Category: medieval costume

A tale of two cathedrals

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I visited many wonderful cathedrals on my recent trip, both in the UK and Spain. Two that struck me as very similar, in terms of their history and location were Norwich and Canterbury. Both are particularly famous as religious centres, and both have cathedral schools attached, so during my visit there were lots of children around.

Norwich had the most gorgeous cloisters, I spent so much time wandering round and looking at them from different angles, and the way that they framed the tower. There is something fascinating to me about the combination of stonework, arches and fans, and the light and dark between the cloister walls and the courtyard spaces they enclose.

On one of the pillars was this, I am not sure whether it is a mason’s mark, or just graffiti, but it is a little touch of human involvement in all this splendour. Whoever EA was, I’m sure they were just as amazed by the place in 1630, as we are now, maybe more so given that we are able to build tall and magnificent structures all the time now.

The inside of the cathedral is also wonderful, so many beautiful windows, and the fan vaulting on the ceiling is just stunning.

Two of the windows celebrate one of Norwich’s most famous religious figures, Julian of Norwich. She was a a nun, and anchoress, who lived in seclusion in Norwich in the mid 1300s and is credited with writing the first English language works by a woman, ‘Revelations of Divine Love’, though as we know there may have been other women writing under male names.

I read this many book years ago, as part of my research for my role as a nun within re-enactment, and her most famous saying ‘all shall be well, and all shall be well. and all manner of things shall be well’, is one that has stayed with me since I first read it, and something I have often said to myself when things got stressful. I couldn’t get a good photo of my favourite window, showing her and her cat, so this is via Google.

Canterbury is famous as a site of pilgrimage, and the cathedral precinct is stunning. You enter through this amazing gate.

I was lucky as I was visiting on a beautiful sunny day, so the contrast between the stone and the sky was amazing.

The inside contains some incredibly detailed stonework, the picture below is unlike anything I have even seen, such a wealth beautiful detail in the carvings.

There are also beautiful cloisters, though I think Norwich’s have the edge for sheer scale.

As Canterbury is so famous it has many significant tombs. This one is the tomb of Henry Chichele, archbishop in the early 1400s. The carvings on this tomb are some of the best that I have ever seen.

There were similar carvings around the priest’s lectern as well.

The most famous tomb is that of the Edward, The Black Prince This was of particular interest to me for several reasons. One of which is that Edward’s heraldic coat is in the cathedral, in the lower level, (no pictures allowed), and a reproduction of it hangs over the tomb, along with his helmet.

I remember watching one of the Amber Buchart series, ‘A Stitch in Time’ where she recreates this garment with other fashion historians. One of my re-enactment friends, Richard, portrays the Black Prince, and his very talented partner Kat, who I have mentioned many times before here, has also made the garment. I had a very interesting chat with the volunteer who was near the tomb, and told her about our costume making for re-enactment.

The other thing I loved was another version of the Mothers’ Union banner of the Virgin Mary, this time accompanied by two saints. The stitching on this was exquisite.

If you are a regular reader you will know that I have been fascinated by these, which appear regularly in churches and cathedrals in the UK, often of a similar design. I decided to do some research about them, and while I didn’t find any answers to my questions about whether they promoted as projects nationally, and where the designs came from, I did find an interesting booklet, written by Bob Trubshaw, with a history of the Mothers’ Union. In the booklet Bob asks many of the same questions, and like me, mourns the lack of information about who made all these banners.

The chapterhouse at the cathedral was one of the most stunning, I have ever seen, the ceiling was incredible.

There was also this beautiful window, depicting monarchs and notable religious figures from British history. I loved this representation of Queen Victoria.

Truly stunning places, and an amazing testament to all of the people who worked on them originally, and now care for, and volunteer in them.

I will be back soon with the next post, where I will share with you my trips in Suffolk. I am so glad that I was able to spend so much time exploring these parts of England, it was a brilliant way to spend the summer. I am already starting to plan next summer, which is very exciting. Even though it is great to be in Spain in my little house, I am already looking forward to life back on the road next year.

Meanwhile there is Christmas crafting to be done, those last few ornaments won’t make themselves so I had better get stitching! See you all next time, until then have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Leominster, a history in stitches

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I spent most of last week at a beautiful campsite near Hereford.

I had chosen this site as there were a lot of things that I didn’t get to see last year in this area, and one of those was an embroidered history of the town of Leominster that I had seen mentioned in a tourist brochure last year.

The embroidery is housed in a community centre which in itself is well worth a visit. Grange Court dates from the 1600s and was once located in the centre of the town where it was the market hall.

It was sold in 1855, dismantled and moved to its current site near the Priory. It was a family home and is now used for many different community purposes, including a cafe and wedding venue.

The embroidery panels were done by a local group of stitchers and were made over 4 years by 15 stitchers in time for the Queen’s Jubilee in 2012.

They feature a wide variety of techniques such as crewel work trapunto and applique. Some are themed, such as the history of the Priory, or WW2, others summarise the events of one century.

There was some amazing work in the panels, I think my favourite were the early history ones that featured wool work and applique.

I also loved the trapunto ones, featuring stonework from the Priory and the woodwork details of the market.

A really wonderful labour of love from the embroiderers and a very special way of portraying the local history.

We had a lovely weekend at the Evesham event, it was raining on the Saturday but nice and sunny in Sunday and we had the miracle of a dry pack down.

It was also brilliant to see all of the talented people who make all their own clothes for events. Dave, in the black below, also does leatherwork. You can find him at Buffy Leatherwork on Facebook and Instagram. He had made things for film and TV including the recent movie about Richard 3rd, The Lost King.

These boxes above were made by my other friend, also called Dave. He also made and painted the bed in their tent. They are absolutely stunning, museum quality.

I will leave you with one of my favourite pictures, of me and Kerry in her tent. She is wearing one of her beautiful gowns, which is a wonderful red and gold in real life. I do love the sepia version of the picture though.

I am off to another festival this weekend, where Katy is in the show field, so I am very excited about that. I will then be in Lincolnshire for nearly two weeks so hopefully will have lots of long beach walks and even see some seals.

Until next time have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Stepping back in time, in many respects

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This post is going back to some of my travels this past summer, to tell you about all the loveliness from museums that I did not have chance to post about when I was travelling. As you may expect it involves re-enactment and historic costume 🙂

Our first trip was a very special day out to visit our friends in our re-enactment group, Swords of Mercia, most of whom we had not seen for about 2 years. We were not able to join in the full event at Nottingham Castle, due to number restrictions because of the virus, but did have a very lovely day in Nottingham.

We found a beautiful location for lunch, completely by accident, just wandering through the city centre. The Nottingham Secret Garden is one of the many venues that have adapted brilliantly to outside eating and drinking, despite the British weather and we had a delicious tapas lunch there. The interior rooms are also beautiful, though I don’t think that they are open at the moment.

The encampment at the castle was smaller than usual, due to the need to keep distancing but it all worked really well and our friends had a lovely time doing both show and tell and small fight demonstrations. There were people from lots of groups there, all representing different time periods in the castle’s history.

We have some hugely talented people in our group and both of our leatherworkers have spent the down time due to the pandemic refining their skills. Symon and David both do exceptional work making scabbards and bags. These are some of David’s beautiful sword scabbards. If you ever need anything like this, or a decorated leather bag, or a beautiful bespoke hair ornament do visit Buffy Historical Leatherwork and Lionhead Leather.

We were also excited to visit the newly refurbished museum within the castle. After a quick stop in the café for a gluten -free cream tea and a look at their fabulous button wall, we headed for the lace and costume displays.

Nottingham is famous for its lacemaking, firstly hand made lace and latterly machine lace so the displays were fascinating. There were some gorgeous garments from the last 150 years.

They also had lots of samples of lace and the jacquard machines and hole punch cards that were used to make the fabric.

One of my favourite things was this panel commemorating World War 2. A small but really well thought out exhibition with lots of information and very interesting pictures of the lace makers and their craft. Well worth a visit.

We have been invited back to Nottingham Castle to do another event this coming July, fingers crossed we can all go this time, so looking forward to it. Hopefully all of the events that are planned will be able to go ahead this year.

Jacky has been doing some work to the campervan as we go away again in a couple of weeks which is very exciting. I have had a busy week with trying to perfect reversing into parking spaces on my driving lessons, continuing with my very enjoyable creative writing course on Zoom with the WEA, and working on my novel. I have now written 11, 958 words so far and it is really starting to take shape. It takes me back to the days of writing the doctorate, thankfully over a year ago now. It so lovely to be writing things just for me and I am thoroughly enjoying the process.

I hope life is good with all of you, and that you are enjoying your weekend whatever you are doing. I will be back soon with more lovely museum textiles so until then have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

A welcome return

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Evesham was such a lovely event. I have not been before, although the others had in 2019. It is a slightly earlier period than we normally do being a battle that took place in the town in 1265. Luckily my nun’s outfit covers a multitude of centuries. I was there this time with my new medieval group, Team Falchion. I am still with the other group, but always intended to join this group, who have been friends of ours for a very long time, so that I could attend even more events.

All of these photos were taken by our wonderful event photographer, Pat Patrick, who spends so much time at every event taking hundreds of pictures. We also had a photo shoot with our group photographer Silke in the abbey church. The costumes were wonderful, very much inspired by Byzantine fashions with lots of flowing tunics and embroidery.

On Saturday we had a parade through the town, which was brilliant fun, I would love to go back and spend more time there, it looks like a really lovely place with lots to see and a lovely river bank walk. I think I visited when I was younger as I grew up near there and have vague memories of it.

There was one battle on Saturday and two battles on Sunday and as well as the foot combat there were horses which was very exciting to watch.

It was just so lovely to catch up with friends again, sit in a beer tent and round a campfire and just have such a great time, it thankfully seemed as if the last year has been a bad dream. That is the last medieval event for this year though we have just got back from a WW2 one so will post about that later this week.

I hope that you have had a good weekend, have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

The heavens aligned, and thankfully did not open!

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Well I have had a very exciting and eventful week. I did not want to say too much on the last post, in case all did not go according to plan but it did! I have now sold my house, moved out of Marsden and and am off on my adventures.

All of this happened on Tues this week, by the previous Thursday I was living in a house with no furniture at all and having a last weekend with friends in the village. On Tuesday I handed over the keys to the new owners and set off with Kerry, who had very kindly come to collection me and my last possessions.

The first stop has been to Ellen’s, I have done some more volunteering at the food bank she works at, which has been really interesting again.

We then went to our first re-enactment event in 2 years at Evesham. It was absolutely brilliant, the weather was very kind, a few showers on the Friday night and Saturday afternoon, but we had a dry end to the weekend which made everyone very happy as no wet tents to sort. Here is my lovely little tent in the sun on Friday.

It was amazing to be back in a field, in the beer tent and round the campfire with my friends, we have kept in touch on Facebook but nothing beats being able to see them and there were lots of hugs.

I don’t have many pictures yet, I could not take any being in kit all weekend but there will be lots from our friends who come along to the events just to do all the photography so I will post again with those later this week.

There was a parade through the town, three battles, with horses which looked fantastic, and a we were at very nice event site between the abbey and the river. We did a photo shoot with one of our friends in the church, which was beautiful, and the vicar very kindly lit the candles for us to give it more atmosphere.

I am off tomorrow for three nights camping in my new little tent in Edale in the Peak District. I am planning a little walking but mainly a quiet and peaceful time reading, doing some knitting and recovering from all of the very busy sorting of the house and moving out.

I can’t quite believe that this has actually happened, it has been planned for so long but I am finally fully retired and free to go off and have all sorts of lovely adventures. I am so lucky and so thankful to everyone who has helped me in the last few months.

I hope that you have had a good weekend, take care, have fun, stay safe and I will see you soon. Thanks for visiting.

Spring has sprung

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I hope that you have all had a lovely weekend, the weather here has been very good, up until last night when it rained and now it is a little cooler and more like normal Yorkshire Spring 🙂 But the shed is looking very good, everything has been weeded and I am eagerly awaiting my delivery of bedding plants for my hanging baskets.

I went for a very nice walk on Sunday, to my favourite place here, the first of four reservoirs in the valley at the top of my road. I still can’t believe I am lucky enough to have this 10 minutes away and yesterday I walked around the other side of it. It will a lovely place for solo picnics in the summer.

butterley-1

I met some friends walking their dog on the way back and they commented that they were exploring places they had never been in the 18 years they had lived here. One very good thing that will come out of this is more people realising what is in their communities, be it open spaces, smaller businesses etc. and I hope that appreciation this will continue when things are back to ‘normal’.

I am loving having a milk delivery, something I was planning to organise after my holiday anyway to cut down on my use of plastic, and this week there was the great excitement of them delivering eggs, orange juice and yogurts as well!

Saturday was especially lovely, lots of the neighbours were outside enjoying the weather. I do love living in a terrace, we have an open back lane so you get a real sense of community and get to chat with everyone, from a safe distance of course. Saturday evening saw lots of people sitting outside their houses having a drink, like some kind of bizarre party where nobody wants to mingle with everyone about 20 feet away, waving to each other.

Although I can’t travel the Barbies have been busy, as being plastic they are immune from any nasty bugs 🙂 Sophie enjoyed visiting some beautiful gardens in her new Spring dress. This is made from a shirt that I picked up from the charity shop just to re-purpose the fabric as I thought it was so pretty.

Barbie Spring Dress 5

Barbie Spring Dress 6

I used the same bodice pattern that I have used for the evening gowns I showed you previously, but made a pattern for a fuller skirt. This ended up being 3 rather than two panels to accommodate the back opening.

Barbie Spring Dress 2

Barbie Spring Dress 8

Barbie Spring Dress 7

I inter lined the bodice with some white cotton, I was going to do the same with the skirt but it became too bulky when gathered. One of the things that I am learning is how fine the fabric has to be for these very small scale dresses, anything thick just does not work with such tiny seams.

Barbie Spring Dress 4

Barbie Spring Dress 3

I used the tie that was on the original shirt and sewed the ric rac on it before sewing it on to the dress at the waistline. I love the contrast of the ric rac and ribbon colours here and am very pleased with my adaptation of the pattern.

Barbie Spring Dress 9

Lucinda wore her newest evening gown on a recent holiday to Italy.

Barbie - cream dress 2

This cream fabric is one of the oldest in my stash, it is scraps that came from a dress and head dress that I made for Ellen about 15 years ago.  I have had the beads about the same amount of time as well as I remember using them on cross stitch Christmas cards that I used to make pre- blog.The turquoise fabric is from an old blouse of mine as well.

Barbie - cream dress 3

Barbie - cream dress 1

This was all in the days before digital cameras so don’t have many pictures of those previous makes but I did realise that I have a photo of the outfit framed and on my wall so here is a picture of my very lovely children all dressed up at a banquet many years ago.

Re-enactment circa 2005

They are with their friend Lil, who is looking equally lovely. I made Ellen a green velvet over dress to go with the under dress, both of which you can see in this picture under the cloak. The head dress was embroidered and beaded over the flower motif on the fabric. Jake’s outfit was made from green brocade and the velvet hose came from a friend, I think it is the same fabric that Lil’s overdress is made from as well.

Over the years I made so many outfits for the children, most that are long gone as we gave them to others when they grew out of them and pre-blog so of course there are so few pictures of them. We are so lucky now to have so many of us in kit, taken by us and lots of other lovely people who share them on Facebook.

So today is another holiday, I seem to have been on holiday here forever which is great, I am liking these Groundhog Days where I get to sew all day 🙂 Plans for today are some more Barbie dress making while watching the White Queen and the latest fashion competition with Heidi Klum, Making the Cut. I am, of course like the rest of the country, eagerly awaiting the new series of The Sewing Bee which starts late April!

Tomorrow is a new week for both the block challenge where we will be doing Friendship Blocks, and the fashion course.We are moving onto the Victorians this week, an era that I love and have done lots of research/drooling over for Steampunk.

I hope you and your families are all ok and you are all managing to find things to occupy yourselves. This will be a year in which we have never had such tidy gardens, decorated houses and clean cars judging by all the activity in my neighborhood. Stay safe, take care and thanks for visiting.

My latest addiction …. and a giveaway

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I have a very addictive personality. Luckily it only manifests itself in craft related ways rather than anything nefarious but it does mean that I tend to get mildly obsessed by one thing and want to do it all the time for a while. Then that wears off and I find something else to obsess over.

At the moment it is little felt flowers. I have moved on from just the 1940s style ones for brooches and combined them with some of my all time favourite Liberty. The first one I made was for a gift and I thought that the combination of colours went really well. This is still very 1940s in tone though the later ones are a lot brighter.

Felt flower brooch mustard

I have found these so therapeutic, I have just been sitting here every evening with a big pile of Liberty scraps and a big pile of felt and combining the pretty colours.

Felt flower collection

I use some lightweight iron on interfacing on the Liberty so it doesn’t fray. Again that is very good for using up off cuts from bag making so very make do and mend.Even though I love purple and pink I have also been using some blues.

Felt flower purple

Felt flower blue

Felt flower blue 2

This fabric below is one of my favourite ever Liberty prints, it is so beautiful.

Felt flower pink 2

I really love this colour combination, I am not normally drawn to orange but these look really good with my purple top hat so I am thinking I might make some for a decoration for that for beer tent wear next year.

Felt flower pink

As I said in the last post some of these, the paired ones, will be going to decorate bags, others I will make into brooches or little hair slides and bobbles for my younger relatives.

Felt flower blue pink

Felt flower blue pair

So to the giveaway! This is my 700th post so I thought that deserves a little celebration. Since I am currently loving the felt flowers I would like to offer a flower brooch, hair pin, bobble of your choice, either a 1940s style one as featured here  or one with Liberty. Let me know what colours you would like as well. I will keep the giveaway open until Fri 23rd August and all you have to do is like or comment on this or any other post until then.

My friends had a lovely time at the Evesham event last weekend, the weather was good and there have been some lovely photos. I was so pleased to see Kerry’s latest make, she came up a couple of weeks ago and we used one of Dave’s old surcoats as a template to make this stunning new one, it took her hours to attach all the stripes and it looks amazing. Picture of the new surcoat is by Jennifer Jane.

Kerry - surcoat 1

Kerry - surcoat 2 - Jennifer Jane

It was lovely to see a picture of Jamie in the surcoat I made him a few years ago. It has done well to be going strong since 2015. He has a new tent in his colours and has made a flag and it is all looking wonderful.

Evesham - Jamie

I am going to have a very exciting weekend. I am going to Clumber for part of it, I have been very kindly invited for a social event with Ellen’s colleagues which means camping over on Friday night. We are off to Crich Tramway museum for a 1940s event on Saturday, then it is back to Clumber on Sunday for the church service in the morning and some volunteering in the afternoon.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend ahead, hopefully there will be lots of fab pictures of both transport and fashion in my next post, I love trams and am very excited to see some vintage ones!

Take care and thanks for visiting.

What a difference a week makes!

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I am sitting here watching torrential rain fall, thinking back to last weekend when we had a beautifully sunny (but not too hot!) weekend at the Tewkesbury event. You’ve got to love England haven’t you, we have the most bizarre weather. It has been raining for two days now and doesn’t look remotely like July, meanwhile last weekend we all got sunburnt.

It was excellent weather for re-enactment, 22 degrees and cloudy so just perfect and we had really good fun as usual. I have got lots of pictures to show you, courtesy of my friend James, the wonderful Pat who takes thousands of photos at each event and posts them for us to use, and another person called Ferez Fee who posted some on Facebook as well. Thanks to everyone who shares pictures with us, it is much appreciated.

The costumes were amazing as always, the ladies looked fantastic, including Kerry in her beautiful Burgundian dress and henin. Here is a back shot of the gorgeous veil as we walked onto the battlefield on Saturday. The picture below shows her coming off the battlefield with another friend Nick who was marshalling.

Tewks 2019 4

 

 

Tewks 2019 9 - Ferez Fee

The photos below are courtesy of Ferez Fee and show the ladies in the King’s and Queen’s camps. I particularly love this one below as it has one of my favourite tapestries, the Lady and the Unicorn, as a backdrop. I have a small version of this in my lounge.

Tewks 2019 5 - Ferez Fee

Tewks 2019 4 - Ferez Fee

Tewks 2019 3

The picture above is of my friend Kat who was wearing her latest amazing head dress. For more pictures and information on its source you can visit her Facebook page here. She also has photos of her equally lovely outfit from Saturday.

One of my favourite photos, also by Ferez Fee,  is of Gwen who plays the Queen just relaxing in her tent with her embroidery by her side, so beautiful.

Tewks 2019 8 - Ferez Fee

There were also some wonderful costumes worn by the men. Here is the young Prince Edward in his tent before getting into armour. Pictures by Ferez Fee.

Tewks 2019 7 - Ferez Fee

I loved this outfit as well, such beautiful detail in every aspect.

Tewks 2019 6 - Ferez Fee

The king and his entourage looked suitably splendid, both on the battlefield with their heraldic surcoats and on their way to the abbey.

Tewks 2019 12 Pat

Tewks 14 Pat

Tewks 2019 5

Tewks 2019 8

This is the only medieval event I am doing this year. A combination of other re-enactments like the WW2 ones, less this year events for our group and the doctorate have meant this is a very quiet summer for me so it was especially lovely to spend time with my friends. We had a new member join us for the event as well, Sam, and she really enjoyed it. Here are all the combatants and watercarriers off to battle with Sam, Ellie and Sadie in front of Symon and Shane.

Tewks 2019 1

This picture from Pat captures Symon and Shane in the battle and I have also got some wonderful ones from him of the gunners and gun smoke, it really does make it so atmospheric.

Tewks 2019 6

Tewks 2019 11 Pat

Tewks 2019 10 Pat

I had a new role this year, that of being a marshal which Kerry and I did on both days. I have been doing this at Tatton and Caldicot for a couple of years and really enjoyed it and it was lovely to be involved in a different way this year at Tewkesbury. You can just spot me at the back of this picture in my blue dress. Margaret of Anjou has just slapped Edward 4th at the start of the battle here.

Tewks 2019 9 Pat

I enjoyed talking to the crowd and watching all of the armies march on past us. It was amazing to see even though I know how many combatants there are it was still very impressive. I love to see the flags and hear the drums, it is just magic!

Tewks 2019 7

Tewks 2019 8 Pat

We managed to go to the beheading at the abbey and the beautiful Compline service this year which was wonderful.It is a candlelit service where the monks sing and it was a brilliant end to the day. Next year I will go in the parade as well, we have not been for a few years and there were many more floats this year including this wonderul dragon.

Tewks 2019 2

I luckily am staying in all day today so don’t have to venture out in the rain.  I am still working my way through lots of WIPs. I really need to be strict with myself before I start any new projects so today’s tasks are to finish a flower brooch and a pouch. Kerry is coming for a sewing day tomorrow and we will be sorting out a surcoat for an event she is attending in a couple of weeks.

I hope you are all having a good weekend and are not getting too soaked if you are in the UK. I was half planning a BBQ this weekend but think that will have to be postponed 😉 Take care and thanks for visiting.

 

A dress in a day

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When we came back from Tatton a few weeks ago we had one day here before going off to the Lake District and as Ellie had bought some material for a new style of peasant dress we thought we would try and get it made in a day.

Our original aim was to make one for me that day as well and we did get the dress cut out, which is a major achievement considering I have had the fabric for about 12 years 🙂 but I have cut it too big so it will need serious alteration. I have found a way to put gores in so they align perfectly though!

Ellie’s dress was a different style as it does not have any fastenings at the front which means it needs to be tight enough to fit but wide enough to be able to pull on over the head. It also has short sleeves.

We looked at a few of our manuscript books for information and there are some great manuscript illustrations available via Google including this one from the Tres Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry. I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of a book about this in a National Trust bookshop recently and it is a gorgeous collection of pictures from the early to mid 1400s. This picture is from June showing people working in the fields.

Peasant dress 1

We started by making a pattern from Ellie’s existing dress bodice and then used a sleeve pattern to draft a new sleeve which could be cut in one piece unlike most modern sleeves that are two pieces. We then made a toile of the top and fitted it before cutting out of the new fabric.

It fits Ellie really well, even if she did have to sew the front seam a few times as female shapes need adjusting for, a perfectly straight seam on the garment turned wobbly when it was put on! The colours are gorgeous together.

Here she is in the finished garment at Tewkesbury looking very lovely in our campsite before going to the market.

Ellie's new dress 9

Ellie's new dress 10

Ellie's new dress 11

Kerry was really brave and decided to wear her 15th century lady’s dress despite it being really hot and was very excited to be part of the Queen’s party walking onto the battlefield and sitting with her during the battle.

Here she is going along the crowdline with our friend Bev and below is a shot of the guys just before battle. The ladies all looked stunning and I am so pleased that she got to be part of that section of the event after all her hard work with this beautiful dress.

Tewks 2018 2

Tewks 2018 3

Tewks 2018 1

Pics from a very kind person who put loads on Facebook for us whose name I have completely forgotten to write down! Thank you it is fantastic to have these shots.

It was Symon’s, on the left , first Tewkesbury battle and he did brilliantly in the heat as it was about 27 degrees at this point which means it is so much higher once you are in full armour. The last time Shane, our other knight , came to Tewkesbury it was 35 degrees so we think he must be responsible for the very hot weather. After that event we bought a gazebo for the group as we spent most of the time that weekend trying to all fit into the tiny bit of shade under Shane’s awning!

I also took some more pictures for my research, including the Queen’s tent which looks amazing, this is the Prince’s surcoat which he wears in battle.I am always amazed by the level of detail that people put into their roles, the tent and the throne are amazing.

We also dressed up for the beer tent and I got to wear both my top hats. I do love my top hats, especially this one,  and got lots of compliments on them. I am taking them to the festival that I am going to with my sister in a couple of weeks.

Tewks - Alison in hat

Plans for the weekend are making some pouches and bags out of the quilt blocks I have been stockpiling over the last few weeks and carrying on with my latest stitching from Jenny which is going well.

I have just discovered Project Runway is on Netflix so have been watching that and really enjoying seeing how all the clothes are designed. There are some very talented people there.

Hope that you have a good weekend ahead, take care and thanks for visiting.

Creative people

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I had a lovely time at Ashby, the weather was very kind as we only had thunder and lightening at night, not during showtimes and were able to pack all the tents away dry:-)

I spent quite a lot of the time sitting sewing while doing the occasional chat about headresses and we also did the fashion talk again.

Ashby 2018 Ellie and me sewing

This is Ellie showing off her new gloves, decorated with goldwork. I need to get a close up of these as they are fabulous.

Ashby 2018 Ellie and me

I was very pleased that Sadie was working on her new gauntlets and that Symon was making a beautiful tooled leather scabbard for his sword.

Ashby 2018 Sadie 1

I took some pictures as I want to use them in my doctoral research. All the people in my group are so clever. Symon is making another beautiful hand tooled scabbard.

Ashby Simon Leatherwork 1

Ashby Simon Leatherwork 2

Ashby Simon Leatherwork 3

I handed over the finished circlet to Kate, she was very pleased with it and it fits! I made it in a similar design to Ellie’s but a little simpler.It is made of black velvet over a stiffened hessian (buckram) band.

Kate's headress 2

Kate's headress 1

Kate's headress 3

Most of the fabric came from stock though not all mine but  between us we managed to sort it. Stitching through buckram makes your fingers sore but it looks lovely.The brass findings were from Etsy here.

A very lovely weekend in the company, as always, of very talented and fun people.Our next event is not for a few weeks now so am hopefully going to get some quality time in the sewing room over the next two weekends, I have been working on another Liberty quilt block so will hopefully get chance to finish that this weekend.

Hope you have a nice rest of the week and will catch up with you soon. Take care and thanks for visiting.