Tudor Embroiderd Smock

As if I didn't have enough garb in the que, I have accepted and embroidery challenge!

 I should back up and say that I LOVE the history and garb of the Tudor time period, but as much as I love the garb it is really too much for me to wear and be productive. Also it is out of MSR's timeline. However I always wanted to make 1 really awesome Tudor dress. I mentioned this to Rose and she happened to have the perfect fabric (of course) in stock at Roses' fabric emporium and it is even in purple. But the project has been sitting on the shelf for over a year. I have this MAJOR sewing project going on right now (Byzantine garb for Acre coronation) and I thought maybe after that.....

Then Athena's thimble had some of there masters issue challenges, and I LOVE challenges. So I accepted one from Mistress Amy Webbe. Her challenge is create a 16th century embroidered clothing item or accessory. Well that was the kick I needed to get started. I was really hung up on making the smock as I wanted to make that first and that was the item I knew the least about.

I have contacted Amy and officially accepted the challenge and spent the last 2 hours doing internet research and getting lists of library books to go look at.

I realized when I was talking with someone I very much respected about doing A&S competitions that the thing I am most nervous about is that my research won't be enough. It is the problem I had in college when I was doing research papers. I never thought I was done with the research part.

So I think I have enough info to make a plan on how to do the smock. I still have to finish the Byzantine stuff I am working on, but I think I have a definite plan and even an blackwork design. I am going to document everything and since I am starting from square one, I might as well prepare it so it can also be an A&S submission. I have about 4 of them in the works, none of them ready for display :)

I already know I want to do my dress based on the design of what Jane Seymour wore. I have the fabric and I have a plan. I just need to take that first step!

Checking in on my Olives

Well things are certainly happening. I am not sure exactly what, but things are happening. I have tried in vain to find out the actual chemistry of what is going on with some of these cures, I have the general idea of what is supposed to be happening so I guess that will have to do.

The problem is that I am not sure what they are supposed to look like, so I can't wait to get together with the others who are curing olives and see what is what.

Olives in salt water brine after 2 weeks. This is the one that most concerns me. I totally guessed at how much salt to add to the water so I am not sure if the milky water is good or bad.

Olives in honey at 2 weeks. The olives on the top are more brown than what is underneath. I have been stirring all 3 cures every few days so hopefully they will look uniform. I think the honey is starting to ferment as it certainly smells like meade.

Olives in Vinegar brine at 2 weeks. I have seen the least change in this batch. They are just about as dark as they were last week and no real change to the liquid.

 

 

 

Olives in salt water brine at week 3. Um....ewww. I am not sure what is going on. There is now some white solid matter on the surface that dissipates upon stirring. It smells faintly of yeast so I am hoping it is that and not mold.

Olives in Honey at week 3. Olives getting darker and honey getting thinner and smells a bit more like there is some fermentation of the honey going on.

Olives in Vinegar brine at week 3. This one still looks about the same. Most tempted to taste test one of these :)

 



Olive curing

I just started a new and interesting project. Galefridus is a very knowledgeable person in our Barony and something of an expert in curing olives (among other things) and he was kind enough to hold a class on curing olives at our Tuesday night fencing, fighter and A&S practice. I was so excited about learning how to cure olives that when we placed his order for olives he ordered enough for Baron Erec and I to try it out too. Galefridus gave us several non redacted recipes for olives cures and encouraged us to have fun.

The box of olives that were shipped to us from California. We had to sort through the box and get rid of any damaged olives. The darker colored olives are more ripe and we separated them out to as they needed to be cured separately from the ones that were still very green. Half of the good olives went to me and the other half went to Baron Erec. These are all manzilla olives. We taste tested the raw olive and it was so very bitter.

This is my batch of raw olives after they were sorted to get rid of the "bad" olives. After sorting I gave them a good rinsing.  I decided to try 3 different olive cures. All of the cures and information I have listed below came directly from the handout that Galefridus gave to us. 

Very Fine Conserved Olives

 This cure comes from The Geopnika which is a 10th century Byzantine farm manual attributed to Florentius

Taking large perfect olives, picked by hand, cut them round with a sharp reed and put them in a new jar, not yet pitched, sprinkling on top a very little salt, and when it has dissolved have ready another jar, with honey if available, if not, hepsema [concentrated grape must] and a citron leaf, and put the olives into this marinade so that it covers them. Some add fennel seed,caraway, celery seed and dill to this marinade, and make a quite a remarkable olive conserve, which is unfamiliar to many

 Instead of a sharp reed I used a pairing knife to score my olives. I also had a covered casserole dish that I am using to cure this batch of olives. 

I sprinkled about 2 table spoons of course sea salt over the top of the olives and let them sit covered for 4 days. In this step the salt is drawing out the water and bitter flavor of the olive. 

This is the olives after 4 days in salt. The salt has all dissolved and there is a small pool of water at the bottom of the dish. the olives are noticeably smaller and some of them look a little wrinkled. They are also starting to get darker, especially around the cut.

I rinsed the olives and the casserole dish and then returned the olives and covered them in honey. I did not have citron leaves so I only added fennel seeds and dill seeds. I did not have caraway seeds or celery seeds in house, so I am going to see if my local supermarket has them and then add them in. It will take several weeks for this to cure, so i think adding the spices in late won't really matter. 

In this step the natural yeast present in the olives will react with the sugar in the honey and fermentation will occur. When the curing is complete I should have olives soaking in mead.

Preparatons of Olives in Brine

The next 2 cures come from Abu al-Khayr al-Shajjar al-Ishbili, Kitab al_Filaha which is an 11th century Seville farm manual. The English translation is availible at filaha.org

Take green olives that have been lightly crushed and scad them with boiling water. Then put them in a container with well-salted water and cover them with the leaves of bay, fennel and citron. a few days after this add a little salt and a bundle of thyme.

I placed olives in small batches into a plastic bag and "lightly crushed" them using a rolling pin. Raw olives are very hard so I was not afraid to really bang on them with the rolling pin.

I then placed the olives in boiling water and scooped them out as they floated to the top, which only took about 30 seconds to 1 minute for most of them.

I added course sea salt to warm water. The recipe calls for "well salted water" so I just went by taste. 

Leaves of bay. I did not have citron leaves so I omitted them and I was unable to find fennel leaves so I went with fennel seed and hope that will work out.

salt water brine with spices on day one.

After 3 days I added a few sprigs of fresh thyme.

The salt water brine on day 5. you can see that the olives are getting darker and there is definitely a reaction happening as there is some foam on the surface of the salt water. The olives are also starting to feel a little softer.

Another method is to take olives in autumn and pit them with a pointed reed. Ten wash them with plenty of water. then put the fruit in a jar with leaves of thyme, mountain balm, may, citron and mint. Fill with liquid composed of one third drinking water and 2 thirds vinegar, well mixed, then seal the container until the olives are preserved.

Coring raw olives is a LOT harder than you would think. The olive is so hard and it was really difficult to find something to pit it with that was sharp enough to get into the olive but that wouldn't break the whole olive apart. After several tries I found the top of a sharp old fashioned potato peeler worked best. It was really hard to work the pit out of the olive and some of them split down one side, but that shouldn't effect the taste of the olive, 

A close up picture of the pitting. This was a very messy job. I had to keep wiping my hands off on a cloth otherwise i would get the olives to slippery to hold.

This small amount of  olives took over an hour for me to get the pits out. The had to be rinsed several times to get all the brown juice off of them.

Here is my stained brown hand from all the pitting. 

pitted olives with spices. I added thyme, and bay leaves only. I did not have mountain balm (also I didn't really bother to find out what that is). I do not have citron leaves so those were omitted. I left out the mint as well because I am allergic to mint. 

I prefer to use apple cider vinegar for pickling since white vinegar can sometimes contain corn products (and I am very allergic to corn). Apple cider vinegar has a milder flavor than white vinegar, the usual downside is it can discolor what you are pickling, so I am hoping that will be the case with olive curing as well. I added 1 cup tap water and 2 cups of apple cider vinegar

vinegar brine on day 1

Vinegar brine on day 5. you can see that olives are the darkest of all the three cures. I am thinking this is due to the vinegar and the fact that the pits were removed. 

I will add updates on the olives every week or so to see how it progresses. 

A&S display at Pennsic 42

I really wanted to post about this right after it happened because I was afraid I wouldn't remember much of the experience. It is almost 1 year later and I still so happy about he experience. I have always been very hesitant to do any kind of A&S display or completion. Like so many other artisans I take the negative comments I receive too much to heart. I didn't think I would have the strength to sit there and take negative reviews of my work. I was pleasantly surprised to have only received encouragement and constructive suggestions on my project. I had some really awesome conversations with people I would have never met if I had not displayed my work. I think I spent the entire time talking to people about my project.

This past winter some friends and I went to the East Kingdom Kings and Queens A&S champions event in Dragonship Haven and I was really inspired. While most of the displayed seemed so beyond what I was capable of, I was extremely interested in the artisan who eventually became the Queens champion. She had done a study of how the spinning and plying direction changes the appearance of the final fabric. I was able to understand everything she was talking to me about, and even though her spinning and weaving skill far exceeded my own, I thought that the work I was doing on the fleece to frock project was something I could easily share with others. It wasn't long after this that I decided to do the A&S display at Pennsic.

The biggest highlight for me was talking to the King of Artemisia for some time about spinning. He is quite a spinner himself and showed me the fantastic items he was wearing from his own home spun. Some of which was done with Navajo Churro sheep which are native to his lands. After our conversation he presented me with his coin and I treasure it.

Another highlight was having my display featured in the Pennsic Independent. It was a real honor. When I initially talked to the reporter I did not realize they were from the Independent and she came back later after seeing all the rest of the displays and said she thought my project was a great representation of what we do as medievalist.

The greatest thing about this whole experience is getting to meet all the fantastic weavers from the Middle kingdom. I am really a very novice weaver and learned to weave to be able to do this project. Not knowing anyone else who has done this type of project before has been difficult for me, since I have made a lot of mistakes and hit a lot of dead ends. It was really great to talk to some people who knew about weaving and who were very encouraging of the project I was undertaking.

I also have a new perspective on A&S displays and competitions after being involved in it. I always thought the "science" part of "Arts and Science" was what we would think of today as science (chemistry, astronomy, alchemy etc) but now I see the science a little different. My display I think falls under "science" because it is a study of how a dress is made. My display was not about how nicely I spin, or how beautiful my embroidery is. It is what has to be done to take a raw sheep fleece and make it into a dress. I initially felt self conscious about my display because I thought it wasn't "pretty" and now I see that my contribution is not about the "art" of dress making but the science. I never really made the distinction before and it actually came after receiving the only really negative response I got, which was that my spinning wasn't very nice.

That comment really hurt, but I totally agree, this spinning is not even close to my best spinning and it has everything to do with my incompetence with picking a good fleece. It is one of the most important lessons that came out of my project. The quality of the fleece will directly effect the quality of the spinning and the final woven fabric. It seems like something I should have realized before, but I didn't realize HOW much the spinning would be effected until I got a second batch of raw wool that was in much better condition. The second batch made such better yarn than the first.

If there was someone who walked away from my display and their only thought was how crappy my spinning was, then I feel like I didn't present what my project was really about, and when I put this display together I didn't really think about this. I will definitely change my approach the next time I display.

 

 

my very brown display :) on the left is the 1st 4 yards of woven fabric. The little swatches in the middle are samples of : 1)woven fabric, 2) fulled fabric, 3)fulled fabric that was then stretched, 4) sample had nap raised with brushed and cut down to add softness. On the right side is the hand cards I used to prep fiber, washed wool and spun fiber.

I demonstrated spinning on a period spindle to help illustrate just how much work it takes to get 4 yards of fabric. 

what I do best: talk!

I don't think I stopped smiling all day.

Showing the finished fiber sample to the Pennsic Independent reporter.

 

Actually my next display will be very different in many ways. The biggest difference is that this is not longer a fleece to frock project. When I displayed this at Pennsic 42 I only had 4 yards of finished fabric and hoped to get another 4 yards to finish the dress. I had not yet spun up the second fleece I had bought, so I didn't realize how dramatic difference the quality of the fleece would make in the spinning. I continued and spun it all up and then when I wove it I only got 1 yard more since I messed up when I warped the loom. I didn't want to get a third batch of wool and then have 3 different quality fiber in one dress. When I started I thought 1 fleece would be enough for 1 dress for a very short person like myself. Another great lesson I learned from this project. When you use more than one fleece in a project you should mix up the raw wool and mix up the singles before plying so that the final fabric is more homogenous. 

I plan to use the fabric I have made so far will most likely be made into a hood and I am currently spinning some Shetland wool to be embroidery floss that I will dye to decorate the plain brown wool hood. I was very sad to have to give up on the dress, but I learned SO VERY MUCH in doing this project and in displaying at the A and S at Pennsic 42. The next dress will be much more awesome. Maybe it will be there at Pennsic 44. 

Needle book and pin cushion

This year at the Settmour Swamp's annual Mudthaw event I received a very special gift during baronial court. Baroness Jehannine and Baron Erec brought me and my friend Lydia into court to recognize and thank us for making their garb for them for this year and last years Mudthaw. It was very sweet of them and they also presented us with handmade period sewing needles. I decided that I could no longer put off the needle book project I have been thinking about for a few years.

The embroidery designs are taken out of different cross stitch books that I have and are not documented medieval designs.

I just thought they were pretty, and sometimes that is enough for me :)

 

I drew out the border lines for the needle book and pin cushions on aida cloth that I had lying around. I did all the embroidery first before cutting them pieces out so I could use a bigger embroidery hoop when working with the motifs.

Here are the pieces cut out along with the purple fabric I am using for lining. The embroidery floss will be used to connect the pin cushion to the scissors.

The pin cushion with right sides of the fabric together ready to get a seam sewn around the edge.

The needle book with right sides together. The side seams on the purple lining were sewn over before attaching them to the outside cover of the needle book so that It could easily be turned right side out again. Since the side pieces of the cover will be folded over to make inside sleeves in the book it is not necessary to sew the lining seam down.

pinning before sewing.

more pinning

The edges sewn and the corners clipped to make it look better when turned inside out.

I used wool roving and a small knitting needle to stuff the pin cushion.

using a whip stitch to close up the piece I left open for stuffing.

The needle book turned right side out and ironed.

The front view.

Button hole stitch used on edge to keep the edges from fraying and also as a decorative edge.

whip stitching the bottom edge of sleeves.

added "pages" of felt to the book. These pages will be used to hold the needles and pins. I also added green ribbon that will tie the book closed.

Using the purple floss to give it a decorative touch.

I got a tip from an embroider at artisans row at Pennsic to use the plastic from milk containers as thread holders in needle books.

Cutting out using my hard working "misc. craft" scissors. NEVER use your sewing scissors for this type of job.

I made one for the back sleeve and one for the front sleeve.

Used my cropodile tool to punch half circle holes to give a place for the thread to rest.

The finished front of the needle book.

The back of the needle book, with a "V" for Vivian.

inside front cover with thread holder and the 2 needles on the left were the 2 that were gifted to me at Mudthaw.

Center of book with modern store bought needles.

Inside back sleeve with more thread and safety pins.

The final products.