Italian Turkish Outfit

Years ago, I did research on the Turkish Coat style as seen in Italian art. You can read the original article up on my webpage that I don't think I've updated in five years or so. :-) Although it's been a while, a lot of the research is still good and I still make the coats in the same way. I made one last year as well that I completely love.

This year, I found some scrumptious stripy linen at Joanns. It's 98% linen with 2% unknown. The unknown is the metallic fibers in the linen - which is very 16th century, although I doubt they are real metal. The colors of the linen are all very well documentable - orange, yellow, red, lavender, blue, and white. The moment I saw it, the fabric told me it wanted to be a Turkish Coat.

The Italian Turkish outfits are a bit different from the actual Ottoman outfits. Italian ladies didn't wear the chirka - or the vest like fitted jacket that went over the gomlek/chemise layer. (See for details on the Ottoman terms for clothing). There could be many reasons for this but what the portrait and extant evidence shows is the chemise and the enteri or coat was worn in Italy. At the Met, there is this chemise with a v-neck and this early 17th C coat, both Italian.

First, I cut out the body of the coat.  You can probably just make out the basic shape.  I cut out the side gores next - which I had to recut because I made them too narrow.  

Slightly blurry photo of the front of the finished coat with buttons.  I also made linen pants to go with the outfit.  The pants are a lovely melon color that looks much brighter against the orange of the coat.  They aren't cut in a period manner but work well since all anyone will see is from the knees down.  I used New Look Pattern 6139 for the general cut. I added a waistband and had the pants open in the front rather than use a drawstring or elastic. I just pleated the excess to the waistband. They fit well and are pretty comfy.

The back of the coat.  I will probably wear a blue or purple scarf around the waist mostly to break up the brightness of the color a bit. 

Side view.  These coats are so fun and really look much better on me than on the dress dummy.  This is what I plan on wearing at some point during Pennsic!

New Limited Time but Fabulous Product Alert!

Back before the corn allergy, I remember not liking Vanilla flavored Pepsi/Coke very much.  It tasted like toothpaste to me and I couldn't understand why people liked it.  Of course, I also thought diet Pepsi/Coke tasted like pure bitter acid.

However, this is delicious.  It tastes like cream soda almost.  I *love* it.  You can easily taste the vanilla but it does have some citrus acid in it to give it that bit of lemon/lime kick. 

I was so excited when I heard that Pepsi was going to do Wild Cherry and Vanilla Pepsi with real sugar this summer.  I can't have the wild cherry, unfortunately (stupid cherry/berry allergy!) but Vanilla is completely on the table.  I've bought one case to try and I'm going to get a bunch more before Pennsic. 

Pepsi, thank you!  Not only can I drink Sierra Mist no matter where I go (it's always sugar based), and the throwback Pepsi, but now I can see if this Vanilla Pepsi is an option too.  PLEASE keep these around.  I'd love to see what this tastes like with gingerbread at Christmas.  :-)

To other corn allergy sufferers, I know those with the most severe kind might still have issues because of the caramel coloring.  I have no idea if it is corn based or not but I haven't have a reaction.  My corn allergy is mild compared to the other food allergies I have so I don't always have a reaction if it's a very small amount.  (Like if it says 2% or less of dextrose, a corn based product, I can have the recommended serving without any issues.)  So, please, double check. 

Now back to your regularly scheduled Pennsic madness...

A Shower Tent for Pennsic!

First, I should explain. Pennsic, for those that don't know, is a medieval and renaissance festival in which 10,000+ people descend on this one, small, Pennsylvania town for two weeks out of the year. For those two weeks, Pennsic literally becomes it's own city - complete with a post office, restaurants, plenty of shopping, and a transportation system. It's my favorite event and there is something for everyone - all you need is garb.

Because I'm going to be taking up residence, again, at Pennsic, I need to have a place to sleep, cook, and bathe. The trailer works for sleeping and cooking. However, it doesn't have a shower area. So, I have to make a shower tent.

Normally, the group I camp with has all the necessary infrastructure to include a day shade, shower tent, and kitchen tent. This year, the baron and baroness of my household aren't coming. Also, the infrastructure is a bit old. So, new stuff!

To make a shower tent, I first had to figure out what style I wanted. For those on my LJ account, you know I was hemming and hawing at this for a couple of weeks. I couldn't decided whether to buy a shower tent or make a shower tent to start with. I found two that were under $60 but one wasn't period looking and the other, it turns out, has see-thru material based on the reviews. So making my own shower tent it is!

Now, which materials to use? For a while I liked the idea of using PVC pipes to make a nice frame and just cover it. The problem would be cutting said PVC pipes correctly and having the entire thing put together in a way that it stores easily and, preferably, flat.

I also saw the hula hoop shower tents which can be nice looking but didn't seem very sturdy to me. I needed something that could hold some weight for the solar shower bag but would also give me plenty of room to wash my hair. That's when I saw this:

It's from Better Homes & Gardens and I realized that, out in the shed, I still had the old papasan I was planning on throwing away. The papasan is older than I am. I think. I know it was at least 20 years old when I inherited it in college so it's had a very long life for a papasan chair. Rather than make a hula hoop shower tent, I could reuse the old papasan - which would easily hold the solar shower's weight. Even better, this means I don't have to spend any money! The material for the shower tent was already in the stash from making a tent years ago and now I wouldn't have to make a frame either. Woohoo!

So, to start, I measured along the seat edge of the papasan and found it was 144".  That meant that the walls needed to be around 154" in order for the front to overlap.  I also wanted to add in some extra for the seam allowance as I was hiding the raw edges of the material in the seams.  I'd roll one edge, stitch it down and then roll it over again, but this time, encasing the other raw edge.  It's sort of like a flat fled but I'm not sewing it down flat.  I guess it's more like a french seam that way.  

Anyway, the walls!   There is a total of nine panels.  Each panel was cut out at 20" across the top and 40" across the bottom except for the door flap which was half that.  

The walls, lying flat, took up pretty much my entire front lawn.  I used the selvage for the bottom hem so that I wouldn't have to hem the entire thing.  I don't think I could take that. 

The roof, the first time I tried it on the papasan, needed work.  I cut out the bottom hem too narrow and the top hem was way too big.   I ended up adding a gore (See below) and pleating the top a bit.  I'm not concerned about rain because it's a shower tent.  Still, I want it to be able to withstand some weathering.

The gore!  It's just scraps but it worked.  I also wanted the shower tent to look somewhat medieval.  It is Pennsic after all.  This mean adding some sort of contrasting band around the bottom edge of the roof, similar to the tents in this plate from the mid 16th Century.  Notice that the tent on the far right side has a curved top, like this will be and the tent on the far left has only the contrasting band. 

I also added a bit of bias tape to the top of the roof to keep the pleats in place.  It's in the same green.  The green is rather translucent as I learned my first Pennsic, unfortunately.  I had made my tent out of it!  Later, that tent got turned into an interior while the outside became some lovely sunbrella fabric I picked up for $1 a yard.  

The tent finished!   I added loops to some of the panel joints to help stake it properly to the ground.  This will help when it's a bit windy from the tent flying up.  I'm going to probably use the solar powered candles you see in the picture around the tent.  This will be nice to illuminate where it is at night but also have a semi period look since they are candles!

The front entrance.  I put the tent up a bit crooked since this was the lowest reasonable branch I could tie the tent too.  The only other ones are very high up in my backyard.  

Me inside the shower tent.  The red you see is some vintage hem tape I used to encase the raw edges where the roof and the walls meet. 

Another picture of the front of the tent.  It's quite roomy inside - much more than I originally thought.  I'm sure I'll get tons of use out of it and the papasan and keep going on for at least another decade or so.  :-)

Chair Cushion Covers

I bought a pair of wooden folding chairs for $6.90 each at the local thrift store.  They are both in great condition.  I wanted something I could put outside at Pennsic and not cry if it got damaged.   Pennsic is known for many things - including sudden downpours and flooding.  I'm not leaving my super expensive, period correct, Savonarola chairs outside without extreme supervision.  However, I do want to leave something out for guests that is comfortable.  Normally, my encampment had four or five Viking chairs out.  Since it's just me for the main encampment (there is a branch of our group camping right next door), I thought a bench might be nice.  However, when I saw the folding chairs, I realized that might be a better idea.

Now, the folding chairs are comfortable but I thought some cushions might be nice.   I bought a 4 pack of very plain beige chair cushions from Wally World (ie, Walmart) for about $8 USD.  At home, I had some left over fabric from my SIL's Renaissance Fair gown I made her a couple of years ago.  It's a simple floral damask that isn't period but the color looks really nice and the pattern isn't discernible right away.  So, I doubled the cushions and made slip covers for them out of the mint green damask.

 The slip covers themselves are really simple.  It's one big rectangle, folded over, and sewn at the sides.  On the back opening, I hemmed it to prevent fraying.  I also added the small flap which is just another rectangle, folded over, but sewn shut and attached to the bigger bag at the center back.  The small flap gets tucked under the cushions to help hold the cover in place.

Oh.  And I added pink tassles.  Because, although this isn't period correct, all medieval cushions appear to have tassles.  Therefore, since this is for a medieval event, I needed to add tassles to make it look more medieval ish.

 See?  Pink tassles.  They are just some left over acrylic yarn I used to make a couple of monkey fists that got covered in more pink yarn.  I then sewed them to the corners.  It's not period looking but it's not blatantly modern either -which is good.  If a true medieval/renaissance person came up and saw the chair, they'd instantly recognize that it's a wooden chair.  There wouldn't be any questions about what the heck it's made out of.  Actually, there is a 16th C Italian chair that is similar to this style but I'd have to make a back cover too.

Here is the back of the chair.  The flap is just tucked in under the cushions.  I'm using the original ties to tie the cushions to the chair.  It's quite comfy and the covers are very washable.  Yay!

Now back to more Pennsic prep....

Mid 16th Century Dress Almost Done

 I've been hand sewing this dress mainly because I started it in the car.  :-)  I needed something to keep me occupied while sitting in the passenger seat in traffic.  Sewing the bodice worked out perfectly.  

The front point is a bit off but I doubt it will be noticeable one I wear a proper girdle with the dress.  I tried to fix it but it just ended up looking much worse.  The skirt is actually quite full, it's just hard to show that on the dress dummy without proper under garments...or hips.  I think it measures out at 118" around. 

This is an inside shot before I sewed down the lining to the skirt.

This shot is to show how I sewed the trim on.  Rather than sewing down one side and the up the other, I simply crossed the needle beneath the trim and fabric to the other side of the trim, made a small stitch, and then crossed back.  This way, the trim was secure on both sides and I only had to go over it once. 

I'll make sleeves eventually.  The style of the dress was inspired by this portrait:

Turns out, the portrait dress is actually green and the trim is gold.  o_0?   However, I love the style.   The only reason I'm not making the sleeves now is that I have three more outfits that need to be done by July 25th and I can easily sew sleeves, if need be, at Pennsic itself.  :-)

1930's Slip

I realized at 4 am that I no longer had my nice purply pink cotton underdress and had given that away. This meant I didn't have an underdress for the super sheer 1930's dress I just made. I needed a slip. And fast.

I thought on all the material I had and originally thought the purple/blue/orange shot silk I had would work - but it was way too heavy. Although the silk was already in a slip form (it had been a t-tunic with angel sleeves 10 years ago. The angel sleeves were taken off two weeks ago. The trim was recycled. The sleeves to the t-tunic were taken off. Really, it would have meant I sewed up the armscye but it's June. The material was originally meant to be worn in December).

My second choice was some pink linen but I thought about 1930's slips and none of the ones I thought of were out of any linen/cotton type material. They were all...silky. So, I ended up using my white silk charmeuse I had in the stash pile.

Next problem, figure out how to make a slip in less that two hours. Luckily, I came across this pattern which is super simple. The directions are very clear and the slip really came out well. The only issue I had is that if you make it the exact way it looks in the illustration, it will fit a size 20. I ended up without the top half squares. It was still a bit big but not as bad.

And beneath the dress...

The dress itself still needs some work but it looked okay together.  :-)

Question!

For the Historical Food Fortnight #3, the challenge is "Today in History". I've been playing with a couple of ideas:

One, do a food in honor of St Thomas More - one of the few brave men to stand up to Henry VIII. He died (or, rather, was excuted) on July 6, 1535. I'd attempt to cook a food from a cookbook that existed during St Thomas More's lifetime - ie, a food that he might have actually eaten. He was born in 1478 so any late 15th/early 16th c English cookbooks would be up for grabs...I think there are three or four. (Anything 1450's to 1535 would be up for grabs as food doesn't change terribly quickly, unlike fashion. So, it's probable that recipes in a mid 15th C cookbook were still being used well into St Thomas' lifetime. My Mom still uses recipes from an old 1930's cookbook we have!)

Two, take the "Today in History" a bit different and do a "fishe day" recipe. Fridays - up until the 20th C- meant fish for Catholics. It wasn't just a Lent thing. In the medieval and Renaissance cookbooks I've read, fish day recipes are actually different from Lenten recipes. You can use eggs and dairy on fish days. So, the plan would be to take the theme and make what my ancestors probably ate on any given Friday.

Since I can't decide between the two, you get to help! :-) Any preference?