German dresses are lovely.. but if you leave your tata’s uncovered they’re going to get cold. I’ve wanted to make a Gollar for a long time. A Gollar is a short, sometimes fur-lined cape sometimes with a collar worn over many of the German [...]]]> Diary started Feb 23, 2010.
Gollar first worn Sunday December 4, 2011.

Summary

German dresses are lovely.. but if you leave your tata’s uncovered they’re going to get cold. I’ve wanted to make a Gollar for a long time. A Gollar is a short, sometimes fur-lined cape sometimes with a collar worn over many of the German dresses. A few years ago for Valentine’s Day my honey got me a full pelt of sheared beaver. I am totally going to use that to line my Gollar.

Research and Background

Textiler Hausrat mentions that Gollars can be seen as a component of feminine clothing in Durer’s costume study of 1500. While primarily a fashion of the first quarter of the 16th C, it does continue until 1570′s. Even women of lower middle class standing were permitted gollars made of “Atlas, Damaskat, or other silk fabric” and were noted in inventories as damask or atlas and fur lined. (pages 80-83 translated by Katherine Barish, located in the Yahoo Group files of Jutta Zander-Seidel’s “Textiler Hausrat, Kleidung und Textilien in Nurnberg von 1500-1650″, ISBN 3422060677).

My goal is to create a garment that is consistent with the fashions portrayed in the woodcuts of Landsknecht from about 1520 Germany.

Details to include:

• Capelet. Should go to the points of the shoulders and down low enough in the back to cover my back. Smooth fit that still allows use of the arms.
• Dark wool outer fabric
• Lined in fur (sheared beaver)
• Hidden buttons for closure (should be able to be buttoned closed)

There’s some hint that the standing collar is a fashion of Saxony(ie both the “Woman aged 27″ and the black and white next to it are wearing Saxony style dresses). I’ll need to look into this more.

Inspirational Pictures

The German single-leaf woodcut, 1500-1550, Max Geisberg ; rev. and edited by Walter L. Strauss, New York : Hacker Art Books, 1974.
Niklas Stoer – Schuldthos c.1530

Guarded Style:

Paumgartner Altar (detail of right wing) by Albrecht Durer, 1503

c. 1514
Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528). Melancholia I, 1514. Engraving. Approx. 9 1/2 x 7 3/8 in. (24 x 18.5 cm).
© Konrad Liebmann Foundation, Stiftung Niedersachen, Germany(link)

c. 1520 H. Holbein, Baseler Bürgersfrau beim Ausgang
Nach der Handzeichnung. Oeffentliche Kunstammlung, Basel

Hans Baldung

Saxony Style:

Unknown c. 1525 Woman Aged 27

c. 1528

From the Back

Edhard Schoen G.1235-1238. Army Train 1532

Sources

Pearl and Coral Gollar Project

Process

– 11/28/2011 I’ve contemplated this for a few years. This coming Sunday I’m supposed to wear my German dress while walking in a parade. It’s December.. in California.. so I don’t expect to freeze.. but I do expect that a gollar and gloves will be welcomed additions to the outfit. So on Tuesday night I finalized the gollar pattern (based on the bottom portion of my hood pattern) and finally cut out the wool and fur. I had to cut the fur out in two sections in order to be able to get the pattern to fit on the pelt. Even then I will have to patch in a triangle to make up for a bit where the pattern ran off the edge of the pelt. I stitched these two big pieces of the fur together. The seam is obvious.. but the pelt will be on the underside of the gollar so I’m not worried about it.

– 11/29/2011 Started stitching the wool to the fur along the neckline. The plan is to stitch the two pieces together inside-out and then flip them around so the right-sides are on the outside of the gollar. Stitching is going faster than anticipated. That said, I need a thimble. Ow.

– 12/1/2011 Acquired a thimble.
– 12/3/2011 Finally finished sewing the gollar together.
– 12/4/2011 Trevor gave me a set of hooks to use to hold the gollar on. Sadly it wasn’t until I sewed the first hook/eye on that I noticed that the right front and the left front are different length. I’ll need to shorten one side to even them up. Other than that.. I wore this in the parade. It was nice and toasty. Gollars are made of win (even badly uneven ones).

Fearghus is on the guard for TRH Uther and Kara. They are stepping up in “late period” and have asked their court and guard to match their colors (black and grey). Fearghus mentioned he [...]]]> Diary started Nov 13, 2011.
Outfit is due Jan 7, 2012.
Currently in progress. Fabric is in the wash. Pattern is finalized.

Summary

Fearghus is on the guard for TRH Uther and Kara. They are stepping up in “late period” and have asked their court and guard to match their colors (black and grey). Fearghus mentioned he would really like a new Waffenrock for 12th night. After looking over the images he decided he liked the look of the “Master Bear Hunter” outfit from the The Triumph of Maximilian.

Inspirational Pictures

Master Bear Hunter

Details to include

– Base fabric is dark grey herringbone will use red and grey slashed guards.
– The waffenrock will be split front and back to lie correctly when riding, ie a Reitrock aka: riding coat.
– The doublet “sleeves” will be about 2 inches long around 3/4 of the armscye and have hidden attachment points around the inside for “fancy” sleeves.
– I’m going to make this with removable fancy sleeves. That way if he gets overheaded he can remove the sleeves and still wear the waffenrock.
– Fancy sleeves will be fancy. (still working out what they’ll look like).

– He’s asked for sleeves similar to the sleeves I did for my blue dress.

– The back of the doublet will have 3 vertical guards (left, right and center) and one horizontal guard (top edge). The center back guard will be slashed different from the sides. The left and right guards will go up, over the shoulder straps and then down each side of the front. The front of the doublet, will also have one horizontal guard at the top edge.
– skirt will have one guard 3-4″ wide 3-4″ up from the bottom.
– The guard on the skirt portion doesn’t look like it lies flat to the skirt. It’s sewn bubbled and this looks like it would cause the slashes on the guard to open wider.
– Guards are red base fabric with grey slashed top fabric. Grey will need to be cut on the bias and sewn on “bubbled” to give the proper appearance. The grey will need a turned edge.. the red may be ok w/o a turned edge.
– Where possible I’m going to use the buttons I have which have bear paw prints on them.
– new black hat with lots of feathers
– New shoes. (on order from Boots by Bohemond)
– New pants (I cut up his old pants to take a pattern)

Fabric

– 8 yards of black herringbone wool. It feels like wool flannel.
– 4 yards red wool for the under layer of the guarding
– 4+ yards of grey/silver/green fabric for the top layer of the guards
– 4 yards black linen for lining.

Pattern

– Pull old Waff apart. Use that for a pattern with noted alterations.
– cut down width of back piece by 1 inch
– cut down shoulder straps to a total of 12 inches (not including seam allowance)
– Add to bottom of the front placket 3 inches + inches lost from the straps
– Skirt is good length and fullness. Use the same.

TODO:

– (done) Pull old Waff apart. Use that for a pattern with noted alterations.
– Make guards.
Doublet
– Cut out doublet exterior and interior.
– Sew doublet together around all edges except sides and armsceye.
– Sew sides of doublet together with a 1/2″ seam turning the seams to the interior of the doublet.
– Hand finish armsceye with tabbed mini sleeves
– Add attachment points for fancy sleeves.
– Add guards
Skirt
– cut out skirt
– Add guard
– Pleat skirt to a band
– Attach band to bottom of the doublet.
Fancy Sleeves
– TBD

Note the lack of support of my girls. Must fix.

Most important lessons:

Originally we weren’t going to A/W War. Because of the costs of fixing our kitty’s broken leg we really couldn’t afford to pay for the gas to drive 8.5 hours up and 8.5 hours back for the war. Their Majesties heard about this and offered to carpool with us to [...]]]>

An Tir-West War 2011

Originally we weren’t going to A/W War. Because of the costs of fixing our kitty’s broken leg we really couldn’t afford to pay for the gas to drive 8.5 hours up and 8.5 hours back for the war. Their Majesties heard about this and offered to carpool with us to share gas costs. We really wanted to go.. so even though we should have said no.. we said yes. It was a very fun trip. Their Majesties were a HOOT as travelling companions.

They arrived at our house at ~3pm and we all piled into the truck and headed north. The trip went fairly smoothly up until ~12:40am when the truck’s “check engine” light flashed on and the truck started driving a bit more roughly. We pulled over and spent a while fiddling with it. We -just- had a tuneup about a month ago so we were fairly certain it wasn’t anything truly serious.

Luckily, knowing we were going to get in late and not wanting to setup in the dark, F and I had already made hotel reservations and Their Majesties agreed to share a room with us on Thursday night. We limped into the hotel at about 2:30am.

Breakfast in Gold Beach with Their Majesties Marc and Patricia

We had camp set up by about 11 and then headed back into town to have lunch and pick up food. This took an inordinate amount of time. Pretty much the entire day Friday was spent setting up and provisioning.

Cooking over coals. The green pots at the bottom/bottom-right are mine.

At 2pm I ran across to the A&S tents and attended a class about “St. Birgitta’s Coif”. I’ve studied it.. and have been meaning to make one but hadn’t quite gotten around to it. The class was two hours of lecture/hands-on in which we made a cap. I got probably 80% done with my cap and was able to finish it up on Sunday afternoon. I -will- be teaching a class similar to this at Fall Collegium (I totally should have gotten a picture of myself in the coif.. it’s super cute).

The class finished at 4 and unfortunately this left me pressed for time in order to be able to complete my chicken dish before dinner. I was feeling terribly stressed out. It all worked out in the end.. but as I said before, the dish was nice but not “OMG I MUST HAVE IT”. Meh. (Chicken + bacon + red wine + pepper)(really it’s hard to go wrong with that)

Overall, since I hadn’t planned to attend the war until the week before the war I hadn’t planned what to cook/make at cook’s play date until literally the night before we drove up to site. I managed to make Ok dishes.. but nothing awesome. It -was- a lot of fun to get to cook over fire in crockery. I definitely want to play with that some more.

Ajax with the West Banner.

Monday we packed up and headed home. We had a long, mostly uneventful drive home. The traffic was good up until we got passed Santa Rosa. There we found that 4 horses had (seemingly) gotten frightened by the fireworks and had run out onto the highway. We were home by 11:30.

What worked:
– Loved cook’s play date.
– Loved the class I took.
– I actually loved the veggie pickles I made. I think those will become an eventing staple for us.
– Surprisingly, the sandals I bought at Pennsic were -fantastic- for the weather and terrain. I need to be sure to pack more sandals for Pennsic.

What didn’t work:
– Next year, if we can’t leave before noon, wait until the next day. Getting in at 2am sucks.
– Next year, take the dogs. One of them freaked out about the fireworks and jumped the fence. That lead to a very tense pack down as we tried to coordinate to have our pet-sitter pick the dog up from the folks who’d found him.
– Next year, plan better for cook’s play date. Had fun.. but need to put more thinking into it.

To-do:
– Need to make/plan out some nice roman outfits. Those looked terribly comfortable and cool.

My pictures from the War are posted on Facebook here:
SCA: An Tir-West 2011

Museum of London Surrey/Hampshire border redware chafing dish vertical loop handle. 1550-1700

Pennsic is coming. Since I’ve been rapidly changing sizes and have shrunk out of all my German clothes and because Pennsic occurs in Pennsylvania at the height of summer I’ve decided I need something cooler(and not made of wool) to wear. I had mostly decided [...]]]> Diary started June 23, 2011
Dress progress: bodice patterned, fabric washed

Summary

Pennsic is coming. Since I’ve been rapidly changing sizes and have shrunk out of all my German clothes and because Pennsic occurs in Pennsylvania at the height of summer I’ve decided I need something cooler(and not made of wool) to wear. I had mostly decided to wear tunics for the whole event (and I may still do that) but I’d like to have the option of something a little more form fitting.

In grepping teh Intarwebs I stumbled across images of the 15th century wasted kirtle. This very strongly reminds me of my german dresses but the bodice is a lot longer. I’ve decided to try it out and see how it goes.

Research and Background

These dresses are seen in a lot of images by Flemish artists.

Details to include:
– Supportive bodice with back and side seams.
– Spiral lace closure in the front that extends below the waist seam
– Waist seam at natural waist
– Rounded neckline front and back that is self-bound.
– Chemise that barely peeks up above the neckline
– Short sleeves with pin on lower sleeves of a different color.
– Skirt pleated into the waistline. I plan to only have pleats in the back.
– Trapezoidal gored skirt.
– specific kind of belt worn low on the hips
– White linen tailed cap

Inspirational Pictures

Rogier Van der Weyden, detail Seven Sacraments 1445-1450

Rogier van der Weyden, 1430-35 Detail from The Descent from the Cross. Note that this dress is probably made from squirrel pelts

Rogier Van der Weyden, detail Braque Family Triptych, Mary Magdalene, 1450 - 2

Hans Memling, passion altar 1491

See Also:

Kirtles with a waistseam
Three kirtles illustrated by Rogier van der Weyden c. 1445-50.
15th Century Female Flemish Dress: A Portfolio of Images
15th Century Women’s Clothing During England’s War of the Roses

Blue 15th Century Kirtle with Trapezoidal Skirt Panels (finds from london)
The kirtle the medival dress of the 14th century

Sleeves
Will the Real Fifteenth Century Sleeve Please Stand Up?

Flemmish kercheif/coif/head thingie
Flemmish Kerchief

Process

I’ve spent quite a while thinking about this and finally set to work on this a few night ago. I have a bodice which I’ve used for my german gowns. That bodice ends at around the bottom of my ribs. I fiddled with this pattern and extended it down so that the bodice now ends at my natural waist (I added ~3″-4″ to the bottom all around). I also fiddled the pattern so that it uses side seams.

Then I threw the brown linen I’d set aside for this project into the washer. I only have 5 yards so I hope that’s enough. I suppose if it isn’t I’ll have to order more linen.

At Nate and Dusty’s wedding 5/21/2011:

At Cynaguan Spring Coronet 2011: