Anyway, so I long ago drank the Koolaid and learned to love layers. As such, all of my garb, basically, requires me to wear an inner dress and an outer dress to look right – if I skip the outer dress I look like a peasant, if I skip the underdress i’m running around with visibly bare arms. This won’t do at ALL. I have one dress which I *can* wear without the undergown, as it has closed sleeves (and it’s even unlined! in other words, it was actually made for Pennsic, though I’ve never been QUITE warm enough to wear it without the supportive layer underneath.)

So, obviously, I need more garb like this. I’m still not thrilled with this, as honestly that’s more closed-sleeve dresses than I want to have, but it’ll work. My first one is going to be based on this dress:
though with a wildly different color scheme, as I found some black/white mini-checked tropical wool I had forgotten I bought. I think I meant to make a GFD with it, as those always look interesting in slightly patterned fabric, but ah well. Unlined and with just a supportive smock underneath, it should be as cool as Roman etc. I have 5 yards of the fabric in question, maybe closer to 5.5 since it’s fabric.com and I ordered 5, so that gives me an extra 15”.

Enter my trusty Visio/analog. (Actually on the Mac I use Conceptdraw, but same idea. Really Visio’s the one piece of software I wish would get ported win->mac, but I digress again.) So here’s the layout:

For some reason the labels don’t show up, but the purple is the body pieces, light blue is gores, and dark blue is sleeves. I have an existing gown pattern I can impose on the body pieces for shoulder/bust line preliminary fitting.

Only question is what color shall I make the dags, and should I put faux “underdress cuffs” on the bottom of the sleeves? Am leaning towards blue, but will have to see what’s in the stash, and decide how much work I want to put in this. My other one has cut dags, , which is easier in the “I don’t have to hem these” sort of way, but requires a fairly significantly difference in fabric weight between the dress and the dags…

Hmm, I guess I also have to decide whether I need to lace the bust at all – am leaning against, given how scoop necked it is I suspect I can move it out of the way for nursing, but will have to see…

I have been known to wear a hood in the men’s chaperone style, which I had seen a few images of, but knew was rare. Still, I figured I had just enough evidence to justify it. However, I realized today that (with one *marginal* exception, that I think may not actually be an exception) unless I want to move my persona WAY north, I don’t actually have justification for it. On the up side, it DOES fill in a mental gap in “how europe north and west of france differed a bit from english/french styles in the early 15th century”.

Anyway, without further ado, Blanche of England – married a german prince, died in austria, had her picture painted on the ceiling (circa 1430):

Look at that hat! It’s like a very elaborate version of a men’s chaperone. And the thing I realized, looking at it, was that every example I could think of with a woman wearing this sort of hat? Netherlands, German, Switzerland, Cleves… somewhere not France. (Thus why it’s technically “right out” for me… though I want Blanche’s outfit.
This one’s netherlandish and from 1425. And I’ve got 2 more in “A Visual History of Costume (The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century” that are also Netherlandish (images 66 and 71, if you have it, I couldn’t find either online). Cynthia Virtue has a redrawing of a Swiss Tapestry that seems to be the same idea (3rd image), though without additional citation.

The only counter example I could find, I suspect is actually a guy – English, 1415 – http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/chaucerreading.jpg – the figure in pink in the bottom right corner.

Anyone want to shoot me down? As I *like* wearing “men’s” hats, they’re easy… but I’m not from the Netherlands…

But, before we get into that, let’s re-cap the last six weekends.

Sept. 4th – Golden Rose. Duchess Padraigin asked me to be on her team for Golden Rose, and I was honored to accept. Of course, that means I had to get my rig all shinny and ready to go, but then had a great time fighting for the day. On Sunday, we drove out to the Greensboro area and picked up Cliff and Fiona, our two new greyhounds.

Sept. 11th – Florida. My parents really wanted to see our new car, so back when the calendar was a lot less full, we agreed to drive down for a weekend to see them. So, we packed Cliff and Fiona into the back of the car a week after we got them and drove 11 hours to Central Florida. We hung out and had a good time, then got back in the car and came home.

Sept. 18th – HMS Raven’s Cove. We couldn’t stand by and not be there for the creation of a new Barony right on our borders, so we got up and zipped down I40 to attend Battle for HMS Raven’s Cove. After the investiture and some hugs for our new cousins, we got back in the car and went up to Bunnlevel to the Tourney of Friends site to go riding. The plan was to ride in processional at War of the Wings, and we felt it might be a good idea to have been on said horses before. Sunday, we took the dogs to the dog-park, then went to the Baronial Meeting and Practice.

Sept. 25th – MATO 3. Midnight at the Oasis has been a great event for a long time now, and this year was no exception. I drove out to setup tents on Friday night, then back home. Guenievre, myself, and the pups came out Saturday, and camped over on Saturday night. This was Cliff and Fiona’s first event, and they really handled it well. It’s rather refreshing to have dogs that can go to events with us.

Oct. 2nd – Coronation. We’ve been making a point to get to Coronations to re-affirm our oath as Baronage. This one, I was also able to get my heavy rapier authorization knocked out as well. It was a lovely event at a great site. We jumped in the car with Livia and hit the road early, played all day, then left after court. We got dinner at Quaker Steak and Lube and made it home around 11:00. On Sunday, we took the dogs to the dog-park, then went over to NC State for a really nifty demo that the new/old student group had put together.

Oct. 9th – WoW 5. I’ve been to every War of the Wings running, and this one was definitely the best one so far. Each year, they seem to add a little bit, but this year it seems like the event really came into its own. Cliff and Fiona went with us, and we were camping out for two nights, plus bringing a bunch of canvas. So, we procured a trailer and hauled it all out and back. I fought in a heavy torchlight tourney on Friday, then in the first 3 heavy battles on Saturday. After that point, Baron Axel conceded the heavy war points, so I jumped over to Rapier to lend a hand there.

So, in the last 6 weeks, I haven’t had a real “day off” to just lounge around the house, putter, and get some chores done. It was a very rewarding month and a half, but I’m also very tired right now from it all. Also, there’s no aspect of my gear that doesn’t need help – armor, shields, weapons, tents, garb, etc… So, time to start scrubbing and fixing, and getting things ready for winter and next spring.

That’s kind of a strange thing to think about. I started my LJ back in January of 2004, so it’s lasted quite a while. That’s just about ancient considering the average lifespan of technology.

It has really been a fun place to hang out. It has been great reading little bits of everyone’s lives, and sharing little bits of my own. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t do that anymore. I think LJ has fallen below critical mass. I know that many people are not happy with the drama of posting comments to Facebook, but to be honest, that’s not what’s pushing me away. I was gone before that even happened, I just didn’t acknowledge it until now.

I feel like we’re in a transitional time right now. People are still looking for ways to blog and chat in various methods, and it doesn’t look like there’s a true LJ/FB mashup.

So, what will all this mean for my online friends? Well, first I’ll post any sort of blog type posts up here rather than at Livejournal. I’ll keep mirroring over on LJ though, so if you are used to reading me on your friends list, I’ll still show up. I’m also working to have easy integration from here to Facebook, so if you are a FB fan, you’ll see it there too.

I may not be reading my friends list as often though. I’ll be working to add your blogs and LJ’s to my RSS feeder, so I’ll read that stuff over in google reader now instead.

DreamHost Blog » They’re Internet History.

Nope, no kickback to me off this. Though I still think after yesterday’s post the Met should give me a commission.

This has been passed around several LJs and mailing lists, but just in case people *haven’t* seen it, there are some lovely in-period books scattered amongst the rest, for *amazing* prices. I just picked up four *fat* museum catalogs with lots of pictures for $25… and if you use the promo code P908, you *should* get free shipping. It worked for me anyway.

Anyway, the rain interfered with getting the garden started today. We began flattening out the area where it’s going to be, but moving wet clay sucks hairy… Err, yeah.

I’m still dithering between raised beds with “new” dirt, which I’m afraid is going to be pricy, and trying to amend the dirt I’ve got. Did I mention that dirt is heavy clay, some of which is nothing more than fill dirt that wasn’t even growing grass? But then that describes large portions of my yard.

Meanwhile it’s still raining, so it’s not like I can work on it more anyway.

Enter www.fashionfabricsclub.com. Not that I should link to them, because I heartily do NOT recommend them, but anyway. They had what was described on their website as “100% wool, herringbone weave suiting” in an appropriate blue, for a slightly-high but reasonable price. So I ordered it.

It is NOT NOT NOT NOT 100% wool. The burn test sparkled, bubbled, certainly wasn’t self-extinguishing (I almost burned my fingers) and left a crushable black bead. Survey says? Acrylic content, and not insignificant. Or maybe nylon, I’m not good at telling the smell difference, though I don’t think it’s poly as the bead WAS crushable. Certainly not pure burning hair, that’s for sure.  In fact, the people I’ve shown the fabric? Can see it’s not pure wool on sight.Not without looking closely, but STILL.

Perhaps needless to say, I am *pissed*. If you note the date, I do NOT have time to send this fabric back and buy something new, not and have time to sew it.  But as this is not the first time what I ordered and what I received were not the same, I called them.

The customer service girl was nice, and took it straight to the owner. Apparently they pulled the bolt, burn tested it themselves, and had the GALL to say that “worsted wool bubbles”.  Um, whaaa? Worsted’s just a spinning technique, not an excuse for having impure fabrics (unless maybe they just plastic coated all the threads? and at that point, can they REALLY say it’s 100% anything?)

So yeah, should have  known better than to order from them, but here’s hoping the post saves someone else…

So yeah. Don’t buy fabric there.

Just like at Pennsic, Walmart lines are dangerous…