The Queen's Jewels

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.

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Pockets in the 16th Century?

So if you are new to my blog, Hello! I took July off to focus on work and realities of covid life. Thanks for hanging in there. This week we are doing to cover 16th Soccocia and their role toward the origin of pockets. People need a place to carry and keep their small items as they walk around. In the middle ages you might have a pilgrim satchel or a belt pouch. Some women in the middle ages had the brilliant idea to stop wearing their money purses outside of their over gowns and instead would wear them between their kirtle/sottona layer and over gowns. This arrangement still gave you access to the purse, but made it harder for thieves to cut your purse strings and run. Fast forward to the 16th century and we find the heirs to this practice in socaccia. We have some visual evidence of these in mid to late 16th century art out of Italy. This is a detail of Alessandro Allori's, Woman at her toilet, ca 1575-78. Currently in Florence, Church of Santa Maria Novella, Gaddi ...

Beginner's Lucet Tutorial

I got a message recently asking for a tutorial on how to make a basic lucet cord since the only tutorial on my channel so far has been an advanced braid that features working 2 strands. This is the video for you if you are a newbie to using a lucet to make your own lacing for historical garments. Lucet has been used for ties, laces, and applied trim. Typically it is thought that the style might have originated with Norse cultures in the early medieval period. I encourage you to dive into the history of lucet and the different braids you can make with it if you are looking for a quick and compact way to make cord that you can put down and pick up as your time allows. The piece I made for this video took about 2 hours in real time and I did not speed up any of the clips I used to teach the technique, I simply trimmed down the footage. Have you ever used a lucet before? Tell me about your experiences in the comments and your preferred style of lucet fork. Do you like the large U s...

Anne Boleyn's Gold Embellishments

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. Copyrigh...

The Tudor Revolution

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