14thC Wardrobe

I ended up making only two new chemises for Rowany Festival, but I'm glad I took the time to make proper ones instead of quick and dirty ones like I usually do. I followed the basic smock pattern from the old version of the Medieval Tailor's Assistant which has been uploaded as a free pdf online since they published a new one. I cut a big rectangle for the body which got folded in half and a hole cut for the head so there's no shoulder seams, and added gores from the shoulders to flare it. I could have just cut the body as a tapered piece but it's not very economical fabric-wise. I used a tapered sleeve though, so I didn't have to deal with underarm gores. For my second one, I added the body gores from the armpit instead of from the shoulders. Both smocks worked fine, but I think I like the shoulder gore one better and I'll be making more of those. I'd also like to try the technique where you cut each piece, do a rolled hem all the way around and then whip stitch them together, because the run and fell technique I used left me with some places that had exposed edges and sewing over seams which left bulky bits. Eventually, I'd like five of these type of chemise, and a couple of sleeveless chemises for hot days.

I've had some thoughts about refurbishing my 14thC wardrobe. I have a bunch of dresses that are just hanging in the closet that aren't quite right but I can't bring myself to throw them out. My cotehardies are also looking a bit second hand. The pink one is fairly new so it's ok, and my gold one is holding up quite well considering it's the one I wear the most. My teal coloured one is the one I always bring as a backup. The lining has been pulled out of one of the sleeve holes since forever because every time I fixed it, it just ripped out again and now it's all frayed. The hem has all come apart at the back as well. I've been hesitant to spend the time fixing it because I can't quite lace it closed since I put on a bit of weight and it's quite uncomfortable. I think I have the solution now though! I'm going to take the sleeves off and make it sleeveless. Hopefully then it won't pull around the neckline and it will be more comfortable. When I've done that I'll re-evaluate and decide if I need to add any extra fabric anywhere in order to lace it shut. Once that's done I'll make a new pattern and turn some rust linen I ordered into a cotehardie, and then maybe pull apart the parti-coloured linen overdress I never wear, line it, re-shape it and turn it into a lace up kirtle.

In terms of my overdresses, the red one is awesome, the green one needs the buttons all re-sewn because every time I wear it I end up with a button in my hand instead of attached to the dress when I take it off. I suppose it's good that I'm not losing the buttons, but it does get tedious! I wore it twice at Festival and had to do emergency sewing each time to replace the missing button, and it's always a different button! I'd also like to look at the green brocade dress again, I spent a lot of time adjusting it only to have it not quite fit again, but it drapes so nicely that I want to make it work.

I also have plans for a Kampfrau wardrobe. I've ordered some stripey cotton stockings from www.delpstockings.com to get me started before I figure out how to knit my own woollen ones. May Crown is in two weeks and I'm hoping to fix the armholes of my yellow Kampfrau, make detachable sleeves, a gollar and a proper hemd. I feel like this is a bit ambitious since there's only one weekend left and I'm already busy all day Saturday. I'll start by cutting out the hemd tomorrow after work. I'm planning on making a very quick one out of a cotton/linen lend fabric, based on a simple Italian camica pattern, like my polycotton one I wore to Bal d'Aneala but with proper sleeves. So I should be able to run it up very quickly.

I think these projects should keep me busy for a while before I think about working on something new :)

Rowany Festival Project Update

I finished my hood! It only took two weeks to complete the tablet woven edging. Next time I think tablet woven edging is a good idea someone needs to remind me that it is seriously tedious. I am really happy with the finished result though.

Yay hood with silly hook! Here's a closeup of the top seam when it's turned back:

Yay for dodgy colours. The edging is dark purple, but the pink has managed to invade it in this photo. This is the first time I've woven with wool, and I found it really easy to work with. It's stretchy so every time I untied the warp for untwisting it was really easy to just re-tension again and I didn't end up with any lumpy bits. The braid just sorted itself out all nice and stuff. It'll be interesting to see what happens with a flat band with multiple colours. I'll have to give it a go one day.

In other news, I have Cut Out and stitched together the lining of a new cotehardie from the gold linen I bought. I haven't had time to Cut Out the outer layer yet, but I'm hoping to be able to do that sometime in the next few days. I've made pretty good progress on my list for Rowany Festival, but now there's only six weeks left and I went back to uni classes today, so time is becoming more and more expensive. AND it's now March, which means half price sale at Homecraft Textiles! I need to go out and buy another spool of gold sewing thread because I've completely run out, so I might just go there and see what sort of brocade selection they have.

Things I have left on my Rowany Festival list:
1. Man-cotes: I need to re-fit my red wool man-cote over my new supportive shirt. This involves taking in some seams. I also need to make a new one out of blue linen.
2. Finish the gold cotehardie: Involves Cutting Out and sewing together the outer layer, sewing it to my lining, then making and attaching sleeves. And a new lacing cord.
3. Audit hose: I need to have a look at the state of my current collection, possibly say goodbye to some, possible repairs on others, and most likely making some new ones. I definitely need a new wool one to replace the one that shrank.
4. Not-green woolen surcote: I have some maroon wool that would do nicely for a warm surcote that is not green. This project has been classes as non-essential, but would be really nice to have for Festival.
5. New garters to wear with man-outfit: Also non essential but I'd really like fancy new garters to show off :P
6. Embroidered pouch: Remember my embroidery? The embroidery that had a run-in with the cat and I completely lost all enthusiasm for because it needs fixing now? Yeah. It would be nice to have a new pouch for Festival for night time tavern shenanigans, but I do have a suitable pouch so this is also a non-essential project.

THE END. Except my beautiful Pennsic fob watch has stopped and I am sad. I can't see how to get into it to change the battery, but cobblers tend to know seekrity seekrits like that so I might go ask one of them to fix it for me.

The End of Holidays

My holiday is over. I've made some progress! On my embroidery that is.

I'm really pleased with how it's turning out. The only thing is that I'm making a rectangle so that when it's finished I'll fold it in half to make the pouch, with the fold being the bottom of the pouch, which means that the bottom of the embroidery will be one of the top edges, which means that the green motif will be upside down! If I'd been clever and realised this in advance, I would've stitched half of it upside down so that when I folded it both sides of the pouch would have motifs facing the same way. I guess I could still make it so the motifs all face the same way, and it probably doesn't matter that they'll be upside down because it's just me that's decided what the right way and the wrong way is. It might bother me though. These are the type of important things that I need to ponder when I should be doing other things, like prepping for clinical placement tomorrow.

Yep, my holidays are all gone and I've not done anything at all. I can't really bring myself to care all that much either. I'll probably start caring when I'm a fortnight out from Rowany Festival, completely overloaded with uni work and I suddenly decide that I just can't face going without three new cotehardies and hoods. As wardrobes go, I've got a pretty good one for a week at a camping event. I also know that what I have now fits into half a suitcase. Even though I have enough outfits in half a suitcase to wear something different every day, it doesn't fill a suitcase so clearly I am failing at SCA.

I did make a really big effort about a week and a half ago to work on my list. I pulled apart my green brocade surcote. Sleeves came off, buttons came off, the whole front seam was pulled apart and the hems along the front and around the neckline where unpicked. Then it got bundled up into a pile on the couch next to my black drill and my cotehardie pattern, all ready to start actually working on it. And there it remains. I'd actually like to wear it to the Midsummer Feast on the first of February, which is two weeks away, so I really should start working on it. I think about working on it nearly every day. If I'd done as much work as I'd thought about, I'd have three brocade surcotes all ready to wear. Also, it looks like the extra side panels I put in a while ago are staying, seeing as I snipped the top of the gores that I attached them to. I was going to pull them out because they don't really do much, but that would mean shortening the gores and I already learned that short gores are a bad idea. So they're staying. I'm not going to finish any of the seams though, because I'm putting a lining in they should be fine.

In other news, I did buy some linen this morning. I bought another lot of the Autumn Gold colour from fabric-store.com to remake my gold cotehardie. I love the colour and I never wear the one I currently have because I made it from an earlier pattern and it's just so uncomfortable. I spent quite a bit of time adjusting it and making new sleeves for it too, but I think I'm just going to have to write it off. It looks really good, but I never wear it because it's not worth the uncomfortable. I also end up with the points of my shoulders and the fronts of my armpits being really sore after I've worn it despite the fact that I've cut down the armholes multiple times. I have a bunch of cotehardies that have contributed to my learning process and helped me get to my current pattern and comfortable wardrobe, and I guess that's worth the time and effort it took to make them even though I'm never going to wear them again.

In other news, remember a few entries back I told you to stay tuned for Awesome Bag the Sequel: Awesome Box? I also bought a yard of a new linen that fabric-store.com has released. It's the same weight as the ILO19 that I've been using for my cotehardies, but it's a better quality and an even weave fabric. It's quite a bit more expensive per yard, so I thought I'd just buy a yard of it to use for embroidery and see what it's like. Anyway, the point is that it's not a square even weave, which is the kind of linen that the extant example my project will be based on has.

Hopefully the next time I post I will have actually done some stuff rather than just thinking about doing some stuff, which should be far more interesting to read about :)

ERMAGERD

Lookit what arrived in the post today!

THREE SKEINS OF SILK! I spent ages fiddling with my camera and lights and stuff, but I couldn't get the colours to come out right. The blue and the green are just as bright as the red, they look awesome! I ordered these weeks ago from ebay because they were $10 each plus $10 shipping each, but then because I ordered three the shipping was combined. I ended up paying $45 for three skeins of silk! It was advertised as reeled silk and each skein is about 470 yards. The skeins are smaller than I expected, probably because the yarn is a little finer than 20/2. It doesn't say what thickness it actually is, but I'd say it's about 30/2 or 40/2. It looks quite manageable, not silly like 60/2 :P. More to the point, it was cheap. It's not as tightly spun as the fine cord from Treenway Silks, and it doesn't look as good quality, but it's shiny and super soft. It's a bit fluffy, so I guess I'll see if it does the piling thing that spun silk does. Actually, for that price, if it behaves like the Treenway spun silk but is shiny like the reeled, I'll be ecstatic.

I have no idea what to make with it, but I wanna do some weaving now! I actually have no weaving projects in mind at the moment. I'm going to be booking for Rowany festival today, since tomorrow is the last day before the price rise, and this has been making me think about all the the things I want to have done by then. Mostly it's garb. Firstly, I WILL get around to fixing that green brocade surcote. I wore it at Championship and it was so uncomfortable! I had to squish myself into it because it didn't fit over my new cotehardies properly, and the sleeves were digging into my armpits and my elbows. It's going to be cold at Festival next year because it's late in April and the site is closer to Canberra, so I want to have more than one surcote for warms. I get sick of wearing my wool one all the time. I've also been pondering the fact that most of my garb is green. I am now putting a ban on making anything green. The two cotehardies that fit the best and are most comfortable are my green one and my sphinx one, which is almost green. My wool surcote is green. The brocade one is also green, but there's not much I can do about that and I'm going to be putting black all over it to make it fit better, so it should look quite striking. I think I need to start wearing my ginger cote again. Also, I think I'll remake my gold cote, and start wearing my green and purple linen surcote again. The gold cote I have looks awesome, but it's so uncomfortable. So I'm going to buy some more of the gold fabric and make it again using my new pattern. I think I need to look through my wool collection and make another surcote that isn't green. I think I have some maroon wool that should do nicely.

There's also a high chance that it'll be raining at Festival too, so I think I'll get on with making that linen man-cote and supportive shirt that I wanted to do before Pennsic. The fabric is all pre-washed and ready to go. Then I'll fix my red wool man-cote and hood, so I have a linen and wool option for rainy days when I don't want skirts dragging in the mud. I also need some more wool hose, since the pink one shrank in the wash. Only two more weeks until freedom!

Half Way!

I began my embroidery project on December 28. One and a half weeks later I'd completed one quarter of it. It's been four weeks since then, and I've finally completed another quarter!

I'm half way there! Bonus points for anyone that finds the two motifs with a mistake. Clue: It's the same mistake twice. I noticed them both too late, and decided not to go through the ordeal of trying to unpick. This project isn't for a competition, it's a useful fun thing, and I think the mistakes add character :P Hopefully I won't keep slowing down at the same rate, because I'll never get it finished. I don't mind plodding along slowly at it, but I think I need to start another project so I can swap between them when I can't handle one anymore. Tomorrow I think I'll order some crochet cotton, and when it arrives I'll warp up my loom to start working on the strap of the bag.

At the moment I have no orientation activities scheduled at uni, so it looks like I'll have a week off between finishing work and starting uni. I might make a cotehardie. I have some white linen, but I'd like to get started on my Pennsic wardrobe. I need some coloured linen to make some cotes like my ginger one. I said I'd never order from fabric-store.com again because of their awful customer service, but I'm pretty sure someone else is running the business now. I've been put back on their mailing list, and I keep getting annoying emails with epic stories about how awesome their linen is. I especially enjoyed the one all about the perfect linen for medieval garb that they sell, except they were talking about their super heavy weight linen that I would never use for garb, and never mentioned the two weights that are actually perfect. Anyway, the point is it's under new management, and their linen is good quality for a very good price, so I might give them another go. I'll wait for the next time I get an annoying email about the 5.3 ounce being on sale. If that doesn't happen before my week off, then I'll get out my white linen. I need to make another pattern as well, so at least I won't need to do that when the coloured linen arrives.

A New Thing

I got a text yesterday morning from Mum telling me there was a package waiting for me at home. I'm waiting for a few different things, so I asked her the dimensions of the package before I raced over there all excited to pick it up. Lookee!

MY COLLINGWOOD ARRIVED! I raced home to pick it up before work, and even had a short look at the double face chapter in one of my breaks. I'll have a proper read this morning, and start drafting up a pattern for the strap of my awesome bag of awesome. Now all I need is to order some thread and wait for that and my new set of cards to arrive. I think the main motif pattern will be in gold and red, and I'll add a selvedge border of green and purple. I haven't decided what sort of weft to use. I have a feeling that I'm going to have epic problems with the motif stretching along the band way too much, so I'll need something smaller. I want to use size 8 thread for the warp, which means using a sewing thread weft again, or size 12 cotton. That probably means dealing with snapping issues again. I guess we shall see what happens when I warp up my loom.

I've slowed down a bit with my embroidery. I've only done another three motifs since last week, and that's only because I carried it with me all weekend and worked on it while I was doing social things. I haven't been picking it up as much at home in my spare time. It's a good thing I started this project so early!

Progress Update

Happy new year! I've been working on my embroidery quite a bit over the last few days, and I've now completed a couple of motifs and worked with all the colours.

I'm very pleased with my colour choices. The colours aren't quite the same in this picture as in real life, but you get the idea. The white was the last colour I added to my first motif, and it was amazing how awesome it made the whole thing look. The red is amazing, and I think that's what really makes the whole thing look so good. I didn't start the purple until my two green motifs were finished, and I wasn't really sure about it when I started working with it. The white makes it look better though, and even though I think maybe I should've stuck with the lighter purple that the Wymarc pattern suggested, it still looks pretty damn awesome.

We've started seriously discussing Pennsic plans, which is all very exciting. I had always intended to spend a week in New York beforehand whether anyone else wanted to come or not, but it looks like the others are pretty keen for New York. I'll probably end up doing a lot of things by myself anyway, because I want to see as many Broadway shows as I possibly can. I've also started thinking about garb that I'll need. I need to make some more linen hose and chemises, and I could do with another cotehardie or two like my ginger one. I think I'd also like to make a linen man-cote. I need to fix up my green brocade surcote and/or my wool surcote to throw on over whatever I'm wearing for cold evenings. I pondered a couple of sideless surcotes, but I look kind of funny in them because I'm so skinny. The front bit has to be really narrow, or I end up looking kind of square, but it looks kinda funny being so narrow. Anyway soon I'll start ordering linen and hopefully I'll have some stuff started by the time uni starts.

Brilliant Plan!

I have a brilliant plan! It's not at all ambitious and stupid. I've been thinking about Pennsic and how my pilgrim bag is probably too small to carry around all the things I will need to carry around with me and all the things I'll be buying. It was too small even before it shrunk in the wash. I've been thinking how I really like my little pilgrim bag, and I don't wanna make a bigger one and put all my pilgrims on it because that will be like replacing my little one. But I can't have a pilgrim bag without pilgrims. So what if I make a different sort of bag? An awesome giant bag of awesome! I WANT TO MAKE THIS:

Yay a giant german brick stitch bag! I'm not gonna worry about a drawstring or anything, I'll just leave it open at the top, but I'll weave a strap for it. I'm sure I could try out a 3/1 broken twill and design a pattern that matches the bag. At the moment I'm thinking I'll just embroider the front of the bag and use some plain dyed linen or something for the back, because it's going to be giant and embroidering the whole thing is just stupid. I think I'll use cotton, because I'll need a lot of it and silk is expensive. Besides, The Stitchers' Corner only ever has a couple of packets of each colour, and I hate having to drive over there to get more of something. I'd rather only do it once. I'll have to go to get some evenweave linen, unless Spotlight happens to have some. I think I'll use 28 count because that worked for my little pouch and if I go any smaller I'll kill myself before I get very far with the embroidery.

But the most important thing to think about here is colours! What colours should I use? Mitchell Wymarc says red, purple, dark gold, gold and white. I'll leave the white how it is, and I like the purple bits around the white. I might change the dark gold to green around the other white bits. I like the red squigglies, but not sure about gold around them. I kind of like orange, but not sure if I like the idea of red next to orange. Maybe I could find a light orangey sort of gold. There's tons of DMC colours so it's not like I'll be stuck on options.

I was toying with the idea of tablet weaving the edges and having it extend out to the strap instead of splitting and going along the top, but I don't want a skinny strap digging into my shoulder, so the edges would be really chunky. Then I was thinking about having the flat band go along the edges so I'd have sort of a walled bag rather than a large pouch, which would mean more space! But then it would be even more open at the top which I'm not sure that I want. But I can think about all that once the embroidery is done. I think I might buy some embroidery floss after work on Monday, and hopefully Spotlight will also have linen evenweave. Then I can start working on it on Christmas night when I'm vegging in front of the TV.

Christmas

Tada!

I just finished the snowmen. I think I've had enough of Christmas bands now. I want to go back to period techniques and stuff. I'd like to try doubleface. I'd also like to try 3/1 twill. I'd like to make another belt with one of these techniques, so I have a belt to wear with my purple and green cote. I'm a little bit over my leaf and motto thing, but I have no idea what sort of pattern would be 14th century and fit with my garb. What I need is Peter Collingwood, and I think if I don't get it for Christmas I'll buy it myself.

I've also done absolutely no sewing from my fix-it basket. The red cote fits properly now, but one of the sleeves has started coming apart and needs repairs. My man cote needs taking in and new sleeves, my blue wool surcote needs a lot of work done, and my green brocade surcote also needs looking at. I'm just feeling very uninspired. It'll probably take until next winter to fix the wool stuff, and it'll be when there's an event coming up and it's gonna be cold, so I'll be all rushed. At the moment there's not much happening in the way of events. There's a couple of feasts happening early next year but they'll be inside in airconditioning, and anyway I have lots of light linen stuff for hot weather. I'd like to make a couple of new cotes for Pennsic, ones like my brown one that are comfy and I can just chuck on over a chemise, and hopefully I'll have the blue wool and green brocade done to throw on over the top if I get cold at night.

Maybe after Christmas I'll get motivated to do things.

Procrastinating

I have an exam tomorrow. This morning I managed to convince myself that I've contracted some sort of horrible disease, so I had to have an afternoon nap to calm myself down. Google tells me scary things. Then I got caught up in my novel and had to read it to the end. I've been attempting study, I just read through my lecture notes but they're full of whining about how much I loathe ergative case and split alignment systems, and linguistics jokes like CLITICS ARE PROMISCUOUS HAR HAR HAR. Very useful.

Another thing I did today was add pages to this blog! With lots of fiddling and mucking around I managed to add a page of links to documentation for various projects that I've entered in competitions. Formatting was difficult because Blogger decides to randomly move things like pictures and we had an argument about captions, but I got there in the end!

I've also included the documentation for my belt. I sent it over to the event with Nathan and Catherine, and got it and my comments back last night! I'm still trying to decipher some of the words. Mistress Rowan was one of the judges and she makes a suggestion for a weft thread, but the only clear words are 'spun silk'. Before that there's a word that I think is 'Gutermann' then one or maybe two words that I have no idea of. Anyway, all three judges liked it, and I got a score of 39/50 which was higher than I expected. I'd like to know what entry won, but the kingdom A&S page is sadly lacking in competition results.

I'm currently thinking up another weaving project. I think I'll get some #12 black cotton from Spotlight and try this continuous warp thing, and weave a short band to practice with a really fine warp just to see how it turns out. I might use the yellow silk embroidery floss I bought to make my purchase up to $10 so I could use EFTPOS at the Stitchers' Corner as a brocade weft and weave my leaf and words again. This time I'll turn the brocade weft in the shed instead of on the edge so you can't see it.

I also have an itch to do some more embroidery. Not my German Brick Stitch but something different. Anyway I should get back to at least attempting to study. Also my jacket smells like stinky fighter and I'm not sure how it got that way.

Tangents

I'm having a bit of a crisis. I've finished weaving my words now and I'm quite happy with how they've turned out, and glad I took the time to unweave so much and redo things so it looks right. It was well worth it. Anyway, I was just weaving along last night when I realised that I'm nearly at the end of the brocade, but nowhere near the end of the band. That got me thinking, where is the brocading actually going to be when I wear the belt? The length of the belt should end up being about 1.3 metres, and before I started I was measuring my picks and counting how many picks were in my pattern to try and work out how much ground weave I should make before adding the brocade weft, because duh, the brocade should be in the middle of the band.

But why the middle? Obviously my obsessive compulsiveness took over because THINGS NEED TO BE SYMMETRICAL. Anyway, with all my crises and switching ground weft threads and adjusting the pattern as I went along, there are a lot less picks in the pattern than I originally drafted. The way it is now, I've got 15cm of blank band, then my pattern goes for about 72cm. That adds up to 87cm, which coincidently, is the circumference of my hips, at the top where I will be wearing the belt. So the brocading will start on my left side, and go around my back, and finish where the band goes through the buckle. The whole of the tail will be plain. Hmmmmmm. I'm not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad thing. I could extend my pattern by adding in those other bits that I drafted and decided not to use, but then there won't be symmetry! Anything that extends the pattern will mean sacrificing symmetry, but then again the pattern isn't int he middle so it's not symmetrical anyway. I could add a couple more leaves at intervals down the band, or I could just leave it. Har har, leave, leaves.... I'm hilarious.

Anyway, while I was pondering this I was also wondering what everyone else does with their tablet woven brocaded belts, because I like to conform. I asked the internet, and ended up somewhere completely different. I found this:

Someone wove this as a double-faced pattern and OMG it's amazing. The article I found it in is here, it's about drafting double-faced patterns, which is very interesting, and totally relevent to my search for brocaded weaving :P

I was also reminded once again that I desperately need Peter Collingwood. I need it sooooo baaaaaad *grabby hands* The Book Depository doesn't even have it, I've only been able to find it on Amazon. And it's expensive. There are so many books I want, I have a wish list on the Book Depository but I can't figure out how to share the wish list with people in a vain hope that maybe someone will take pity on me and buy me them for Christmas. I need to be able to email it to my mum, then she can pass it on to my siblings.

Anyway, I want to try weaving a band in 3/1 twill. I also think I want to make a silk hairnet thing, I have a vague idea that I will make one (I have no idea how, some sort of crochet technique? Lacemaking?) with a tablet woven fillet thing around the edges. I think what I need is to go to Pennsic and go to every weaving class available and buy all the materials and things and learn useful things. But Pennsic is so far away and I wants it all now!

But back to the original brocading thing, before I got lost on the internet I looked at Guntram's belts again, and he's got brocading or twist patterning over the whole surface of all of his bands. So I'm still undecided. I'm really bad at decisions because I just don't know what I want. ALSO OMG I nearly forgot, what I should've done to hide the little bits of gold that you can see on the edges of my band, is use a border! So my brocade weft should have not ever gone past the outside couple of cards, it should have turned around inside the band. I will keep this in mind for future reference.

But first, I will clean my room, because I can't see the floor and the cat has made a nest in my floordrobe. Who knows what mischief he's getting up to in my clothes?

Holidays!

I'm on holidays! I've written a list of THINGS and hopefully most of them will get done or at least started in the next five weeks before uni goes back.

NUMBER ONE
I need to make new sleeves for my man-cote. I finished the rest of it in time for Pencampwr, but my essay got in the way of making new sleeves. I ended up getting to site on the second day of the event with the sleeves from my first attempt and a sleeveless and hemless cote. I parked myself in the BBT with the Baroness and some ladies and finished the hem and attached the sleeves. The next day I wore it! Here's a picture:

I was really tired in the afternoon so I had a nap with a dinosaur in front of the thrones. This is the only picture if me wearing my man-cote :(. It is so much more comfortable than the first one, even though the sleeves were still a bit tight. It's really good for shooting in, I didn't get all tangled up in my skirts traipsing up and down the range to fetch my arrows. The brais take a bit of getting used to though. Last time I wore them I established that my hose were tugging on my belt as I walked because I had the brais up too high at the back, but this time I wore them a bit lower and tried not to worry about the feeling that they were falling off, because they weren't. I also wore normal undies underneath, which poked out the top by a lot because I'm just not comfortable wearing only baggy white linen brais that sit really low on the hips. They didn't ever come close to slipping or falling down, so maybe with some more wear I'll start to trust them more :P My new belt works good! Anyway, I need new sleeves, and I want them by next weekend because I think I might wear this cote to shoot in the Vallon d'Or IKAC before their feast. Although I think I want to wear a dress to the feast, so this probably means bringing another outfit and changing for the feast.

NUMBER TWO
I posted last time about my plans for the green brocade surcote. I think this is the dress I'd like to wear to the Vallon d'Or feast, which means getting it fixed before then :P I need to see if I can match the buttons to replace the ones I lost, or look at buying a whole new set of buttons, which is annoying. There's 20 on that dress, which makes it a bit expensive.

NUMBER THREE
I still need to re-sew the buttonholes on my parti-coloured surcote. Stupid buttonholes.

NUMBER FOUR
I need to fix my red twelve-panel-cote. I figured out last time I wore it that it flares out too suddenly, so it's just a matter of pulling in the side seams a little bit to make the flare more gradual.

NUMBER FIVE
I made the red twelve-panel-cote as part of an outfit, even though it's also designed to be worn by itself as lighter day wear, I originally wanted it to wear underneath a blue wool surcote. I have wool. I have blue dye. Those things need to be combined to create blue wool. HOWEVER whilst the original idea was for blue wool, I LOVE LOVE this teal blue colour wool. So I have two packets of brilliant blue iDye, which dyes 2.3kg of fabric. I have no idea what my fabric weighs, but I've got six metres. I dyed four metres of the same wool with one packet of green, and the colour came out quite nicely. But I'm thinking that maybe I could throw in one packet of green with the two packets of blue to attempt a teal colour. I dunno, it could come out more of an aqua than a teal. I'm not sure whether to risk it or just go with blue and buy some of the teal stuff at a later date and make something else.

NUMBER SIX
I've sort of already started this one. I want to weave a new belt properly with silk and make a fancy buckle and document it to enter it into the November Crown A&S competition. I've finally started reading Ecclesiastical Pomp, my first chance since I bought it in March, and so far I think I would like the ground weave to be purple and green stripes along the belt. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to tackle some sort of twill weave, or just go for the much simpler alternate S and Z threaded option. I am pondering the idea of metallic thread for the brocading, and if I do that I really should do it properly and use the real stuff. I haven't come up with a design yet, I could make it heraldic, since I'm going for my heraldic colours as the ground weave, or I could recreate some extant design. We shall see what ideas Ecclesiastical Pomp gives me. I think I'll probably end up doing the actual weaving once semester starts, since I'm looking at buying the silk from Treenway Silks, and they take 3-4 weeks to dye it. But I should be able to at least design it and start my documentation over the holidays.

NUMBER SEVEN

This was supposed to be my big project for these holidays, but I forgot about it :( I still want to make it though! I have the fabric and everything! It's something that I definitely want to take my time over and get it right, so I don't have a specific occasion in mind for it. These holidays I want to start patterning the bodice. I have some ideas of how to make it look right, but there's going to be a lot of trial and error going on with calico before I start making it in the proper fabric.

OPTIONAL NUMBER EIGHT
And finally, I also have some white fabric-store.com linen sitting in it's postal box under my bed. I've had it since last year and haven't touched it, but I intend to eventually make a white cotehardie to wear under the green brocade dress. This should be a relatively simple project since I already have the pattern (the one for 8 panels, not 12 :P) and I just need to cut it out and sew it up. If I have the time and inspiration these holidays, I'll make a start on it.

This may seem like a lot of stuff, but a lot of it is just adjusting and fixing up garb that I already have. I think this list is definitely achievable for the next five weeks :)