Starting Hetty from Ghosts

 This summer I started watching the US version of the series Ghosts, and I really liked Hetty's costume. I've always wanted a victorian bustle outfit, but I've never had the chance to make one and definielty not had any 1880's events to go to. 

Hetty ticked so many boxes, she's a redhead so I can use my own hair, the dress itself has a gorgeous teal/cerulean colour and it would be my chance to finally make the bustle dress that I've always wanted. Also taking it on as a cosplay project rather than historical costuming I felt that I would have more freedom to use materials that I had at hand and not be too sticky with them being what would have been used in the 1880s. 

A note though with underwear is that it's easy to have this idea of victorian underwear always being white and quite fluffy with lace and decorations, but looking at extant pieces they were a lot more colorful, and material wasn't wasted it was pieced and sewn together to get a finished garment rather than just buying new fabric.

Since I really wanted a bustle when I started with costuming I used to look at all kinds of victorian patterns and I knew that Truly Victorian would have all the patterns that I needed, and I made my fair share of TV patterns when I was a much more inexperienced seamstress. So to me Hetty doesn't seem to be a very complicated project. It's a big project with a lot of layers and fabrics, but it wouldn't involve buying patterns and not having to come up with drafting or modifying them by myself too much.

The costume will consists of a corset and shift, and those I already have, a wired bustle, a petticote, an underskirt and overskirt, a bodice and some hair pieces. 

Queen Amidala purple travel gown for the first time in years

 Last weekend our cosplay network was invited to act as hosts when a local choir had a concert. It's the Eldandili fantasy choir and they have a repertoire from games, films and tv-series. All the perfomers are also in cosplay when they sing. This year's concert had the theme "Courage" and we knew that they were going to perform some Star Wars. I assumed, since it's a choir, that they would do "Duel of the Fates" from Episode I, so I decided to bring out my purple travel gown for the first time in so many years.

I loved wearing it again. Everything fit, even if it was a bit of a struggle to remember in which order I should put everything on.

Our local Leia was there as well.

In the end the Star Wars music they performed was a medley that started with Binary Sunset, a bit of Duel of the Fates, but then also the Ghor anthem from Andor and Vode An, before the whole audience was invited to sing along with Victory Celebration from ROTJ, before the intermission.

It was a fun concert and it is really nice to hear music performec live, they whole first act was a mix from games and anime while the second act was all from Arcane: League of Legends.

A cute autumn dress (Scroop miramar)

 This year I haven't sewn as much regular clothes as I did last year. One reason is that I haven't felt that I have needed so much new clothes, another has actually been that I feel that as much as I love the N'gaio blouse pattern, I got a bit bored with it. I needed something more to be a base pattern for small everyday projects. Once again I turned to Scroop patterns. I like them a lot, as is probably obvious from my other posts, but I am also now quite used to sewing them so I know that they work, I know my size and I know that I will understand the instructions without having to think too much about how it should go together. 

Earlier this year I bought the Miramar pattern. I liked that it was versatile, being able to be used both as a dress and top, I'm personally not a tunic fan, with two sleeve lengths and that it had an interesting neckline. When I make my own clothes I want them to have something that makes them different from something I can buy in a store, some kind of detail and this was the neck. It is also made for knits, and have instructions for how to sew in knits with a regular machine. I mostly wear soft and knitted clothes, so having a base pattern that is made for knitted fabric is really good.

In the summer I for once happend to pass a physical fabric store so I picked up this fabric. At first my plan was to make a top, but I realised that I really wanted it as a dress so changed my mind. The Miramar pattern is not the most conservative when it comes to fabric needed. Part of its simplicity is that there are only three pieces, two fronts and one back, but with the sleeves cut in one with pieces a long sleeved dress takes in my size takes almost 2 m in my size. It is also a pattern that is not suited for obvious ups and downs with the suggested cutting layout. This fabric had the cute cherries and on the front they are hanging down, but on the back they are facing upwards instead. 

The boring part with sewing, if you ask me at least, is cutting out the fabric. But that is why I love our cosplay group meetings every week, nowadays we are in a school crafting area with full access on the sewing side to sewing machines and a good cutting table. So when I don't have obvious projects that I work on I have started to bring fabric there, and I can cut them out and take the cut out pieces home, so when I feel like sewing I can just bring them out and start with the fun part - the sewing.

I cut the pieces out some week ago and this weekend I could sew them together. The pattern is really simple, the only fiddly bit was to figure out how the facing should be attached, but when I just followed the images it worked out fine. When attaching the facing it is a good thing to pin it in place before sewing. I had to make that seam smaller than suggested, and it would not have been fun to unpick the stretch seam.

As usual from Scroop pattern I enjoyed sewing it and it went together like a charm. One mistake that I did was that I wasn't attentive and missed that when I used a knit stitch on my machine it shifted the needle position, so the back neck seam got a wider seam allowance before I realised it. That's probably why I had to fiddle a bit with the neck facing as well, but it didn't change the size too much. The only modification I did was to lengthen the sleeves as much as possible, by simply drawing straight lines from where the pattern ended to the edge of the fabric. I am not a fan of 3/4 sleeves and this way I could get them a bit longer at least.

A corset and and an insulin pump

For many years I didn't want to get an insulin pump and one of the arguments I had was that I couldn't see how it would work with my historical clothes. Last year I started using the omnipod5 tubeless pump, but I have been worried about how to wear it.

The pump is also connected to a continous glucose meter (CGM) and they can't be too far away from each other. For me it has worked really well to keep the CGM slightly above my navel and then alternate the pump to the left or right of it. I switch the CGM every 15 days and the pump every 3rd day. It had worked to wear the deviced under my 16th century bodices, but then I had planned it so that the pump was slightly below the waist. Now it was time to test it with one of my victorian corsets though.

My good friend Severing had a birthday party and everyone were encouraged to come in some historical dress. I had a hard time to decide what to wear, but when I posted the alternatives on my insta and FB it was clear that most people thought I should wear my can can ensemble. I also like it and figured it was time to test the pump and CGM with a proper corset.

I switched the pump 2 days before the party, which also meant that I wouldn't have to discard it too early if it didn't work. I placed it as far down as I dared, and with that it ended up at the lover edge of the corset. I also didn't lace it very tight below the waist, so that the pump and CGM wouldn't get too much pressure on them.

It worked really well the whole evening. I didn't feel any extra pressure on the devices and the regulated my insulin and blood sugar levels as usual, so they didn't get too compressed. I am really happy that it worked out, so that I can look forward to wearing more corsets in the future. I also realised that this corset must by now be 20 years old, sure I haven't worn it very much but I am actually a bit impressed that my sewing was this good 20 years ago and that it's still holding up,

A small trossfrau hat

 For Abi's funeral it was clear that our reenactment group was going to take a large part, and there were discussions on what we would wear. Many of us felt that we wanted to bring something 16th century to the funeral and many mentioned that they were going to wear their hats. Since Abi was also a cosplayer and liked black and purple I had decided to wear my Her Universe Endor dress, since it's black with purple details. It's a dress I've worn a lot to NärCon, and it was great meeting up with Abi there as well.

Me at Närcon back in 2018

The only 16th century hat that I have is red, but since I had found purple fabric to make flowers from I also decided to make a small trossfrau hat. Of course being me I didn't just want to make a simple hat, I got inspiration from Whilja's corner on how she made a hat with diagonal stripes on the brim. She made a fullsize hat, I decided to just make a small hat to perk on top of the head. Also to be honest this kind of hat in purple is not something I would wear with the rest of my 16th century clothes, so I didn't want to make it too big of a project.

I first cut out a straight piece of black wool that I had measured for the cirumference that I wanted and the width of the brim, when folded in half. I then cut out slashes diagonally in the wool. This would not have worked for a full sized hat, then the brim would collapse, but for this smaller version I didn't have to reinforce the wool in any way. The purple poufy fabric was simply a tube of poly taffetea, that I made longer and wider than the wool, so that it would pouf out between the bands.

I placed the purple tube in the middle of the black wool and folded it over.

I had to arrange the purple fabric and attach it with some stitches to make it look good. I also had to pleat the inner part of the brim to make it lie flat and round. Where the ends of the black met I also cut an extra slash when I saw how the ends overlapped and that it got very wide.

For the centre portion of the hat I first cut it out in the wool, and I made heartshaped cut outs, which I felt was so fitting for Abi. At first I made the purple layer larger, thinking it would look better when poofing out of the cut outs, but I changed my mind and cut it down to the same size. The two layeres were sewn together.

The centre was attached to the brim by hand. The rest of the hat was sewn on the machine. 

This was the finished hat from the top.

I added a pin in the centre, to mask that it wasn't perfectly aligned and I added a purple ribbon to keep the hat on my head.

The final touch was to stick two feathers into the brim. I didn't get any photos of me at the funeral or memorial, so this is me the morning after wearing the hat. I am really happy with it, but I'm not sure if I will wear it again.

Fabric flowers for a wedding and a funeral

 The last month has been emotionally complicated, and that is really a reason why I haven't made any posts about Medieval Week or Mimicon, that took place the week after.

The theme for Medieval Week this year was "love" and the best evening was when we organised a bethrotal and bethrotal feast for our very good friends Mattis and Emma. In the Middle Ages, at least in Sweden, it was actually the bethrotal that was the most important event.

Their wedding was planned for the 29th of August, but this was our way to give them a great Medieval feast as well, together with people who wouldn't be there for the wedding.

Me and David went home on Saturday, and then on Monday we got the news that the wonderful Abigail had passed away on early Monday morning, just 17 years old. Devastating news, of course the most for her family, but the whole family are really the core of the group. It was really strange knowing that our hugging goodbye on Friday evening was in fact a goodbye for much more than until the next sewing meeting or group get together.

As mentioned the wedding was on the 29th, and I had already planned to dye my hair purple to match my folk costume that I was going to wear, and then came the news of the funeral. The funeral was going to be on the first Friday after the wedding, and Abi's favorite colours were black and purple so we were welcome to wear purple for the funeral. 

I then also decided if I had something at home that I could make into accessories, and I started with making some fabric flowers in purple fabric that I found at home.

I started with ripping a strip of fabric, this is a polyester taffeta.

I folded the strip together until it was the width of a petal.

I cut it into a petal shape, making sure to keep the sides together.

Here is the full strip. I also zinged the edges over a tealight to stop them from frying.

Then I sewed a gathering thread along the straight edge and gathered it all together.

I sewed across the bottom of the gathered strip to shape it.

I found that I had these pearls attached to wires in my bead/pearl box. I put one in the middle of each flower, but sticking it through the fabric.

I made a little loop from the wire on the backside, so that I had something I could attach a hairpin to.

Here are the finished flowers. The bottom one was made from a 75 cm strip, and that as almost too big. The top flowers are made from cutting a similar strip in half. The bottom and the top left flowers were also just randomly gathered, but the top right one I worked a bit more with shaping the petals when I gathered them, and I think that one was the best.

For the wedding I put all three flowers in my hair. I didn't want to wear the traditional cap, I wanted something fun with my hair I also didn't wear traditional shoes but wore purple shoes as well.

For the funeral David put one of the flowers on his lapel. 

It was quite hard working on the flowers knowing that they were for both a wedding and funeral, but it also felt very fitting to make and wear them for both occasions. Life is full of joy and sorrow, and both these occasions will be connected to Abi.

And here is a photo of Emma and Mattis and I hope they will have a long and wonderful marriage.

Farmers clothes in the 16th century

 I have gotten quite a few questions about what a farmer would have worn in Sweden in the 16th century, so I thought it would be best to try and collect links to helpful sites. This is no way a comprehensive guide, but I hope it can help those who are curious.

In 2020 the blogger Marlein made a post about recreating a pattern for Swedish peasant trousers. Her blog is here but unfortunately she seems to have removed that post. 

First of all there are a couple of depictions of Swedish farmers from the 16th and 17th century.

An italian ambassador - Lorenzo Magalotti - travelled through Sweden in the 17th century and drew pictures of the inhabitants, and this is one of his drawings of Swedish farmers.

Of note here are the long trousers, not the fashionable shorter breeches of the time.

This goes well with this very well researched article about "husur" - which is a kind of wide trousers worn by farmers in the Siljan region, and already in the 17th century there are complaints that the peasants are giving up their husur and start following fashion by using breeches instead. The "husur" survived, barely, into the late 19th century and has been taken up by people reconstructing folk costumes of the region. Then made as a summer garment in linen.

In 1502 the German mercenary Paul Dolnstein was part of the Swedish-Danish wars and he drew the image above of a Swedish farmer-soldier up against a landsknecht. Once again the wide trousers are setting him apart from the fashionable landsknecht in his tight fitting hose.

This is a drawing, that is supposed to be a copy of an older drawing, but the provenience is doubtful, it shows the rebel leader Nils Dacke in the 1540s.

In church art from the 15th century it's also possible to find quite a few examples of wide baggy trousers, this is is an image by Albertus Pictor.

So with that in mind I have made two sets of farmers/peasant trousers. They are made from a pattern that was originally made by Marlein. This was the first pair.

They were worn by my friend Björn in 2023, together with a 15th century doublet that he borrowed and a simple shirt that was slightly gathered at the neck.

I have made a similar pair for my husband as well, but apparently I don't have any good images of him

Here is at a winter event, when he was coming down with a cold so I had just piled as much wool garments on him as possible, before he went home to bed.

Still the pattern for the trousers is pretty simple. It would be possible to use a modern pattern for wide, baggy pants. They do have a shaped crouch seam, but the important thing is that they go up to the natural waist, which is quite higher up than modern trousers. For these trousers I simply use a draw string to keep them up.

As for the upper body. For the 16th century look I would go with a baggy jacket/doublet, but make sure that it has a waist seam and skirt, but no shoulder rolls or wings since that comes in use later and is more a 17th century thing.

A good thing with being a farmer is that since fabric and clothes were so expensive, they were rarely well fitted. If something is too small, or too big, that is correct. People wore worn out garments, old clothes with bad fit or simply hand me downs until there was nothing left of them.