The Armour Archive

Tailoress

That would work in daylight. For twilight or nighttime shooting that wants high-speed film, a telephoto lens or generally any capability that's beyond the little digitals, perhaps a small period pavilion could be set up in a strategic location as a "duck blind." OMG... I'm imagining some documentar...

Tailoress

I think we're overthinking the fur thing. Probably! My comments concerning fur weren't really in relation to Gwen's interpretation of the surcotte from the Mac Bible so much as it was general commentary on the use of fur for surcottes in this time period. I doubt that clothiers can offer fur-lined ...

Tailoress

David, here's a link to addall.com, where there are four copies of a very useful book -- Elspeth Veale's The English Fur Trade in the Later Middle Ages : m This will go a long way to giving you the confidence you need in selecting what, if any, fur you'd use on your portrayal. It really is a wealth ...

Tailoress

Oh, I know, I know... I just needed to vent my East-Coast Spleen... [tm]...

I'm happy for you (and can assume this means Zil is getting a good job aprÃƒÂ© commencement?), but you will be missed.

-Tasha

Tailoress

Hello. Tasha, I might be wrong, but if I remember correctly tow is raw flax, no? Flax can also be in its tow form, but cotton can be tow too. AFAIK... Anyway, it is well possible to make mats of any sufficiently long fibre or build up the thicknesses as necessary prior to the actual quilting. Glad ...

Tailoress

Mumbledy-mumbledy TRAITOR.... left-coast brain-drain.... $%*^&^...

HhhhhM? Oh. Heh heh... Didn't realize this thing is on.

Tailoress

I'd personally prefer the channel-stuffed helmet liner because I can control the hardness or softness of the assembly as I work with it---something that doesn't seem as practical with the layer stuffed construction. Given that we have very little artifact-level detailed research available on this p...

Tailoress

Klaus the Red wrote:Besides which, my wife and I will be moving to California sometime this spring and my free time and work circumstances thereafter are still rather TBD.

FRICK!

Tailoress

I have heard this opinion bandied about but never seen any reference to prove it. Can you offer any? I am curious to see it. 1) The Chartres cotte/jupon 2) The Charles de Blois cotte/pourpoint 3) The Black Prince's jupon I'm sure there are specific helmet-padding instances, but I don't have them me...

Tailoress

I took a look at my copies of both books you're quoting from, and my own understanding is that all three modalities you mention are sandwich-layered, not channel-stuffed. I do concede that it is feasible to channel-stuff something that is for impact-absorption only and not also or solely for poking ...

Tailoress

Timothy F. wrote:So am I to gather that helmet liners should not be channel stuffed?

I cannot say with authority either way. I only know that the precious few bits of extant padding appear to be sandwich-layered.

-Tasha

Tailoress

I wish I had the Blair book to confirm one way or the other, but I don't... I do know that the one I sketched from a photo is reasonably confidently dated to the 16th or 17thc (and matches those paintings pretty niftily) by various armour experts in the museum community. I wish this would go on disp...

Tailoress

I made a comment on one of the amazing 16th C German dresses that I gave an 9 out of 10 because it was not silk velvet and a crap storm came raining down on me. Geez what is wrong with a 9 out of 10? Pavlov's slavering dog, man. People got shocked and hurt by the inevitable petty emotional murder a...

Tailoress

I was always under the impression that that late medieval German (?)arming cap/helmet liner (shown in AAOTMK) was channel stuffed. is that wrong? Some thoughts... now that I examine the Hohenklingen effigy a little more closely, it really does look like a padded coif to me, rather than a padded ave...

Tailoress

{Edit to add} A thought: we're not talking Walter von Hohenklingen, are we? That arrangement, a quilted thingus atop a mail coif, always struck me as more an extra than an essential. Looked like it would help keep Herr Walter warm in chilly weather. Not knowing that much about metal armour and mail...

Tailoress

From the inception of "am I period or not" I knew I'd never contribute, as it was set up too easily to attract mean-spirited trolls, and I felt that putting up my work would be an invitation to be attacked. Anonymous commentary is too easy a temptation for the likes of those types. Time bore out my ...

Tailoress

*poking stick at all the off-shoot discussions, herding everyone back to the M. Bible stuff...* So you're suggesting the white line represents a fur edging on the garment shown in David and Absalom?? On that particular one, it doesn't look much like the purfelle possibility at all. Some of the examp...

Tailoress

What do you think about the white edging seen on a lot of these- topstitching, trim or the artist highlighting an edge? Gwen My guess is that it's either the last thing you mention ("diapering" maybe? I'm not an illuminator though, so that might not be the correct term..?) for the purpose of enrich...

Tailoress

Karen Larsdatter wrote:Only in one case -- http://www.wowway.com/~templar/pictures/GCdetail6.jpg -- was the lining almost definitely a contrasting-colored cloth (unless it's meant to indicate, I dunno, Smurf pelts?)

Now that would be a rather fun archaeological find, wouldn't it?

-Tasha

Tailoress

Not that it's going to be a different angle, but there's also a decent picture of this particular shield on p. 63 of The Medieval Art of Love by Michael Camille, which is affordable and popular, so maybe you already have it, or have a friend who does...? I woulda scanned it and sent it to you alread...

Tailoress

The image posted at the top of this thread shows a typical miniver pattern; white Russian squirrel bellies with some of the darker top-side fur showing around the squared edges. Being that this is probably a cold-weather surcotte/gardecorps (whatever it's called), it is likely fur-lined in many case...

Tailoress

There is also the under-studied possibly late 16thc or 17thc arming doublet in the Philadelphia Museum of Art but alas not on display currently. It's part of the Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch collection. The mail has been incorporated directly into the garment. Here's my redrawing: http://www....

Tailoress

Now go sing that gospel, Murdock!!! Weee loves the precioussssss grandes assiettesssss... we do.....

-Tasha

Tailoress

You can also use the instructions in The Medieval Tailor's Assistant by Sarah Thursfield. I found that to help me understand the historical remains of the 14thc hosen finds in the Museum of London's Textiles and Clothing book.

-Tasha

Tailoress

Now if only I could find the time to actually finish my languishing orders...

But thank you for that nice compliment, David! You too are helping to make WMA prettier, one arming cotte at a time.

-Tasha

Tailoress

It looks like what you posted comes piecemeal from this webbed article: m which is by Lisa Evans. The article is parenthetically cited, which means that you can track down the sources she used and decide for yourself whether or not her statements (which are summaries of other author's statements) ho...

Tailoress

Looks nice, David -- I really like the ties you added; folks don't do that enough, it seems.

At some point, show us pics of you wearing it with the rest of your get-up, eh?

-Tasha

Tailoress

James, that looks great. I'm curious about your pose with the paternoster -- is that inspired by some visual imagery from the period? It certainly lends a dramatic and solemn air to your use of the paternoster as an accessory!
Very spiff.

-Tasha

Tailoress

Tim, that was an excellent articulation of some other thoughts I'd been having on this topic.

-Tasha

Tailoress

Tristan, for me the SCA is a background against which I can experiment with material culture re-creations while simultaneously having a social good time. It is nothing more to me, I must admit. It is this compartmentalization that allows me to remain satisfied with my involvement for many years. I d...

Tailoress

Actually, I might be wrong about it being from Staniland's book. A cursory look-through doesn't yield more than mention that the gilded leather is couched... I didn't find detail about it being intestine, specifically. For those who have an interest, an excellent scholarly summary of metal threads/c...

Tailoress

Thanks for the commentary on Serica, I was considering it because it is a filament silk. A lot of the 14th/15th c embroidery I've looked at seems to be done with silk that has next to no twist- I guess they liked the flattness and the sheen. Oh absolutely -- we modern re-creationists don't seem to ...

Tailoress

Wow, Nick, very nice! I'm pleased the pattern on my site helped you. I took that article down some time ago, but if anyone needs a PDF copy, just email me at tasha at cottesimple dot com and I'll send it (and the elbow hinge one) over to you. Look for other stuff on this topic from me in 2006. BTW, ...

Tailoress

What was the brand of floss you use for the edging? I've been working on some wool-on-wool appliquÃƒÂ© but the wool I chose for the edging was unsatisfactory. I was considering Kreinik Serica but I've never seen it in the flesh so I have no idea if it's the right diameter. I used a highly-twisted s...

Tailoress

Anyway, that particular little purse is truly gorgeous -- I LOVE the padding of the doggie! -Tasha That technique is called trapunto, I believe. While "trapunto" is a good Italian term for embroidery over padding used for quilts and other larger fields of such work, it probably doesn't apply to the...