The HSM portrait

 I'm going to share my favorite photo from Visby, and also explain why I love the HSM, or Historical Sew Monthly, challenges.

I joined the HSF, or Historical Sew Forthnightly, as it was called then back in 2014. My first entry on this blog is from the 13th of January 2014. The challenge was "make do and mend" and I fixed the fraying edges of my 18th century Snow White. Back then there were 24 challenges to a year, but it was later changed into a more easily managed Monthly challenge with 12 challenges to year. Some time later it was also changed so that you didn't have to finish the challenges in the corresponding month but could do them any time of the year.

The HSM is great because it keeps med going all year with sewing projects, instead of just trying to finish something for an event. They have challenged me to both do more accurate things, and to do things that I wouldn't have done otherwise. I would definitely not have made as many accessories if it hadn't been for the HSM, especially in the end of the year when I try to challenge myself to finish more challenges I usually go for using scraps and left over fabrics to make something.

The HSM is a Facebook group, and it's also a great community to post about progress and comment on each other's projects. 

On this photo we are wearing the following challenges

David

HSM24: September - new stitch in town - the docken baret

HSM 24: June - up your sleeves - the doublet

HSM 24: August - stripes and dotes - the hose

HSM 24: November - worn by all - the socks

Johanna

HSM 24: May - new clothes from old - the pink gown
HSM 24: April - all natural - the linen socks

HSM 19: September - everyday wear - the mustard kirtle

HSM 15: February - tucks and pleats - the pleated shift and HSM 23: January - back to the beginnings - repairs and mending of the shift

HSM 18: October - fabric manipulation - the smocked apron

So basically everything except what I am wearing on my head has been an HSM challenge, pretty fun to go through it and see how productive the challenges have been for me.

This is also why I still prefer to keep this blog going and not just post things on Instagram and Facebook, it's so much easier to go back in time and look for old posts and what I have done even if it's many years old by now.

Medieval week in Visby 2024

 So I have just come home from Medieval week, and as usual, it has been a wonderful time. There were two things that made this week different though. The main thing was that for the first time I was there with my husband, David, and sharing it with him made it so much better. Since he refused to live in the camp we stayed in a cute 18th century loft in the town century instead. I forgot to take photos of it, but it was basically a small and cute wooden house, complete with a hedgehog in the bushes outside the door, and even if we had to walk to the neighbouring building to have access to the bathroom, since the 18th century building didn't have any running water, it was very private and cozy.

Here are an assortment of my favorite photos of the week.

Most of our time were spent in the camp, even if we didn't live there

On Friday David's niece was visiting and she could borrow my yellow kirtle and helped out in the camp

I spend most of my time cooking and preparing food

My new huge apron was so good in that I didn't have to worry about my gowns under it

My favorite photo of us by the wall

Once again the apron really covered my wool clothes

The pink ladies of Stockholmsfänikan

I was mostly wearing my pink gown, but two of the days I simply wore the yellow kirtle

HSM24: just peachy - a new gollar

The first HSM 24 challenge is: January: Just Peachy: “Peach Fuzz” is the Pantone colour for 2024! Make something in peach— or in the related colours of pink or orange

When I first saw the list of the HSM challenges I thought this would be the easiest challenge to finish, since my main projects this year (my husband's landsknecht and my remake of my pink trossfrau) involved pink. Then I felt that a lot of the projects fitted other challenges better. Well when I was finished with the landsknecht I still had some scraps of fabric left in the pink and red, and I decided to see if I could eek out a gollar from it.

Previously when I have made gollars I have based them on a circle pattern, now I decided ot make a more shaped and pieced garment. 

I first draped some pieces of scrap cotton on my dressform

Then I managed to get four pieces out of the last pink fabric. At this moment I didn't realize that I had forgotten to change the neck size so when I sewed these pieces together they were too big. I had to take them in at both the shoulder seams and back seam. The shoulder seams got a bit more shapingover the shoulders as well.

I added bias cut strips of red as decorations and the collar is also a strip of bias cut fabric. It is closed with a cloth button.

The backside was a bit more uneven.

I lined the gollar with a grey finer wool, to make sure that it was warm and nice, and to be able to make turn it inside out and wear it with my more simple clothes.

When I had finished the gollar I found that I still had scraps from the old furcoat left, the one I have used for a lot of garments by now, so I decided to edge the neck and opening in fur.

As I always do now when I add fur I first cut out the pieces that I wanted to have lined in another fabric, this time more of the pink wool. I then basted the fur to that fabric before I attached the fabric, with fur, to the gollar. 

With the fur on it's now quite as good looking on the inside to make it reversible, but it is really comfortable to have that feeling of fur around the neck on chilly nights.

I used it at Medieval Week in Visby, but most of the time it was warm so it was only at late nights that I used the gollar, and I didn't get any photos of it being worn.

What the item is: a wool gollar
How it fits the challenge: the base fabric is pink
Material: 0,5 pink wool, 0,5 grey wool, 10 cm of red wool, scraps of wool
Pattern: draped by me
Year: 1520s
Notions: linen thread
How historically accurate is it? around 75%
Hours to complete: 2 days
First worn: at medieval week in August
Total cost: $20

HSM24 - a new stitch in town: a docken baret

 I couldn't help myself, I just felt that I needed to make a hat for the landsknecht costume that I am making. One thing that helped me was that there are pattern available, so I didn't have to draft my own.

I ordered the pattern from Thimble&Plume - available at their etsy shop.

They don't only have the pattern, they also have a sew-along on their youtube channel, where you can follow each step in the constructions - available here

Since this was made from a commercial pattern, and that there is a youtube tutorial I won't post much about the construction here.

The HSM September challenge was about learning a new stitch, and following the instrucions from Thimble&Plume I learnt the fell stitch. I used that to attach the lining to outer fabric of the hat, previously I would have used a whip stitch, but the fell stitch is basically a whip stitch, but the other way around, and of course Thimble&Plume has a video tutorial describing the differences and taking you through them, available here.

The hat was made from the same wool that I have used for the whole outfit. The most fun part was blinging it out, and for that I used antique silk ribbon, some freshwater pearls and reproduction 16th century buttons that I had in my stash. I did buy some ostrich feathers from a sale, I had first planned to have more, but we will see if I will add more at a later time.

The baret with the silk bows.

Detail of the pearls, feather and bling.

The fell stitch that I used for attaching the lining to the outer fabric.

And my husband trying out his new hat.

What the item is: A 16th century docken baret
How it fits the challenge: I learnt about the fell stitch to attach the lining to the outer fabric
Material: 0,8 m red wool, 0,5 m linen
Pattern: Thimble&Plume´s docken baret
Year: 1520s
Notions: bling, ostrich feathers, antique silk ribbon
How historically accurate is it? around 90%
Hours to complete: 6
First worn: Not yet
Total cost: around $40 (hard to say since everything except feathers were from my stash

NärCon and the debut of winter Daisy

 After skipping it last year, of course I wanted to go to NärCon this year. After all it is the largest cosplay and nerd festival in Northern Europe. Me and my husband were originally invited to a party that would have made it impossible for me to visit more than one day, and when that party was cancelled due to some sad reasons I couldn't find a decently priced hotel. Then I realized that it only takes a bit more than an hour for me to drive from my parents-in-law's house to NärCon, and since we were visiting there for a week anyway it was an easy thing to drive back and forth for two days.

I of course was there with the Swedish Garrison, and could once again wear my Admiral Daala.

I am so happy that my gastric bypass has me fit into, and feel comfortable, in my old costumes again.

Twice a day we organized a Star Wars parade, where we started and then picked up Star Wars cosplayers alont the way, we also had a talk a day where we presented our costumes and organisations,  501st Legion, Rebel Legion, Mando Mercs, R2 builders and Galactic Academy.

I had great fun debuting my new Princess Daisy from Supermario at the Winter Olympics, or as I call it winter Daisy.

It was such a comfortable costume. I made it when my old computer had died that's why I haven't posted about it before. But it basically consists of a long sleeved t-shirt, that I patterned by simply tracing a t-shirt of my own, a pair of tights from a Burda Style Magazine pattern and a tunic that I frankenpatterend from free jersey dress pattern. The boots were a second hand find and then I just had to add a pair of thin gloves. The whole costume is made in think bamboo jersey, so it was like walking around in a cool set of pyjamas. I reused the crown and jewellery from my regular princess Daisy. The fake fur on the edges was actually from when I bought some fake hermine fur for medieval purposes, and I could carefully cut around the black parts to get strips that were long enough to edge the sleeves and tunic.

The most fun part was that I had found a pair of mini-skis in orange and a pair of ski poles with yellow ends on them, so I just painted the shafts orange, and then I had some fun taking photos on one of the grass hills at NärCon.

This is definitely a costume that will be my go to costume for comfy convention costume, but maybe I need to find something more to carry around instead of skis.

HSM challenge November - worn by all: a pair of short hose

  I have finished the hose and doublet for my husband's landsknecht outfit, but since we are right now at my in-laws and I didn't have enough points and/or ribbons to be able to close all of the closures and connections a final post will have to wait until we are back home. From the last remnants of fabric I did manage to squeeze out a pair of short hose for him as well.

Short hose are basically long socks when it comes to the 16th century. Women had worn these kinds of hose earlier, but up until then the men had had long hose. There is definitely a theory that by the 16th century, when the men had storted to wear joined hose it was more simple for movement to cut them off at the knee and wear separate hose and socks. 

For inspiration I used this instruction from Rowantree workshop. I would say it was inspiration since I am at my in-laws and didn't have scrap fabric to produce a good pattern before cutting the wool, and also several years ago I made a pair of hose for myself and used a whole sole, instead of having a seam at the instep like in the instruction.

Not being able to make a proper pattern first involved a lot of teeth-grinding and frustration in trying to make something at least fairly fitting. I also didn't have enough fabric to make a pair of the same fabric so had to do one of each, which is of course is good for a landsknecht but maybe not for the middle class or lower upper class that I personally aim for.

The red hose is better than the pink one, and with that one I started with sewing the sole on and fitting that one before closing the back seam, with the pink one I started with the back seam and it made for some strange fitting around the foot. Instead of the triangular gusset in the instruction I had to take in a dart on one of the sides of the foot. The hose will need some kind of garters to stay in place, but at least they are finished. He can also wear the in his normal shoes, I was worried that they would be so bulky that he his normal shoes would be too small, which is good to know when it's time to buy him proper historical shoes.

What the item is: a pair of short hose
How it fits the challenge: Short hose were worn by both men and women of all classes in the 16th century
Material:  around 1 m of wool twill
Pattern: inspired by Rowantree workshop. but with a lot of draping and pinning done during construction
Year: 16th century
Notions: line thread
How historically accurate is it? Around 90%, if we assume that even in historical times not everyone wore well-fitting garments
Hours to complete: 8
First worn: My husband is breaking the in while doing gardening at his parent's place right now
Total cost: $50

landsknecht hose part 2 - the codpiece

 So it was time to sew the hose together. For all the seams I have used a rolling stitch with a back stitch every few centimers. I am not sure where I read it, but I am sure that someone recommended the rolling stitch because it is a bit more stretchy than the backstitch, even if the backstitch is stronger.  For the crotch seam I only sewed themtogether down to basically the start of the bum itself. To cover the crotch itself I need a flap, and that flap is also what I attach the codpiece to. 

The general shape is basically a wedge. This first version was a bit too funnel like, I did narrow the top part to make it look more like a wedge in the end. I cut it out on the bias. It was attached to the hose using a backstitch, since it will get a lot of stress when sitting and moving around. 

I didn't make it a two.coloured flap, most of it isn't seen anyway, but I added red square on the top part as an applique to keep the two-colour scheme going.

As for the codpiece itself. Among reenactors it's common to see the rather oblong codpiece as the most common thing, but looking at woodcuts a lot of the codpiece are more round. I simply googled "free fabric ball pattern", and there were loads and I cut out three pieces to make a half sphere instead of six to make a ball. In the photo below you can see the pattern piece above the codpiece. 

I continued with the two colours. The codpiece was stuffed with fabric scraps from the project.

To keep the stuffing from falling out I sewed a backpiece in linen. The backpiece is also a pouch, so that it will be possible for my husband to keep his snuffbox and a credit card in the cod piece. The top of the codpiece isn't stuffed but keeps it shape anyway.

This was the final codpiece.

The codpiece was sewn to the flap, except for the top which was kept open.

To keep the flap, with the codpiece attached, in position there are four lacing holes. The ones on the sides attach to lacing holes on the side of the main lacing for the hose. The middle holes attach to lacing holes under the main lacing. I need to try if I can take them through the same lacing holes. 

The middle lacing also goes through a single hole on the codpiece so it is possible to close the codpiece and keep it attached to the top of the flap. This is not the final laces that I am going to use, but they work for now. I'm actually thinking of using pink silk ribbons and make bows, since a lot of woodcuts have a lot of bows on them, but you rarely see bows on landsknecths today.

And with that it was finally time to be able to put both the doublet and hose on, to start marking out where I should make lacing holes to tie them together.

So for now it's lacing holes and hemming that needs to be done on the hose, and more lacing holes on the doublet, but then it's finished. This is basically what I had set out to do before Medieval week in 10 days, but since I do have time I and some fabric left I am thinking about doing a pair of short hose for the lower legs as well.

I would also love to have the time to adjust my own gown and maybe make a hat, but my main focus is to make sure that he is well dressed in Visby.