2017 is off to a productive start. I finally got around to remaking my turquoise entari (I ripped apart the first one this summer in a fit of pique (I'd never liked how it turned out) and then regretted its absence) to continue the process of fine tuning the pattern adjustments I made this autumn and in that vein, am making a new Viking gown to fine tune that pattern as well. Not entirely sure either project is interesting enough to warrant a blog post, but between that and event stewardy things for Midwinter, that's been my month.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
2016 Projects in retrospect
Sunday, January 1, 2017
New Year's Eve experiment: Libum or Roman cheesecake... sort of
So I was going to a New Year's Eve party with a bunch of SCA folks and looked through my SCA cooking board to find a new recipe to try. I had pinned a recipe for "Roman cheesecake" but the recipe I'd pinned was just the beginning of a research trail to determine if it actually had any historical accuracy behind it.
A little google fu got me to the history of cheesecake and that site mentioned that Marcus Cato is credited for recorded the first Roman cheesecake recipe. More google fu turned up another recipe cited as being from Cato's De Agri Cultura that was very similar to the first one I'd seen. And this one had a translation of the original Latin as well as a modern version. I wouldn't use any of these sites for actual scholarship but for a New Year's Eve party it seemed sufficient. If the recipe was tasty I could always look for the original De Agri Cultura later.
Deciding on the recipe cited as Cato's, I decided to quadruple the recipe since a yield of 4 didn't seem like very many for a party. If this were a more serious culinary experiment, I would have done the recipe as written first and tried to use solely historically accurate tools.
I used Kroger's Simply Truth organic ricotta and there wasn't much liquid to start so draining it on coffee filters didn't remove any significant liquid. I used a hand mixer to beat the ricotta... I have been struggling with tendinitis in my right wrist and "beating until light and airy" by hand didn't seem tendinitis friendly.
The translation of the original Latin called for "1 pound of wheat flour, or if you wish the cake to be more dainty, 1/2 lb of fine flour." The redaction proportions were 1 pound = 1 cup.
The modern redaction did not specify the type of flour, but the proportions made it clear that it should be wheat flour. I was using unbleached white flour so I halved the amount and folded it in 1/2 cup at a time with the mixer. The dough was still too sticky to make into buns, so I added 2 more 1/2 cups and still had sticky-ish dough.
Looking at the amount of dough I had, I realized that the yield of 4 was for a cake that would need to have slices cut to eat. Knowing how much better finger food went over at Mistress Alessandra's Vigil table, I decided to make a dozen or so cakes rather than the 4 the recipe called for. Making the smaller cakes yielded ~12 so with a quadruple recipe, I had 48 and enough left to make a cake the original size.
Thankfully, I love bay leaves and had plenty of dried ones because putting a leaf under each cake meant that I used nearly 50 over all.
I'd be curious to see if fresh made any significant difference. I used olive oil spray on the pans but ran out after the first two and had to use coconut oil spray on the other two, All things considered, I think the purpose of the bay leaves were to keep the the cakes from sticking and, at least with the smaller cake size, made the oil a little superfluous anyway.
I did not have anything close to the testu (brick or clay pot) that cooking the Roman way called for, so I baked them without. In retrospect, I suspect that the testu (I'm imagining something similar to half of a clay roaster for lack of any research yet) would have kept the cakes a little softer and slower to brown. 30 minutes at 425 degrees resulted in cakes a little browner than I would have preferred but the bay leaves kept the bottom of each cake from burning. The original sized cake turned out just about perfect.
I had raw honey and warmed the first part of it up in a pot and warmed the rest up in a microwave. I didn't notice any significant difference in the result either way. I did use significantly more honey than what was called for because, well,... it's honey.
The end result wasn't bad for a first attempt. These weren't very much like modern cheese cake, but everyone thought they were tasty so I would call the recipe a win and worth hunting down a copy of De Agri Cultura and making a more historically accurate attempt. At some point. So many projects. So little free time.
And on that note, I'm going to try to do a 2016 projects post to figure out just exactly what I did this past year and hopefully fill in the gap of the past few months of silence. I also have over 1000 museum pics from our trip to London I want to get organized and share in case they are useful for anyone else's research. But I've got several time critical projects to work on and I am event steward for Midwinter Arts & Sciences in February so (as usual) I need 48 hour days to manage even most of what is on my plate, so we shall see what actually gets done. :)
A little google fu got me to the history of cheesecake and that site mentioned that Marcus Cato is credited for recorded the first Roman cheesecake recipe. More google fu turned up another recipe cited as being from Cato's De Agri Cultura that was very similar to the first one I'd seen. And this one had a translation of the original Latin as well as a modern version. I wouldn't use any of these sites for actual scholarship but for a New Year's Eve party it seemed sufficient. If the recipe was tasty I could always look for the original De Agri Cultura later.
Deciding on the recipe cited as Cato's, I decided to quadruple the recipe since a yield of 4 didn't seem like very many for a party. If this were a more serious culinary experiment, I would have done the recipe as written first and tried to use solely historically accurate tools.
I used Kroger's Simply Truth organic ricotta and there wasn't much liquid to start so draining it on coffee filters didn't remove any significant liquid. I used a hand mixer to beat the ricotta... I have been struggling with tendinitis in my right wrist and "beating until light and airy" by hand didn't seem tendinitis friendly.
The translation of the original Latin called for "1 pound of wheat flour, or if you wish the cake to be more dainty, 1/2 lb of fine flour." The redaction proportions were 1 pound = 1 cup.
The modern redaction did not specify the type of flour, but the proportions made it clear that it should be wheat flour. I was using unbleached white flour so I halved the amount and folded it in 1/2 cup at a time with the mixer. The dough was still too sticky to make into buns, so I added 2 more 1/2 cups and still had sticky-ish dough.
Sticky dough is sticky
Going back to the original recipe I had pinned, it included kneading on a floured surface and that did the trick.
This looks much better
Looking at the amount of dough I had, I realized that the yield of 4 was for a cake that would need to have slices cut to eat. Knowing how much better finger food went over at Mistress Alessandra's Vigil table, I decided to make a dozen or so cakes rather than the 4 the recipe called for. Making the smaller cakes yielded ~12 so with a quadruple recipe, I had 48 and enough left to make a cake the original size.
The first half of the cakes, ready to bake
Thankfully, I love bay leaves and had plenty of dried ones because putting a leaf under each cake meant that I used nearly 50 over all.
I used nearly all of this bag of bay leaves
I'd be curious to see if fresh made any significant difference. I used olive oil spray on the pans but ran out after the first two and had to use coconut oil spray on the other two, All things considered, I think the purpose of the bay leaves were to keep the the cakes from sticking and, at least with the smaller cake size, made the oil a little superfluous anyway.
I did not have anything close to the testu (brick or clay pot) that cooking the Roman way called for, so I baked them without. In retrospect, I suspect that the testu (I'm imagining something similar to half of a clay roaster for lack of any research yet) would have kept the cakes a little softer and slower to brown. 30 minutes at 425 degrees resulted in cakes a little browner than I would have preferred but the bay leaves kept the bottom of each cake from burning. The original sized cake turned out just about perfect.
This one is Just Right.
I had raw honey and warmed the first part of it up in a pot and warmed the rest up in a microwave. I didn't notice any significant difference in the result either way. I did use significantly more honey than what was called for because, well,... it's honey.
Cakes that have marinated in honey for an hour, ready to take to the party.
The end result wasn't bad for a first attempt. These weren't very much like modern cheese cake, but everyone thought they were tasty so I would call the recipe a win and worth hunting down a copy of De Agri Cultura and making a more historically accurate attempt. At some point. So many projects. So little free time.
And on that note, I'm going to try to do a 2016 projects post to figure out just exactly what I did this past year and hopefully fill in the gap of the past few months of silence. I also have over 1000 museum pics from our trip to London I want to get organized and share in case they are useful for anyone else's research. But I've got several time critical projects to work on and I am event steward for Midwinter Arts & Sciences in February so (as usual) I need 48 hour days to manage even most of what is on my plate, so we shall see what actually gets done. :)
Thursday, September 15, 2016
HSF #8: Patterns (or The challenge that almost wasn't)
This was a tough challenge to find inspiration for. I had some lovely Renaissance patterned upholstery fabric that I bought last year to use for a 16th century gown, but I knew there was no way that I was going to finish a gown in a month even if I had a bodice pattern that I was happy with (which I didn't). So mid-month, when no more exciting and executable idea had presented itself, I went with plan B: A 16th century Italian saccoccia (pocket). I laughingly swear that the entire reason I wear 16th century Italian and 16th century Ottoman is that pockets were historically accurate.
Saccoccia are seen in various 16th century Italian paintings and here are also several extant Spanish examples, which are very similar to the ones in Italian paintings. Both the Italian and Spanish ones bear a strong resemblance to the 18th century pocket, examples of which are far more commonly found in museums. I have not come across any extant 16th century English examples, however a search on "pockets" at elizabethancostume.net turned up 146 references in wills and wardrobe accounts. However, rather interestingly, the V&A article on the history of pockets starts in the 17th century not the 16th. As does an essay from the Pockets of History collection at the University of Creative Arts. It's an interesting research rabbit hole, but outside the scope of this challenge, so it will have to wait for another time.
Based on the examples I'd found in paintings, the saccoccia appears in the mid 16th century, which was confirmed in Anea's excellent article that I stumbled upon later in my research. Working class women appear to have worn their saccoccia tied on over their gowns; upper class women most commonly wore theirs under their gown and accessed it through a slit in the skirt.
Even working class women could have saccoccia made of patterned fabrics and trimmed elaborately.
The fabric definitely qualified as patterned. It was some upholstery fabric of unknown man-made fibers. I was initially reluctantly to use the fabric before I actually created the gown, but needs must if I was going to complete the challenge. In retrospect, I'm glad I did, because this stuff frays like @#$% and was annoying enough to work with, that I will probably end up donating the rest of the bolt to a SCA rummage sale. Life is too short to work with fabric that behaves that badly.
The pattern was easily enough drafted up and cut out.
I had some deep claret silk scraps in my scrap bin that were perfect for a lining and I was cooking with gas. I was going to finish this challenge on time if not early! <insert ominous music> Then the fabric started fraying like there was no tomorrow and I threw the wretched thing in my sewing basket for a probably permanent time out and decided maybe I just wasn't going to do challenge #8.
I'd asked my dear friend, Mistress Alessandra, to make me some teal cotton petersham for the waist tie and while I was over at her house for a sewing day, the subject of the saccoccia came up. She solved the problem handily enough by cutting off a chunk of the leftover she had from weaving my petersham up and said "bind the opening." This is probably why she is the laurel and I am the student. :)
Not long after, I had a finished saccoccia.
The Challenge: #8 Patterns
Material: 1/4 yard upholstery fabric, scraps of silk for lining
Year: later 16th century
Notions: Silk thread, cotton petersham
Pattern: Self drafted based on the examples in paintings
How historically accurate is it? The fabric is man-made fiber. Its hard to feel good about historical accuracy after that. But the silk thread and hand woven cotton petersham are both plausible for the 16th century. (Italy had had a cotton industry for several centuries at that point)
Hours to complete: 3-4 maybe
First worn: Not yet. It's still too warm to wear Italian.
Total cost: $20 for the cotton petersham. Everything else was from the stash,
_______________________________________________
1 I originally found this picture on www.modehistorique.com but the location of the drawing was not indicated. Upon googling for the image, which is often helpful in establishing provenance, every hit seemed to lead back to either modehistorique or different Allori. This is, in my experience, a red flag on validity of the source. Based on what I have seen of Allori's work, it doesn't seem implausible for it to be an Allori sketch, but I will feel easier when I can locate exactly what and where it is located.
References
Anea. "A Renaissance Saccoccia." The Anea Costumes. np. 2016. Web. 15 September 2016. <http://elizabethancostume.net/cyte/search/node/pockets%20synonym%3A1%20>
Anea. "16th century Italy + loose pockets" Anea Costumes: Fashion and Design Past and Present. np. 2016. Web. 15 September 2016. "http://aneacostumes.tumblr.com/post/132201315761/16th-century-italy-loose-pockets-loose-pockets"
Burman, Barbara and Seth Denbo. "A History of Pockets" Visual Arts Data Service Pockets of History Collection. Surrey, 2016. Web. 11 September, 2016. <http://www.vads.ac.uk/texts/POCKETS/history_of_tie-on_pockets.pdf>
Leed, Drea. Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Uploaded. The Elizabethan Costuming Page. Dayton, Ohio 2010. Web. 14 September 2016. <http://elizabethancostume.net/cyte/search/node/pockets%20synonym%3A1%20>
Lorraine, Sarah. "I'm Done?" Mode Historique. San Jose, CA 2016. Web. 1 September 2016. <http://elizabethancostume.net/cyte/search/node/pockets%20synonym%3A1%20>
--- "A History of Pockets" Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2016. Web. 11 September, 2016. <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/history-of-pockets/>
---. Faltriquera 1575-1600. Museo del Traje Online Collection, Madrid, Spain 2016. Web. 15 September 2016. <http://museodeltraje.mcu.es/index.jsp?ruta=4%2C17%2C48&referencia=MT00790&id=48>
Saccoccia are seen in various 16th century Italian paintings and here are also several extant Spanish examples, which are very similar to the ones in Italian paintings. Both the Italian and Spanish ones bear a strong resemblance to the 18th century pocket, examples of which are far more commonly found in museums. I have not come across any extant 16th century English examples, however a search on "pockets" at elizabethancostume.net turned up 146 references in wills and wardrobe accounts. However, rather interestingly, the V&A article on the history of pockets starts in the 17th century not the 16th. As does an essay from the Pockets of History collection at the University of Creative Arts. It's an interesting research rabbit hole, but outside the scope of this challenge, so it will have to wait for another time.
Based on the examples I'd found in paintings, the saccoccia appears in the mid 16th century, which was confirmed in Anea's excellent article that I stumbled upon later in my research. Working class women appear to have worn their saccoccia tied on over their gowns; upper class women most commonly wore theirs under their gown and accessed it through a slit in the skirt.
Study of a Woman with a Tray
Alessandro Allori
c. 1570-80
Provenance Unknown by me1
Detail from "Women at her toilet"
Allessandro Allori
c. 1575-78
fresco in Gaddi Chapel
Church of Santa Maria Novella,
Florence, Italy
The fabric definitely qualified as patterned. It was some upholstery fabric of unknown man-made fibers. I was initially reluctantly to use the fabric before I actually created the gown, but needs must if I was going to complete the challenge. In retrospect, I'm glad I did, because this stuff frays like @#$% and was annoying enough to work with, that I will probably end up donating the rest of the bolt to a SCA rummage sale. Life is too short to work with fabric that behaves that badly.
The pattern was easily enough drafted up and cut out.
I had some deep claret silk scraps in my scrap bin that were perfect for a lining and I was cooking with gas. I was going to finish this challenge on time if not early! <insert ominous music> Then the fabric started fraying like there was no tomorrow and I threw the wretched thing in my sewing basket for a probably permanent time out and decided maybe I just wasn't going to do challenge #8.
I'd asked my dear friend, Mistress Alessandra, to make me some teal cotton petersham for the waist tie and while I was over at her house for a sewing day, the subject of the saccoccia came up. She solved the problem handily enough by cutting off a chunk of the leftover she had from weaving my petersham up and said "bind the opening." This is probably why she is the laurel and I am the student. :)
Not long after, I had a finished saccoccia.
The Challenge: #8 Patterns
Material: 1/4 yard upholstery fabric, scraps of silk for lining
Year: later 16th century
Notions: Silk thread, cotton petersham
Pattern: Self drafted based on the examples in paintings
How historically accurate is it? The fabric is man-made fiber. Its hard to feel good about historical accuracy after that. But the silk thread and hand woven cotton petersham are both plausible for the 16th century. (Italy had had a cotton industry for several centuries at that point)
Hours to complete: 3-4 maybe
First worn: Not yet. It's still too warm to wear Italian.
Total cost: $20 for the cotton petersham. Everything else was from the stash,
_______________________________________________
1 I originally found this picture on www.modehistorique.com but the location of the drawing was not indicated. Upon googling for the image, which is often helpful in establishing provenance, every hit seemed to lead back to either modehistorique or different Allori. This is, in my experience, a red flag on validity of the source. Based on what I have seen of Allori's work, it doesn't seem implausible for it to be an Allori sketch, but I will feel easier when I can locate exactly what and where it is located.
References
Anea. "A Renaissance Saccoccia." The Anea Costumes. np. 2016. Web. 15 September 2016. <http://elizabethancostume.net/cyte/search/node/pockets%20synonym%3A1%20>
Anea. "16th century Italy + loose pockets" Anea Costumes: Fashion and Design Past and Present. np. 2016. Web. 15 September 2016. "http://aneacostumes.tumblr.com/post/132201315761/16th-century-italy-loose-pockets-loose-pockets"
Burman, Barbara and Seth Denbo. "A History of Pockets" Visual Arts Data Service Pockets of History Collection. Surrey, 2016. Web. 11 September, 2016. <http://www.vads.ac.uk/texts/POCKETS/history_of_tie-on_pockets.pdf>
Leed, Drea. Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Uploaded. The Elizabethan Costuming Page. Dayton, Ohio 2010. Web. 14 September 2016. <http://elizabethancostume.net/cyte/search/node/pockets%20synonym%3A1%20>
Lorraine, Sarah. "I'm Done?" Mode Historique. San Jose, CA 2016. Web. 1 September 2016. <http://elizabethancostume.net/cyte/search/node/pockets%20synonym%3A1%20>
--- "A History of Pockets" Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2016. Web. 11 September, 2016. <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/history-of-pockets/>
---. Faltriquera 1575-1600. Museo del Traje Online Collection, Madrid, Spain 2016. Web. 15 September 2016. <http://museodeltraje.mcu.es/index.jsp?ruta=4%2C17%2C48&referencia=MT00790&id=48>
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Sunday Night Experiment: Hildegarde of Bingen's Small Cakes
I've been a bit lax in bottling last summer's batches of brandy and cordials so there was a bit of a frenzy over the last 2 weekends of straining off brandies and doing a first bottling to let the sediment settle. The blackberries were too soft after soaking for 12 months to do anything with, but there was a nice quantity of brandied peaches. And Tourney of the Foxes is next weekend, so I was planning on packing a nice picnic to feed starving fencers. I'd been thinking peach shortcake but that didn't pass the "easy to eat" test then Mistress Kyra posted a picture of her daughter making peach hand pies on Facebook. Bingo! Brandied peach hand pies it was going to be.
At the grocery, I looked at the whole wheat flour, thought about buying it since I'm doing more Renaissance cooking these days and then thought " Nah...I don't have any recipes that need it right now." Then I got home and was flipping through a copy of Duke Sir Cariadoc's "How to Milk and Almond, Stuff an Egg and Armor a Turnip" that had just arrived to replace an old copy that got lost over the years. And came across his redaction for Hildegarde of Bingen's small cakes from her Physica. Which I was immediately curious to make and, of course, required whole wheat flour. So back to the grocery it was.
The original was from her entry on nutmeg and said "Take some nutmeg and an equal weight of cinnamon and a bit of cloves and pulverise them. Then make small cakes with this and fine whole wheat flour and water. Eat them often...It will calm all bitterness of the heart and mind, open your heart and impaired senses and make your mind cheerful. If purifies your senses and diminishes all harmful humors"1
I remembered Hildegarde von Bingen from college and immediately ordered a used copy of her Physica from Amazon. But I was too curious about these cakes to wait to confirm the reference when the book arrived. And I mean.. it's Duke Sir Cariadoc's redaction. I'd definitely consider him pretty reliable as a source.
So in between straining the last of the peach brandy and making a batch of dough from Scappi's Feast Day Cheese tart to experiment with for the peach hand pies, I mixed up the small cakes. Cariadoc suggested 1 tsp nutmeg & cinnamon and half that for the cloves and one quarter that for the salt with 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup water.
It took me 1/2 cup of water to get dough that was smooth -I wonder if he was using white whole wheat flour originally. I also separated the dough into 12 pieces rather than the 4 he suggested.
The end result was sort of a dense, chewy, vaguely clove tasting bread. I think next time I'd use less clove. "a bit of clove" compared to an "equal measure of cinnamon" and nutmeg seems to me to be less than half the amount and clove has a very strong flavor anyway. When pretty much proves Cariadoc's never trust a redaction unless you see the original because you never know what liberties the redactor took" advice in the introduction.2 It probably wasn't bad for the middle ages -and the recipe was supposed to be medicinal anyway. But if I made it again, it would probably be for camp breakfasts and spread thickly with apple butter.
Still it was an interesting experiment. And I have a whole book of redactions to try and primary sources to track down. Not bad for a Sunday night!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Friedman, David and Elizabeth Cook. How to Milk an Almond, Stuff an Egg and Armor a Turnip. Self published, 2011. referencing Throop, Prisilla, tr. Hildegarde von Bingen's Physica. Rochester Vermont: 1998. Healing Arts Press
2 Ibid.
At the grocery, I looked at the whole wheat flour, thought about buying it since I'm doing more Renaissance cooking these days and then thought " Nah...I don't have any recipes that need it right now." Then I got home and was flipping through a copy of Duke Sir Cariadoc's "How to Milk and Almond, Stuff an Egg and Armor a Turnip" that had just arrived to replace an old copy that got lost over the years. And came across his redaction for Hildegarde of Bingen's small cakes from her Physica. Which I was immediately curious to make and, of course, required whole wheat flour. So back to the grocery it was.
The original was from her entry on nutmeg and said "Take some nutmeg and an equal weight of cinnamon and a bit of cloves and pulverise them. Then make small cakes with this and fine whole wheat flour and water. Eat them often...It will calm all bitterness of the heart and mind, open your heart and impaired senses and make your mind cheerful. If purifies your senses and diminishes all harmful humors"1
I remembered Hildegarde von Bingen from college and immediately ordered a used copy of her Physica from Amazon. But I was too curious about these cakes to wait to confirm the reference when the book arrived. And I mean.. it's Duke Sir Cariadoc's redaction. I'd definitely consider him pretty reliable as a source.
So in between straining the last of the peach brandy and making a batch of dough from Scappi's Feast Day Cheese tart to experiment with for the peach hand pies, I mixed up the small cakes. Cariadoc suggested 1 tsp nutmeg & cinnamon and half that for the cloves and one quarter that for the salt with 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup water.
It took me 1/2 cup of water to get dough that was smooth -I wonder if he was using white whole wheat flour originally. I also separated the dough into 12 pieces rather than the 4 he suggested.
Still it was an interesting experiment. And I have a whole book of redactions to try and primary sources to track down. Not bad for a Sunday night!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Friedman, David and Elizabeth Cook. How to Milk an Almond, Stuff an Egg and Armor a Turnip. Self published, 2011. referencing Throop, Prisilla, tr. Hildegarde von Bingen's Physica. Rochester Vermont: 1998. Healing Arts Press
2 Ibid.
Friday, August 12, 2016
Drawn Thread Embroidery/HSM #7: Monochrome
Ever since HSM #3 I've been kind of obsessed with drawn thread embroidery. I wasn't satisfied with how the legs came out on my drawers, but I loved the technique. My first big project was half a dozen largesse napkins and while I was working on those at events and Barony meetings, people kept asking "What are you doing?" so I offered to teach a class on the most basic drawn work stitch: Hem stitch at Royal University Meridies in July.
I put together 6 kits with a practice piece with threads pre-drawn and edges folded up so that each student could start practicing right away and a napkin with pre-drawn threads to take home and finish. And just in case, I printed out 9 sets of my class handout. I'd planned on 3-4 students and lots of one on one time for each of them. Except that I had over 24 students! Thankfully, I had extra linen in my basket to make more practice pieces on the spot and my students were gracious about the lack of materials and instructor time. But I felt bad that I couldn't spend more time with each person.
So imagine my surprise when I find that one of my students enjoyed the class so much she blogged about it! I am over the moon to have passed on my love of drawn thread embroidery to someone else. :)
Once I felt like I had a grasp on basic drawn work, I started thinking about a partlet with drawn work. My plan was to have it done and wear it for my class as an example, but alas, life intervened.
16th century Italian portraiture shows a lot of elaborately decorated partlets (called colletto in Italy), some of which looked like it could be drawn work.
1 Landini, Roberta Orsini and Bruna Niccoli. Moda a Firenze 1540-1580. Firenze: Edizioni Polistampa, 2005. Page 120.I put together 6 kits with a practice piece with threads pre-drawn and edges folded up so that each student could start practicing right away and a napkin with pre-drawn threads to take home and finish. And just in case, I printed out 9 sets of my class handout. I'd planned on 3-4 students and lots of one on one time for each of them. Except that I had over 24 students! Thankfully, I had extra linen in my basket to make more practice pieces on the spot and my students were gracious about the lack of materials and instructor time. But I felt bad that I couldn't spend more time with each person.
So imagine my surprise when I find that one of my students enjoyed the class so much she blogged about it! I am over the moon to have passed on my love of drawn thread embroidery to someone else. :)
Once I felt like I had a grasp on basic drawn work, I started thinking about a partlet with drawn work. My plan was to have it done and wear it for my class as an example, but alas, life intervened.
16th century Italian portraiture shows a lot of elaborately decorated partlets (called colletto in Italy), some of which looked like it could be drawn work.
Attributed to Lavinia Fontana
Portrait of a Woman with a child,
traditionally identified as Eleanora d'Medici
Private collection
Detail of Giovanna of Austria and her son, Phillipo
Giovanni Bizelli c. 1586
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy
Better still, I had 2 extant examples of hemstitching on neck and wrist ruffles. Neither example was specifically Italian, though.
The Sture shirt, discussed in Arnold's PoF 4
currently located at Uppsala Cathedral, Uppsala, Sweden
Gollar (German partlet)
Jay had finished his second blackwork project, which was a collar for me and I decided to use it for a colletto with drawn work down the front and on the neck ruffle. While I couldn't specifically document blackwork and drawn work together on the same colletto, Landini states "In the third decade of the 16th century, nets and partlets became the article of clothing which, along with the head-dressing and the sleeves, most lent itself to imaginative invention and personal choice"1 so I was comfortable with my plan being within the realm of "imaginative invention" in the 16th century.
I had already made a simple colletto based off this example and since my focus in this was the drawnwork, I used the same pattern, but made it several inches longer, since the first one always felt too short when I wore it.
Detail from the Arcade Vault Fresco
Alessandro Allori c. 1589
Tapestry Apartments, Pitti Palace
Florence, Italy
It was all handsewn with linen thread, using flat felled seams and a 1/4" hem around all edges. I used Gutermann silk topstitch thread to fingerloop braid the ties at the neck. The actual technique for the drawn work is discussed here. The bottom has a drawstring casing through which I threaded handwoven linen tape from a friend's etsy shop, Tied to History.
I'm actually rather pleased with how it turned out.
The Challenge: #7 Monochrome
Material: 3/4 yard Fabric-store.com 020 linen
Year: second half of the 16th century, Italian
Notions: linen thread, silk topstitch thread, Aida 22 count cloth & cotton floss for the blackwork collar
Pattern: self drafted based on the shape from the Allori fresco
How historically accurate is it? 60%? The aida cloth is not historically accurate, nor is the cotton floss and I can't find an example of drawn work and blackwork in the same partlet.
Hours to complete: no idea. I've been working on and off on this since April.
First worn: When it gets cooler. It's too hot to wear anything but Roman at events at the moment.
Total cost: $4.95 for a spool of silk topstitch thread because I ran out after the first tie. Everything else was from the stash.
______________________________________________________________________
Material: 3/4 yard Fabric-store.com 020 linen
Year: second half of the 16th century, Italian
Notions: linen thread, silk topstitch thread, Aida 22 count cloth & cotton floss for the blackwork collar
Pattern: self drafted based on the shape from the Allori fresco
How historically accurate is it? 60%? The aida cloth is not historically accurate, nor is the cotton floss and I can't find an example of drawn work and blackwork in the same partlet.
Hours to complete: no idea. I've been working on and off on this since April.
First worn: When it gets cooler. It's too hot to wear anything but Roman at events at the moment.
Total cost: $4.95 for a spool of silk topstitch thread because I ran out after the first tie. Everything else was from the stash.
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Saturday, July 23, 2016
HSF 4, 5 & 6: Catching Up
While I actually completed the Historical Sew Monthly challenges in the appropriate month, I am just now blogging about them so this is going to be a collective post about the 3 challenges I am behind on.
HSF #4 April: Gender-Bender
Sometime over the last holiday season, Pietro took up counted blackwork. I and several friends convinced him that it was just like drawing on graph paper. Only you were using floss to draw on fabric. The original plan was to make something small to see if he liked it. To the surprise of all of us (and him) he took to it like a duck to water and that small project turned into a collar and cuffs that took him about 3 months to finish. Not wanting to dull his enthusiasm, I wanted to get the collar and cuffs on a shirt he could wear as soon as possible.
I used the same pattern an construction that I used for HSF #1 since my goal was to get him a shirt to wear quickly. I'd been looking at coloured ties in various portraits and decided to do a black and white fingerloop braid. I kind of ambivalent at the end result. I don't hate it, but I don't like it as much as I thought I would. I think I'll do the next shirt with a solid black tie and see if I like it better.
The Challenge #4 Gender-Bender
Material: 2 3/4 yds of Fabric-Store.com 019 linen (5.3 oz)
Pattern: Pattern #9 from Patterns of Fashion 4
Year: 1580-1620
Notions: DMC floss, Aida 14 count cloth, #10 cotton cord for ties, 80/2 linen thread for hand sewing, poly thread for machine sewing
Hours to complete: 10-12 I'm getting faster at these shirts!
How historically accurate is it? maybe 70% The pattern is from an extant shirt but its been altered slightly to make it legal for SCA rapier combat, I can't specifically document the blackwork pattern to an extant modelbuch or garment, the ties should probably be made out of linen rather than cotton and I machine sewed long seams on it (but hand finished everything).
First worn: April 2016 and worn several times since
Total cost: $0 everything was from the stash
The Challenge #4 Gender-Bender
Material: 2 3/4 yds of Fabric-Store.com 019 linen (5.3 oz)
Pattern: Pattern #9 from Patterns of Fashion 4
Year: 1580-1620
Notions: DMC floss, Aida 14 count cloth, #10 cotton cord for ties, 80/2 linen thread for hand sewing, poly thread for machine sewing
Hours to complete: 10-12 I'm getting faster at these shirts!
How historically accurate is it? maybe 70% The pattern is from an extant shirt but its been altered slightly to make it legal for SCA rapier combat, I can't specifically document the blackwork pattern to an extant modelbuch or garment, the ties should probably be made out of linen rather than cotton and I machine sewed long seams on it (but hand finished everything).
First worn: April 2016 and worn several times since
Total cost: $0 everything was from the stash
HSF #5 May: Holes
Summer..even Spring in the Deep South can get pretty bloody hot. After getting sick from the heat wearing tightly laced 16th century Italian, I broke down and did what I swore I was never going to do: I decided to make a Greco/Roman outfit. A chiton so I could at least cover my arms. (Croom calls this a "gap sleeved tunic"1)And, added benefit: a chiton had openings on the sleeves that would count as holes!
My first try was with linen and it was definitely a no-go. I felt like the Hindenburg and it did NOT drape anything like the sculptures. Which left me with an interesting conundrum. Should I go with rayon for a more accurate look or go with linen for a more accurate fabric? After some pondering the "I have to not actively hate what I look like in it" won out and the Tuesday before I planned to wear it, I went to the local fabric nirvana Fine Fabrics (literally a warehouse of fabric) but they had no solid coloured rayon. So...... I bought some lovely red silk instead. Silk is not generally favored as a good warm weather fabric in re-enactor circles because it doesn't breathe as well as linen, but it was light and the arms were open, so I decided it had to be better than 16th century Italian.
Silk was used by the Romans, but was very expensive since it was imported from China and always seen as decadent.2 Doubly decadent because it was scarlet which was considered to be nearly as decadent as purple.3 It may be decadent, but I knew it was the right call because when I pinned the two pieces together it draped beautifully and gave me folds straight out of a sculpture.
Holes!
I found some cute Roman sandals on Amazon for under $20 and wore Roman to the event that Saturday. Since then I have dug deeper into actually researching Roman clothing and rather surprisingly, find the Roman era pretty fascinating. The clothing doesn't change much but the hair styles and jewelry do; I've tentatively settled on the late 1st - early 2nd century era to focus on since the first wearing have made myself an under tunica to minimize wardrobe malfunctions. I also want to delve into wig making to do justice to some of the Roman hair styles. This is classic "Compulsive Elaboration Syndrome" -I can't just knock out a fast chiton to wear in the summer... I have to understand the whole outfit and where exactly it fits into the Roman timeline...oy. I am also.. um... looking at Roman glassware for a set of feast gear and might have been reading Apicius on Project Gutenberg.
The Challenge: #5 Holes
Material: 3 1/2 yards of silk it wasn't as slippery as a charmeuse, but it was more substantial than a habotai.
Pattern: None. It's 2 pieces of 45" fabric, hemmed, sewed up the sides partway and caught at several points on the shoulder
Notions: Poly thread for the machine sewing (I was in a hurry or I would have done it by hand) and silk thread for the hand sewing
Hours to complete? maybe 4 since I hand hemmed the top and bottom edges
First worn: Early June 2016
Cost: $35 for the silk
HSF #6 June: Travel
No respectable Roman lady would venture outside her home without the palla.4 So for the June challenge, I am using the palla I made to go with my gap sleeved tunic.
The palla is a large rectangle of fabric most commonly pinned at the left shoulder, brought around the back, under the right arm and either draped over the arm or flung over the left shoulder.
I chose sheer navy blue silk. I had read that blue was an expensive dye for the Romans, but I cannot for the life of me find the source for that now.
Note: I am not wearing this in the manner discussed above. I didn't have a pin at the time.
But there are examples of alternate drapings for the palla.
The Challenge: #6 Travel
Material: 3 yards of silk
Pattern: None
Notions: None
How historically accurate is it: 80% I can't find the reference to blue dye, but silk was available in the Roman era.
Hours to complete: A couple of hours fringing the edges
First worn: early June 2016
Cost: $30 for the silk
And with that I am caught up on my challenges and have my July project in progress. I have now made it further than previous year I've attempted the Historical Sew Monthly. Yay me!
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1 Croom, Alexandra. Roman Clothing and Fashion Gloustershire: Amberley, 2000.
2 Ibid page 19.
3 Ibid page 27.
4 Ibid page 104.
Monday, July 18, 2016
Adventures in Renaissance Cooking
My dear friend Alessandra Fioravanti's elevation to the Order of the Laurel was at Royal University Meridies this past weekend and Baroness Leda Sands and handled the food for her Vigil. This gave me an excuse for playing with some Renaissance recipes and I enjoyed it enormously. I also learned a good bit about feeding large quantities of people.
The first hurdle to surmount was food allergies of various people that would be in attendance. Pork, beef, melon, green peppers, mushrooms & tomatoes were all immediately off the ingredient list. Since I am allergic to mushrooms myself, I was very sympathetic, but it did make finding recipes a bit more complicated.
The menu we ended up with was a mix of period and modern dishes loosely on the theme of "breakfast"
Baroness Leda did:
Biscuits and gravy
Chicken sausage
Fresh strawberries
Orange Juice
and Champagne for the mimosas that Mistress Alessandra would offer her guests
and I made:
Shortbread
Candied citrus peel
Lemon curd
Cheese tartlets
Rice pudding topped by spiced plum mousse with honey
Honey nut clusters
Shortbread
I had this crazy idea in my head that the cookies should be stamped with the giglio on Mistress Alessandra's heraldry and the giglio on the cookie should be in edible gold. It took some mad google fu but I found a lady in Australia that sold a fleur de lis cookie stamp. The only giglio stamp I could find was $80 so a fleur de le lis would have to be close enough. I used the shortbread recipe she provided to make sure the stamp would work (the only significant difference from my usual shortbread recipe was that there was a small amount of rice flour added and it called for caster (superfine) sugar.
The stamp worked surprisingly well, although the rough edges needed to be cut off with a paring knife after each cookie was stamped. Not difficult, but it took more time than I anticipated.
I got liquid edible gold and cake decorating brushes to gild the cookies. Despite my non-existent illumination skills, I can paint a cookie well enough and the gilding went off without a hitch, although the cookie surface was a little rough since each ball of dough had to be rolled in sugar to keep the cookie press from sticking.
The first hurdle to surmount was food allergies of various people that would be in attendance. Pork, beef, melon, green peppers, mushrooms & tomatoes were all immediately off the ingredient list. Since I am allergic to mushrooms myself, I was very sympathetic, but it did make finding recipes a bit more complicated.
The menu we ended up with was a mix of period and modern dishes loosely on the theme of "breakfast"
Baroness Leda did:
Biscuits and gravy
Chicken sausage
Fresh strawberries
Orange Juice
and Champagne for the mimosas that Mistress Alessandra would offer her guests
and I made:
Shortbread
Candied citrus peel
Lemon curd
Cheese tartlets
Rice pudding topped by spiced plum mousse with honey
Honey nut clusters
Shortbread
I had this crazy idea in my head that the cookies should be stamped with the giglio on Mistress Alessandra's heraldry and the giglio on the cookie should be in edible gold. It took some mad google fu but I found a lady in Australia that sold a fleur de lis cookie stamp. The only giglio stamp I could find was $80 so a fleur de le lis would have to be close enough. I used the shortbread recipe she provided to make sure the stamp would work (the only significant difference from my usual shortbread recipe was that there was a small amount of rice flour added and it called for caster (superfine) sugar.
The stamp worked surprisingly well, although the rough edges needed to be cut off with a paring knife after each cookie was stamped. Not difficult, but it took more time than I anticipated.
I got liquid edible gold and cake decorating brushes to gild the cookies. Despite my non-existent illumination skills, I can paint a cookie well enough and the gilding went off without a hitch, although the cookie surface was a little rough since each ball of dough had to be rolled in sugar to keep the cookie press from sticking.
Finished cookies. I'd intended to paint in stamen to make
the Fleur-de-Lis a Giglio, but alas there wasn't time
Candied Citrus Peel
There is a recipe in Menagier de Paris for Candied Orange Rind that has you soak the orange rind in water for 9 days, boil it in honey and then let it sit for a month before eating it. I chose a simpler, more modern recipe using sugar. It was still a lot of work. Mistress Serafina and I spent an entire afternoon peeling a dozen oranges and a dozen lemons and the end product was a little over a quart ziploc bag of candied peels. Still, the finished product was absolutely delicious and I will probably put them on the regular rotation of things to make for events, regardless of the amount of work involved. At some point I may try the Menagier de Paris recipe once just because I'm curious, though.
orange peel boiling in simple syrup
Lemon Curd
I can't document lemon curd earlier than the early 1800s, but Leda and I both love it and I needed something to do with the rest of the lemons for the candied citrus peel. It was surprisingly easy to make and I may need to work harder to see if there is any case whatsoever for it being eaten pre-1600. And it would go beautifully on the shortbread or with the fresh strawberries, so it stayed on the menu.
Cheese Tartlets
I used Scappi's Feast Day Cheese Tourte (Scappi V 81) which called for ricotta, cream cheese, fresh mozzarella & Parmesan, eggs, cinnamon and raisins in a crust. Thanks to a serendipitous Goodwill find of 6 mini muffin tins for $1 each and an amazing little tool I found on Amazon, I decided to do bite sized tartlets rather than a full pie. This was a great idea, but these were the last thing I made the night before and after the first 72 tarts, I ended up putting the rest of the filling in a single pie crust. I
A tart tamper. You put a ball of dough in the mini muffin tin
and press the tamper in to make a little cup of dough
Rice Pudding with Almond Milk
This was a combination of several recipes. I prepared the rice by soaking it in warm water for 30 minutes then drying it in a 200 degree oven for an hour as per Scappi, but I heated my almond milk before adding it to the rice and added rose water. Preparing the rice was time consuming but it cooked up perfectly and was worth the extra effort. I have to admit I did not make my own almond milk, though. I used Trader Joe's Unsweetened Vanilla almond milk, which I picked up by mistake, thinking it was the plain unsweetened. I was very glad there were left overs, because I could eat this for breakfast every day and not get tired of it.
Spiced Plum Mousse with Honey
This is found in Forme of Cury and the original recipe calls for fresh plums. I had just finished racking a batch of plum brandy and had the re-hydrated dried plums that had been soaking in brandy for 6 months, so I used those instead. I'm curious to try it with fresh plums, but I am very happy with the current result. It's not terribly pretty Not only was this tasty atop the rice pudding, it was delicious spread on a biscuit.
Honey Nut Clusters (Nucato)
I found this recipe in Redon's The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy which lists the source for it as Libra della cuicina del secolo XIV. That is not a text I am familiar with, and in the interest of full disclosure I did not independently corroborate the source. The original recipe and other mentions of it I have found on the Web say to spread the hot mixture out on parchment and cut it like peanut brittle. Thankfully, I did a test run on this to take to Artsy Crown, because spreading it on parchment was an epic failure. The parchment stuck to it, it wouldn't cut and I ended up reheating it in the oven to be able to scrape it off the parchment. I also realized that it was very sensitive to heat and humidity. By day two of Artsy Crown it was one big lump you had to rip a chunk off of to eat. Knowing this, I used mini peanut butter cup molds and lots and lots of spray coconut oil to keep it from sticking and kept it in a cooler until it was time to set out the food. It still managed to melt on the tray by the end of the day, but it was far more successful than try #1.
Nucato, already on the way to becoming melted blobs
What I Learned
The finger foods (cookies, tartlets, strawberries, nucato, candied citrus peel) were the most popular. Very few people were interested in what was in the chafing dishes. Perhaps lifting the cover was too intimidating?
Labels with what the food was and the ingredients in each dish are absolutely necessary. I'd cut them from my to-do list due to time constraints and ended up using blue sticky notes because there were so many questions.
Do a test run with everything! I'd never used sterno for chafing dishes before but it seemed easy enough. But the sterno canisters were too large for the dishes and after 5-10 minutes had to be extinguished because the sausages were already burning. It was far from the worst thing that could have happened, but it was a failure that was totally avoidable.
Over all, it was a fun experience and I was happy to make Mistress Alessandra's day a little more special. There is definitely more experimenting with period recipes in the future!
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