Being the King's (and the Queen's) Mistress - of the Wardrobe - In Progress

Their Royal Majesties East: Brennan and Caoilfhionn
Photo by Lindsay Nery

There is a book out there that talks about the five "Love Languages" and how you show your love to others. My way of showing others love is sewing for them. True love is appliqueing circles. (Xavier... Antonii...)

Two people I love in the East are Brennan mac Fearghus and Caoilfhionn inghean Fhaolain. 

Last fall, at the same Crown Tourney where I became an apprentice, Brennan became our Prince again, and Caoilfhionn our Princess. 

And my Laurel became their Chief of Staff. 

And I was asked to become their Mistress of the Wardrobe. (insert nervous but excited squeeing here)

I knew what the job entailed, having recently watched Zippy and Leda do it for Honig and Ioannes, and my friend Ty doing the job for Ivan and Matilde. 

And then they threw me a curveball. 

They want Byzantine. 

BYZANTINE?!?!

I don't know anything about Byzantine other than most of it looks like blingy boxes or that thing Tom Brady wears on the sidelines to keep warm. 

You're still the Greatest of All Time in my eyes Tom.
(Go Pats!)

But. I was promised research help and support from Hypatissa Anna Dokeianina Syrakousina, and she doesn't look like she's wearing blingy boxes, so let's do this. 

I'm going to talk in this post specifically about their Coronation Garments, but I have made other Byzantine for them as well. 

The first thing Anna sent me was a list of words. Words that made ABSOLUTELY no sense to me but with a little research and her page she put together for East Kingdom Coronation, I was able to start down the path. 

We needed a "Khlamys" style outfit for each, including the outer divestesion (almost a dalmatica, but with poofy poofy sleeves gathered into a cuff, the under kamision, two ceremonial cloaks, and a collar for her Highness often called a super humeral. 

Fabrics: 

Clearly, the only fiber that would do for these outfits would be silk. And Tyrian Purple silk at that.

We ordered fabric from SilkBaron.com with the absolute perfect shade. (This site is danger incarnate, I'm so in love) I consulted Brennan on if he was on board with the plan, but I was still terrified to open the package once it came. 

OMG it's so BRIGHT!

I also had in my stash 4 yards of a burnt orange pearled silk I'd gotten at Fabric Place Basement for $5 a yard. Yeah. $5. This fabric made up the majority of the embellishment fabric. 

I also cheated. I admit it. I cheated. I ordered a sari/saree from Amazon which had roundels already woven into it in the right color. The trick for this is to search for "banarasi" sarees, this will have the woven embellishment you're looking for. Now, this is "Art Silk" which is ARTifcial SILK aka Polyester, but I'm using it for the embellishments on the garment. 

I needed fabric as well for the collar, and found a gorgeous gold jacquard silk remnant at Artee's, a high end home decor fabric store in Hudson, MA. Instead of close to $100/yard it was $12. Sold. SOLD. It was one of those situations where you start to suspect the other shoppers of nefariously plotting to take your find. Yeah, there weren't any other shoppers in the remnants really that day, and they could have cared less about my gold fabric. 

For the under tunics, I got lightweight white linen for hers from JoAnn's, and the heavier weight for his. I also had some burnt orange cotton in my stash to make his pants. 

I cut the roundels out of the saree fabric and found they had a perfect pattern already on them to pearl. After cutting I serged the edges of the roundels. If you go back to Xavier's Pelican Hood post, I did that there as well, the serged edge gives you something to push against as you are appliquing the item down and I find makes it much easier to do. 

There were two Roundels on each shoulder, on the fronts and backs of each divestesion, and the under tunics. 

Serging the edges of the Roundels

One Roundel Pearled - Ah-Ah-Ah!
Only 11 more to go!

Whip Stitched onto the TYRIAN fabric, this is how the extant embellishments were applied.

Jewelry Finding from Michael's Completes the embellishement

They were also on the linen under tunics, but I did not pearl the backs of the under garments following the "Don't Pearl Your Butt" rule of Byzantine Garb

I also cut up the remainder of the saree embellishment and made trim which was used extensively throughout the garments. 

Saree Trim

Trim added to either side of the center embellishment for her divestation

Whip stitching the center embellishment on her divestation on

I made all the outfits in this picture!
Photo by Lindsay Nery

A Green Belt?

My Apprentice Brooch - Mistress Elizabeth's arms (which are amazingly close to my own)

This past fall someone messaged me and said "I think we should talk about our relationship"

Which is a terrifying sentence for most people and honestly, it terrified me a little. Except in this case it was Mistress Elizabeth Lovell and she wanted to talk about my becoming her apprentice. 

We did have a long talk. And I had a talk with my Pelican. And I had a talk with her current apprentices. 

There was some soul searching. I'm (unsurprisingly) headstrong and have a lot of obligations to House Strangewayes, Quintavia, the East, the Knowne World Courtesans, etc. 

Did I want a Laurel? Yes, I must admit I did. 

Do I want THIS Laurel? Yes, I admire Elizabeth's art as much as I admire her way with people. She is the biggest cheerleader for her apprentices and those around her. I love her honesty and her positivity, and her willingness to stand up and say - no, actually, this isn't right. 

Thus, at Crown Tournament last October, I stood with my Pelican at my side surrounded by friends and soon-to-be sisters and made my promises to her. 

I have yet to regret it for even half a second. 

They talk in polyamorous relationships about love being multiplied not divided. My love for my House, my Shire, the East, etc has only been multiplied. I have a wider circle of encouragement and support than I did. People I can truly confide in and who would, if asked, help hide the bodies. Plus, in my apprentice sisters, I get to know some wonderfully talented and wickedly funny women as well. 

She's going to make me enter an A&S competition though, a real one, that's a little terrifying.

I made a new dress for the occasion too. I also made an overdress but the day was warm enough without it. I used Kass McGann's Reconstructing History Cotehardie pattern and some beautiful lavender jacquard with little diamonds throughout. The hood is fleece, because I have a wool allergy, and is from Cyntia Virtue's Hood with liripipe pattern. It is exactly long enough to keep the decolletage warm.

Did you really get pinned?

It's All Greek to Me - More Royal Garb (in progress)

Remember that friend I mentioned? His Majesty Ioannes. The one with the unerring sense of when I am weak and will accept a commission?

He got me again.

During the summer he messaged me and asked about garb for Pennsic. Not just any garb, but Pennsic State Dinner garb in "full on Greek" for himself and her Majesty.

This is why everyone else's Pelicans are pushing them to do stuff and mine is like - YOU NEED TO SAY NO TO PEOPLE.

Pennsic 46 State Dinner
Photographer unknown

What's "Full on Greek" you ask? I asked that too.

I got a couple reference pictures and then went to town. I found some lovely reference photos for her Majesty with all over designs and heavily embellished borders on chitons from some vases and statuary, but his Majesty was proving difficult.

I wanted a more wearable look than the traditional toga and something that said "Young Warrior King" and I came upon this vase from the Louvre depicting a young bearded warrior.

A winged youth, wearing winged boots, a chitoniskos, and a taenia, advancing to the right; a bearded warrior, wearing chitoniskos and pilos, armed with spear and shield.

Photograph by Maria Daniels, courtesy of the Musée du Louvre, January 1992

Louvre F 26

ca. 550 BCE - ca. 525 BCE

I love the shoulder stripe on this and the detail on the armscye (which indicates to me a little bit of a sleeve). However I'm going to lengthen this as I don't want to expose the East shall we say, and add some linen shorts.

Now, here's where I admit to a failure. I failed hard on this project. I had DREAMS I tell you. Dreams of block printing peacock feathers onto a buttery linen/rayon blend and customizing the chiton of Honig's royal dreams.

But it turns out I block print like a grade school kid on fabric and thankfully I had enough time to alter my course before Pennsic.

King Ioannes and Queen Honig at the Pennsic 46 State Dinner

A Dress Fit For a Bard

While we're on the topic of dresses for friends I made a "simple" Elizabethan middle class gown for a friend Solveig Bjarnardottir, a very talented Viking bard who was attending a Yule Elizabeth immersion event  and had nothing to wear.

Lady Solveig Sings

Red and Green but not "Christmas-y"

My favorite fabric store, the Auburn Fabric Outlet, where everything is $2.99 a yard, had these awesome fabrics. I used the green as the base and the red I cut down as trim.

I used the Simplicity Elizabethan pattern that they issued after The Tudors came out. The lines are actually really good on this one - no princess lines to draft out. If you are looking for introductory late period pattern, you could do a lot worse.

I added shoulder wings of the same red fabric and made the sleeves detachable and reversible and a very quick petticoat with a portion of the trim fabric as a forepart.

Solveig's Finished Elizabethan

Another Shot of Solveig's Elizabethan

I lent her a few necklaces and earrings and sent her off to be the belle of the Elizabethan ball.

A Dress Fit For a Future Queen

Crown Tournament last fall in the East was in Maine. We'll talk more about the complications that brought to my life later, but this post is about before that.

Lady Ada Wright is a hit at a Quintavian Demo

Lady Ada Wright was being fought for in Crown by her boyfriend Lord Corwin Blackthorn and in trade for a lovely tablet woven belt (It says Fortune Favors the Bold, Fortune Favors the Brave, Fortune Favors the Bling) I made her a dress worthy of a Princess.

We decided on a Burgundian gown in red and white, her colors red and white. I found a gorgeous cream jacquard and a deep burgundy velvet.

This being an outdoor event. In October. In Maine. I wanted to make sure she had a very deep velvet guard along the bottom of her skirt. Here's a few shots of it in progress and the finished gown before the event.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to find shots of her at Crown actually in the dress, but it was gorgeous.

Deep velvet bottom guard on Ada's Burgundian

A different shot of the pins.
Each hem section was shaped and stitched a the top "in the ditch"

One of the sleeves, again with a deep velvet cuff. 

I also made a velvet belt with snaps to close it.

Lady Ada in the finished gown

Lady Ada's Burgundian from the side

The finished gown with the trucated henin her sister made for her

Fortune Favors A Three-Hour Chiton

Good day to you gentle reader!

Me at SCA 50 Year in Danville, IN

 

Today we're going to talk about one of my crazy garb creation projects. I'm known for, well, blitzkreig-ing projects and sewing new garb the night before an event on a whim. This is the most recent sewing adventure was making Greek/Roman hot weather garb.

What I'm making is a very loose interpretation of a Greek chiton, or Roman peplos. Considered a feminine garment Aphrodite was often depicted in a chiton. It's really just a big fabric tube with the excess pulled up over the belt and "bloused". Over my head and around my shoulders I wear a palla. These would have been either linen or silk and 3-6 yards long, but probably not as sheer as my pallas are.

So, after Coronation I bought myself a present from the Met: Roman replica earrings of Nike (Winged Victory).

Roman copy of Nike Earrings

And the night before Kings & Queen's Archery/Thrown Weapons Champions in my Shire I thought to myself - Gee, I really want to wear those tomorrow but I've lent my green chiton to a LARPing friend. LET'S MAKE A NEW ONE!

My raw supplies at 1am

The supplies: 4 yards of purple rayon (this fits my size 24 frame), 2.5 yards of red silk, a belt, and a bracelet from Charming Charlie. (and a Starbucks Double Shot Energy)
 

The bracelet broken apart

I originally intended to steal a Morgan Donner trick at paint the stones with nailpolish, but decided I liked them

First, let me not advise you to do these things at 1am. You end up watching really bad cartoons on Qubo like "Class of the Titans". Well really, since most of this project is hand sewing, you are listening to Class of the Titans, which, unsurprisingly, does not improve by just hearing the audio.

 

Choose better, gentle reader, choose Netflix.

 

Second, halt your throwdown over rayon. Cease. Do not tell me "But Fortune it's a man-made ATROCITY! How could you?!?!" Look. I need drape. Modern linen without a LOT of TLC isn't going to give me that drape and wool iritates my delicate skin so rayon is a great alternative. It's made from wood fiber, so not as evil as polyester, and doesn't grow and warp as linen will in heat and humidity.

 

Anyway... So I have fabric, I have a butchered bracelet, and I have thread. Where do we go from here?

 

The first step is draping. This is not scary Project Runway-style draping that involves narrow black tape tape and bias and black magic. This is easy - belt and safety pin draping. You'll need twice as many safety pins as you have fasteners.

 

Pin the tube of rayon (your chiton) together at one edge, mark the halfway point on each side with chalk. Pin about 7 inches on each side of the center mark of one side of the tube, and maybe five on each side of the center mark on the other. This is your for your head. The more generous draping is in the front, the other across your shoulders. This helps the chiton staying draped in the front and not slipping back on your neck. Pin each side of the tube together and put it on with your belt. Now fiddle with those marks until you get a drape you like.

 

TAKE YOUR TIME. This fitting process may take over a half hour. That's ok. It should. The attention you spend here is what takes this from a potato sack to a gown.

 

Please make sure you are wearing a belt for this. The blousing may change how you like the drape.

 

Me at the draping stage.

 

Once you have the neck all figured out, mark out your arm holes. Adjust how much room  you want at your forearm to be comfortable. Go through the rythmns of daily life. Fold laundry. Pack the rest of your stuff for the event. Make sure that the openings aren't too narrow for you to move appropriately nor too wide so that you feel a draft.

 

Next measure between the wrist and the shoulder pins and divide up at will. I like 3-4 findings on each arm. It's about your comfort. Look at various statuary from the period for guidance

 

Hygieia Goddess of Health and Hypnos at the MFA Boston

Roman Provincial Imperial Period, Antonine about A.D. 140–190

Accession 1974.131

Terracotta mask of woman to hips

Early Hellenistic probably late 4th–3rd century B.C.

 

Accession Number: 26.164.6

You can see the fasteners on the left hand side of the statue, they look like little round buttons.

 

 

 

Mark the placement of your fasteners on each side of the tube with a safety pin. You could use real pins, but they may fall our and ruin all your hard work. Prevent tears, use safety pins.

 

The two red marks are your center front. (you know you're jealous of my MS Paint skillz)

Chiton Pin Layout

 

Alright, now that you the placement down, before you take off the chiton decide how racy you want to be and mark on the side (with it bloused) where you want the slit to go to. I like, again unsurprisingly, a very high slit. It's personal preference.

 

 

Here comes the never-ending hemming. Hem all four sides of the length of fabric.

Seriously, if nothing else, hand hem the top edge. It really won't take that long and it will look MILES better than machine sewing it. Put on a podcast, or a movie you've seen many times before (so you aren't tempted to watch the screen) and go to town.

Green Chiton in progress.

The color is much more becoming in person.

 On my purple chiton I hand hemmed all edges but the bottom. On my green it's entirely hand sewn as is the pink chiton I made at SCA 50 Year because it was SO VERY HOT.

Now, you have a giant length of fabric, but not a tube, and I promised you a tube didn't I? Well, you also get more hand sewing! I know what you're thinking. You're thinking Fortune, why don't I just run this through the machine? No one needs to know.

Because the advantage to how the garment will sit on the open side is worth it. Really. In a lot of period garment construction each individual piece is lined and then all the parts are whip-stitched together. This means they lay almost perfectly flat. And that's what you want for that side seam, so it doesn't bunch weirdly and have bulk whip-stitch the two ends together starting at the top hem and heading towards where you marked the top of your slit. Make sure you reinforce the top of the stit by doing a bit of satin stitch, basically looping the thread through several times. There will be stress here and you don't want it to fail as you majestically traipse about your encampment or the event.

Now, match up your two sides and add your fasteners/findings. You're done!

Me in the fniished chiton with a lovely necklace also from Charming Charlie.

Well, almost. You could just use your palla and hope it stays on your head and protects the back of your delicate, swan-like neck, but in reality, especially silk is going to misbehave. I pircked up a pack of 6 plastic combs at Wal-mart very similar to these:

Oh so very not period, but you can find ones in metal at craft supply stores.

I draped the palla around myself: over the right shoulder, over the head and back across in front and over the right shoulder. Then marked about where it hit on the back of my head, and attached a comb on the right side of the fabric at the selvedge. So the comb can flip towards my head and stick in without being seen. It's five minutes and so much more elegant than fiddling with a veil all day.
Ding! Dress is done! So go forth gentle reader and be free and breezy in your new garb!

Some other options for findings that I entertained:

These are from Jo-Ann's, but the reast are all from the jewelry secton at Burlington Coat Factory

 

Also, because my usual drawers did not work well under these dresses I tried out men's boxer briefs. How transgressive! Worked ok, not my favorite option, but I'm not sure anything could have survived the terrible heat at SCA 50 Year.

Further reading on Roman Garb:

Anna's Rome: https://annasrome.com/roman-garb-basics/

Mistress Giata's blog La Bella Donna: https://fleurtyherald.wordpress.com/2016/06/14/roman-clothing/

Pelicans and Great Northeastern War - Mistress Deirdre de Planchette

Years ago, a friend was making a Pelican cloak for someone, and the full elevation outfit, and vending GNE and time was running out for it to be finished, so I spent a dreary overcast Saturday morning sewing down trim and adding the little garnet blood droplets to the Pelican cloak to be presented to Master Peter the Red.

I didn't know Peter then, I knew his wife a little, but I knew of his reputation in the archery community as a teacher and master of his craft. Since then, Peter has become my friend and I was reminded of that overcast Saturday as I sat this past year in my encampment finishing a dress for another Pelican-to-be.



Mistress Deirdre de Planchette with their Majesties Omega and Etheldreda
Great Northeastern War 2015

Let me tell you about Deirdre. Lady Deirdre de Planchette was the Exchequer of the Barony of Stonemarche for a LOOOOOOOOONG time. Which means she's been the person getting the 2,000 SCAdian cats who attend Birka swiftly, accurately, and efficiently through gate each year. (The folks from Pennsic Troll came up to Stonemarche and modeled Pennsic's system after hers)

And you never see her. She sits in the back room counting, sorting paperwork, making sure everything one else has breaks and has everything they need. Not to mention being responsible for the funds it takes to run such an event, and all the other events held in Stonemarche.

She has given to the Society in more ways, fostering newcomers, fostering the arts, and never seeking attention to herself, just doing and doing well.

So when the call went out from her daughter to help out with Deirdre's vigil and Pelican ceremony my household wanted to help. So Simona bat Leon and I volunteered to make her dress.

Deirdre's colors are blue and red so a bliaut was born: baby blue summer weight wool with red silk dupioni lined sleeves, red silk neckline yoke and trim. Lady Anastasia of the Oaks made the most gorgeous red and white silk trim for the dress and belt. (I kept petting it, it was so soft).

A quietly elegant dress for a quietly elegant lady.

I used a variation on this bliaut pattern by Adrienne Dandy. The pattern is simple but striking and I wanted the fabric to speak for itself.

We cut the fabric out on the Camelot Common House pool table (I'm sure that's why they got that thing, for fabric cutting). The edges are all serged inside and the lower sleeve is entirely lined in the red silk.



Full length shot of the dress with my lovely assistant Simona bat Leon

A shot of the silk trim being applied

The trim was terrifying to cut, as I know how hard Anastasia worked on it. But it looks so magnificent on the red silk backdrop. The trick is sewing across the trim first in two parallel lines and cutting between them.

Simona and the sleeve - what ironing! And she's a serging machine!

The sleeve is in two parts, the top portion is a trapezoid for the upper arm and I sewed down a strip of silk there at the top edge of the arm band then folded it back over the sewn edge, applied the trim and zig-zagged down the part that would be in the selvedge attached to the lower fuller sleeve.
 At some point I will do a keyhole neckline tutorial. Today is not that day, I'm sorry darlings.

The silk facing applied to the neckhole

Handsewing down the neckline facing

Adding a little hint of embroidery around the edges to pull in the red and white of the trim

 The embellishment was done by backstitching in red using 3 strands of embroidery floss around the edges and whip stitching white around those back stitches, just like I did with the bow on my Viking Sailor Moon dress. I'm a novice at embroidery and am a bit of a one trick pony right now.
 

Finished!

Simona and I presented the dress to Deirdre during her vigil during Saturday of the war. (Once we were done hemming it in camp...)

The evening court (there were like 5 courts at the three day war) they inducted her as a Pelican. The bycocket was made by her daughter Kiaya based on Agnolo Gaddi's fresco of the Legend of the True Cross in the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence circa 1380. It's her first bycocket!

You have to look hard for her - for a while I was calling her "St Helena Not Appearing in this Fresco"

Deirdre and Baroness Megan Laine, first Baroness Stonemarche



You may now greet your order - shot of the back of the dress

The scroll was a happy accident - it features what looks like the dress - but no one had seen it yet! The choice for light blue wool was made very late in the game due to fabric availablity. Mistress Eleanore did a fabulous job on it. 


Illumination by Lady Eleanore MacCarthaigh

I'm very pleased with this project and of the inclusion of this lovely lady into the Order of the Pelican.

Oh, and while we were in court - two rapscallions named Juan Lazaro Ramirez Xavier and Maria Pagani were given writs to go on vigil for inclusion in the Order of the Pelican themselves... so guess who got to make more Pelican regalia? Simona and I!

But that's for another post tentatively titled - Love is Appliqueing Circles