well (except for the one odd spot where we had the "puppet show" thing going on [if you weren't at H3M for Pennsic, you probably don't know what I'm talking about]). May try pulling the right side seam in about 3 mm to see if it prevents aforementioned weirdness.

Unpicking the facings at present. Shall save them for reuse, as they're still good and not showing much wear at all.

My cotehardie won best in category at the St. Eligius event in the Barony of Dragonship Haven. And I wasn't even the only one in the category!

I got the chance to show off the completed cotehardie a couple days this past week, but I'm back from the Current Middle Ages.

The Viking Civil Engineering class was well-received. I got rid of all 60 handouts, with requests for more to be emailed to unlucky attendants. Have heard many good comments about the material and presentation--quite chuffed.

I've learned several new things to do with needles and string. Took a class on the Mammen embroidery (taught by a friend from BMDL) and have tried one of the motifs. Have learned that smocking/pleating is not as hard as I'd thought, and intend to apply that knowledge to a Birka smock. Pattern darning on pleatwork is sexy! Also saved myself 55 minutes of a class and picked up trichinopoly from a fellow Viking in 5 minutes of watching. Must make draw plate to even out finished gauge of chain.

Swag includes lump indigo, A Weaver's Garden: Growing Plants for Natural Dyes and Fibers by Rita Buchanan, a new ladylike Ragnar knife that'll hang nicely from my oval brooches, and some silk for embroidery.

The attempt at a cooler-less Pennsic was quite successful. The only thing that spoilt was a bag of baby carrots, which were soaking in their own juices and really should have been used within a day or two. All the other veg was fine, and the meat I brought was all shelf-stable sausage. Instant couscous is your friend.

Had a wonderful time over at Talbot's Keep. Our household had donated some leftover foodstuffs to a dinner that Duke Sir Rurik had planned and not mentioned to his household, so we were invited; it turns out that it was the dinner to celebrate the alliance of House Normandie and Talbot's Keep, which was full of informal ceremony. The event left a really fuzzy feeling in your heart. Wish I could see more of that side of the Dream.

The tablet weaving on the sleeves took much less time than I'd anticipated, using this technique from Dame Helen. I got mine to look rather like the photos, using two cards/eight strands, though my buttonholes weren't quite so close to the edge of the sleeve as in the extant garment from Baynard's Castle. Were I using the selvedge of the fabric for the edge of the sleeve, I may use this technique again, but it was kind of a bother--weaving on the left sleeve efficiently meant that I was sewing with my left hand.

In the last fitting this past Tuesday, where I managed to get the sleeves onto the dress, finally, the dress became even more closely fitted. Due to the disparity between my bust and my waist, we had to cut me out of the dress in order to avoid doing some serious harm to my breasts. The last and final method of getting myself into this dress now involves wool facing along 30 cm or so of both sides of the centre seam of the upper torso, and sewing myself into the dress. Rather, smarriveurr does the stitching while I hold my breasts out of the way in an appropriately supported position. Once I'm in it, the dress is really comfortable, with a wide range of movement and full support through the bust (I just have to worry about punctures during the sewing, through no fault of Himself). I only want to sew myself into it once before War, because it really is annoying to have to do it that way, so I won't have any pictures until War. Next time, I'll bloody well figure out how to do a properly laced dress, so I don't end up hating the dress before I've even worn it. Perhaps once I calm down from the construction process I'll appreciate how truly fabulous this dress is, but for now I'm fed up with looking at it.

In other news: Scrolls finished. Must remember to scan them before they go to their respective recipients. I've made a couple temporary scroll folders out of cardboard and some Truly Hideous Egyptian-print fabric, to try and dissuade people from keeping them, though they may be sufficiently tacky-awful to be cool. There's no accounting for taste.

I stopped being chicken, so I recut one sleeve for the cotehardie with an extra seam allowance (the thickness of the major knuckle of my first finger) on both sides of the forearm, as per m_nivalis' advice. The buttonholes, again, have taken a while, but all I have left to do on this sleeve is add the six-strand braid reinforcement on the buttonhole side. The only problem I'm seeing is that the elbow is a little pointier than I'd have liked, but I may not bother fixing it, as the rest of it looks good to me. One more to do, then I'll have to learn how to attach these to the body of the dress.

The finished too-small sleeve looks quite nice, and I'm sure I'll think of something to do with it.

I've done the facing around the neckline using a technique from 14th century London. The edge was turned over by <5 mm to the wrong side, then sewn with a straight-grain tabby weave ribbon of a width between 5 and 25 mm--more wool selvedge of the same I'd used for the finished sleeve, about 18 mm. I sewed it with a second line of running stitch in about the middle of the width, then with a hem stitch around the furthest edge from the opening. No bias tapes were found in London so I was perfectly happy to use more selvedge. The facing ironed flat without much trouble, so I was quite happy with the outcome. It's quite different from a modern, square facing, and so it would have been obvious had I cheated.

Now all that's left are new sleeves and the hem.

*insert string of expletives here*

I was really wary of my idea to use buttons and buttonholes on my sleeves. When the garment was fitted, I wasn't sure how I was going to go about the sleeves, so I didn't take buttons into account when I was fitting, nor did I when I was cutting out the pieces with an appropriate (at the time) and normal seam allowance of 7 mm. Thus, while I worked on adding buttons and buttonholes, I remained skeptical of the final results. I seem to have screwed up.

So far, I've only done the right sleeve. I rolled the edges of the forearm with a tiny seam allowance, sewed in some dark purple wool selvedge as lining, created 12 buttonholes, and started to sew on buttons. Through the entire process, I pinned the edges together to see whether they still matched, whether the sleeve still fitted. I was skeptical. Around the thickest part of my forearm, the sleeve was getting really tight. Now, with four buttons sewn on around the wrist, I've maybe a 2-cm gap around the problem area.

The four buttons, when closed around my wrist, really do look fantastic, so I'd like to make buttoned sleeves. The question now is whether to go with smooth, not-buttoned sleeves as a temporary measure, whether to recut the sleeves with a larger seam allowance in the forearm (may have to do this by trial-and-error, as I've never made buttoned sleeves before) or whether I should attempt to piece an insert into the sleeve on the button edge so that the sleeve will meet around my forearm. I've enough fabric for either choice, but as I'm nearly done with the not-fitting sleeve, it seems a shame to waste all the work.

Either way, I think I'll finish the sleeve already in progress, as it looks too good not to, and then do something decorative with it--either give it as my own favour, or embroider it with a white escarbuncle and give it to the queen of Æthelmearc and see if she could use it. At some point, I need to enter an A&S competition. K., who is apprenticed to a Boston costuming Laurel, has suggested I do so in order to showcase my (admittedly good) hand-sewing.

It is entirely too hot to have this much linen draped over my lap.