Travelling Haberdashery

My car is full of fabric.

I’ve mentioned before, how I went a bit nuts during last year’s four-month lockdown and immersed myself in historical clothing, mostly from 13^th Century to early 17^th Century.

Does my ruff look big in this?
Trying on an 18th Century puffy sleeve shirt (hand-sewn from an old sheet) which MIGHT pass muster for Tudor clothing. Maybe…

One of the choirs I belong to performs medieval and Renaissance music, and we perform in costume. I mentioned this in Travelling in Costume — at Christmas! helenjarmstrong.home.blog/2021/12/17/travelling-in-costume-at-christmas/

Over summer I got busy sewing more costume items, working at my own pace with no deadlines. Hand-sewing can be taken anywhere and I often sew while a passenger either in a car or by train. I discovered that old flannelette sheets make an acceptable visual substitute for wool, while being more lightweight for a warmer climate.

Sewing in lockdown while getting my dose of Vitamin D.

–

Backyard fitting. It still looks like a flannelette sheet. Needs work…

I bought the braid. It was $3 a roll. I needed three rolls exactly. Which makes this a $9 coat.

There we are! A bit of braid and he looks much happier.

Before I rediscovered hand-sewing, I got involved in Boomerang Bags in our village. We are a group of volunteers who make cloth bags from discarded, donated fabric. Another group near us formed as an offshoot of our group originally. I met up with one of them while browsing a new second-hand fabric shop which has opened in our district. I’d gone there looking for more old flannelette sheets (no such luck).

The rest of the same flannelette sheet — 13th Century hose. Not joined in the crotch.
Currently worn with lightweight cotton trousers underneath. Braes next!

Back view, to show the seam down the back of the leg. Functional, not glamorous.
The grin on his face is because a couple of neighbours stopped to stare.

Explaining to the neighbours with maille coif. Also unwittingly demonstrating why codpieces were ‘a thing’.

I was exclaiming over some lace I found, when my fellow Boomerang Bag sewer from the neighbouring group heard my voice (we couldn’t really see each other’s faces, current guidelines are for mask-wearing in shops). Her sewing group had plenty of sheets, she told me, which their group won’t use.

There was a brief lull in the rain on the day when I visited her home to collect the fabric. At the last minute she warned me that she had just been diagnosed with Covid, so we did a quick outdoor transfer of bags. I didn’t get a chance to check the fabric until we got home several hours later. It all needed to be transferred from my husband’s car to mine.

When I inspected it, I found to my joy that there were several flannelette sheets. They were old, badly pilled and had no other use. A tablecloth was a bit too worn and had a couple of stains. Ideas!

My car was full to the back of the seats with bags of fabric. “Not a problem,” I told hubby. “I’ll hand it over at our next sewing bee on Wednesday.”

The next day one of our kids tested positive for Covid. We were locked down.

I got sewing. No sewing machine, but I’m getting more confident with my hand-sewing.

Women in Tudor times wore a precursor to stays, called “pair of bodies”. They were in two parts, laced at the front and back, stiffened with bundles of reeds. The purpose was not to tightly lace a person into their clothing, but to provide a smooth shape in order to better display the fabric of their clothing. Fabric was expensive and labour-intensive to make, and the best was on display.

Because a pair of bodies was something all women wore, often as part of their undergarments, it was worn to death. Literally. Few examples survive, because these were patched, re-stiffened, repaired, re-lined and re-purposed until they fell apart. When people died, their clothing (including underclothing) was too valuable to throw away, it was passed on, until the next wearer passed on…and eventually the underclothing itself died in service.

As a result, few examples survive. But when Elizabeth I died in 1603, an effigy of her was commissioned, along with clothing to her measure. The dressed effigy was paraded through London, with the queen’s body, on the way to Westminster Abbey. This pair of bodies is still on display there, perhaps the best remaining example in the world, as it was never worn by any person living or dead, and never simply passed on to the next wearer.

We learn a lot from portraits also.

So here we were in lockdown, and I still need to keep working on my costume project for the dual purpose of dressing up at medieval fairs, and being suitably attired for the Renaissance choir performances.

I drafted the pattern for a pair of bodies to my own measurements.
http://www.elizabethancostume.net/corsets/pattern.html I started with cardboard, wrapped myself in it to check and moved to a fragment of old, stained curtain for a fold-up pattern.

Cable ties at the ready. Strong scissors are enough to cut them to size.

An old, stained and frayed tablecloth became the mock-up. A practice run.

Because this is for a costume rather than true historical accuracy, I had no qualms using heavy-duty cable ties for boning. In Tudor times bodies were often stiffened with buckram, a sort of heavy linen canvas liberally coated in glue made from rabbit skin. Not exactly washable… I did consider making my own modern and washable buckram using acrylic house paint instead of rabbit glue, but I wanted to play with boning. I’ve never done it before and it looked like fun.

As this was hand-sewn, I was able to take it with me. When we were allowed out of lockdown to at least shop for food, I would take my sewing bag with me and work on the bodies in the car (hubby driving). Doctors’ waiting rooms too, got a close-up look at my stays in development.

The first few ‘bones’ in place. In Tudor times they used bundles of reeds to stiffen the ‘bodies’, or buckram.
Lacing is the elastic from a dead fitted sheet. This is just a mock-up, after all.

Because I carry a seam-ripper in my pocket, spare thread in my bra and my current sewing project in a cloth bag, I’m at the ready for any other sewing tasks that come my way.

Yesterday on the train in Melbourne, while I was hand-felling some seams in a chemise, hubby said, “I need to put a few stitches in the strap of my shoulder bag.” He quickly added, “I don’t need you to do it, just give me some thread when we get back to the hotel, I have a large needle in my pack.”

I reached into my sewing bag, pulled out a bargain-shop array of sewing needles and invited him to select one. I threaded the needle for him (challenging on a moving train!) and he got to work, both of us sitting side-by-side on the train, sewing companionably.

I’d started the boning at the back for the lacing. Then I tied myself in and realised, it was too big. So I took to it with scissors and hacked out the centre. Did I cut too much? I’d have to do all the boning, and sew it all up closed, before I could know.

With a long trip coming up (another post coming soon, I promise – with REAL travel!) I wanted the job done. And I did it, by one day. I laced myself in and found that it fits. A bit rough, the final result may need to be re-made, but I’ve learned a lot in the process.

Laced in,front and back. I need to make a few adjustments. Better lacing, for a start!

And isn’t that what life is about?

Two days before we travelled, I was finally able to drop off the spare fabric I’d been given.

However, my car is still full of fabric.

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?

The excitement of a medieval faire — Skill-at-Arms at Ironfest, Lithgow 2017. That’s a kirtle the lady warrior is wearing.

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.

Woodwork, medieval-style. Making a leg for a stool. Blacktown Medieval Fayre, 2021.

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.

Family selfie at Blacktown Medieval Fayre, 2021. Myself, hubby and hairy older son (a Templar).

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.

Sketching in the desired neckline with a pencil.

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.

Hand-stitching while I wait in the car for my son to get his Covid shot. It was a wait of several hours each time.

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.

Hand-felled inside seams for added strength.

Attaching sleeves. Again, pin while wearing and adjust fit individually.

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.

The finished kirtle. Finished except for ornamental trim.

Kirtle with capuchon. Our friend thought I had dressed as St Benedict. Apparently it was the right day…

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…

Christmas on the move

We’d planned to be in Canberra from early Monday before Christmas to babysit the kids, with school finished for the year but parents still working. We were then going to stay until Christmas Day, leaving the next day (Boxing Day) to head home. I planned to use the quiet evenings to work on writing and editing. Then we heard that we would be allowed to attend our granddaughter’s dance concert. The choir concert (a few weeks earlier) was unfortunately not open for audiences.

We had already booked accommodation and planned to drive down on Sunday, but the dance concert was midday. With a three and a half hour drive, we’d have to ‘bug out’ early from home. We also planned to bring our son Rob with us. He had an event to attend on Saturday, so the schedule was tight. We were considering leaving on Saturday ourselves, and perhaps getting Rob to come down by train. We booked the extra night’s accommodation (in a different hotel, the one for the majority of our stay wasn’t available that night).

We discussed it all on Friday night. Rob was determined to attend his event on Saturday so we went online to book a train. We could have booked Sunday, but would have missed the dance concert to collect him from the railway station in Canberra, so we reluctantly booked his train for Monday instead. All other trains were booked out.

Within five minutes of booking (and paying for) the train ticket, Rob’s phone went off. The Saturday event was cancelled. There was an increasing Covid hot spot in Sydney’s Northern Beaches area, about as far away from us as you could get and still be in Sydney. So could he come with us after all?

“I’m working tomorrow morning on the bread run,” he explained. “It’s too late to let them know now.”

Rob decided to come down by train on Monday. That way he could work Sunday morning as well.

With the Northern Beaches Covid cluster growing in momentum we felt some disquiet setting out. Strong restrictions were coming back in, but we knew we were still okay to travel. We double-checked, loaded the car and set off. We’d packed the car carefully to allow for Rob’s seat and luggage coming back with us.

We wore our masks whenever we got out of the car — buying fuel, buying lunch, checking in to the hotel in Canberra. The hotel was full of cricketers! There were security guards and Covid marshals on every exit, which was disconcerting.

Next day was a more relaxed bugout with perishables carefully packed in a cooler back somewhere buried under the load of Christmas presents. We were carrying gifts from the extended family to the “Canberra mob”. Fortunately we were able to park under a handy tree and wait.

Our grandson almost exploded into our car with his energy to announce their arrival.

Queuing for the concert was interesting. We wore masks, but in disease-free Canberra this seemed to be an exception. We were all expected to leave 1.5 metres between us in the queue, but inside it was full seats. We kept our masks on…

That evening there was a press conference. The border was closing at midnight. I rang Rob. Could he get down to us before midnight, by car? Nope, not packed. With the likelihood of heavier traffic than usual, the chance of him getting to us by midnight was vanishingly small. There was also the chance that we, as recent arrivals, could be sent home or, worse, made to quarantine in a hotel for two weeks. Should we leave? We’d delivered our Christmas presents already.

The kids were upset at their Uncle Rob not coming for Christmas.

We took a chance. Next morning we watched the news anxiously. Yes, the border was closed but we had no problems. We’d booked time slots to take the kids to some of the public places around Canberra and decided to go ahead. If we were going to babysit, we’d have fun too, and see the sights.

First stop, Parliament House in Canberra. This is a fascinating place, I’ll write it up separately some other time. Under Covid conditions and with two young children, we weren’t going to have the usual leisurely tour. With parliament not sitting, there wasn’t a lot to see. The kids loved the Lego model of Parliament House, complete with Lego sheep on the lawn on the roof (Parliament House in Canberra is an earth-covered building). They really liked the artwork and some of the stories that various guides told us in passing.

After Parliament House, we went to the Australian War Memorial. Again, our time here was pre-booked to ensure that not too many people were inside at any time. Our grandson wanted to look at the eternal flame first, he was fascinated with the burning gas bubbling up from the pool. From there we went to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I explained to the kids that nobody knows who is buried there, except we know he’s Australian from World War I. So for all the families who lost a brother, a son or a father in WWI, there is some peace in knowing that the man buried there could be him. He represents them all, all Australian servicemen and servicewomen who never came home.

We looked for names on the Wall of Remembrance then explored the displays inside. Again, with the children we knew their attention spans would be short, but we think some of what they saw was understood.

The next day we took the kids to Telstra Tower on top of Black Mountain. It was on their list of places they’d wanted to see. We went up into the tower and enjoyed the view from the observation deck, amazed at the wind.

Blowin’ in the wind — it was my Marylin Monroe moment.

On the way back to the car we saw a young ringtail possum snoozing in a nearby tree. “It’s all an adventure,” we told them.

Snoozing ringtail possum in the fork of the tree.

We collected their mother and went for a drive in the bush, as requested by our grandson. We ended up in a place we’d never been to, or even heard of — Gibraltar Falls.

Lady beetle on the granite boulder, Gibraltar Falls.

Mating beetles (it’s that time of the season). Gibraltar Falls, ACT.

We hiked down the slippery granite steps to the falls, and the kids exclaimed over a lady beetle. Little things and big things caught their attention. I got out my macro lens and we explored further, getting up close and personal to beetles, flowers and the lady beetle. It seemed a world away from coronavirus.

Christmas Eve was all about preparation. Last minute grocery shopping, and keeping the kids out of the kitchen while their father set about his one day of culinary glory in the year — cooking up a feast. Far too much food, but all of it tasty. It will all get eaten, but not necessarily today.

Gifts in various stages of being opened.

Greek-style lamb on the barbecue for Christmas dinner.

Christmas feasting done — leftovers for Boxing Day.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Stay safe, stay well.

Tomorrow we drive home, and back to higher restrictions.