Strawberry Hill and my updated Gable Hoods

Strawberry Hill Miniature

Before moving to Oklahoma I had fallen in love with this miniature believed to be Anne Boleyn in the Strawberry Hill Galleries. As I studied the miniature and compared the look to my previous Gable Hood I decided this was clearly an earlier and more conservative version of the hood. Instead of looking to Holbein and Jane Seymour for more understanding on the construction I looked backward to the styles worn by Katherine of Aragon. Even if this miniature is not Anne, the elongated shape of the hood and wider curtain style veil off the back suggest she was attending court and was sporting a style Katherine of Aragon can been seen wearing in many portraits from the mid to late 1520's.

Katherine of Aragon by Wenceslaus Hollar

My reading and research lead me to a book called The Queen's Servants. It is a sequel to the Tudor Tailor and focuses on fashions earlier during Katherine of Aragon's reign as queen. The updated hood research for hats known in the 16th century as English Bonnets, has a coif, paste, frontlets, and veil. Where they recommended sewing the gable hoods of the 1530's into a solid at in the Tudor Tailor, these English Bonnets are held together with dressing pins. A few practical advantages of the pin construction, you can disassemble the had for easy transport and cleaning, or switch out the upper pieces to match your outfit.

These photos are of me wearing the hood with my natural hair. By modern standards I have long hair, but not with much body. I believe the hood will sit better if I add a supplemental false braid to help create a better foundation and raise the hat 1 inch off my collar bone without needing to be trimmed. I am working on encasing these braids in the yellow striped material seen in the painting as a possible reincarnation of the braid cases and nets seen in earlier centuries.

Photo by Melissa Jones 2016.

Comments

Making my Viking Apron Dress

This Week's vlog is the follow up to my Viking Age Tunic dress which I posted last week. When discussing the clothing of Birka and other Norse cultures, a woolen dress is an iconic look which is functional while tending a fire or many other activities. My apron dress is inspired by the finds out of Birka. The wool I used was a light weight suiting with a 2:2 twill weave. The long seams of this dress were finished with a machine for speed, and all of the seam finishings were hand sewn. I used a woolen finishing technique I learned about while flipping through Woven into the Earth by Else Ostergard. The technique involves using wool yarn and a couching stich of sorts to encase the raw edges of the wool. The end result is a low profile and durable seam around the neck and hem of my apron dress. I love that all of the hand sewn elements of this dress start to create a decorative finish on the outside of the dress and the only extra embellishment I added was a herringbone stitch over

Avoid These Common Mistakes: Packing for Pennsic and SCA Camping

#camping #mysca #societyforcreativeanachronism #glamping #pennsic This summer I've been letting myself fall back in love with the Society for Creative Anachronism. There have been some moments that have been hard for sure, but also some of my moments of greatest joy. One of the things I realized was I had completely forgotten what I need to pack in order to go camping in the different environments we see across the Western United States, at SCA events. This video does not speak in any official way for the non profit group or any of its branches. I simply wanted to share some of my pit falls and learning curves I've experiences over the years. I am a list maker. So I started planning for my second camping trip of the summer by making a list of the things that I would need to have cleaned and packed after my first trip did not go as smoothly as I had hoped earlier this summer. Towards the end of the video I give you 6 tips I've picked up from camping at these events

I Finally Made a Viking Tunic for Myself that I don't Hate

#sewing #Viking #historicaldress My inspiration for this dress is that I never really wear the style. It looks lovely on some people, but I had just never really gotten into it or the time period around it until friends were asking me for help to make their outfits. This year I realized we would be having a local SCA arts event on April Fool's Day and it seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up and I had to do something. I decided on going incognito and making myself some Norse clothing. Even though I've done some work for others in this time period, I am by no means an expert and leaned on some of the work in this blog post: https://maidenanachronism.blogspot.com/2012/05/viking-underdress.html?m=1 I also referenced these books for some of the techniques and information I used (links are affiliate links): Woven into the Earth by Else Ostergard https://amzn.to/3o0kVb2 Medieval Garments Reconstructed: Norse Clothing Patterns by Lilli Fransen, Anna Norgaard and

The Tudor Revolution

Search This Blog