Rosalie Gilbert

Down where the water lilies grow, wearing my sand wool surcote for the first time!

Another photo from AROW, one of the very few which is usable. My thanks to my friend Nigel for taking this one.

Happpily I don't need more than four little red wool buttons for the surcote, so it's on the the buttons then 4 little buttonholes to match!

I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of wool buttons if I'm trying to make them small, as they really do take a lot of squeezing to get them to a nice size if the wool is a little on the thick side.

Today I sewed some of the pink, ham-coloured wool buttons and I thought it might be a nice idea to photograph a button sitting on top of the cut circle to demonstrate what size circle I start with and what size button I end up with. A fantastic idea, I thought as it's quite a thin wool, so the buttons are quite small.

Anyway, I sat for fully ten minutes looking at the photos and considering whether there was enough time in my life to deal with the hilarious fall out of putting this on social media tomorrow.

I think there is.

Ironic, isn't it, how the n!pple on the cover of my book was censored and this looks more realistic from a casual glance than the artwork ever did. Even though it absolutely is not.

While I'm thinking about a few things, I'm sewing again on the pink, wool kirtle which I don't have a real need for at the moment (maybe December?) and although I haven't really decided on the final style, I will need some buttons, so I've cut some to sew in between other things and at lunch time at work.

The buttoned sleeves are a given. Fewer buttons and a couple for the neck means it's early 14th century and I can wear my pie hat and barbette which I'm in love with at the moment, BUT a buttoned front to the navel means I can button all the way up to the elbows and make it a fitted kirtle instead of a looser gowne.

I am completely torn, but I don't have more fabric to make one of each, so it's to be one or the other. I have enough fabric to make a TON of buttons, so I can see that might be where I go. and I don't have a hot weather kirtle in wool and I do have a hot weather gowne in wool in the woad blue.

Decisions, decisions...

One side complete! The buttons were an extremely snug fit through the buttonholes, but after much wriggling, they're going through. Medieval 14th century button placement is right at the edge of the sleeve opening, not set in further like we do with our modern buttons, but even with them set right on the edge, they're buttoning up to look in from the edge.

I can see that I may not be unbuttoning these to get them on and off...

And here's what they look like when they're all through the buttonholes in a cute little row.

I've got quite a few kirtles which I've had for quite a while. A few of them are not quite up to my current standard and therefore don't get worn very often. For quite a lot of years, good wools were next to impossible to buy in Queensland, so we re-enactors relied on Op shop buys, old, really thin blankets and whatever did make it to the shops. Sometimes, due to the fabric not being quite what I wanted, I've taken some shortcute with finishing touches, and that's exactly what happened here.

The kirtle is made from a really thin blanket which I dyed with commercial dye. the wool is a little worn in places and there's a tiny hole, but as I planned to use this for working class clothing, I figured that if it looked less than pristine, that was completely okay. I have a secret gripe about re-enactment which goes along the lines of "I really wish every single person in every single group wouldn't bleach and iron their gear all the time" because an entire camp of pristine clothing just isn't realistic to actual life. Life today is not filled with every single person you work with wearing brand new clothing every day. it's actually quite normal for work clothes in trades to have some wear and tear, stains, mending, and be a little rumpled at times.

Anyway, so a work dress with a small hole and some worn patches is okay in my book.

I have bought new wool since than, so this kirtle gets passed over for other things. And there was that whole gaining weight and not fitting thing. Having decided to wear it in a few weeks, I did remember that I had always planned to re-open the lower sleeves and insert buttonholes and make buttons. The kirtle is front laced so it sits nicely under surcotes, but buttoned sleeves would be just that bit nicer and a bit more 14th century fashionable.



Happily, a good look through my fabric stash found the offcuts I saved in case I actually did make the buttons. The number of buttons per arm was decided by the amount of wool I had left, and worked out at 11 each arm- total of 22 all up.

It really doesn't take too long to cut them out, but with the thicker wool, it does take about 12 minutes each to sew, plus the needle-threading and fiddling around.

That's roughly 3 in 35 minutes if the thread doesn't break and extra time sewing them on.

It sounds like it really doesn't take that much time to make them, but it really is a good few hours plus the buttonholes which I am rather slow at making. Hopefully, this weekend I can get quite a few of them made.

At the moment, I'm still sewing on the linen reinforcing strip on the inner sleeve which is a technique seen in the Museum of London's textile's book.

Still, I've got 2 weeks, so I should be fine!

 Whilst I was doing the big clean and tidy on the weekend, I found a few more unfinished projects and stashed them into a container together so that as I feel enthused, I can work on them and they'll all be together in the mean time.

I did find a wool hood made from 95% wool and 5% cashmire which was not really that far from being finished, so I pulled that out and thought it might make a nice lunchtime project- just something to chip away at until it's done. I did a little yesterday,  and a bit more today and now the inside seams are sewn down and the face hemmed, I only have the bottom of the cowl to go. And it's so snuggly and soft and a really pretty shade of brown.

Now I'm very keen to get it completely finished so I can wear it to a medieval event in a few weeks time. I have just recently seen photos of the site and there's a gorgeous little medieval dock at the dam which would make for great photos, and the hood would be perfect for the outfit I was going to wear! 

The pink, wool kirtle isn't anywhere near finished, so it can wait a little longer.

The last step of the surcote was doing the neck re-inforcing strip in linen for sturdiness and strength. I will still add two eyelets for a brooch pin because it really stops repeated brooch-using from wrecking the fabric. We have no proof that this was done, but as we know that lacings had reinforced eyelet holes to stop the fabric from tearing with repeated use, it's not too far a leap. Medieval art is pretty unhelpful about this, and extant ones are extremely scarce.

It's been a simple but tough project since the wool was quite thick-ish. The gorgeous colour more than makes up for it.