The Tudor Revolution

So it has been a very busy week around here, and with only 2 weeks left the tempo can not slow down if I am to finish everything before I depart for the event. Since my last update I have finished the last of the 40 thread covered buttons for my husband's Hungarian coat. I also patterned to body and sleeves of the coat. There are a few more adjustments to make after the last fitting but by the end of the day i should have the body assembled. I am even using my lucet to make cording when i am on the treadmil. I continue to practice wearing my new corset. The fabric has stretched slightly but everything seems to fit together well. I am now on the 4th row of embroidery on the front of my camicia. I need a total of 5 rows down the front and back panels, 4 down each side panel, the sleeves and my neckline. In order to make my portrait complete I will need to focus on the front and neckline for now, and I can address the rest of the blackwork after the event. 40 completed thread

While I am doing blackwork for 8 hours at a time, my Venetian camicia is not ready to be posted about yet. Instead I want to share some important information for anyone trying to make a French gown with accessories from The Tudor Tailor . I love this book but there were a few problems with the publication. The woman's foresleeves do in fact have a pattern included with the gown and kirtle, but the instructions were omitted at the time of publication. The wonderful women at The Tudor Tailor have since realized their mistake and will provide anyone with a pdf version of the instructions on their website. Detail of  Elizabeth I from The Family of Henry VII, Hampton Court Palace.  These sleeves are similar in size and style to the instructions given on The Tudor Tailor website.   I have observed that is is just one kind of foresleeve. I am working on a extensive handout on these accessories because of all of the variations available. Because it takes so little fabric to ma

I have been told so many times that corsets are uncomfortable and awful to wear. My response to this is simply- you must not be doing it right. Here is a quick checklist for all of you inclined to try wearing corsets. Always wear something under your corset!  Historical corsets (as far as my research has shown me) were NEVER worn next to the skin. There are many reasons for this but the two best ones are that its really uncomfortable for long periods of time and the corset would need to be washed more often. Hand wash your corsets! I know we put lots of tension on a well built corset some times, but modern washing machines will degrade the fabric faster. Depending on the style of boning you have it may degrade over time as well. The biggest problem with doing this is that usually the ends of the boning channels will wear down and the stays/busks/boning may poke through while you are wearing it. Lay your corset flat to dry on a towel. Electric driers may shrink fabric and hang-dry

Inspired by an Italian Masquerade event that I will be attending at the end of September, my projects are taking a brief vacation to the shining city on the lagoon, Venice. Starting in at the beginning of August I had 8 weeks to build a Venetian Ensemble from the skin out, and a Hungarian Ensemble for my husband.  So far here is my progress: Week 1: Research and order supplies I could not find locally. Start 40 thread covered buttons for husband's coat. Week 2: While waiting for supplies research how gowns were made. Draft corset pattern, discuss construction details with those who have made them before. Prep supplies as they arrive. Build and embroider husband's 16th century shirt. Look to my post  on a Man's Tudor Shirt. Week 3: Construct Corset. Look to my post on  Effigy Corsets with Reeds . Begin drafting camicia pattern based on the instructions at  The Realm of Venus Camicia Page Week 4-5: Mock up/patterning Hungarian coat. Embroidery the camicia in red using a

Not too long ago I had a reflective moment on my sewing skills. My husband needed a new undershirt for his Tudor clothing i am making him so I busted out The Tudor Tailor , made some alterations based on what i wanted him to have, and got to work. When we were first dating I made him a shirt not unlike this one but the quality was vastly different. It was my best work until that point. I purchased some cream broadcloth from Joann's Fabrics and used a Butterick costume pattern. Commercial patterns (McCall's. Simplicity, Butterick, etc) are a great tool to learn from, but it is much more satisfying (and will have a more period cut) when you can draft it out yourself. The poor man was always fighting with those satin ribbon ties the pattern suggested at the cuffs. Satin ribbon just does not stay tied well. This time around I purchased the correct fabric for the period and started from there.The completed shirt was made from white lightweight linen i purchased at  fabric-store

When people hear the word corset the fist things that pop into their head are usually Gone with the Wind or Victoria's Secret. This project had nothing to do with either. This project is centered around one of the earliest forms of corset, although at the time it would have been called "a pair of bodies" or "stays."The Westminster corset or Elizabeth I's effigy corset is famous as late 16th to early 17th century example of corset. This example is made of a fabric called fustian, a weave of cotton and linen, and edged with thin leather (Leed). The extant garment was stiffened using whalebone.  This is the extent effigy corset at Westminster Abby.  Maestra Tatiana, an SCA contact, took my measurements and drafted me a pattern based on her own which only took moments. The pattern is considerably shorter in the front than the extent garment, but it will still create the silhouette for my clothing. We discussed her draft vs. the extent and basically conclud

Last week I attended a lecture about some "wicked" women in Tudor history. Myself and the Tudor Project were asked to attend and add ambiance through our gowns. ACMRS now has pictures up of the whole event on their website. If you did not make it to Prof Warnicke's talk hopefully you will at least enjoy the pictures. http://acmrs.org/public-programs/warnicke Some of the Portrait Clothing from The Tudor Project. Photo by ACMRS and ASU.

For anyone living in Arizona, there is a great opportunity coming to Tempe, AZ! Have you hear about the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renascence Studies ? They are a statewide group whose purpose is to stimulate interest in the time period from about 400 to 1700 CE. They publish scholarly works, lecture, and hold events for those interested. For more information on ACMRS please visit their website: http://www.acmrs.org/ This week they are doing a talk at Changing Hands Bookstore about Anne Boleyn and Lady Leicester.The tittle of the lecture is "Queen Anne Boleyn and Lady Leicester: Wicked Women of Tudor England," and will be held on August 16, 2012. That is this Thursday! The speaker, Prof. Retha Warnicke,specializes in the Tudor court, gender issues, and early modern history. Prof. Warnicke is particularly known as an expert on Anne Boleyn, and has published many scholarly works on her life and other related topics. Prof Retha Warnicke currently teaches at Arizona Stat

Miniature of Anne Boleyn. While this image has the best detail of any of the French Hood  portraits there is still debate over the portrait being painted within her life time. So do you all remember the dress I made based off of Anne Boleyn's miniature? I chose the miniature because it seamed to have the best detail. Well, I was never fully satisfied with Anne just having gold brass beads on her neckline. They gave the idea of what the gown had, and I was asked to do this on short notice. All of that aside, now I have been allowed the time to go back and do it right. so I plan to. Detail from the beading on Anne Boleyn's Bodice. After some research and digging around I stumbled across a few extent garments from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. amazingly they have thread covered buttons made with gold thread, and on one example they are purely decorative. Any avid costumers out there can imagine the excitement I got from this discovery. Copyright of the Me

I am sure that anyone reading this blog has watched or read some historical fiction based on Henry VIII's reign. Remember the huge deal the Queen's Jewels were? When looking at portraits of Henry's many queens, you start to see the same pendant, or pearls with settings show up again and again. Bellow are images from Henry VIII's court. The crown jewels from this time period probably look unlike anything you have seen on showtime or in the movies. Necklace Grouping 1, Queens of England (Jane Seymour, Katherine Howard) Necklace Grouping 2, Queens of England (Jane Seymour and Katherine Parr) I am pairing up more portraits of Queens and their jewels, I have at least 2 other pieces i am tracing. Keep checking back.

At chocolate revel last year i saw sever very well made, and worn, loose gowns. It is my understanding that these gowns started as surcotes in Spain. As Spanish influence grew in the 16th century their popularity spread. In England, they started as an informal dress you might wear at home or after court functions were done for the day. They also grew in popularity with those who were older and shying away from fashions which were growing more ridged and complicated. Another demographic this gowns were especially popular with were pregnant women. Some women would lace kirtles looser and adujest placards over their belly, others especially heading into the mid 1540's and later, might wear one of these dresses. Queen Katharine Parr from the National Portrait Gallery, London, UK. I have a loose gown that I use at camping events as a glorifieid coat to stay warm. Now I have been inspired to create a new one from scratch and the proper under gowns. I did a little research and deci

So now that I have had some distance from my work with the Tudor Project, I want to fairly analyze my work on the Anne Boleyn  portrait reproduction. The Research I wish I'd had 6 more months to do research. In the months since our project completed more research on early Tudor garments has been published by the Tudor Tailor workshop in England. In addition to their new book, The Queen's Servants , I have found illuminations depicting French and Flemish court ladies in full length.  It is my belief that Anne would not have been wearing a hoop skirt as I did last fall. According to the Tudor Tailor shop hoops are not worn in England until the 1540's, putting them well out of what Anne was likely to be wearing. Incase you need further help to visualize the difference, take a glance at these two portraits of Princess Elizabeth. The portrait on the left is from a mural at Hampton Court. On the right there is a portrait which was painted later for King Edward VI, Elizabeth&#

Have you ever tried food from back in the 16th century? There are lots of manuscripts and cook books that have survived from this time period (relative to earlier periods). Hampton Court, the center of Henry VIII's court, today has period cooking demonstrations about once a month. Many of us in the States can't go and watch these demonstrations, but we can watch the videos posted by Royal Historic Places. I plan to try their recipe for a "Tarte owte of Lent." It seems to be a savory cheese pie made of things you are not allowed to eat, in the 16th century, during Lent. http://www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPalace/stories/thetudorkitchens/Tudorcook-alongvideos/TarteowteofLent Please check them out, buy tickets for a demo, or just download pdf's of their period recipes for free! You can also follow them on Facebook and Youtube for more updates and videos. Tudorcookery.com

Sixteenth century clothing has a multitude of closures. Sometimes garments were pinned in place such as ruffs or placards. Men would tie their hose to doublets to keep them up. Kirtles and doublets could be laced closed. But today we are discussing closures commonly used on doublets and jerkins, the thread covered button. Boy with a Greyhound by Paolo Veronese, 1570's. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York  There is documentation in, Janet Arnold's Pattern of Fashion 3, that these buttons could also be placed on garments as purely decorative pieces. A loose gown in Nurnberg is held closed by a series of these buttons with loops, but other buttons appear to have been added among the embroidery to create impact and flare. Italian Camica (called "Blouse") Detail, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York We know from pieces in our modern museums that many men across Europe used thread covered buttons as a relatively inexpensive way to close there outer g

I am thoroughly addicted to a new forum for research. Have any of you heard of the website Pintrest? Pintrest.com is an online pin board that lets you save images and describe them in your own words. You can browse other people's images and boards or save images from any where on the web. My favorite part of using this is that all of these images are basically saved to a cloud network. If my computer crashes, none of my images saved to pintrest will  be lost. The only issue I have found is that some of these images have been too small to  be "pinned" or that the "pinning" tool has had problems transferring them over. Its not a regular problem, but it does happen. I started using this so much that I have create a second sister account just for 16th century research. I encourage you to follow my pintrest boards and research I am in the process of writing up at: http://pinterest.com/ladyisabelle/

Have you ever noticed the difference between a pretty Henrician ensemble and an exquisite one? What made the difference for you? For myself and many others, the difference that makes our heart stop is the detail and care put into the outfit. during Henry VIII's reign there are numerous ways to embellish your clothing, and most of these techniques are best done the same way there were back then-- by hand. There are legends that state that Katherine of Aragon brought this technique to England. In the modern era, costume historians have corrected this assumption. Blackwork was indeed popularized in England by Katherine, but it was a style that had already existed in the tiny island kingdom. Miniature of Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, painted by Lucas Horenbout. Fitzroy wears an intimate cap with a repeating blackwork pattern worked across it. Through the numerous portraits from this period, as well as some later extent garments, costume and textile researchers have

Anne Boleyn is one of the most recognizable figures in English history. She was born the second daughter of  Sir Thomas Boleyn and Lady Elizabeth Howard around 1501. When Anne and her sister Mary were sent abroad to receive an education. Anne spent many years at the court of Queen  Claude of France and became one of the Queens favorite maids. While in France, Anne learned to speak and read fluent French, dancing, music, fashion or power dressing, and theology. Queen Claude supported and sheltered many protestants in her court, and this exposure is often seen by historians as the source for Anne’s more radical spirituality in later years. The positioning of Anne so strongly on the continent leads many historians to think she was never meant to return to England. Instead they argue that she was meant to be married off to a French noble. When war between England and France became more likely, Sir Thomas recalled Anne to England. When Anne was brought home she was betrothed to one of he

People are always telling me, "I could never wear something like that, its just too uncomfortable." With all due respect, I have to disagree with their assumptions. Please take some time and consider these thoughts to make your experience wearing this clothing more comfortable. Get help from a knowledgeable person to dress you in complex clothing . Yes, there are times in our lives when for special occasions we wear uncomfortable clothing. It was true in the sixteenth century and it is today. There are not many of us who run around in strapless, poofy ball gowns on a daily basis. Many extreme fashions you find in some portraits and written accounts were put on with assistance of others (grooms, ladies, maids, etc), but not everyone could afford to be followed all the time and have multiple other people assisting them. It is my understanding that at the English and French courts, and probably several others. Ladies would assist each other, if they were sharing quarters and

The Tudor Project was one of the most informative and incredible experiences I have had in my young career. The goal of this group was for each person to commit to reproducing a portrait from the court of Henry VIII of England. Everyone thought it sounded simple at first, but then many of us started to research and examine the details of this clothing. Eventually we were discovering things that had fallen in the cracks of previous researchers or re-creationists. This is not to say that we think we are better than those before us, or who have different views on the construction of this clothing. Everyone that I worked with feels that we are standing on the shoulders of giants, but that we are the ones choosing to reach for the sky. There are many different stories to how this started, but what it all boils down to is that we were a group of people willing to find our way into the right places at the right time and help each other to finish our goal. When the procession started, there