Stanci's Journal

stanci @ 2009-11-09T19:52:00

2009-11-10T01:14:46Z

Heard back from guy-with-doctorate at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum about the many-units-of-measure sticks they have. Wonder if he'll take me seriously if I say "I want to know how long a Milanese bracchia is, because the Milanese Tailor's Handbook has tent patterns in it, and I want to know how tall an 8 bracchia centerpole is, and how wide fabric that is 0.95 braccia wide is, etc"
I'm also going to ask if the ell-stick has a Castilian ell marked on it.... If that comes out to 33", then okay. But if it's shorter, that would rock too :) Alcega's farthingale pattern....

stanci @ 2009-11-08T09:01:00

2009-11-08T19:58:08Z

Hopefully today will be a nice lazy day. Yesterday was way too productive. I cleaned out the gutters on my garage (put the ladder up and climbed on the garage roof, and got everything that way), cleaned out one of the downspouts that was starting to get clogged, did damage with the tree pruner thingey to the branches of the tree from next door that love to drop leaves onto my garage roof and thus into the gutters, cleaned out the last of the gutters on my house, and then raked half of my yard. Today if I'm good, I'll figure out where I can dump the leaves (legally!) so that I can reuse the trash bags for the rest of the yard. Have also determined that I despise maple trees, just because the neighbor with the trees has at least one maple tree that dumps leaves in my yard, and maple leaves don't squish well.

what a productive weekend!

2009-11-03T00:28:42Z

Saturday, I went to Norborough's Newcomer's Event. Got to take all sorts of neat classes, and also spent the majority of class time working on the embroidered coif I started. I need to get another picture to show the progress :) It's little, but it's there.
On the way back home, taking the "scenic" route (ie, state highways and not interstates), I discovered that some of the towns go crazy with Halloween. As in, 2 of the towns we drove through had every single (or so it seemed) policey-car, ambulance and firetruck out and with lights on. I guess to dissuade any creeps from bothering the kids. And trick-or-treating was from 6-8. Meh. Glad I grew up in a time when we got to trick-or-treat after dark and on Halloween.

On Sunday, I got up early. The time change allowed for getting up at 6 and out the door by 7 to mean that I got to leave in daylight. Of course, this also means that for at least the next few weeks, some parts of the drive to work will be with sun in my eyes, but at least I'll be seeing it!! Anyhow... Drove down to Charlotte, NC for the Blackmore's Night concert. The venue was fabulous! It was held in an old, converted Baptist Church, complete with stained glass windows. I think I would have enjoyed seeing that place as a church. The concert was great - the opening act was Albert, from the band "Des Geyers" (must look up their music) - he played several different types of bagpipes, a wooden flute, the Hurdy Gudry, and the ocarina. All well. That was an unexpected treat! The entire concert was well worth the drive, and hopefully next time they come out, I'll be able to hit a concert a little closer to home. Although, by driving all the way out to Charlotte, I was able to see Juliana & Aldemere, Allegranza & her husband, and saw several other people in the audience that I recognized but couldn't name and also Ackbar. Was great fun!!

I had a nice leisurely drive back home today, and got to spend time contemplating how I'm going to manage to get everything done on my house that I want to. It's really a nice exercise in futility, but at some point, I might make a list to help organize things... Heh. But traffic moved well the entire way, and all the cops I passed were already busy, so it made for a good drive :)

Elizabethan pairs of bodies

2009-10-16T23:35:24Z

I'm curious, and need help collecting data.

There was a comment in some article I read online about the Pfalzgrafin Dorothea bodies and Queen Elizabeth's Effigy bodies fitting different body types differently. I'm wondering if others have noticed.

For what it's worth, here's the measurements off the pattern:
Pfalzgrafin Dorothea:
waist: 20"
chest/bustline: 29"

QE:
waist: 23"
chest/bustline: 33"

The curved front seam is there in pretty much all of the doublets. Even the 6 yr old girl's doublet (though to a much lesser extent than the grown-ups' doublets). Now I want to go back and look at the patterns I have drawn out.
The 1560s - 1570s mens doublets (in PoF, not my patterns) have the same curve, in different proportions. Now I want to redraft patterns to see if that fixes some problems I've had in fittings.

6 hours of handsewing later

2009-10-05T10:20:28Z

I've discovered that sewing in pockets turns venetians into a sort of moebius strip. Well, not really, because that twist is there only if you screw up, but there it is.
In 6 hours, I managed to, cut out the remaining 2 panels for the venetians (1 panel = right front, etc), baste the outer fabric and interlining on 3 out of 4 panels (1 was already done), sew a bunch of seams, put in 1 pocket the majority of the way (need to stitch the bottom of the pocket so that things don't fall into the venetians).
Left to do is buttons & buttonholes, sew in the lining, 1 pocket, finish other pocket, waistband, hooks & eyes at knees.

It's a pity my little sister came out last week, because this was where I would have been before the weekend if she hadn't been here to be a time-suck.

Hopefully this will be done by KWAR/KWCS, even if it's not worn, because there's supposed to be a matching jerkin with it, but that hasn't been done yet. Or even started

Oh, and there has to be some easier way for ensuring that the lining fabric isn't wonky before tracing the pattern onto it. 3 out of 4 panels were okay and reasonably same-shaped. The 4th, not so much. I'm hoping the not-same-ness will not be noticible when the thing is put together, because otherwise I'll get to re-cut one panel, and undo lots of stitching to put it back in.

yay fabric!

2009-09-07T20:57:20Z

I got some awesome eggplant wool and some lightweight blue wool with pinstripes at 1" spacings to make Elizabethan men's clothes from. I need to go back and do some research on the layers I should have, with wool, interlining and such, and I'll probably go ransack one of Drea's books on tailoring suits with the padstitching and such. But this'll be fun.
I also bought some light blue cotton with a print almost the same shade of the cotton to make a round gown from. I also found out a resource for a pattern for the 1790's corset - one of the merchants at New Boston had a 1790s corset that almost fit - it was about 2-4 inches too small around. But hey, pattern almost fits. And in one of the other books, the extant corset had the most curious elastic one the side panels, which may get put into mine (because the one that was made up dug horridly into my waist, and there's no tabs to prevent it from digging in) I'm halfway wondering if the pattern in Corsets and Crinolines is supposed to have elastic in the sides, also, and the pattern was the finished size.

well, crap

2009-08-27T00:50:34Z

It's now fixed... But my quick Regency petticoat (out of white cotton, as opposed to the navy cotton one I have) didn't quite work out. The "waist" measurement was about 3 inches too big - one inch larger than what I'd measured. The extra two inches taken out helps account for both the stretch of the material and the fact that the ribcage measurement needs to be tight on the petticoat to have it actually fit.
Petticoat needs the hem serged and sewn up the center front. Easy-peasy.
Now I just need to see if I have enough of the off-white printed cotton I bought to make the real dress out of, or if I get to raid Drea's striped fabric.

And apparently the 80's are coming back for fashion. Cuz it wasn't scary enough the first time 'round.... :)

Want!

2009-08-19T01:10:01Z

This: 1795-ish round gown. I love the silhouette, but want to see what it looks like from the front and back.

In other words, I need to read up on taking xml to html. The lt we had in our office working with us (who has gone on to other things), wrote a program to do that. But we've changed things.... And now it doesn't do what we want. And requires us to mess with the html page before we load it. *sigh*

good for what ails you....

2009-07-30T23:31:03Z

In this case, a pulled back. Ouch!! I was moving a trunk at my house (in the hopes of hmmm... I can pack clothes in this for Pennsic, and it'll look nicer than a rubbermade tub. not so much anymore), and my back went *crunch* *crack* And I went Owwwwww.....
But I stole/borrowed one of Drea's fabulous hot chocolate mixes - from Kakawa Chocolates - the 1666 Italian Citrus Elixir. It is good....

In other news, before I threw my back out - I got one leg for linen long hose all made at work today (I got to watch contractors today), and the other one got the machine stitching I'd put in wrong ripped out and part of the foot put together. I also read Dead Until Dark, which was a fun read - not intellectually stimulating by any means, but still fun.

I jarred cucumbers & brine & dill tonight. Canning was far too laborous a process for me when my back hurts this much. So once the jars cool down, the lids will be tightened and they'll go in the fridge.
And the granola supposedly-bars I made last night went back in the oven in the hopes that it will become bar-like and not just granola. I think the oven is on around 285F, and I'm going to try for an hour. *shrugs* It's worth a try.

stanci @ 2009-07-25T17:53:00

2009-07-25T21:51:13Z

Am annoyed that my computer can connect to the internet at Drea's house, just not get out to the web. Which is less than useful.
Anyone else had experience with trying to get PCs to work with an Airport and had this problem? And remember how to fix it?

stanci @ 2009-07-13T21:08:00

2009-07-14T01:08:07Z

Now that I've satisfied my curiosity that my serger can indeed do 5-thread serging (it was a matter of having the needles in the correct places; reading the manual correctly is an invaluable skill), I am wondering how well or poorly M. Gamble's Elizabethan shirt pattern works on a serger.... It's been a while since I've machine sewn a shirt, or made a new shirt for that matter.
I even have white thread to sew with :)

fabric type matters...

2009-07-12T16:39:14Z

I finished (well, close enough to finish - the waistband's done) a copy of a half-circle skirt out of Alcega. But made with linen instead of wool. *shakes head* The skirt doesn't do at all what I wanted it to do; the linen is just too flimsey. I might try starching the thing to see if it has more body that way, but I'm not sure I care to spend that much time over an ironing board today.

The hope was that the combination of the half-circle skirt with the Alcega-style kirtle (narrow skirt) would make things look better. Nyet. Now to see if I have some wool that I can make a skirt out of and try this with proper materials. The problem is that the majority of wool that I have is in sufficient quantity to make a dress out of (meaning I buy things in 5 yd increments), and I'm not quite desiring to divvy that up. But if it's important enough to me, I will...

work in progress....

2009-07-11T01:42:27Z

Working on a list of possible groundcovers for a hill that gets a lot of sun and needs erosion control. Oh, and by the way, I live in Ohio, which means Zone

Complete Foundation Sun Garden or Easy-Care Beginner Sun Garden - need to check beginning of next garden season: http://springhillnursery.com/

Ice Plant, Red Mountain®
http://www.directgardening.com/detail.asp?ProductID=4168&nav=gcv

http://www.directgardening.com/detail.asp?ProductID=5594&nav=gcv

Creeping Sedum
http://www.directgardening.com/detail.asp?ProductID=7036&nav=gcv

car troubles

2009-07-10T17:56:13Z

It makes me very sad, but I'm not going to make it to Assessments this weekend. My car is having headlights problems - the drivers' side headlight keeps on burning out headlights in less than a year - this last one (one of the nice blue, supposedly bright, $25 ones) burned out in pretty much exactly 4 months minus 12 hours. And when replacing the headlights back in March, I apparently managed to break the spring that holds the right one in place. Which, as that light managed to wiggle itself to pointing up at the sky (or possibly into oncoming traffic's eyes) might explain some of the people that were flashing lights at me recently....

yay!!

2009-07-08T01:26:28Z

Tonight's accomplishment - drilling out the broken posts from the serger, replacing them with 4" long hex bolts and washers, and getting plastic cone-thingeys from the fabric store. Total cost - a bit of labor and less than 4 dollars :)

Now to see if it works....

try, try again

2009-07-01T10:44:17Z

Sent off second email to BNM asking for contact info for the furniture curator. I wonder if June is summer holidays for everyone....
Still hoping, just planning on getting my "test copy" done before I actually get useful info back.

garden

2009-06-28T16:31:22Z

Green beans are pretty much ready.
Potatoes have a bit more to go - pulled 2 plants and got 1 small and 2 baby potatoes total.
Have tiny green tomatoes on the roma plant, and flowers on the other one.
Cucumbers are starting to take off - at least one plant has curliques on it.
Planting tomatoes right next to lavender wasn't the smartest thing I've done, but the effects of them growing into each other wasn't noticable until now.
The squash is trying to take over as much as my strawberries were earlier in the year.

Pants!

2009-06-27T00:33:17Z

So we (meaning Drea - she looked at the picture and said "I know where I've seen that before") figured out why Don Garzia's pants have that weird butt-seam. It's the same curve as in the pattern for full-length fitted hose in The Tudor Tailor. Which also explains the relatively shallow rise.

What I will have to do when I get this thing made is make up some mockups of the lining fabric in muslin, so that the pattern can be worked out. The "pattern" for the lining that I have from the conference in Florence doesn't make sense - the curve isn't the same as on the pants. This would make more sense if the pants were looser like the later (1600-1620) trunkhose in Patterns of Fashion, but why would you have a lining that has a butt-seam that looks like it will hang looser than the outside fabric?

In semi-related news, I found a few patterns in Freyle (here among others) that have pants. I want to know what the words below 29b say. Does the pattern have cannions that are cut out of cabbage? Etc... t is a third of an ell, so roughly 8", and with 2 pieces per leg, then the leg-hole is 16-17". Huh.... That doesn't seem right. Oh well. Enough supposing off of very little information.

how intriguing

2009-06-26T22:20:17Z

This research/musings brought to you by pre-Pennsic sewing....

I've copied 3 patterns for trunkhose onto paper from Patterns of Fashion.
Number 1. 1562. Don Garzia de'Medici: waist measurement: 28" (and the following measurements are for the pattern for the satin lining/pretty fabric; not for the lining fabric that helped hold the pants into shape)
Width of a pant leg at waist: 28"
Length of pant leg piece: 17.5"
Crotch depth: 9"

Number 12A. c.1600-5 with a 50" waist & Number 22. 1618 Doublet & Trunkhose with a 32" waist
Interestingly enough, the lining fabric (hold the things into place) for these two pairs of trunkhose is pretty much the same shape, except that the one with the 50" waist has about 8" more of fabric for the 4" tall piece that.... yeah, center crotch.

The satin lining for Don Garzia's pants is roughly the same shape as the lining fabric for the other two trunkhose. The difference is that his has the funkiest shape for the crotch cut-out, and the others are what one would expect from modern sewing.

pondering clothes stuff

2009-06-26T10:38:26Z

Yesterday I started cutting out the trunkhose pattern out of Patterns of Fashion for Don Garzia d'Medici. If I measured and calculated right, the waist doesn't need to change. BUT the shape of the cutout for the crotch is completely different than you get with modern clothing. It is wider at the waist, and shallower in depth, and well, just a weird shape.
I am wondering how this is going to work. It should be okay, because I've made this before (but this time it will be better, because I have 6-8 more years of costuming experience now), but now I'm wondering on the mechanics.
I should probably check to see if the other trunkhose in Patterns of Fashion have the same shape...
Oh, though I've now figured out why the first pair (and only so far) off this pattern didn't behave like they should have - the lining from Don Garzia's pants (the shorter, narrower bit) had probably disintegrated, or at any rate, there isn't a pattern for it. Don't know if the pattern shape from what is supposed to be the "new" Patterns of Fashion is a conjecture, or they were actually able to manipulate the garment (pictures from slides from the November trip to Italy is a good thing, even if I can't read the words).

Ack, time for work!

some days I wonder....

2009-06-25T01:12:31Z

So tonight after work, I was bored enough to paint my fingernails. And then later, I was good and finished the lacing holes on my yellow linen kirtle. I should have done it the other way around :)

I'm also debating going out to VA two weekends in a row. Assessment is pretty much guaranteed. As much as I can be with less than a month to go :) Of course, doing anything on the 4th of July weekend is contingent upon work not sucking. I also should check when my grandparents are going out to see the great-grandbaby (so that I can either a) have less guilt about not seeing them because they're on the other side of the country or b) drive a bit further up the road and see them)

fingers crossed

2009-06-19T23:51:57Z

Just sent off an email to the Bayerisches Nationalmusuem to request contact information for their furniture conservator, so I can go bug her with questions.

My German sucks! :) I should write up a draft so that I'm ready to go when/if I get that....

stanci @ 2009-06-16T20:16:00

2009-06-17T01:57:33Z

*bounce**bounce**bounce* I want to kill that neighbor kid with the basketball.....

Anyhow :) Back to the collapsible bed project.

Here's what I did last night - finished mensurating some of the pictures that Alex took in Germany.

Assuming a 70" long bed/mattress (this is the length in between the posts), here's what I ended up with.
Siderails are 3.48 x 1.32 inches by 70 inch long. This is also assuming that there is something akin to bed bolts that attaches the siderails to the posts, and not a hidden mortise and tenon joint. The bits on the outside of the face that are made of ebony are 0.54" wide.
Posts are 2.5 x 2.5 inches. The square bit right above the carved feet is 4.46 inches tall, with the (slightly narrower - this is the bit that is 2.5 x 2.5 inches) bit above it 15.23 inches long
Bed width - between posts is 52.5"; post to post is 57.5".

The nails in the siderails have a head diameter of 0.9 inches. The nails are 0.3" from the closest point of the mortise/tenon joint there. The "long" lenth in that joint is 0.66", and the "short" lengths are 0.33" (should add up to roughly 1.32"). (go see this picture to know what I'm talking about)

One interesting supposition that we came up with at work (what do engineers who don't want to do work do? they discuss other engineering projects) is that the "nails" are essentially bolts that go through an iron plate that is inserted in the back of the bedrail when it's all together in order to prevent further bending and flexing at the joint due to the load of people on the bed.
The other thing that we determined was that the bit of the cross-brace that you can see through the hole in the decorative bit on the siderail is not a weight bearing point. I think it matters more from the standpoint of setting up the bed than anything else.

And as everything else in this project, I could be wrong.

And I still don't know how to attach the rings on a rope for the rope for the bed to go through.... I don't remember any good pictures that clearly show that. Alex??

bed bed bed

2009-06-15T10:07:12Z

So I'm now at the stage where i want to be doing things and trying things out (and realistically finding out how much I suck at wood-working). I did some major looking at pictures yesterday, and now need to consolidate notes into a useful mess. And found out for myself that Lowes and/or Home Depot is definitely not the place I need to go to buy lumber. If I say that the dimensions of the posts are 2 - 2 1/2 inch wide, don't point me to the (nominal) 2x2's. Must finish my sketch and then go to the real lumberyard in town.

If I'm bored today at work, I might start sketching things out. The engineering paper is at work.

And for what it's worth, the siderails on my 1910-era bedframe are made of 1x7's (with metal L-shaped brackets to hold the mattresses), and the possibly 1930-1940's era bedframe has siderails that are 1x6's with 3/4 x 3/4 bits to support the mattress.

I'm looking at 1x4-6's, and there are rings (shaped like a rectangle) attached to a rope that is somehow attached to the bed. The ring/rope system is how this rope bed works.

I'm not an engineer.... Times like this I wish I was :) I want to know whether or not I can keep the same dimensions of boards for the bed if I'm using a more common hardwood, rather than ebony. Even if I substituted pearwood in for ebony (there's a bed in the other German museum we went to that is made of pearwood dyed to look like ebony), that shouldn't be my testpiece... That's would end up providing some really damn expensive mistakes.

mystery of brazilwood solved!

2009-06-11T00:15:04Z

So Drea and I were at the local library, making use of their JSTOR access, and she found an awesome article that described making brazilwood pigment (for painting). The article stressed the absolute importance of using alum to... I dunno, affix the lake to an actual particle? But anyway, yes, alum is inherent in brazilwood pigment.
And when I was dying, my "brazilwood" was brazilwood pigment. Verzino. My silk is purple and not red because of the alum in the pigment.
Note to self, next time you want to dye something with brazilwood, take the time and work from the actual wood. Or extract from the wood. Not pigment.