Pourpoint

With the recent acquisition of my new spring steel leg armour, I decided to revisit how I attach my legs to the rest of my kit. Previously, I've had a wide, shaped belt that I attached my leg armour to and also my groin protection.

One of the problems with this set up was that the weight of the legs tended to pull the belt forward, which resulted in the belt riding up to the small of my back and tilting my pelvis forward. Not very comfortable and was causing pain in my lower back.

I'd seen the pourpoint that Count Sir Stephen uses to point his leg armour to and decided that this would probably be a better option than an arming belt.

Here is the pattern I made:

Back piece on the left. Front piece on the right. I have had to make further adjustments on this as the back piece flares too much at the side and centre seam. It needs to come down more straight like the front piece does.

My pourpoint is made from two layers of linen. As it is going to be laced snug, I reinforced edge where the eyelets go with a strip of canvas that is sewn to one layer of linen, then sandwiched between the two layers.

And here is the final product on me with the leg armour attached.

The pourpoint stretched a bit after the first time I wore it to training. This turned out to be a good thing as I had forgotten to pattern the pourpoint over my groin protection. After ditching my old arming belt, I needed to get new groin protection and decided to just get a commercial martial arts groin guard. Fortunately the pourpoint still accommodates the groin guard. For future pourpoints, I think a tighter weave of linen may reduce the amount of stretch. I'm not sure of the thread count of the linen I used, but it feels a bit looser in weave than other linens I've used.

I thought about how to reinforce where the legs are pointed to the pourpoint and I know Stephen has a square of leather sewn to his pourpoint. As I wanted to be able to throw this pourpoint through the wash, I decided to use canvas covered with the same linen as the pourpoint. The attachment points are slightly hourglass shaped when flat, then folded in half and the top square sewn firmly to the pourpoint, with the tapering section forming a loop that I feed the laces of my leg armour through, as shown below.

I'm still getting the exact pointing right. On the first wearing, the legs "dropped" about an inch so I had to adjust where the laces attach to the legs. I'll probably have to unpick the attachment point on the pourpoint and adjust it at some point. I do want make a set of chausses and point them to the pourpoint as well, so that might be the time to revisit the attachment points.

On the whole though, it is incredibly comfortable. It fits snugly from under the bust down to my hips. It distributes the weight evenly and I don't feel like I'm being "pulled" in any direction, in fact I feel like I've actually got some more support in my lower back. I can swing my arms around and the lower part doesn't budge.

Plus as some have already commented, it looks dead sexy :)

Silk Banner Success

Well after my first foray into painted silk banners was a bit of a disaster, I finally can say I have silk banner success.

I've had the second banner painted up, ready for steaming for nearly a year, but hadn't been game enough to steam it until I figured out what exactly I was meant to do. Then I saw MoG was selling a bunch of silk banner painting supplies, including a steaming chest, so I decided it was time to get back into this silk banner gig.

What I know now is that despite being called "steam fix dyes", the main thing is to heat the dye to a really high temperature (i.e. that of steam), but not let any moisture touch the dye at all. The dye does not need to be in contact with the steam in order to be fixed. I know I'm being pedantic, but I really wish they'd state that explicitly on the damn bottle of dye.

Anyway, on to the pics:

This is the steaming chest. The silk banner was laid out on brown paper and rolled very tightly around the rod, taped at the ends to seal, then the rod sits suspended in the chest. Water is poured into the chest beforehand and we had two little butane burners going underneath. Important note: position the burners so you can easily refill the cartridges when they run out without having to try and lift a really hot chest.

Here is the chest with the lid on. The lid originally didn't have a handle to lift it. It has since been Blayneyed.

The moment of truth, part 1 - the unrolling of the banner after 3 hours of steaming. Note the lack of tie-dye of effect.

The next stage is washing out the excess dye. MoG had some "silk wash" made from Lux in the box of stuff I got from him. I was a bit worried at this point as a LOT of dye came out in the washing. The picture above was the second wash. During the first wash the water went bright purple. I was very worried that my white bits would end up mauve.

However, the white remained white, as shown above. While a lot of excess dye came out, the dye was still quite firmly fixed on the banner where it should or shouldn't be.

Viola! One completed silk banner in action at May Crown. It fluttered beautifully in the breeze, however this made getting a clear photo a bit of a bugger, so a kind gentle gave us some assistance. I'm really happy with how it turned out. The colours are vibrant and the silk has remained soft and supple.

I'm now confident of doing many more banners and will be running some workshops locally after Flametree Ball to encourage people to have a go.

Cordials

A little while ago the steward of our upcoming Flametree Ball asked if I would consider making some cordial for the event. On the weekend, I found myself wondering what to do with three bags of oranges left over from the Festival Food Fund. So I made cordial and got a tad carried away.

First up, the orange cordial. Three bags of oranges were juiced, yielding a bit over 3 litres of juice (some of which got drunk as is). I used a 13th century Andalusian syrup recipe as the base. It is simply take equal volumes of juice and sugar and simmer until it forms a syrup.

Orange batch #1 - used 2 cups orange juice and 2 cups sugar. End result was okay, but really lacked that orange "tang".

Orange batch #2 - used 3 cups orange juice and 2 cups sugar. End result was a tad more "orangy", but not the right consistency.

Orange batch #3 - used 2 cups orange juice, 2 cups sugar, plus grated rind of 2 oranges. End result was great. Sweet and tangy.

Batches 1 and 2 were mixed together and reheated with grated rind to bring them up to scratch.

Since I was going to be making cordial anyway and it isn't that hard to do a few batches, I picked up some pomegranates to make a batch of pomegranate cordial. Simple equal volume juice and sugar mix. Unfortunately I got a bit distracted and it reduced a bit too much. It went a dark red-brown and tastes a bit caramelly. It would work very well as pomegranate syrup for cooking. Still okay as a cordial, but not as good as it would have been. I also had a bottle of red pomegranate juice in the fridge and decided to make cordial out of that. Definitely not as vibrant a flavour as the fresh stuff.

I also had some rosewater in the cupboard, so I made a batch of rose cordial using Mistress Rowan's recipe. I used a little of the fresh pomegranate juice as natural food colouring to give it a pink tinge.

Then I found frozen raspberries in the freezer, so into the blender they went (amusing that the first thing I use my new red blender for is to blend raspberries that are the same colour as the blender). Puree was sieved, mixed with equal volume sugar and heated to form a syrup. End result was a bit too thick, so I made up some sugar syrup and mixed it in. Perfect. Tastes like raspberry cordial heaven.

So all up, the weekend's efforts produced:

Left to right: Orange, Orange, Rose, Raspberry, Pomegranate, Pomegranate.

Not a bad effort really. Thirsty?

The Frock Wish List

Since my foray into Roman costume, I'm often met with surprise when I tell people that Roman isn't the sort of costume I'm really interested in. This then prompts the next question of what is it that I am interested in. Well here be the wish list of frocks I'd like to make. It is eclectic and spans a range of periods, regions and styles. This is intentional as my aim is to learn a wide variety of patterning and construction techniques, which you don't necessarily get if you stick to a single style.

From early on in the SCA, I developed a love of late 16th century Italian frocks, the style that has those beautiful overcoats.The ultimate frock of this style for me is the one above. Alessandro Allori's portrait of Marie de Medici. I managed to purchase some beautiful blue silk from Fabric Fantasy before they closed down. The main challenge with this frock are the fine details. The embroidered bands, the sleeves, the partlet etc.. I've seen a lot of bad reproductions of this frock so I'm determined not to add another poor reproduction. This is a long term project, so it is going to be a while before I seriously embark on this frock.

This is a simpler style and a frock I have already started. This is Giovanni Battista Moroni's Portrait of a Lady (Possibly Countessa Lucia Albani Avogadro). I originally made the under frock for Lochac's first Coronation. However, I then lost 4 inches from my waist, so it has been unpicked for a re-fit. I've selected different colours than the original portrait. The under frock is a dark blue wool with a satin finish and I have a teal green silk satin for the over dress. This one I hope to finish off this year.


Moving along to a different style, I would love to try one of these working class kirtles shown frequently in Rogier van der Weyden paintings.

And a Cranach for good measure. I like this slightly more conservative look, though I should learn how to puff'n'slash someday.

And some cotehardies and surcoats. The classic, late 14th, early 15th century french variety.

So that's a rough indication of the range of styles I'm interested in. As I actually get to work on some of these I hope to blog some pics. At some point I should probably catalogue the existing wardrobe, with the lessons learnt along the way.

And why aren't I at Rowany Festival right now? Well I was at Festival, but came home on Sunday with lungs full of fluid. So I'm blogging to avoid thinking about the fact that I'm home sick instead of being at Festival.

The 2007 project wrap up

I recently sat down with my project book to do a summary of what I managed to finish last year. Being the year of "finishing that bloody masters" there was less to report than 2006, but still I surprised myself with what I did manage to complete.

Projects completed in 2007:
- Watchcoat completed (buttons and buttonholes were the carry-over items from 2006)
- Second blackword cuff for Duchess Yolande completed (now if she can only find the first one...)
- Simple tunic dress and men's tunic for College hospit
- Red silk tunica (using yet another theory on tunica construction)

Projects abandoned:
- the 2nd pair of cut-work calcei. They were made from chrome tanned leather, which was just not working. I've since purchased some vegetable tanned leather and I'll have another go with that.

Teaching was also somewhat limited, but I did manage a few classes:
- Introduction to Roman Costume (Canterbury Faire)
- Entering Crown Tournaments (with Blayney and others, also at Canterbury Faire)
- Basic tunic making (for College Newcomers event)

This year I have a few main goals:
- make a decent block for myself and Blayney and learn how to pattern from a block
- learn some more construction techniques, especially hand sewing techniques
- try at least two different styles of garb that I haven't done before
- learn how to make a period style gambeson and chausses
- make at least two pairs of shoes of different styles
- teach some classes - so far I'm teaching part of the event class in Rowany, probably doing Introduction to Heraldic Display at Festival, and I'll probably do one or more of the collegia that the College kids are organising locally.