How to Make Thread Woven Buttons

I was playing about with making thread woven buttons earlier this month and enough people expressed interest that  I pulled together a brief "How To" class for Castle Wars.  Version 2 will have some extant examples and historical discussion.  This is solely a "How To" tutorial.

I've been so busy doing things this autumn that I have let the blog lapse a bit.  I will try to get the highlights of the last few projects up before the end of the year.

Columella's Fig Vinegar Part 1

Last week, Tavola Mediterranea posted about the history of the fig.  If you are not already familiar with Tavola, I highly recommend checking it out. It is run by a food archaeologist who frequently experiments with edible archaeology. She is constantly doing something fascinating and I quite look forward to seeing each new post.

Included in her post was an offer to "follow along at home, boys and girls" with her experiment on making fig vinegar from Columella's recipe in De Re Rustica.  I forgot to get figs at the grocery store last week, but I bought them this week, so I set out to start my vinegar.

Ingredients:
~3/4 lb  organic Black Mission Figs
~250ml spring water
2 tbsp  Bragg's organic, raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar
16 oz mason jar
linen
cotton cord

The unpasturized vinegar is supposed to have good bacteria in it so that it functions like sour dough starter.

I  had plenty of figs and was going to try a jar without the apple cider vinegar, but oddly enough we only had one 16 oz mason jar.   There are plenty of half gallon jar from infusing brandies, though.  If I get another 16 oz mason jar before the figs get eaten, I will start it in a day or two. Both Jay and I love figs though, so I'd give that second batch at best a 50% chance of happening.

Until then, I will leave you with a pic of my little experiment. I'm not entirely sure what steps the figs go through to become vinegar and while she says "tend daily" it's not terribly clear what I am supposed to do to it.  But I'm an interesting experiment and I am ever curious.

On other fronts, I am up to my eyeballs in making kaftans and planning out how to feed 20+ people each night at War of the Wings with minimal kitchen equipment.  Never a dull moment around here :)

Adventures in Block Printing

This whole thing got started when Mistress Jacquette posted a picture of some shalwar she blockprinted in the SCA Ottoman group on Facebook.

Baroness Sibella had done some block printing previously and had a local friend willing to make some blocks for her at a very reasonable price, so she organized a block printing day at her house.  I already had a smallish Ottoman carnation block that I'd never used and Sibella ordered a block of çintamani dots and a lovely Ottoman tulip block.

My original plan was just to play around with scrap fabric learning the technique, but I decided the night before to cut out a kaftan out of some red linen I had on hand.  I thought about block printing the fabric and then cutting the pieces out, but with my usual layout,  half the gores would have the pattern upside down on them. And that made my OCD-ness twitch despite there being extant garments made that way.

Lafayette and Charlie supervising the kaftan cutting

So Pietro and I drove down to Sibella's and joined Rhonwyn, Angharat, Baronessa Isabetta and Hannah for a day of fun.  Mistress Leda made a surprise appearance to keep us company and work on her current gown (well away from the paint)

Sibella made sure we had plenty of supplies!

photo credit: Pietro

I thought I was going to use my small carnation block with gold paint, but a test on the fabric proved that was a poor choice.  The larger blocks would make the process much faster and the gold against the red looked very faded.  When I was telling another friend, who has experience block printing, about the afternoon, her comment was:  "Red is difficult to print on -you're very brave to use it for your very first attempt."  Brave, not so much.  I just didn't know any better.

Nope.  Gold is not going to work.  Onto Plan B!

Turquoise, however, worked well, especially when lightened a bit with some additional white. Personally, I love turquoise and red together, and it's a very Ottoman combination, so turquoise it was!

Plan B:  Turquoise!

photo credit: Pietro

There were 2 of every stamp Sibella had ordered and Isabetta and Angharat were kind enough to ink blocks while I was stamping, but even still, it took a couple of hours to get all the pieces stamped.

 Stamping a sleeve

photo credit: Pietro

The back panel taking shape

Fabric drying in Sibella's Sunroom

There are a few oopses on the pieces, but all and all pretty good for a first attempt, I'd say. Now I'm hooked and want to do more!

How to Make Çaprast Closures from Fingerloop Braids

More moving of existing files for easier access.

Drawn-thread apron -gift for Lady Stella

I was involved in the Meridian Largesse Swap this summer, where each of us got a name and some information on that person and their persona and had to make a gift for that person.  (I received an enchanting flag fan with a hand-turned handle) The actual exchange was at RUM but my recipient could not attend.  Luckily, she is in my Barony, so I gave her the gift tonight at our monthly business meeting.

Lady Stella dresses in both late 15th century Italian and Korean.  Since I know very little about Korean culture, I decided to do something for her Italian persona.

Decorative aprons were a big thing in the 16th century, but the earliest I could date one was to 1507.*

Portrait of a Woman (La Muta)

Raphael

c1507

Galleria Nazionale della Marche, Urbino, Italy

https://www.wga.hu/html_m/r/raphael/2firenze/2/36lamuta.html 

Mistress Peryn and the Loggia Vecchio group found me examples of several late 15th century aprons, but they weren't specifically decorative.

Detail from Birth of St John the Baptist

Dominic Ghirlandaio

c1486-1490

Capella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella, Florence

https://www.wga.hu/html_m/g/ghirland/domenico/6tornab/62tornab/3birth1.html

Detail from St Martin Sharing His Cloak Fresco (?) by Dominic Ghirlandaio

last quarter of the 15th century  

San Martino del Vescova

Piazza San Martino, Via Dante Alighieri

Florence, Italy

This photo of San Martino del Vescovo is courtesy of TripAdvisor

The 16th-century aprons often had lace or fancy embroidery, but the 15th-century examples did not appear to include either.  But a plain apron did not seem like much of a gift, either.

I had several examples of drawn work going back as early 1320, but on household linen, not clothing.

The Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple

Giotto

c. 1320

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/12894

Detail from The Circumcision

Master of Saint-Severin (German, Cologne School)

c1490

The Louvre, Paris**

The earliest example of drawn work on clothing I could find was 1505

Detail from Bacchus and Ariadne

Tullio Lombardo

c. 1505-10

Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna

https://www.khm.at/en/objectdb/detail/93484/?offset=0&lv=list

Ideally, I wanted more robust documentation, but this was for a gift, not an A&S entry so I decided not to stress (too much) and start on construction.

I chose ramie for the material. There were some informal conversations at the Jamestown conference about ramie being closer to the linen one would find in period than any reasonably available linen.  I had some ramie that I had cut into a chiton only to find it was too stiff for my taste.  But a little stiffness for an apron could be a good thing. And bonus -all my white linen was in lengths suitable for camicia, so using the ramie was repurposing a failed project and being more efficient with my fabric resources.

Drawing threads to square the ramie was easier than I expected -definitely easier than pulling threads from fabrics-store linen. Since Stella is significantly thinner than I am, I took some width off each side to make the ties from and ended up with a rectangle roughly 35"x45" wide.

I used hem stitch to hem three sides of the rectangle and then got to the fun part of the project.  I wanted a pretty but not too elaborate design on the apron.  I didn't think it was suitable for the late 15th century and I was also writing 2 classes for RUM so I wanted to be able to finish the apron on time.

I decided on this design

The time invested in carefully planning and marking the threads to be removed paid off and there were no "oops" moments where lines didn't match up (thankfully).  I drew the threads into an X pattern and used a satin stitch on the corners where the thread lines met.

The corners warped out of shape a bit, but I think I've figured out how to keep that from happening next time I have drawn work corners.  I added a diagonal bar of buttonhole stitches in each corner to stabilize them and the triangle shape became much less noticeable, even to my hyper-critical eye.

The last step was to gather the rectangle onto a long narrow piece for the waistband and ties.  I really liked the ramie for an apron, it had a nice body to it.  A light coat of spray starch and a good ironing made it look quite nice indeed.

All in all, it was a pleasant, relatively zen project that was fun to work on that I finished with time to spare before RUM. Better still, Stella seemed quite happy to receive it.  Now I need to make a pretty apron for myself!

I am hoping that Stella will send me a picture of her wearing it.  

Until then, this picture of the apron laid against my gown for contrast will have to do.

*Full disclosure: I did not do a lot of in-depth research, just some searches of paintings
**Despite thinking I had sloid provenance on this example, I cannot find a painting by this name or this artist in the Louvre online collection

Basic Italian Hemstitch

There has been some interest in this class recently so moving it to Google docs for accessibility.

The Two Hour Tarpush

I am finding that Google Docs is a far more convenient way to handle storage for my class handouts than uploading and linking to a domain I am not really using for anything but storage.  So I will be moving my handouts to google docs and embedding them in a blog post to make them easier to find.  I'll also be updating the links on the Class tab of the nav menu.

Today it's the Two Hour Tarpuş class

The Ten Day Turkish Coat -Italian style

Royal University Meridies (RUM) was last weekend and I taught Online Resources for the Independent Researcher Parts 1 & 2.  Since I needed to write the classes before I could teach them, make a gift for the Largesse Swap and I was also hosting a Silk Road Sewing weekend the weekend before RUM (not to mention working full time and having mundane adult responsibilities), I made the sensible decision to take new garb for RUM off the to-do list.


Then ten days before RUM I start thinking about what garb I was going to wear. In July. In the Deep South. Everyone generally goes Roman in the summer to survive the heat, but I kind of hate my Roman garb (which isn't extremely HA anyway) so...  new garb it was going to be. 

There's a mostly Venetian fad in the mid-late 16th century in portraits of a pseudo-Ottoman coat worn over a camicia.  You can see more examples on my Pinterest board but the most famous is Titian's 1550 "Woman Holding an Apple"

Woman Holding an Apple

Titian c. 1550

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.435.html

Looking at the various portraits, they all shared some characteristics:

1. Buttons were usually pearl
2. There was generally some form of elaborately beaded/ jeweled trim running down the front
3. There was not much contrast between trim and garment color -definitely not the striking contrasts that the Ottomans loved 

I had some lovely cherry red linen printed with a Renaissance-esque pattern and Mistress Jadi has tested one of her pattern drafting methods for her book on me, so I had a kaftan pattern that fit nicely. Even hand felling seams, I can knock out an unlined kaftan in ten days, no problem.

Ironically, moments after I finish cutting everything out, I found reference to a pattern for a Ropa Turca in Alcega.  I don't own a copy of Alcega (darn it) but Mistress Leda does and she was happy to send me the relevant sections in her copy -complete with Master José's notes from figuring out the Bara system.

The Alcega Ropa Turca pattern

This was both good news and bad news.  Good news in that if there was a pattern in Alcega, these garments were actually worn and not just the fantasy of Italian painters.  Bad news in that the pattern in Alcega has some decided differences from the Ottoman kaftan pattern, which was already cut out.  I liked the fabric too much to scrap it, so I managed to convince myself that this one would be fine  -I could use the Alcega pattern to make the next one.

On the Sewing Party trip to Fine Fabrics (exactly 7 days before RUM), I found some coordinating cherry silk dupioni with a very very low slub and some faux pearl buttons.  My plan was to use the silk to create facings on the right side of the garment and at some point in the indeterminate future, I can think about trimming the front and sleeves.  Hand sewing the facings on this week is going to be time-consuming, but doable, I thought.

Sunday morning, I see off the houseguests from the Sewing Party and settle into cutting bias strips and beginning the hand sewing.  After a little bit of progress, I am liking how things are turning out. 

And then Compulsive Elaboration Syndrome hit. 

There. 
Must. 
Be. 
Trim. 
For. 
RUM.

Sunday afternoon, I run out to a local bead store and spend more money than I want to think about on pearls.  Only to end up deciding that what I like better are the $1.00 a strand pearls from Fire Mountain Gems that I'd bought for earrings only to find them completely unsuitable. This is not a complete crisis because with real pearls on the front I no longer liked the look of the faux pearl buttons and I decide to use some of the new pearls (which are coin pearls and relatively flat) for buttons.

Somewhere around Wednesday, I decided that I also absolutely needed a row of gold couched at the edge of the facing.  Thank heavens Tied to History is local and that she has started carrying goldwork supplies.  Mistress Alessandra was kind enough to drop my order off because she was going to be in the neighborhood anyway.

The rest of the week, the drive to RUM and Friday evening, once we've arrived are all fraught with hand sewing facings, trim and button loops.  By the time I am too tired to sew another stitch on Friday, it's nowhere near done, but trimmed enough to be wearable.

It was astoundingly comfortable to wear.  The only problem was that the button loops had stretched a bit as I made them and frequently slipped off the buttons. It was unlined, so even with a camicia under it, I was still only wearing two layers of linen. And with the wide camicia sleeves, there was some air flow.  This style is definitely my new go-to for summer events.

It took this past week to finish getting the rest of the pearls on the facings.  I still have the second motif to bead in between each set of pearl flowers but the beads I've ordered for that are shipping from India and the larger coin pearls I bought to resolve the button loop issue are shipping from China so I am on to other projects until the next round of supplies arrive.

Online Resources Class Parts 1 & 2

I wrote and taught Online Resources Part 1 & 2 at Royal University Meridies on July 21.  Both classes seemed to be well received so here are the handouts.  If anyone has sources that I have not covered here, I would love to hear about them!

Sewing Tools 1150-1600

There have been a few people interested in building a period sewing basket recently so I wanted to provide a more convenient link to my 2016 A&S project.  I've found a lot of sources since the paper so I also plan on pulling together a source list for the tools sometime in the near future.  Watch this space!

The 1920s One Hour Dress (a Great Misnomer)

I've been dabbling in the 1920s recently.

Last September, there was a Great Gatsby Lawn Party in Atlanta, that Jay and I went to with our friends Heather and Hannah.  Dardanella hosts these public parties in various cities and if you ever have the opportunity to get tickets for one, I highly recommend it.  Attending was a last minute lark, so I only had 24 hours to come up with something to wear.  (I ended up wearing a late 1910s dress that I already had on hand and stitched a couple of big millinery roses to a picture hat) Then Heather hosted a private Miss Fisher/Great Gatsby party, and now there is another Gatsby Lawn Party in May that we are going to. Great fun.  But I needed something more 1920s than my late 1910s dress.

I'd always wanted to play with making a "One Hour Dress," so step one was..  you guessed it:  research. A quick search in the Historical Sew Fortnightly FB group, turned up a number of blog posts on the dress and 30 minutes of reading blogs lead me back to a tips for the One Hour Dress at Vintage Dancer (VintageDancer.com is a lovely site for down and dirty dressing for historical parties/events that don't require strict historical accuracy-if I'd had sense, I probably should have checked Vintage Dancer first)

Following the changes in fashion in the 1920s (and there were many!) took me down a rather fascinating rabbit hole and I finally settled on 1923-early 1924 as the look I wanted to emulate.

The One Hour Dress concept is credited to Mary Brooks Picken of the Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences in Scranton, PA. The reprint I have includes a photo of a letter from August 3, 1923 and attests that Miss Leonore McCormack of the Women's Institute made the One Hour Dress in 34 minutes at a public demonstration at the second National Merchandise Fair.

There seem to be several versions of the original booklet out there: one, possibly two versions from 1924, a 1925 printing reportedly with some style variations and a 1929 edition called Easy Ways to Pretty Frocks)  Better still, there are several sellers on Etsy that are selling PDF scans that they have restored to excellent readability of the booklets.

I had a gorgeous black tissue silk saree with deep pink beading and embroidery that I do not remember buying (because it wasn't suitable for any sort of sewing that I do) but it was absolutely perfect for the 1920s.

I've been doing a lot of 16th century Italian lately and I was astounded at how little fabric a One Hour Dress takes;  I plenty of leftovers...  which was good because despite making a mockup, I managed to cut the top 6" too short.  *facepalm* I had enough fabric to totally re-cut the top -if I didn't mind losing the random embroidery motifs scattered over the fabric.  To keep those, I ended up adding a piece around the bottom to bring the waist low enough for the silhouette.  But with some judicious use of the excess border trim, my oops wasn't noticeable.

It's not a mistake.  It's a feature!

The dress definitely took more than an hour, but it was a pleasant and restful project and if we keep doing 1920s events, I may make several more to expand my 1920s wardrobe.  Now to figure out what I am going to do about a hat!

Roman Moretum (or Strong Garlic Cheese)

Several friends have asked for my version of this recipe, so a blog post it is!

I first found this recipe while I was researching a Roman themed Royal Lunch last autumn in Grainger & Dalby's Classical Cookbook.  Grainger takes her redaction from the poem Moretum by Virgil. 1    Full disclosure: I did not do my own redaction initially; at the time I was focused on a palatable menu not experimental archaeology so I read her translated excerpt of the poem and used her redaction as written for my initial batch.

2 heads (25 cloves) garlic (no, this is not a typo)
8 oz Pecorino Romano cheese
large handful coriander leaves (coriander is the British name for cilantro)
2 heaped tsp chopped fresh celery leaf
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp white wine vinegar  (one of the people this was for was sensitive to vinegar so I used white wine)
1 tbsp olive oil

The Roman way to combine everything would be in a mortarium with lots and lots of grinding.  I used Grainger's alternate method:  my food processor.

   Reproduction mortarium from Der Romer Shop  

I kind of want one to try just one batch the real Roman way.

I have a Vitamix and I just tossed everything in and turned it on. Surprisingly, it was hard work getting everything combined.  Grainger says that the garlic juice and notes that the vinegar and olive oil are to soften the mixture not turn it into a spread.  I ended up having to add a little more wine & olive oil just  to get everything to congeal but followed the caution not to make it a spread.

It was so garlicky it was spicy.  The other garlic lovers at the taste test liked it, but I though it was a bit too much garlic (and I consider myself a garlic-lover). It was also a bit hard and crumbly and difficult to get onto bread to eat.

The next batch I dropped the garlic down to 20 cloves but it was still pretty in-your-face garlic. And it was still kind of crumbly.

My current version is very much a "based on" the original recipe.  I've toned down the garlic and added enough liquid to make it semi spreadable, just for ease of serving.  Is it entirely HA?  No.  But my first goal is to serve food people want to eat, so I am OK with my changes.

12 cloves garlic
12 oz Romano cheese
handful cilantro, chopped (I have never had anyone that dislikes cilantro notice it was in the recipe)
2 tsp celery salt  (buying celery that will go unused just for 2 fresh tsp of leaves seems wasteful to me)
white wine/white wine vinegar & olive oil as needed

Toss the garlic in the food processor & chop until juicy.
Toss the chopped cilantro & celery salt in and blend
Add the cheese, 2 tbsp white wine & 2 tbsp olive oil and combine, stopping frequently to scrape the sides.
Keep adding white wine alternated with olive oil and blending after each addition until your desire consistency is reached.

This past January Tavola Mediterranea (a fascinating food archaeology site that I follow) posted recipes for several other versions of moretum, at least one of them in a primary source I already own. One of these days I may make all the versions and host a moretum tasting party.  

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Dalby, Andrew and Sally Grainger. The Classical Cookbook. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 1996.

Monaco, Farrell. "Edible Archaeology: Columella's Fresh Cheese and Herb Moretum." Tavola Mediterranea. January 15, 2018. Accessed April 25, 2018. http://tavolamediterranea.com/2018/01/15/columellas-moretum/.