Liber cure cocorum - feast at Lucia

Liber Cure Cocorum, new words that I have learned after the weekend. Its an English cookbook from 1430. And the feast at Styringheims Lucia feast and baronial investiture. The cookbook is writen in verse and the Nordmark theaterguild made a fantastic job reading it out to the audience. It was impossible not to laugh! Thank you! And also, Renike, such a lovely event you made for us. I know you might not want to take care of Lucia again, but if you do Im sure it will be great, again. 

My household sister Görvel was head of the kitchen, telling the rest of us what to do and when. She planed and organized the hole feast. She keeps impressing me and we all had great fun! We made food for 110 people. As beeing in the kitchen for the entire event I dont have that many pictures. The ones Im able to show you here comes from all the people in the kitchen, except me actually...

For the first serving we did Sowpus dorre, For kole, For Pykulles, Chewettes on a fish day. And pike, served with horseradish butter. Görvel found horseradish mentioned in a book from Visby from the timeperiod. We did not serve any meat, except some kicken, during lent, now just before christmas.

Picture by Erika Hedhammar

Sowpus dorre                                                                      27. Glazed Sops.

Take almondes, bray hem, wryng hom up;                         Take almonds, pound them, wring them up;

Boyle hom with wyn rede to sup;                                        Boil them with red wine to sup;
Þen temper hom with wyn, salt, I rede,                               Then mix them with wine, salt, I advise,
And loke þou tost fyne wete brede,                                     And look you toast fine wheat bread,
And lay in dysshes, dubene with wyne;                              And lay in dishes, baste with wine;
Do in þis dysshes mete, þat is so fyne;                                Put in these dishes meat, that is so fine;
Messe hit forthe, and florysshe hit þenn                              Serve it forth, and garnish it then
With sugur and gynger, as I þe kenne.                                 With sugar and ginger, as I teach you.

For the second serving we did For gray Paese, For hong kole, For flaunes and Chicken in brouwet. And also a rice pudding, beeing on Gotland an all!

Chekyns in browet                                                       51. Chickens in broth.

Take chekyns, scalde hom fayre and clene;                 Take chickens, scald them fair and clean;

Take persole, sauge, oþer herb3, grene                        Take parsley, sage, other herbs, green
Grapus, and stope þy chekyns with wynne;                 Grapes, and stuff your chickens with will
Take goode brothe, sethe hom þerinne,                        Take good broth, seethe them therein,
So þat þay sone boyled may be;                                   So that they may soon be boiled;
Coloure þe brothe with safrone fre,                              Color the broth freely with saffron,
And cast þeron powder dowce,                                    And cast thereon powder douce, 
For to be served in goode mennys howse.                    For to be served in good men's house.

For flaunes, cheesepie. Picture by Hanna Tunberg.

The translation comes from here. And at this page you can also find the rest of the food we made. The recipes are changes a little, just to make it possible to use food from Gotland. The third serving was a table full of candy and sweets. 

Rice pudding. Picture by Hanna Tunberg

Buttons for my schaublein

A year ago I struggled with my schaublein and when it was done I didnt want to see it for a while! But now it got its buttons!

 

This is the look I was after when I made it. Plate 21 from Hans Weigels Trachenbuch. Its a Nurnberg woman wearing a short fur-trimmed cloak, a schaublein in german.

The pattern I used, Gepratut ein Schaubel, Brides little schaube, comes from the Leonfeldner Schnittbuch, The tailorbook from Leonfeldner, presented in Drei Schnittbucher, by Katherine Barich and Marion McNealy. 

There are openings in the sideseams so you can use your hands without opening the garment up to much. And on both sides of the opening there are decorative buttons. 

 

Lady Ragnell Caxtone and I had an handicraft exchange and she made me fantastic buttons. They are worked in silk over a wooden base. And very common during the 16th century. There are lots of examples of buttons like these in Patterns of fashion nr 3 for example.  

I attached them with black silk.

So, after a year the chaublein is yet again ready to use for another Lucia-event in Styringheim in a week!

Ragnell also made me white buttons, very beautiful. I dont know what garment I will use them on yet. But you will see when I do. 

Drachenwald Kingdom University 2019

This weekend I went to Drachenwald Kingdom University in Gotvik, Nordmark. Such a joyful event! 31 classes during four hours and I wanted to join in on all of them! Such a nice problem to have... A big thank you to the autocrats and to all the talented teachers.

Lady Görvel Skote started of with her class "Cooking beyond the books" as the first class in the morning. She talked about understanding the seasonal and regional cooking from a historical perspective. In mundane life Görvel have written a couple of medieval cookbooks, like En sås av ringa värde and An early meal - a viking cookbook & culinary odyssey. She also talked about the journey with the books and about upcoming plans. Görvel is also my little household sister and Im very proud of being in the same household as such a talented lady!

 

Lady Eleanor de Arnot had an excellent class "Netting for hairnets, purses, or fishing". We got to try to make our own, learning the basic knot, with focus on netting in the round for hairnets. It was great fun! But so difficult. And this is me, trying to wrap my head around the construction of a hairnet. I will definitely try to make one of my own, someday...

 Unfortunately I could not go to Lady Ragnell Caxtones class about early tudor bonnets. But I did sneak in afterwards to look at her beautiful bonnets. I also delivered the shirt to her, finally! Im looking forward to seeing her wear it.

As last year at Kingdom University I was holding a class about German 16th century headwear. This picture is from right before the class was going to start and I were waiting for people to join in. I was talking about the various looks of the headwear of the German renaissance, from 1500-1550, theories on construction and development over the time period. The information is available in this article. As we said during class "Size do matter!".

Friday court often means that its a vigil coming up, and that was exactly what happened. Twice! And for two persons I know, like and respect a lot. Aleydis von Vilvoorde was put at vigil for The order of the Laurel and Isabetta del Verde for The order of the Pelican. I did know about one of them and had the chance to make her a little gift. I made Aleydis a napkin with silk embroidery. I wish I had picture of these fantastic moments, but when it matter the most I tend to forget the camera. And during the big court on Saturday evening I was lady in waiting for the princess of Nordmark.

I was surounded by beautiful people all weekend. 

Excellent company at dinner, both with very nice headwear on! Sometimes you could need a little help from a costuming laurel!

And also a lot of happy craziness!

Leinenhaube, a new old way

The medieval tradition of covering the hair with a haube, a hood, as a sign of marital status continued in Germany during the 16th century. The most common headwear amoung reenactors in Sweden doing 16^th century german is a wulsthaube and a veil on top of that. Some, doing a bit more fancy fashion, have done a goldhaube, in silk. But the linencoif, a leinenhaube in german, is not so common. But, from what I see in paintings, it was common during the 16^th century. So what do I mean with a leinenhaube? In this case Im talking about a wulsthaube and another linen coif on top, that does not consist of a veil, but a plain haube. Did they use two on top of each other, or did they just use one with the wulst inside? I don't know, but that is my guess. 

 

Here are some inspirational pictures of ladies wearing the type of haube that I am talking about.

But my biggest problem was how to get the back of it flat. As you see in the pictures here the back looks flat, not that much fabric in there. A friend of mine ones said that if you could use a square piece you should, think simple. Head-wear of this kind was something everybody made, or got made for them, at home. It needs to be simple and easy to make. 

And then I run into an old photo of a bride from 1896, dressed in the costume of the municipality of Leksand.

 

She is pretty, is she not? And look at the hood she is wearing. To me it look like something I could wear with my german clothing to an sca-event.

I live quite close to Leksand so I went there for some more inspiration. This summer they had an exibition at the library, showing the folk custume of Leksand.

And I even got to borrow one from their textile archive!

In a lot of paintings and woodcuts, when you see the backside, it looks like the haube is pleated and that the pleats goes down to some kind of straight ribbon. At first I thought that the ribbon was loose. But what if the ribbon is made the same way as in the Leksand hood? What if the ribbon is not loose? Or maybe it is loose in some of them but not in all? So my plan was to try to create a german hood that I could have on top of my wulsthaube by using the construction of the Leksand hood.

I thought that I could use the one that I had borrowed as a pattern but it had tiny embroideries in the back so I could not take it apart. The one I got to borrow was not old, dont worry...

I came in contact with a lovely old lady who knew how to make the hood. She had old instructions written by her mother. The instruction started with ” Take an old hood that fits you well and take measurements...” It was time for me to start my experiment...

The Leksand hoods are made out of a square piece of linen or cotton fabric (Remember what my friend said?!). Not a halfmoon-shape as I have used before while doing hoods. And the pleats are not sewn together, just secured at one place in the back. I will use linen when I make mine. I also need to make it bigger than the Leksand hood, to cover the wulsthaube. The "wulst" in the Leksand headwear is quite small, but they actually do have one. On top of their unterhaube!

At my first try I decided to cut a quite large piece of my linen because I didn't know how much I needed. I folded it in half and sew the back together. That turned out to be wrong so I needed to open it up again.

Its just the bottompart that's going to be sewn together, like 5 cm or so. The part that's going to form the ribbon at the neck. And then its time for the pleating. I tried to get the right look by doing the pleats from the inside but that did not work. So I turned it around and did the pleats from the outside.

 

In this picture you can see the pleats being done, from the outside, with waxed linen thread. 

And this is what it look like when you pull the drawstring and make the pleats.

So far it looks right! I started to think about some kind of padding or stiffening, to make the ribbon stand out even more. My laurel came up with the idea of parchment and I got a piece from her to try.

I decided to cover the parchment with linen before I sewed it in to the haube. There are pictures of how this look further down.

I made a drawstring in the back of the neck but that made it look all wrong. Some parts of it looks right, but in the area marked with red it gets bulky, not as flat as I wanted it to be. If I make holes instead of a canal for my drawstring and put the holes on both sides of the padding it might get the right look. As you can see I started working on it at Medival week. 

The first try is in the right direction, but Im not there yet. A new try is necessary... And for the next try I think I need to put my pleats wider apart, to get more fabric inside the hood than outside, as it is now. 

So I started on number two, and number three...

Remember to make the pleats from the outside. I forgot that for my second try and had to remake it, not a bid deal though. This is my second and third try, the one at the left is pleated from the outside and the one on the right from the inside.

After making my pleats I secured the drawstring on the inside of the haube, right in the middle where all the pleats go. And this time I made the pleats wider. 

This time I also chosed to put in a piece of parchment, covered in linen. Here you can see the haube without support at the left and with support at the right. Next time I will use buckram. According to Katherine Barich who wrote Drei Schnittbucher schetter is the period word for it in german. I will try to make it by myself with cornstarch. Next time...

And this is the inside with the parchment sewn in just on top of the pleats and the hemline is folded up.

And instead of a drawstring I made eyelet holes. I wanted to get the fabric gathered behind the backpiece, to get the right look. Don´t look at the string, I will make a proper one... I made six eyelet holes on each side.

And...here is the result! It worked! The Leksandhood turned out to be great inspiration for german 16th century. Or is it the other way around? Maybe the Leksandhood got its shape from earlier hoods. Im happy though, with how it turned out.

I put a pin on each side of the backpiece here too, to get it tight. Otherwise it is a bit floppy. I think I can fix this by putting the eyelet holes closer to the backpiece.

This is one way you can make a haube, but of course not the only way. The size of your wulsthaube is also going to have an impact on the shape of the outerlayer.

This is also a important piece of my golden egg-project. I cant start with the embroideries if I dont know the construction of the haube that is going to be embroidered.  

A very complicated pattern, or not...for me it was the construction that was complicated.

Instructions for leinenhaube

• Take an old haube that fits you well and measure (just kidding).
• Measure your head with your wulsthaube on, from your forehead to your neck and from neck to neck. (Mine is 37 cm from forehead to neck and 57 around)
• Cut out your fabric by pulling out a thread from it so you know that is is straight.
• Fold the short sides together and sew 5 cm at the base. This is going to be the piece at your neck. Press down the seam allowence. 
• Make your pleats from the outside with a steady thread. This is much easier if you can have your wulsthaube on a mannequin head so you can put your pleats suitable for the size of your wulst. You dont want any extra fabric in the back. All of that needed to be pleated in. Start pleating 1 cm above the part you sewn together, up to the fold, and back down again.
• Secure your pleats with the rest of the thread. Press this pleat with your fingers, folding down the rest behind it.

• If you want some extra support, try to starch a piece of linen (or parchment) and put it inside the haube at this point. This also secure the pleats, holds them in place. I have not tried to make the haube without that part. 
• Fold the seam allowance in at base and at the top and whip stitch.  
• Make eyelet holes along the base. 
• Done!

Time to make a 16th century german hemd

At Cudjel war in Finland in july 2019 me and my friend Ragnell Caxtone decided to make a handicraft exchange. She was going to make me 30 buttons and I was going to make her a hemd, a 16th century shirt.

We started talking about the embroidery for the cuffs and collar and together we decided that I was going to try out whitework, something I wanted to try but never done. Whitework is a general term for white on white. Usually linen thread on linen fabric. There is examples though, of silk on linen.  So it did not feel wrong to use silk.

People have asked me about the amount of time needed for the making of garments. So I thought it would be fun to check that out. How long time does it take for me to make a hemd?
I started with making the hemd, up until the cuffs and collar. Most days I was sewing 1 hour, 1,5 hours, at the time. And in six days I finished the garment and it took me 12 hours. I counted the hours for making the cuffs and collar without the embroidery and included it in those 12 hours. So now I know the amount of time I need to make a hemd, without embroidery. The hemd is in linen, sewn with linen waxed thread, mostly in back stitch. To connect the cuffs and collar to the arms and neck I used whip stitches. The hemline is also whip stitched.

I used the same pattern as for the hemd I made for Markus. Its the pattern for the Sture-shirt, now in the museum in the cathedral of Uppsala.

And then I started with the embroidery. Together we decided to use a pattern from Schönspergers patternbook from 1529. This is the one. And I´m using white silk on white linen. The stitch is Italian cross stitch. The silk I´m using is a twisted white silk so its not as shiny as it could have been. My plan was to use the same pattern for the cuffs to, but after making the collar it did not turn out that way...

 At my first try I used the entire thread but that was to thick. So it looked a bit bulky.

The next tryout turned out better. Using 4 of the 12 threads in the silk. I´m sorry for the bad quality, its difficult to take picture of whitework. 

The embroidery is 40 cm long, the collar a bit longer.

And the collar is done! Except for the worked bars I often use for closing..

For the cuffs I decided on my own to use a different pattern after finishing the collar and understanding the amount of time that it took for me to make it. The pattern comes from Quentel´s patternbook from 1544 and its a bit easier to make.

Its the middle one in the picture here.

After finishing the embroidery for the cuffs I made worked bars for closing, both on the cuffs and on the collar. The cuffs are 20 cm long. But there will be no strings in this deal, there is just no time left...

Because in total the embroidery took me 24 hours. And in total the hemd with embroideries almost 36 hours. Is this much? God or bad? I dont know, and it does not matter. It maybe something to beat for the next time!

I´m so happy that it is finished... When Ragnell gets it and have a chance to wear it I hope she send me a picture so I can show you. I know that Ragnell does not do german 16th century clothing for most of the time. But the pattern for the hemd is actually swedish and the pattern for the embroidery is german but whitework was used in England, Sweden and Germany. The differences are not that big.

22/9           1,5 hours Shoulderseams, arms and gussets

23/9           2,10 hours Felling seam allowence arms and connecting arm to bodies

24/9           1,5 hours Second arm connected to bodies

25/9           1 hour Side of bodies connected   

26/9           45 min Seam allowence bodies

27/9           2 hours All seam allowence done. Hemline also

28-29/9     10 hours Embroidery collar

30/9           2 hours Embroidery collar

2/10           2,5 hours Embroidery collar

4-6/10        3 hours Embroidery collar

7/10           2,5 hours Embroidery collar

11/10         1 hour Embroidery cuffs

14/10         1 hour Embroidery cuffs

15/10         2 hours Embroidery cuffs

17/10         1,5 hours cuff sewn together

19/10         1,5 hour second cuff sewn together, both connected to arm and worked bars

                  In total 35,55 hours

Golden egg project - Tools and materials for 16th century embroidery

The society of the golden egg is a challenge household for the arts and sciences in the Kingdom of Drachenwald, within the Society for Creative Anachronism. The aim of the Society of the Golden Egg is to encourage artisans to increase their knowledge and skills through continuous challenges of at least intermediate difficulty, but which are a personal challenge to the person seeking to join the society. Challengers normally have up to one year to complete their challenge. Im going to recreate a german 16th century embroidery, a headgeardecoration from 1510-15. To read more about my challenge look here. I have also written about my pattern, here. 

A part of my challenge was to learn about materials and tools for embroidery. I was totally new to the subject when I started my golden egg challenge so I really needed the basics. Having a certain embroidery to work with I decided just to look at what I needed for that particular embroidery. So there is a lot of stitches and stuff I don´t look at here. And I have tried my pattern out but not really started with it, so my knowledge might change a bit during the process. I have to write something later about the new experience I´m getting while doing the embroidery...

Here she is, my lovely lady with her fantastic haube. 

 

Materials

Fabric

The embroidery technique determined the choice of fundation fabric.

Linen might be the most common fabric for embroidery, at least in peoples minds. Wool, velvet and silk was also used. Wool that is not wowen to tighly, so that you could still see the threads, are not so easy to find today though. Therefore its more difficult to use it for counted work.

Linen and linen/cotton-blends accounted for the most common materials in headgear for all classes of society in Germany during the 16th century. And considering that it is a haube decorated with what I think is counted embroidery, linen is the material to use. The linen I chose was bought from Medeltidsmode. I chose it because the different threads was easy to see and the weave was quite even. You want an even weave, meaning that the threads in the warp and in the weft are as many in both directions. Also, you want a fabric that is not too tightly woven, because it´s a lot easier to count the threads if you can see them clearly.

During the 16^th century materials would have been processed by hand. Fabrics would have been handwoven, made by handspun threads. The wealthy households purchased ready-made materials, or hired the service of craftspeople. The woven structure of the linen provided the guilding grid for the needlework. The threads are somewhat uneven due to their handspun production. In addition, the weave struction is rarely uniform. Weave, quality and colour of the fabrics defined the rank of the wearer. I will write some more about that later, as my project also contains research about the wearers. It´s easy to forget that the empty base fabric was already very expensive, before the embroideres even started with their work.

Even though the fabric is linen, the thread is silk. 

Silk

Silk is a naturally made product. The quality of the filament depends on the silk worm-race, diet and the climate. The final quality of the silk also depends on the processing of the raw material and the care and skill of the workers who made it.

Spun silk is made from broken cocoons and leftovers and spun into a thread much the same way that wool or linen is spun into threads. It has a soft shine to it.

Filament silk is the fiber itself, reeled straight off the cocoon, sometimes referred to as reeled silk. Filament silk is glossy in a totally different scale than spun silk. Spun silk is also weaker than filament silk. The individual strands are long and strong. In spun silk they are shorter. 

During the 16th century german renaissance, they must have used both filament and spun silk? I mean, there must have been residues from the cocoons back then too, that they could make into spun silk. Right? No left-overs at all when you are dealing with a material this expensive. So, both. What did the lady in my painting use?

Did someone in her household sew the garment for her? Or did she do it herself? Well-born ladies could have done the embroidery by themselves. Did she? She has a lot of embroidered clothing. So, maybe she didn´t? The readymade garment could be sent to a embroideres that made the embroidery. Where did they get their silk from? Did they have the money to buy the silk first, or did the silk come with the order? Italian or chinese silk? The embroidery on a haube is easier to make before the garment is put together. Does that mean that the person making the embroidery put the garment together also? Or did the piece arrive as a decorated piece of fabric for someone in the household to put together?

Embroiderers of this time bought their silk as loosely spun floss, in both natural color and dyed. Silk floss was also prepared into fine cord by winding silk filament tightly around a silk core. Is this maybe what the white string could be made of? Or is it a couchingstitch? The black around it might suggest a couchingstitch...

Spangles

The white dots in some of the flowers and also placed here and there all across the headpieces I chose to enterpretate as spangles.

Embroidered work could often be embellished with round or tear-shaped spangles, which were particularly favored on apparel and accessories where the movement of the wearer would enhance their reflective qualities.

Stitches

My guess is that the black outlines are made with double running stitch in black silk and that the flowers and the squares are made with satin stitch. So are the green parts. The back piece with the pearls is not included in this project, but who knows, maybe I get to that part also...

Pictured above is my stitch- and colour tryout. I have not really got the colours right yet...

Counted satin stitch

Counted satin stitch, or Glattstitch in german and plattsöm in swedish, is a popular form of embroidered decoration on household linen and on linen garments as chemises, collars and coifs. According to the introductions to the reprint of the New Modelbuch satin stitch is often worked in a geometric pattern and the patternbooks are full of examples of this. Silk was valuable and to save silk the thread is worked as much as possible on the surface and the bottom look nothing like it. Generally, very little thread is wasted on the back side of the fabric, where it is hidden from view. Not like today when there is as much thread on the back side while using this stitch. 

I heard that the embroidery might be made with brick stitch. But why brick stitch? Instead of just plain satin stitch? Satin stitch and brick stitch is very alike. What is the difference really?

Brick stitch is a form of satin stitch where the stitches are offset with half a stitch and have the same length of the stitches. Satin stitch is tailored to the area you want to cover, and can vary in length.  

So, when to use what?

Brick stitch were common between the 13^th century and 15^th century in Germany. Therefore it´s just a bit to early for my embroidery. And the pattern does not feel like typical brick stitch to me. Having the same length of the stitches makes brick stitch very good for geometrical designs. This embroidery is not geometrical in that way. And I don´t understand how to make the flowers with brick stitch. So, I decided to make my embroidery with satin stitch.

Its not uncommon that the satin stitch is outlined using a straight stitch like back stitch or double running stitch. This helps containing the satin stitch within the pattern. And as the painting has black outlines around the flowers, it helped me decide to use satin stitch together with double running stitch. 

Double running stitch

A counted double running stitch creates a solid outline. Designs worked in this stitch are reversable, looking the same on both sides. In the patternbook Eyn new kunstlich boich of 1527 Peter Quentel uses the name spanish stitch for the first time. England adopted it as a term, but were also calling it true stitch, because of the identical both sides. In the 19^th century or early 20^th century the stitch were labeled as Holbein stitch after the german artist Hans Holbein whose portraits often include double running stitch as decoration on clothing.

It is difficult to say with certainty that pieces were or were not counted. My guess is that the embroidery is made with double running stitch and satin stitch, but who knows? It is possible that a careful use of double running stitch may create an embroidery that look the same on both sides. But I have not been able to do that, my ends are clearly visible. Many collars were lined, for support, so why be extra careful to make it reverse when no one is going to see it?

According to Amy A. Wojciechowski could items that appear to be double running stitch on the surface may in fact be done in a back stitch. And I guess I agree with her, this could also be done in back stitch but when in a painting it is not possible to know for sure. I, as a not that skilled embroiderer, thought it would be easier to get it even when using counted double running stitch, so I will. 

Couching stitch
Couching stitch, läggsöm in swedish, is when you put your embroidery thread on top of the fabric and stitching it onto the work. It was used during the middle ages, especially with costly embroideries. With this technique costly metal-thread were saved for the front side of the fabric and nothing ended up on the backside.

If you use the technique with the support of, for example, linen threads, relief patterns will arise.

My guess is that the white thread is couched down with black thread. A small part is visible in the lower left corner of my picture above. It´s done a bit sloppy though, I need to make it with a little bit more effort.
 

Tools

Skilled workers have always had their specialized tools of their trade.

Frames and sewing-pillows

The existence of embroidery frames, known as tents, can be found in inventories and pictorial evidence. The evenness and quality of stitching is improved when the base fabric is held taut and fixed. Sewing-pillows were essential tools for fine work, whether by seamstress or embroiderers. They supported the fabric, which could be pinned onto it, or secured at one end and held taut to run a gathering thread, or whip hem.

I have a big frame, not made to use for this kind of embroidery but I´m looking forward to try it out to see if it works! Pictures will be presented here later.

Woodcut from an italian book from 1532, showing different way to transfer patterns, when not doing counted work, to the fabric. Here you can see the embroidery-frames. Published by Alessandro Paganino. 

Needles

A rounded end allows the needle to slip between the threads of the base fabric rather then pierce and split them. A bigger needle can be good. A needle that is larger than the linen weave helps to push open the space between the linen threads. This increases the size of the hole through which the embroidery threads has to pass, and reduce the friction on the fibers. According to Patterns of fashion the stock of John Wilkenson, merchant of Newcastle, 1571 included ”xiil clowtes of talier needles”. Pins where also important tools.

I have used a needle with a pointy sharp end in my tryouts. But this information comes from my embroidery books and I will try it out, see what I like best.

Books about embroidery often focus on the english styles. But Germany was early printing pattern books for embroidery and there are a lot of these preserved!

See my blog post about the seeking of my pattern.