Hubby's "Thunder"hosen

Millinery Escapades

2006-06-16T09:30:00.000-04:00

Its completley logical to make a hat before you've made the outfit for it, right? Or not. However, since I still am in search of fabric for the Thunderhosen (I think I'm getting really close now, though) I'm going to amuse myself with other bits. I'm willfully ignoring the shirt for the time being. So...hat it is....

Hats are intimidating. I've never made a proper hat. Only a silly floppy peasant one with no real structure. I met a lady at the VA renfest who used plastic canvas as her hat structure. Admittedly not a period material, but well, I'm a beginner. Perhaps i'll try felt and wire and paper mache for my next hat.

So...despite very non-period structural support, I wanted to try a period pattern. Janet Arnold's PoF has quite a few pleated tall hats in it. I modeled mine after one that is pink velvet. But mine will end up black--hubby would not like a tall pink hat.

I used the pattern in the middle on page 94 (for those of you that have the book). I altered the sides of the crown a bit so I wouldn't have quite so many incisions to make.

Hubby's head is 23 inches circumfrence, and I've taken it down to an 18and a bit inches circumfrence for the top (which, after doing LOTS of geometry means that the very top of the hat will be ~6 inch diameter circle). This amounted to cutting out 1/2 inch wide, 3.5 inch long triangles every 2 3/8 inches on the top of the crown-side. See:

Here, I am joining the slits with very non-period navy blue cotton yarn. (Yup, niter, I actually bought yarn!) You know, it might have just been easier to make a conical shape to begin with, but well, i was following the PoF pattern...

This is 6.5" tall right now, but after a try on, I think I'll take about an inch off the height for a more pleasing aesthetic (hubby keeps calling it a pilgrim hat, and that just won't do).

Here are all the bits cut out. The brim is 12" wide (just like the PoF hat, since I had no idea how big would look "right"). I need to finish tacking the top onto the sides tonight. We'll see if i get around to covering anything in fabric.

I'm a dolt and had the trim for the hat band in my hand at the store, but put it down while choosing my canvas. I guess I still need to find trim, huh?

Now, for some questions:
1) Opinion: black courderoy, black velveteen, or "other"? I think i'm gonna line this in that tan silk satin i have....
2) Does one cover the crown and brim in fabric before or after joining said crown and brim? I was thinking it might be easier to cover the brim before attaching it to the crown, but I really don't know.

Le Sigh

2006-03-14T23:00:00.000-05:00

So, I thought I'd be an enterprising little wench and make my hubbys shirt while he was away. I mean, shirts are like one size fits all, right? I even had his measurements.

But sure enough, it doesn' t fit. I'm such a lazy shirt maker....they always come out a bit crappy cuz i get bored and basically decide "screw this, it goes under the outfit anyway". Bad. Bad Julie. Now hubby's got an unfinished shirt that strangles his armpits, and is kinda funky round the neck.....Trogdor is magestic, though.

illfitting crap

Would larger gussets help, you think? Or should I just start over? *kicks self* I will be getting friendly with mr. ripper, it seems...

In better news, I've been playing with thread covered buttons for this costume. I figure i'll use em on the shirt and doublet closures. I like this design. Mostly cuz its one i could actually figure out how to do without looking craptastic. Ew, my cuticles could use some TLC.

button

New Years Resolutions

2006-01-01T13:15:00.000-05:00

Yeah, um, this blog has been relatively dead.

I have no real good excuse. I could pretend that my sewing machine was getting worked on since my last post (gasp, that was on OCTOBER 16th!). Which is a lie. But not a complete lie. It did spend about a week at the sewing machine store for its yearly checkup...still, 1 week of no machine does not pardon me for almost 3 months of no sewing... Sewing again sounds like a good new years resolution, doesn't it?

Something to placate the masses (the masses which probably gave up checking this about 3 months ago...). Here is adam's cloak fabric: He decided on a dark green. Its woefully synthetic velvet, but damn, it feels divine, and the price was right. I'll be couching this bad boy. The black beside it is the silk that will be used in much of the rest of the costume. I need to find a cheaper black to line the velvet with, cuz i can't afford to use my beautiful black silk on the INSIDE of the cloak.

Here's my little confession: This project came to a screeching halt when i realized I had NO idea how to draft a man's doublet/jerkin/jacket/whatever-you-prefer-to-call-it.
I tried. Really I did. I had about 3-4 goes at it. Then I gave up. I tried enlarging and altering a pattern straight out of PoF, but it didn't quite go as planned. For one thing, I accidentally enlarged what was a CHILD's pattern, and then we had to really REALLY enlarge it. Oops.

Then, on top of my inexperience with men's garb, my hubby is an...interesting...shape. He is a little barrel of joy. Which is to say that his shoulders and stomach and hips are all about the same size round. The standard conical kinda pattern drafting did not work for him. And I was having a lot of troubles with arm scythes and collars (his neck is so SHORT--yup, barrel of joy).

Anyway, I've made up my mind to progress as follows:
I'm going to do a big old practice round. This means a new blog, as it will be a completley diff costume. I'm gonna work up a "simple" flemish man's garb, just to get a handle on sewing for a man--general shapes, etc.
The bonus is that he will have a get-up to match my flemish, and that I already have all the fabric I could possibly need for this (big swaths of linen as well as dirty/peasanty colored wools and stuff). So it will be "cheap".

I also think i'm gonna just bite the bullet and buy a commercial pattern to start from. I think it'll be easier to alter this and make it period than to come up with my own pattern from scratch. I've "been there". And I was quite unable to have "done that".

In the meantime, I feel perfectly capable of starting on his green velvet cloak. I have a lot of couching to do. And well, cutting out a circle cloak shouldn't be TOO difficult. Knock on wood.

Consumate V's!!!!!

2005-10-16T21:25:00.000-04:00

Looking over our Trogdors the other day, hubby and I decided something was missing. Consummate V's!!!!--how could we have overlooked them?
Clearly, our skills of an artist needed to be improved. We've taken our lesson from Professor Strongbad, and improved our technique. I also started on the neckband, which is shown in the middle. Behold, consummate V's:

And the public announcement of which cloak Adam craves. The photos are from Janet Arnolds Patterns of Fashion.

I think its lovely, with clean lines to go with his simple ivory and black look. Also, I think I probably can do a decent job of the couching, since the pattern is blown up nicely below, and not *too* complicated.

Adam has mentioned either having the cloak be a deep green velvet to add a splash of color to his ensemble, or have it be black velvet with gold/ivory couching, and a striking green lining. Opinions?

Anal-ity

2005-10-13T23:12:00.000-04:00

Well, my previously finished pair of Trogdor cuffs annoyed me slightly cuz they weren't mirror images for the two arms. I redid one so that now they are. :)
I used some cotton perl i had laying around. I really want to try silk blackworking for my next project, though--like beth has said, i'm getting a bit more authenticity concious every day.

Conveniently, The next project using silk floss will be something of MINE. I'm so stingy. Three for me, one for him, and I get the fancier stuff. Bad. Bad wifey.

I haven't decided yet, but I might go back and throw in some fills for these before I assemble the shirt--this is certainly due to Laren ~~envy~~ worship...

As you can see, I've got my two cuffs finished, and my neckband on the hoop for the carride tomorrow. Its nowhere near as awesome as the work of the wonderfully talented Laren, but she at least inspired me to get off my duff and do some blackworking.

A Burninator

Dormancy

2005-10-06T17:03:00.000-04:00

I think I will be coming out of hibernation on this poor neglected diary now. After my costume frenzy weekend with Beth, I came out with two goals. The first was to make a spanish court gown. The second was to finish hubby's new duds. Seeing as I've already made 3 costumes for myself this year, I have simply GOT to do Adam's before I move onto a really ornate court gown for me. Otherwise, his will never get done.

Additionally, it will be beneficial to me to learn to couch on a smaller project (his slops) before deciding exactly how much to plan for the dress--if i learn to dislike couching, I'll just shell out more $$ for trim on my gown. Not to mention, I don't mind the idea of LEARNING on his so I can do mine better. What a horrible wife I am....Mwahahahaha!

The plan:
1) Start/Finish blackworking the collar for his new linen shirt. Try to convince him that ruffs are good! Assemble shirt.
2) Dye white Sateen an ivory color for the doublet, since that's the color he wants. I'm tempted to try coffee for this.
3) Work up a good doublet pattern. Make doublet. Figure out how in the heck I plan to embellish it--I know there will be slashing. Maybe couching. Perhaps some nice trim. In all honesty, I like Adams first design concept better than his second. I might be pushing for some compromises from him.
4) Work up a slops pattern. Embellish (I think this will be couching/embroidery). Make slops.
5) Convince him that he wants a nice short cloak. ;)
6) Buy him tights and shoes. I shoulda bought him tights when bought mine. Doh!

Fabric Finds

2005-07-03T11:38:00.000-04:00

Well, this project has been all but nonexistent since I'm still in search of fabrics. But I think we've found them. I convinced Adam to go fabric shopping with me yesterday (his costume, his choice--with strong influence from me, of course). We found this absolutely exquisite black silk. Its not satin, but a slash test for future pinking is promising. The picture does it no justice. Lovely piece of fabric--and we paid for it. ;-) Granted, it was 50% off, but still pricey. Add that to the fact that she wouldn't sell us the amount I needed, only all of what was left on the bolt (3.5 yards) for a bit more than 50% off. So, I've got extra. But not enough extra to make myself anything fun out of the exquisite stuff. Looks like Adam will have a black silk hat and cloak. ;-)

After the black silk fiasco, I was feeling a bit guilty about spending so much on fabric, so I decided that the white bits of his costume ( most of the doublet and the underlayer of the slops) would have to be significantly cheaper. In my Silk Connection fabric swatch bundle there is a swatch of cotton satin that is actually very impressive. A dull sheen, and it pinks extremely well. And its on sale for 4.95 a yard. Natural fibers for comfort, satin weave for at least some authenticity, and a price that is impossible to beat. I'm sold. I'll be dyeing it a creamier off-white color, either with Ritt, or with coffee or tea if I get industrious.

In other news, I've been chuggin away at his blackwork. Here is the first finished TROGDOR!!!! wrist cuff:

The Burninator

2005-06-22T22:40:00.000-04:00

I let Adam design his own blackwork. He loves Strongbad from the Homestarrunner comics, and was inspired to make his blackwork in the image of Trogdor the Burninator.

Here is what I was handed:

Adam has already transferred the pattern to linen strips, and it has become my subway-ride-to-work-entertainment. It makes me smile. My hubby is such a delicious goof. No, its not period, but he likes it, I think its adorable, and that's all that counts. ;-)

Modified Sketch

2005-06-21T22:00:00.000-04:00

Adam's been tinkering with how he'd like his costume to look. This is the newest version.

This project is kinda halted until i find the right fabric. I can do the shirt and mockup, but no further. I really wanna do the doublet in a nice silk satin, heavyweight so I can pink it without too much fraying (this is what they used in period, so I figured it works, right?)
I got some silk samples from Dharma Trading figuring I could find a nice fabric and dye it myself. But I don't think any of them were as heavyweight as I was hoping. I'm looking to a few other places (denver fabrics and silk connection). And if anyone has other suggestions, it'd be much appreciated.

A Compromise. And a Design Concept.

2005-06-05T11:22:00.000-04:00

Hehe, after much insistence from Adam that lace and ruffles are horribly hideous, he looked at this picture and said "His ruffle's not so bad. You know, IF you were gonna make me wear a ruffle...". Im taking this to mean that if i edge his ruffle in black so its not as prominent, he won't mind. Mwahahahahaha! You know, just in case I NEED to make a ruffle. Honestly, I'm happy without the ruff. We will see how inspired I get on this sewing adventure.

ruffle

Adam is a MUCH better sketch artist than I am. Thus I had him sketch out his ideal look. Here is what he gave me. I"m impressed and VERY excited to start! The design is the same in both of these, but he photoshopped with 2 different color schemes he likes. He's still deciding, so I shan't buy fabric quite yet. ;-) Mostly it boils down to a non-peascod doublet with buttons down the front (i will try to make my own thread covered buttons), vertical pinking on the lower torso, Horizontal couching on the upper torso (with either more couching or pinking in between these). The slops are pretty self explanatory. Adam is a fan of pretty plain sleeves, so that shouldn't be too difficult (or interesting), but he may allow some couching on them like in the sketch.
Oh, and he won't have ninja footie socks or ninja knee ties like in his sketch. But it is an awfully cute detail. I wish I could sketch like this:

sketch1

sketch 2

Design Survey

2005-06-04T10:33:00.000-04:00

I spent a decent amount of time looking through portraits and PoF with Adam, and I think we're evolving a good sense of what he likes. Here are some key portraits that we hope to emulate and meld.

First, his favorite look (as in decoration) for a doublet was this one:

This painting is listed as "Portrait of a Man 1571." It doesn't indicate where its from, but at least its the right time period. We dislike the peascod belly, but like the combination of vertical pinking on the lower torso and horizontal details on the upper chest. Our design will feature this in some combination of pinking/couching.

For pants, I kindly offered venetians, as they seem to be the least "frufru" of the pant choices. His comment was something along the lines of, "I might as well have fancy pants." Fancy pants meaning trunkhosen or slops. Mwahahahaha, I really am slowly twisting him to my ways. Last year he would have vehemently refused such a caper....Anyway, he liked these ones:

This is Emporer Maximilion II (of the holy roman empire) from 1550. These slops are admittedly tame compared to a lot of the ones out there. Very narrow. He was vehemently against the balloon butt look. I'm actually quite pleased with the slimmer slops look.

This picture best shows the type of collar I'm allowed to give him:

Adam was adamant on the no lace rule. No lace whatsoever. A short straight up collar on the doublet with a little tiny bit of ruffle peeking through. I'm apparently allowed to blackwork to my heart's content, though. Fine by me, he will be a "manly man in tights".

from Janet Arnolds Patterns of Fashion --these are the style of waist and shoulder tabs that he likes--large seperatted waist tabs and single fused decorated shoulder tabs. Incidentally, the second white doublet is also a good inspiration for designs/decoration on his doublet--he was fond of that.

Yet Another Project

2005-06-04T02:01:00.000-04:00

Hehe, I've been scheming with Beth yet again. We've decided that our hubbies need new duds. I personally think mine is in a bit more need of them if he wishes to consort with the likes of a well dressed courtesan like myself....his current attyre is an oh-so-nonauthentic kilt made from a simplicity pattern. Don't get me wrong, I actually quite like his outfit, and particularly him in it, but it doesn't match so well with my new, wealthier look.

So, new manly duds. I confess--period menswear intimidates me more than a bit. Mostly cuz I've no experience with it. Thanks to Janet Arnold's PoF, and some extensive online gallery searches I'm getting a better idea of the styles, and I guess a handle on the patterns and sewing techniques will just have to come with experience.

Perhaps it is my inexperienced eye, but I really don't see a huge difference between Italian and English (and even some spanish) styles of the late 1500s. This is good for me, as I would love to have hubby's clothes match mine whether I'm wearing my courtesan or my yet-non-existent spanish-influenced-elizabethan. I figure if I make a suitable doublet and slops/trunkhosen set for him, and perhaps a foppish hat for italian and a tall hat for elizabethan, he'll really be able to match me well enough either way.

To this end, I've been talking to hubby more than a little bit about his preferences. Yes, I'm a nice wife--I'm giving him a say. And honestly, I didn't expect him to be quite so picky, so I'm glad I asked. He and I apparently have different tastes in menswear, which is fun. And challenging--I'm used to getting my way. He seems to be taking the design plans rather seriously. Its adorable.