Document Case - Finished!

I finished up the document case last night. Stitched on some straps and buckles and put the tongues on the buckles themselves. The buckles are cast off of a simple square shoe buckle design, and are rough casts/seconds as I would call them. The kind of thing I get before my moulds get up to temp.

Here's the buckle attached:


The stitching closeups:


And the finished project ready for all those important maps and documents a warehouse owner and lieutenant in the Trayn'd Bande's should have!



Thanks for looking!

How not to ruin my paperwork

About 10 or 12 years ago I bought a vintage document case from an antique store. It was in pretty rough shape and I was told it was from the 30's or 40's. I decided to use it for holding my 16th C repro maps and other documents, as it was leather and leather is period right?

Well, the thing was in rough shape to begin with but I really liked the shape and design. So I decided a while ago to attempt a recreation of it. Now I know it isn't historically documented or anything but I really like the shape and design. I am fully comfortable with the fact that it is plausible and not documentable. Here's the startings:

5 oz veg tan leather dyed brown with oil based dye
poplar end caps cut and rough shaped
blued carpet tacks to tack down the leather after it was epoxied to the end caps.

Open:
A close up of the inside with the end cap:

Temporarily closed with rubber bands:


Next up is the buckles and straps to keep it close. I have some small square buckles that I cast and am going to use those with straps stitched onto the body of the case. Three should be enough.

More hopefully over the weekend!

Where Thy Hose At?

I'm a man on a mission. In my obsessive quest to be period perfect, I've decided to phase out knit stockings from my wardrobe.

The sort of knit stockings that are readily available and in vogue amongst reenactors from many periods are, in short, inauthentic for England in the latter half of the 16th century and some time after that. Knit stockings were known but less common, and were a very different animal in that they were woolen or silk and constructed with a seam down the back and possibly gores at the sides. The typical "reenactor stocking" is cotton* and elastic, and although wool is available, just using the correct fabrics or materials does not make a garment correct. Fortunately, while period knit stockings are likely available somewhere at astronomical prices, stockings or hose made of tailored cloth cut on the bias are much more documentable and much cheaper.

Cut Cloth Hose could be made of wool, silk, or linen as these natural materials all have a stretch to them. They would be as well tailored as possible- and you can get them pretty damn well fitted, but a little bit of bagging at the ankles and/or knee is perfectly acceptable.

For the English common man, wool is the best choice. There is some contention over whether or not they wore linen hose alone or just as a garment to keep more expensive hose clean (as linen can be more readily washed. The same concept applies to shirts and doublets)and/or to serve as a decorative element beneath boots ("boothose"). I'm of the latter camp, but that's for another day. Varieties of wool twill and modern wool flannel are amongst the best choices and they could be quite colorful. I found what appeared to be a nice yellow ochre flannel online, but is in reality a sort of odd jaundice-y tan, so though I'll have to dye it yellower later it'll do for now. This color choice was more or less inspired by a funny song from the period fittingly called Give Me My Yellow Hose Again
Check it out! Music here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mX__7_-WOs
Lyrics here-
http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiGIVEHOSE.html

Some of the distinguishing features of cut cloth hose (and important elements in fitting them to the leg) are a seam up the back of the leg and triangular gores on either side of the ankle. We see them in period artwork a good amount, though for their ubiquity (based on cross referencing written sources, extant garments, and so on) it seems that artists probably left out the features that so distinguished them from time to time. Here are a few multi-national examples in which these features are clear...








For fun, here's a surviving example of a knit silk sock from the 1540's-1560's from the Museum of London...




*Cotton was known in Elizabethan England, but it was typically relegated to serving as the weft in the fabric fustian (with a warp of linen or wool) and in the raw fiber-y form as stuffing or padding. Cotton fabric was starting to show up in England towards the end of the period, but was usually expensive and was a tiny minority compared to linen fabric. The word cotton does pop up in primary documents an awful lot, but it refers to a process of finishing sheep's wool. Cottoned wool was loosely woven, soft, and warm.

Time for a helping hand...

Hi everyone, it's Mike.  Keeping with the theme of this blog I wanted to share one of the projects that I plan to begin this weekend:  I am going to be building a period shaving horse. 

(image from http://www.greenwoodworking.com/)

I have been doing a fair deal of woodworking lately at events and I have been finding it difficult to work on a piece and hold it steady while trying to shave/plane the wood.  Most recently I've been working on a polearm shaft that required me to taper the end to fit the socket of the halberd head.  There has been no good way of transporting a vice/workbench so I'm hoping this new shaving horse will do the trick.

(image from http://www.greenwoodworking.com/)

I will post my progress as the shaving horse takes shape.  I'm hoping to modify the design a bit so it breaks down easily for transport to and from events.  As it is designed right now it doesn't lend itself to an easy breakdown becuase of the tapered mortise joints that the legs attach at.  These joints can swell and make removing the legs very difficult if not impossible.

More to come...

Roundhose: The Wearing

Saturday night of the event is when they finally were done. I ran into timing issues the week of with various work and health related delays. The waistband was done by machine due to time constraints and a muscular issue in my left shoulder that was causing my left hand to go numb while doing manual dexterity tasks. So Saturday I added buttons (which I cast), cut some button holes, and did some handsewn eyelets for tie points.

The pants ended up being just a bit too big, so I'll have to adjust that. I decided to go all out, and wore my braies (medieval underwear) and chauses (long stocking type things pointed to the braies) under them as my knit stockings weren't long enough to close the gap between pants and legs. With the roundhose pointed to the doublet and over the chauses everything felt good and moved really well. I was able to do all my normal tasks, chasing after my kids, fencing, cooking, etc with out issue.

So without further delay pictures! Graciously provided by Elizabeth Dawson.


I can haz pants.