Down the Rabbit Hole…

In Sydney, Australia, thanks to Covid and the outbreak of the delta strain, we’ve been stuck in isolation for nine weeks so far, with the prospect of another nine to go, at least.

What’s a writer to do?

On 22 May, a few weeks before the lockdown, we went to Blacktown Medieval Fayre. We went with my friend, the director of the Renaissance choir, and we wore costumes from our choir performances, blending in totally. However, as is often the case, I felt my dress was a little too modern, I felt a bit of a medieval fake. Once again, I resolved to do some sewing. I bought a hat, a capuchon with a long liripipe, it looked easy to sew another like it. But I also knew that there are many ways to wear a capuchon. Very exciting! The capuchon was very much headwear for all weathers. it could be worn over the face in cold, wet weather, or rolled back in warmer weather. And to be different, it could also be worn upside down, in much the same way as a baseball cap these days is deliberately worn backwards.

I spent some time looking at displays with relevance to my Scottish ghost story, where my protagonists have to live off the land in an effort to survive harsh conditions.

There have been some things about my fifteenth century Scottish ghost story that have been bugging me. Did they have chimneys in farm cottages in Scotland in the fifteenth century? What about clothing?

I had thought I’d had it right, but going back over my manuscript, I realised that some details were too modern. But, of course, the more I researched, the more I found that was peripheral to my area of study.

With nothing else to do (other than edit two anthologies, neither of which can be launched during lockdown anyway) I explored everything and discovered some wonderful personalities in the process.

I can now also make an egg fried rice that Uncle Roger would acclaim. But that’s another story entirely.

They say write what you know. So when we went into lockdown, I knew there was no time like total isolation in the present to immerse myself in the past via the internet and YouTube and really get to grips with all the life skills I might need in order to survive a fifteenth century Scottish winter.

While looking up exactly how to wear a capuchon (would my protagonist have worn one, perhaps?) I found other videos only peripherally connected to my area of study. But outside the house, the days were short and cold, so I snuggled under heavy clothes and studied on. Meanwhile I grabbed the medieval costumes of family members that were sadly in need of repair, and got to work with needle and thread.

One video I found which I went back to, was Elin Abrahamsson and how to sew a medieval kirtle. Worth a try.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRvzUQ8v9Ss

Along the way I learned that hand-sewing could actually be very strong. In medieval times and even later in the Renaissance, clothing was kept carefully, what people wore was a reflection of their status and, unless you were nobility, people made their own clothes. How hard could it be?

I rummaged through my fabric stash. Hmm. Not much there. Shops closed, so no trips to Spotlight. I rang a friend who has a larger fabric stash and asked for help. We did a Covid-safe fabric hand over, and I found some heavy cotton fabric, a sort of tan-coloured canvas.

The instructions on the video were simple — don’t waste fabric. Rectangles and triangles. You measure how high you are, how round you are, work out how much hem you want and calculate it out. Then mark it on the fabric with chalk and a ruler, then cut it out.

I got out the sewing machine. The only place I could set it up in our crowded house was the driveway, on a sunny day. Hubby hung a sail overhead and I did my best. I really tried. But the sewing machine needs to be serviced. Again, not possible in lockdown.

I had to sew by hand. With one sewing needle left and no matching thread, again I had to make do. I chose a thread colour as close as possible in tone, but darker. I sat and hand-stitched long seams in every spare minute. Watching TV or looking over my husband’s shoulder while he fell down the same rabbit hole as me. We started with Vikings, worked our way through Queen Victoria’s cuisine (there was a lot of it) then worked our way back again. As I worked my way through the Tudors I noticed some detail on various styles of headwear worn by the women. I’d had plans to make one of those box-style headwear things worn by various wives of Henry VIII until I found out how they’re put together. That’s a big NOPE from me. You needed a dresser, a seamstress and a large packet of pins just to get dressed each morning. Nothing elaborate for me. After the dress I’m going to sew myself a light linen coif, the small white cap that all people wore on their heads, men and women. Underclothing, on body and on head, was necessary in order to keep the more expensive outer wear clean and in good condition.

In lockdown we have had strict limits on where we could go. One exception (and I rang officials to check) was getting vaccinated. On the day my son had to get his first Covid vaccine, he had to go into inner Sydney. Public transport would not be a good idea, so I drove him. Of course I stayed in the car, listened to the car radio and sewed the seams on my kirtle. He got needlework done on him (Covid vaccination) while I did my own needlework. Travelling there and back was strange, driving on empty roads which normally would be choked with traffic. We shopped for groceries on the way home and it was his turn to wait in the car. Only one person per household permitted to shop. One person per day.

Back at home, after some long study of the Plantagenets (the Henrys, with a few Richards and a John thrown in) my husband was working his way through Scottish history, notably the border rievers. It felt oddly familiar to be hand-stitching a kirtle while watching a docudrama about Rob Roy. The dress I was sewing looked like the ones in the video.

One thing I learned through this whole process was that history is so often about the rulers, the leaders, the manipulators. Whereas I am writing about the ordinary people, the day-to-day lives of the majority. I felt glad to immerse myself in the process of sewing my own dress.

I’ve now started to go back through my novel (the Scottish ghost story from the fifteenth century) and refine the details on clothing and lifestyle. When I mention the young woman mending her brother’s undershift by the fire, I want people to feel the scorch of the fire on their faces, hear the crackle, see the flash of firelight on needle and smell the burning peat. Writing has to be immersive, if the reader’s experience is to similarly be so.

With inside seams finished, I sewed the hem of the dress during a Zoom writers meeting this afternoon. When we went outside to photograph the dress, an old friend was walking his dog past our fence. He didn’t bat an eyelid when he saw me in kirtle and capuchon. Perhaps he was questioning my sanity, after so many weeks of lockdown. We chatted from a safe distance while we got ready to take our photos.

Of course, the dress project is not finished. There’s still another nine weeks to go, at least, in this lockdown. And now it’s time to trim the dress. I’m going to have a go at tablet weaving. But first, that coif…