Cooking and Sewing

Slightly sourdough bread - because I got impatient as I mentioned over on LJ. I used a medieval starter - nothing more than flour and water. It is hard to get a starter started in the winter because it does need a bit of heat but that's where all those slightly warm electronics that are always on everyone has around their house come in very handy. I put my starter on top of my bluray player and it worked beautifully. I'm told desktop PCs work wonders as well. Yes, it's not a period heat source but it works and it worked well. Seriously, the started doubled within three hours of it's second feeding. I fed the starter every 24 hours.

On the sewing side of life:



My sleeves! Okay, so they don't look like sleeves right now...

This is one of the many examples of a Henrician gown I'm using as inspiration for this Tudor gown. The fur in the picture above is going to line the sleeves and then be pinned back to show off the fur.

The main body of the gown will be a nice chocolate cotton velvet and the forepart and undersleeves are out of a pink silk that is already pintucked in a diamond pattern with pink "pearls" in the center of each diamond. Yes, I doubt they had pink pearls either but it looks really nice with the chocolate velvet. Colored fake pearls are period! http://tinyurl.com/3y4h3s8 :-) The link goes to a google book called The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts: Two-volume Set: Two-volume Set, page 515. It doesn't say which decade of the 16th Century but it's nice to know at some point there were fake pink pearls in the SCA period.

EDIT: I've even found pink pearls in a portrait now, on a French hood, from 1550. http://www.artunframed.com/images/artmis3/clouet99.jpg Yay!Kimiko indicates that it might even be earlier than 1550. Since the date of the ball I'm wearing this to is 1543, I'd LOVE the 1543 date for the pink pearls. :-)

The inside front edges of the skirt will be lined with more of the fur leftovers and I have a very long, very thin piece of fur trim for the inside neckline. All of the fur I'm using was, at one point, pieces to a vintage coat. The guy I got it from had used what he needed and sent me the sleeves, the collars, and any other odd parts to about three or four different coats. So, these are all cutter pieces and not "new".

Originally, I was going to do the Catherine Parr gown but I realized the way I wanted to do it -and to do it justice- would take a lot longer than two weeks. :-) So, this Henrician era gown is in the same vein with the fur sleeves (I think it's mink? I have no idea. All I do know is my dog LOVES it and my cat believes that's what I did to the last cat, bwahahahaha.) but not completely lined in fur.

I hope to have more progress pictures this weekend. I need to work on a new pair of bodies first (stays) that I'm just making out of the 20 gazillion yards of blue cotton blend damask I have. It's not a period fabric whatsoever but I have a lot of it and won't cry if they don't come out perfectly this way. I'm using the Simplicity pattern for them.