Medieval baking

Bread is an interesting subject. For the medieval person the saying "our daily bread" was totally natural, most of the energy intake simply came from bread. In essence bread is simply flour and water that's been heated up to become firm. There are so many variation on bread though, and recently I got curious about experimenting with medieval bread baking. In Swedish original sources, like food inventories at castles, there is always a difference between "herrebröd" - the lords' bread and "svennebröd" - the servants bread. In general it says that the finer bread was made from sifted flour, while the servants had to make do with bread from coarse and unsifted flour. But what kind of flour did they use?

Since I live in the middle of Sweden, well this is where it gets tricky if I want to recreate a bread that could have been eaten in my region. Wheat was a luxury, due to the climate only small amounts of wheat were harvested, and that was in the south part of Sweden. Barley was the most common crop in the north of Sweden well into the 20th century, since it's possible to grow it here. Rye started to make inroads into the medieval farms, but when looking it up it seems as if rye was harvested up to to around Lake Mälardalen. The people working at Västerås castle in the first decades of the 16th century were mostly supplied with bread made from rye. It is known that the area around Falun mine, so where I live, had to import food to supply the comparatively large population here, and my guess is that even if barley was harvested locally it was mostly rye that was imported.

So in the choice of flour for my medieval bread I could use wheat, rye or barley. They have very different qualities when it comes to baking bread though. The region where I live is still sometimes called the "crisp bread belt", the reason is simple barely can't be used to make nice soft loafs of bread, instead you make the thin and hard crisp bread from it. Since the inventory from Västerås talks about rye and wheat, I decided to work with those flours instead.

regular wheat flour, a mix of sifted rye and wheat flour, coarse rye flour

In order for the bread to raise you also need a leavening agent. All the modern cookbooks that offer medieval recipes that I've seen talk about the use of sourdough for the leavening in the Middle Ages in the Nordic countries. It is worth noting that there might be a lot of geographical differences within Europe as to what kind of leavning to use. Even if it's later Townsends has an episode on 18th century cooking talking about how sourdough was not used in the references that they have found, which are mainly in English, at the same time though when reading the Kajsa Warg's "Hielpreda i hushållet" in Swedisn from the 18th century she talks about making bread from sourdough. My secondary sources say that the kind of yeast you use for beer or baking yeast was not available here. I decided to go for sourdough, and thankfully you can find sourdough startes in some largers supermarkets so I could skip that step.

On the back of the package of the sourdough starter there was a recipe, I used that quantty of water, but nothing else from the recipe. Most modern recipes, even those saying they are historical, add extra fresh yeast to the dough, but I went with only the sourdough. The top metallic bowl is for the servants' bread. For that I simply just used the coarse rye flour, water and 1/3 of the sourdough packet. The dough was really hard and compact, no matter how much I needed it. This is what I suspected, since the rye doesn't have the same gluten content that makes wheat flour so great for baking.

For the lords' bread I used the mix of 60 wheat flor and 40 sifted rye flour that you can buy (rågsikt) and 2/3 of the sourdough. Inspired by a recipe from a Danish cookbook from 1616 (transcribed into both Danish and English) that makes a bread with sourdough and mentions several spices I also added ground aniseed and caraway seeds and about a table spoon of honey. This behaved much more like a regular bread dough and it was nice and soft to knead it and feel it starting to become elastic.

Both doughs were set to raise for an hour, then turned and left for another hour. Then it was time to turn them into bread shapes. The servants bread was still very dense and compact, it hadn't raised at all. So I baked it into a fairly thin round shape, similar to a crisp bread but it was so dense that I couldn't get it quite as flat as a crisp bread. The lords' bread was baked into four smaller round shapes.

For the baking I used 200 degrees for the servants's bread, for the lords' bread I put it into the oven at 250 degrees to form a very hard crust and then lowered the temperature to around 220. Both breads were soft and nice straight from the oven when they were warm, but got hard and chewy when they got cold. The people who tasted it claimed that both tasted really good, especially with butter on them. There were jokes about the servants' bread, similarities with the Discworld dwarf bread and possible use of it as a projectile weapon.

The lords' bread is very similar to what I imagine a medieval daily bread would be. It can be used as a plate, it can be softened with liquids and used to scoop up soups and drippings.  It is also pretty similar to the fairly flat shape of bread you can see in medieval images.

Even if I'm happy with the lords' bread, I don't think the servants' bread is something that would have been handed out from a castle kitchen. Did they maybe add in some wheat flour to the coarse rye, just to make it easier to bake? Or did they use a finer rye flour than I did, to make it more similar to a modern dark rye bread? For now I have a lot of flour in my pantry, but I would like to do this kind of bake again and then I would switch the premade wheat/rye mixed flour with my own mix of spelt/dinkel wheat, which is closer to the medieval wheat, and fine rye flour. And I would try and make the servants' bread from fine rye flour instead of coarse rye flour.

The inspiration for the bread baking came from an article about the food inventories of Västerås castle 1517-1520, and I have written more about that article over at Historiekullan (in Swedish)

An evening in the woods

In January our group of 1520's enthusiasts had our celebration of Sten Sture's leg. We made so many plans for the spring and summer and what we would do. Well about a month later COVID came and everything got cancelled. Last weekend we met up again though and had a small feast outside in the forest. It was great meeting up again and have fun in 16th century clothing. I like being a viking, but the 16th century is where I feel most at home when it comes to reenacting.

We started off the evening with axe throwing and "parrot shooting", which was traditional when the original S:t Örjen's guild (the local St. George's guild) met for feasts. I like this photo since it actually looks like I have an idea of what I'm doing. I did hit the parrot target, but mainly because it was big, really close and I had three tries. The photo also shows the fit of the bodice really well, it's not usual that I have photos with my arms lifted.

The guild feast was a reason for me to experiment with bread, and I brought it with me. Comments were made about dwarf bread and the possibilty to use the bread as a projectile weapon, but they say it tasted good.

The rest of the food was done on the grills that were set up.

I wore my mustard kirtle with unbleached smocked shift and apron, which I think is the most suitable for a Swedish woman in the region. It got colder so I also wore my gollar and on my head I used my newest wulsthaube, that I just realised that I haven't written about. I love how the colours of the outfit came out in this photo.

Choosing a medieval tent

I don't think it's strange that on a year without any big medieval events, I feel the need to dream about getting my own tent and living a happy recreated medieval life. I am fortunate that I have friends that have let me borrow their older tent, but I feel like it would be nice to have my own tent. As such I've spent the last few days trying to find information about what different tents there are out there, and of course the cost of them.

Just like when I made my guide to buying a lightsabre I will say that I have yet not bought any tent myself. I have a limited experience about erecting or living in a tent, mostly based on my friends' tents that I stayed in last year. I have also no expereience with buying such big things from the sellars that I will link though. These are mainly my ramblings and what I'm thinking about.

A word about size as well. I am very bad when it comes to imagining the size of a tent, just from reading the measurements. I've tried to look at websites where they have people beside their tents, in order to get a feeling for them, I'm still unsure just how much space I will actually get in a certain tent. Also since I live in a small flat with limited storage capacity, I will need to think carefully about how big of a tent I can store between events, which after all is most of the time. For myself I'm only looking at the smaller end of tent size, those that are said to be suitable for 1-2 persons, or possibly 2-4 persons.

About colours and decorations on tents and choice of materials. Looking at medieval manuscripts and images most tents were done in different colours and/or with a lot of decorations. This makes the sea of white that you see on many medieval camping grounds a bit unhstorical, but adding colours and decorations usually costs at lot more. The same goes for the material of the tent itself. Wool and linen would have been used, and a few sellers offer tents in those materials, but cotton is a lot cheaper. The cheapest tents usually also have metallic poles or beams instead of wood. I will definitely choose an impregnated cotton, that can stand up to moist and molds, whatever model I choose.

Manufacturers and sellers. Now that I've spent some time looking at differnet sites selling tents it's obvious that a lot of sites use the same photos, so they buy them from the same manufacturer. This makes it worthwhile to compare prices. Also one needs to think about where you want to buy the tent from. There are Swedish shops selling tents, but you can find similar tents cheaper from Polish sites. Here it is a question of judging the risk of a longer freight, compared to the higher price of a more local seller. Several sites that come up when searching in Swedish are also obviously autotranslated, or if you look around their contact info show that they are based in Denmark or Germany. It is important to read the descriptions well since not all sites include the poles or frames for the tent, just the canvasses themselves.

Now with that being said here are some options, from smaller to bigger.

The smallest (and cheapest) tents are either conical tents or wedge tents.

The name of the tent can be "Valborg", "Walburg" "enmasttält" "conical tent" "centertält".
The cheapest I've found starts at 1800 SEK -  It's said to be big enough for 2 persons and their packing. The construction is very simple, just a pole in the middle. This also means that it has the smallest weight and storage space. Downside is of course that the slanted walls make it hard to use the full space, other than as storage for bags and things like this. For me personally this is the tent that I for a long time planned to buy, and basically only use it as a sleeping space. The cost and the size it would take in storage were big factors in this.

The next option up is a "wedge tent", or "A-tent", or "kiltält". It has two standing poles and beam between them to give the tent a triangular shape. The cheapest I've found, with poles included, is €301. For a tent like this you have a bit more standing space than with just the center pole, but you still loose a lot of floor space due to the slanted walls. Still it's small and looks to be simple to put up as well.

A version of the wedge tent is the "viking tent", "Oseberg tent" or "A-ramstält", based on the Norwegian burial find in Oseberg. Instead of poles there are woodden beams anchoring the construction. They are very sturdy, but also a bit heavier than just poles. Also that kind of tent is only suitable if you are recreating the Viking Age, and not for general medieval purposes.

Another version of this tent is called "Saxon tent", "Saxiskt tält", "Anglo-Saxon tent" and the most common - "geteld". It's similar to the wedge tent, but here the center beam is in a pocked on the top and outside of the main tent. I have not checked prices for this, since I'm not really interested in tihs style of tent. I did read up on some blogs about tents where people claimed that it's a very good style of tent since it's easy to put up and very sturdy.

A third version is called a "soldiers tent" and is dated to the 15th century and onwards. It's a wedge tent, but with a door on the side wall and not just an opening at the gable of the tent. These can be found in sizes from "mini" to pretty large.

This was the tent that I borrowed from my friends last summer. Ive seen it referred to as a "ryttartält" and "double pole tent". It's very similar to the geteld, but instead of a horizontal beam holding up the roof there are two poles in the centre. The tent is definitely roomy, there was no problem for us to sleep thee persons in the tent and have our packing there. Still though the slanting walls make it loose a lot of space at the sides of the floor area. The tent is sewn in one piece, which I think makes it quite complicated to fold when it's time to pack the tent down. It's a lot of space for the price, 8900 SEK at Gripheim.se, but I feel that it's both too big and too small at the same time for me. If you are prepared to pay that kind of money for a tent it might be worth checking out a pavillion or a round tent instead.

The round tents and pavillions have straight walls and are then connected to a slanted roof on top of the walls. Pavillions can be both square and oval and are simply big, too big for me who's only interested in a small tent.

This is us outside of Monica and Niklas' pavillion last spring in Leksand. The floor space isn't much bigger than their double tent that I borrowed, but inside it's basically three rooms and a lot of space. Its way too big for just me, but there are smaller round tents with the same principle of straight walls and just a slanted roof.

This is called an umbrella tent or spoke tent. It's held up by a centre pole, but then attached to the centre pole there are spokes holding out the walls. The smallest version of this tent that I could find has a diameter of 3 m and costs around €640, but that is made from non-treated fabric and if you want to add impregnated fabric you have to add another €130. This tent on the photo is held up with a lot of ropes, but the thing with this kind of tent is that you shouldn't need too many ropes. It seems as if the walls and roof is usually separate, so not just one huge piece of fabric that you need to take care of.

Another version of this that looks very much the same from the outside is called a Basel tent, the difference is that it doesn't have the spoke system inside, so it's only held in shape by ropes on the outside. This makes it take up less space in storage and it's easier to pack without the spokes, but I like the idea of having spokes inside that you can use to hang stuff from inside the tent. The Basel tent also seems to be sewn in just one piece of fabric, not with separate walls and roof.

This is the inside of an umbrella tent.

So where am I right now when it comes to thinking about my own personal tent. Well I'm very partial to the smallest available umbrella tent. That would feel like a really luxurious tent it's also the most common shape of tent that you see in medieval illumniations. The price and problem of transporting and storing it though makes me hesitant if it's worth it, or if I should just go for a simple tent where I can basically just sleep and keep my things. Since I have the possibility to borrow my friends' tent I don't feel like I need to rush my decision.

Making and drinking kvass

I have a tendency that when I'm tired and my mind is in overdrive - I go out in the kitchen and make something historical. This week it was "kvass". I hadn't heard about until I read this blog post by Historical living with Hvitr.. I got interested since is mentioned in sources back to the 10th century. Beer and breadmaking have been interconnected from the earliest history, since both are depending on yeast.  I even remember a book I read as a very young child that said "when the Egypticans wanted to make beer they started with making bread". Kvass as a drink that takes it's flavor from bread, and just a small bit of yeast, made me intrigued on if the taste would be close to these early kind of drinks. (I of course have no idea about this, but it made me curious). It is not unfeasible that this kind of drink would have been known in Sweden in the time period, after all most of our trading was to the East, and the area where I live have some Slavic burial finds.

Anyway I first set out to search for a Kvass recipe in Swedish - and it turned out if you do that you will not find anything realted to a drink made from rye bread. Kvass seems to be a name taken up by people who are into fermenting stuff, and used for all kinds of naturally fermented fruit drinks.* Anyway I decided to try out both kinds of kvass. For the ryebread  version I used the same recipe as Hvitr, it simply was the easiest to follow. For the Swedish recipe I followed this recipe for rhubarb kvass.

I only had access to 1 litre jars so I only made small batches. 

This is the rhubarb kvass. Everyone who tasted it liked it a lot. It had a bit of carbonation, but it disappeared quickly when I opened the bottle. It basically tasted lika very mild and non-sweet rhubarb lemonade. I'm definitely going to make variations of it again.

The origianl rye bread kvass I did a bit of miscalculation. As I said I only had a one litre jar, so I used less water, and didn't calculate that the bread would soak up a lot of liquid, so I only got 0,5 l of kvass in the end. The recipe I followed mentioned to toast the bread "like Chernobyl", but since I don't lie dark beers I only toasted it enough to make it completely dry.

As for the taste. It tasted very much like the Swedish drink "svagdricka", which is a fermented low-alcoholic malt drink. My kvass also had a distinct yeast flavour, and I don't know if that's how it's supposed to be, or if I failed the recipe. As it is it was a fascinating process to make proper kvass, but I'm not sure if it's worth the work if I can go to the store and buy a bottle that tastes the same in the supermarket.

* I'm thinking that all these Swedish health blogs that had recipes for fruit drinks that they called kvass chose to call them kvass to not relate the drink to mead, which after all is also a fermented drink from honey, but not exactly not known for any health properties.

Overnight stay at the viking camp

On Saturday I started my summer vacation. Work has been really busy the last two weeks and I felt that I needed to just go off somewhere and shut it off. I heard with the people at Ingvara Viking, that I visited on June 6th, and I was welcome to come and stay over night as well Saturday-Sunday.

I wore my only viking outfit, so the same as on June 6th, but for the evening I added an amber necklace that I have.

I did feel fancy though since Sofia, the daugher of one of the owners, is very good with doing viking hairstyles, so she braided my hair.

The lambs that were newborn when I visited in June had grown a bit now.

Of course I wanted to cook and do food preparations. I had brought with me two sets for making cheese. For Saturday evening I made a cheese by curdling whole milk and cream with vinegar. That one drains pretty quick so it only takes an hour or so.

The other cheese was made by heating up sour milk (filmjölk) with a bit of sour cream (gräddfil) and then let it drain over night, so we had it for breakfast in the morning. The taste was pretty similar with the different methods, but the sourmilk one had a consistency that was closer to cream cheese while the milk and vinegar one gets grainier, almost like a crumbly feta style cheese. I'm not sure yet which style I prefer.

I got to sleep over in a corner of the stable, that they use as their shop. I had brought a modern sleeping bag and a wool underwear set. I also had my Enfys Nest cape and a sheep skin as blankets. I didn't feel cold. I think that for next summer, when I hopefully will go to proper events again, I want to make a wool gown that I can sleep in. I was woken up when I heard some scracthing noices and one of the hens started to get closer to me.

Good morning!

One of my favorite moments was getting up and cooking breakfast on the fire. We had oatmeal with apple and honey, freshly made flatbread with butter and cheese, and eggs. I'm not a big breakfast eater, but I just kept eating because it tasted so good.

For lunch we made herb dumplings from this recipe from Ribe Viking Center. It was a good thing to try making dumplings for ourselves and not for paying guests or as a demonstration first.

The herbs were taken by doing a round around the camp and picking stuff that's edible. The dumplings tasted good, but we all agreed on that it was too much work for the result. We also got a lot of filling leftover, but we simply heated it up with some fresh cabbage and had it as a sidedish. I think we agree on that as a demonstration meal or for guests it would be better to make some kind of flatbread or unfilled dumplings and then serve the green stew as a side dish.

Lovisa and Susanne are preparing the dumplings and greens

 Working by an open hearth is not the most ergonomical thing to do. They have a bench up where we could prepare the food, but there is a lot of standing up and bending down into the pots. They have a plan for the future to build a cooking shed, that would be more protected agianst the weather and also allow some more comfortable working spaces.

The dumplings with the leftover greens

I had also tried to make a Slavic drink called kvass, but I'm going to talk about that in its own post.

Rhubarb kvass

HSM 2020 challenge: no buy - my Edwardian underwear

For my visit at Hildasholm I needed some underwear. I had the Rilla corset from Scroop patterns, but I should have something to go under it and over it. When looking at my stash I realized that I am actually starting to run out of regular white cotton. I also didn't really have the time to do a full set of underwear. I decided to use a modern shaping slipdress under the corset, it would give enough support for my bust as well, and then concentrate on a petticoat and corset cover.

I've already written about the petticoat, and afterwards I realized that since everything was from stash I can include it in this challenge.

This was the challenge

No-Buy: Make something without buying anything. Whether it’s finishing off a UFO, using up scraps of fabric from earlier challenges in the year, sewing entirely from stash, or finding the perfect project for those small balls of yarn, this is your opportunity to get creative without acquiring more stuff.

From my small amount of white cotton I just managed to squeeze out one back piece and two front pieces for a corset cover. I have made a corset cover before, but I just can't find it which is a shame since it had some antique lace on it. It probably wouldn't have worked though since it was quite a cream colour that would probably have been visible under the bright white viscose that I used for my Elsie blouse.

Even if I didn't find the corset cover, I did find the pattern and I used it again. I wanted to add some extra seam allowance, but I didn't have enough fabric, and in the end it worked out well without the extra margins.

This was done the evening before I went to Hildasholm, so I cheated on the inside. The raw edges have just been zigzagged, and the hems are zigzagge and then just folded over. There is a tape at the waist level, to be honest I think I put it in a bit too high, to make a channel for a drawstring and on the neckline there is a drawstring as well.

It is closed with two sets of snaps. I had planned to make button holes and use mother of pearl buttons, but snaps were faster. I was happy when I found a piece of lace in my "miscellanous lacy stuff" box. That was also where I found the ostrich plume that I used for the hat. The lace is shiny and probably polyester, but it was a nice way of adding something to the plain corset cover.

Here I am wearing the petticoat and the corset cover. I also realized how dirty my mirror was after having seen the photo. As mentioned I'm wearing a Rilla corset under it all. The Rilla was quite comfy, but I didn't manage to tight it quite enough. It's laced with interlocking laces, like shoe laces, and that makes it harder to tighten it. Even if my shoulder is a lot more mobile than it was just a year ago I still have a problem reaching stuff on the back. On the one hand it was a lot easier to sit down and drive to Leksand in a quite loose corset, on the other hand I could feel it sliding arond a bit when I was just walking around at Hildasholm.

A new experience for me was that I felt that a longline corset with attached garters was more complicated when you wanted to use the bathroom, compared to when I've worn 18th century or 19th century corsets. It's probably just necessary to find the right way of doing it.

Anyway here are the facts for the challenge

The Challenge: No buy

Material: 1 m of cotton fabric, one 1980s romantic lace skirt

Pattern: The petticoat was a reuse, the cotton cover is from the 1911 Textbook of Domestic Art

Year: 1910s

Notions: Snaps, cotton tape ( a wide for the waist tape, narrow for drawstring). 1 m of polyester lace

How historically accurate is it? 30% It gets the look, but is made from a mix of modern and historical materials, and the inside is not finished in a period correct way.

Hours to complete: 1 evening

First worn: On a visit to Hildasholm on the 8th of July

Total cost: This was all from stash, but probably around $20 if it would have been bought new.

On my head at HIldasholm

For my visit at Hildasholm I needed to do my hair, and find a hat. I did some very quick solutions, that I was actually really happy with.

The hat is a regular sun hat from H&M. I bought it two or three years ago, and I use it regularly during summer. In order to pimp it for the early 20th century I added some trim though. The band around the crown and the bow are made from cheap poly satin. I made a tube and turned it inside out for the band, and then I pressed it. The bow is made from two rectangular pieces, one larger than the other one, and then I put another smal tube of the same fabric around it in the middle to create a bow shape. The bow wasn't pressed, since I didn't want it to loose it's quite fluffy appearane. I also found a plume of ostrich feather, that I didn't know that I had. It's made from two feathers sewn together to create volume.

Everything was just tacked on the hat with regular sewing thread.I didn't do it too well, since I want to continue to use the hat for more regular wear.

Under the hat I also needed to make something about my hair of course.

The hairstyles of the later 1910s had lost the big pouf and rolls of hair from the earlier Edwardian era. It was still an updo though, not a short cut style.

The evening before I washed my hair. I pinned the front part into smaller pin curls and the rest of the hair on large foam rollers, and then I slept on it. The rollers created quite a lot of volume, that I rolled into a bun in the back. I basically parted the back hair in three parts, the middle part was bigger and made up the most of the bnn, the side parts were twisted and pinned into the larger bun, and also hid the hairpins that kept the larger bun in place. The pin curls in front were drawn and pinned into place, on one side I was quite happy with the waves they created, but the other side didnt get that much of definition to the waves. Still it was a very simple and fairly quick hairstyle, if you exclude the time the hair was on rollers.

HSM 2020 : Sewing secret

Earlier in May Marlene that I've met through Cosplay Dalarna shared a photo of her early 1900s skirt and that she wanted to go to Hildasholm in costume. I of course jumped at the idea, since I also have some outfits from the early 1900s. Well then I decided that I wanted to finally make the 1916 outfit that I've wanted for some time, it is one of my favorite fashions. So I quickly ordered Wearing History's e-patterns for the Elsie blouse and 1916 suit, and some fabric for the blouse. I had already found a piece of purple cotton sateen that I could use for the skirt.

Hildasholm in Leksand was the summer cottage for the famous physician Axel Munthe and his much younger wife Hilda, and when they separated Hilda kept her attachement to Hildasholm. The house was built in 1910-1911 and since Hilda was from England it's like a little island of arts and crafts-style in the middle of Sweden. I think the whole house is adorable. I also happen to know their chief guide there, through work, and when I mentioned that we had planned to go there in full costume he got so happy and told use that he would give us the chance to eat and drink in the salon. We had planned to go last week, but the weather forecast was dreadful, so we pushed it to today, even if the weather didn't look promising. We got there and it was quite nice, unfortunately the rain started pouring down when we were walking in the garden, so we didn't get any photos from outside the house.

We had tea/coffee in the salon, and got to sit on the original late 18th century Sheraton set, while drinking from the antique china and using the same linen as the family. The napkins had "AM" for Axel Munthe embroidered on them We were both a bit nervous about using the napkins, especially since we had first gotten a quite messy tomato/mozzarella bread roll.

 During the tour we got to try on some original hats. The black one was worn by Hilda Munthe and the cream one was worn by Swedish queen Viktoria during her visit. When trying the hats on it was obvious that they were made for much larger hairstyles, since the crown was way to big for my modest hairstyle.

I'm wearing the Elsie blouse. I'm not going to make a full post about it, since there are better descriptions of it out there. I made sure to look at Wearing History's youtube videos about the blouse. If I make another version I would probably take it down a size in the front, it's very poofy, and make it a bit longer so that I have a bigger skirtpart to tuck into my skirt. On the indoor photos I'm wearing a cardigan I found at a regular streetchain (Lindex), since I needed something more than a blouse when the temperature was just hovering around 10 degrees Celsius. I had no time or fabric to make the jacket for the suit.

The skirt is the skirt from Wearing History's 1916 suit pattern. I did screw up printing the e-pattern though, since I did manage to print it doublesided. When I realized that the skirt gores were quite regular gores, I winged them and used the same pattern piece for the front and backs, I just added some extra width to the back pieces so that I could get some pleats in the back.

The HSM challenge for September is Sewing Secrets: Hide something in your sewing, whether it is an almost invisible mend, a make-do or unexpected material, a secret pocket, a false fastening or front, or a concealed message (such as a political or moral allegiance).

When I was making the skirt it happened that I realized that I didn't have enough fabric. Thanfully I'm short enough that I could use the shorter length of the pattern, and it was long enough for me. Fo the belt though I just could get the double pattern pieces now matter how I tried. In the end I added a seam in the center back and that way I could get at least one side of the belt in the same fabric as the skirt. I needed somethng else for the inside of the belt though. When going through my stash I had found a quite ugly green linen fabric that I used for the hem facing. Now I started thinking that my skirt is almost purple, and the suffragettes used purple, green and white as their colours. I decided to make a fully reversible belt with the purple on one side and the green on the other side.

So when I go about my ordinary business I can use the purple/burgundey side of the belt, and then I can switch to the green when I want to get political. This also inspired me to make purple trim for my hat. The big buttons are also non-functional, since the skirt is closed with some hidden snaps, also a sewing secret.

As a bonus, when I started working on the skirt I actually took the pieces to the treadle machine in our miner's cottage. And if I wanted to be there and use it, I had to look the part.

It was the first time I tried a treadle machine, and I had problems getting started on it. In the end I did sew the inner waistband on the treadle, but did the rest on my modern machine. Also it was 30 degrees the day I used the treadle so I was basically melting while sitting there.

The Challenge: Sewing Secrets

Material: 2 meters of cotton satin, 0,5 m green linen, 0,2 m cotton duck (for the inner waistband)

Pattern: Wearing History 1916 suit

Year: 1916

Notions: Güterman thread, 6 velvetcovered metal buttons, 3 sets of snaps and 1 hook and bar for the closure.

How historically accurate is it? Around 60%

Hours to complete: 2 days

First worn: On a visit to Hildasholm July 8th

Total cost: Around $40 (If I had bought all materials new, everything except the buttons was from my stash though)

What a difference some starch make

Ever since I starched the edges of Lady Poe to keep them from unravelling I have been interested in trying out more starching. I did use the leftovers of the starch and dunked a petticoat in it, but that was quite diluted and weak. Now I wanted to really starch a petticoat.

Only problem is that I don't have a good late 19th or early 20th century petticoat. What I had up in my attic though was one of these probably 1980's romantic skirts, in cotton with a bit of ruffle and broderie anglaise at the bottom. I had gotten it as a gift many, many years ago for someone who thought I could use it for something historical. I hope my photos in the following are clear enough, I can't use my dressform for this since the 1520s court gown is occupying it.

One issue was that it was too small, I could pull it up to my thighs, but not over them. It was quite long as well, and with my short legs I wouldn't feel bad cutting off the top to make it larger.

I measured and cut off around 12 cm. I had planned to use the cut off strip to enlarge the skirt, but as you can see it wasn't straight, and when I tried to rip it into a straight strip it simply got too small.

Instead I took a strip of cotton voile and cut it into three lengths. I used one length for the top part of the skirt, and I gathered two lengths to make a ruffle. I then simply cut out the side seam of the skirt and added this new panel in. It's not the most beautiful or discrete piecing, but I'm not planning on showing off the petticoat.

At the top I just folded and sewed the top edge down and put a piece of cotton tape as a drawstring. I had a functional petticoat, now it was time to play around with starching it. I very much followed the instructions from Leimomi at The Dreamstress.

I don't have a garden or balcony, so in order to dry the petticoat (after I had dunked it in my biggest pot on the stove) I put it over a stand made from my washing basket and an extra bucket. I had covered the stand and the floor in plastic bags, so that the starch wouldn't go down the drain or the petticoat wouldn't cling to the stand. Also since I had a limited space, and bucket/pot, I didn't wring any extra starch out, I simply tried to pat off the worst. I left the petticoat drying until next day.

When it was dry it felt very much like paper and as you can see it could stand on it's own. I took it to my ironing board, that I had covered in an old sheet, and pressed the whole petticoat with the ironing on the highest setting and using a lot of steam.

After the pressing you can see that it has gotten a lot softer. It's still crisp though, and it's definitely more comfortable now that it doesn't feel like raw paper. If you don't let the starch dry completely you are supposed to get a stiffer result when pressing it.

Since the dressform can't be used, I still wanted to show the effect of the starch. As you can see the ruffle is at a definite angle and holds its own shape.

I'm definitely converted to starching my petticoats from now on, I'm not sure I'm daring to starch cuffs and collars and finer delicate things though.