Tag: 1500’s

PC2017: Dona Isabel Maria’s Camping Shelf

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Dona Isabel Maria brings us this ingenious camping shelf for the category Containment System.

She says:
Being an old hand at Canterbury Faire, I try to regularly make improvements to my camp schmutter. In this case, the specific purpose was to facilitate better event-long organisation by containing my feast gear and giving me a place to hang my hand towel. Although an unlikely pairing, it proved to be not uncommon in period artwork.

This shelf is not constructed using period techniques. It is very much in the “quick and dirty”, “prototype” and “let’s attach as many pieces to one another as we can to stop them getting lost between Faires” school of manufacture. Additionally, I have not seen any evidence of this type of shelving in period tent imagery. However, since I tend towards “playing house” rather than “being on campaign” at Faire, it seemed reasonable to add this shelf to my tent.

Materials & Equipment: dressed knotty pine in the desired width, jigsaw, coping saw, sandpaper & block, hand drill and drill press (thanks to Adrian for use of the latter).

The disassembled picture gives a pretty good idea of the pieces and how three of them are attached by hinges that allow it to be stored flat.  The right side of the shelf sits on a block, and is held in place by a nail that just slots into a pre-drilled hole in both pieces. The back of the shelf sits on the shelf, so it can’t flop back past 90 degrees. The whole thing gets suspended from the top of my tent’s perimeter poles and lashed to them using calico tape.

Verdict: a bit tricky to put up (apologies for the near concussion Christian), but then really quite secure.  Displaying my pewter was so helpful in maintaining track of my feast gear that my long lost St Jude spoon (not seen in over 4 years) also found its way home.  I call that a success!

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VPC2017: Dona Isabel Maria’s Marchpane

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A delicious and delightful entry from Dona Isabel Maria – Marchpane! This is for the categories Back To Basics, Show Us Your Arms and Fly The Colours.


She says: I began with a copy of ‘The English Hus-wif’ by Gervase Markham, a packet of raw almonds, a packet of caster sugar, a bottle of rose water, a mortar and pestle and a quiet evening.  Some time later I had ‘searced’ (powdered) sugar. Some considerable time after that, I had a lump of raw marchpane, two sore arms and a strong resolve to buy a spice grinder. I followed the rest of the instructions (kneading, rolling it out, adorning it, washing with rose water etc) but with a few modifications. I ignored the wafers (not having any) and decided to have a go colouring the ‘ice’ (icing) using plausibly period ingredients. The red was colour was created with a couple of drops of beetroot juice in some powdered sugar and rose water, while the green came from boiling up some rosemary and parsley from my garden. The decorated marchpanes were then baked in a relatively cool oven until they were just beginning to colour. However, the colours did not really develop as I had hoped, so I applied additional coats. I tested the differences between baking it before icing it, and icing the raw marchpane, as well as the difference between letting it dry between coats and baking it between coats to see if there was any appreciable difference I could use in future experiments. Taste: the finished items were taken to a household sewing day, to add to the lunch table. The general consensus was that the marchpane was tasty, even for those people who actively avoid modern marzipan. I personally found it fairly irresistible and hope to experiment further in the future.

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VPC2017: Mistress katherine’s Garters and Swaddling Clothes

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The garters are presented for category Hitting Below The Knee

Mistress katherine says:
I saw the trim at Pennsic and loved it as it has my tower, even if I had to settle for green, rather than white. But I knew the pattern was far too mundane to use visibly (I’m sure I’m not the only one who asks herself “What would Mistress Rowan say?”). So, having repurposed the lovely garters Catherine d’Arc made me into a travel coronet, I thought a pair of garters would let me use the trim in a hidden but useful fashion, and answer another VP challenge. I sewed petersham ribbon on the back for sturdiness and grip, added pewter buckles cast by Sir Sebastian, and whacked a grommet in for a hole. They keep the new hose (Mistress Ginevra’s creation) up nicely.

The Swaddling Clothes are presented for the category of Containment System, and Mistress katherine adds that this is for the baby, not their by-products! 
Futher, she says: This is part of the Venetian swaddling band my mother wrapped me and my short-lived brothers in.
Swaddling bands appear in a number of Renaissance paintings , such as  Laviania Fontana’s Newborn Baby in a Crib (1583)Extant Italian examples from the 1570-90s can be seen in the V&A and Met. Typically they are made of white linen doubled up and edged with a lace or embroidered band (including whitework, reticella, stem stich, interlacing); rectangular at the wider end (12-24cm) and tapering to a point along a 2-3-metre length. The shape is to allow a spiral band of the fancy work to show as the final layer of swaddling cloth is wrapped around the child. A V&A example can be found here.This one is made of a linen-like cotton from my scrap pile; with lace purchased on Burano, the lace-making island in the Venetian lagoon; and Spotlight trim whip-stiched on as an edge.

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VPC2017: Mistress katherine k’s Baby’s Charm and Teether

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This is an entry for the categories Child’s Play, and The Neck Best Thing: a baby’s charm and teether.

Mistress katherine says:

In Detti’s Madonna della Pergola (painted in 1523), a young child holds a light chain which carries a piece of coral, a cross, a token, a coin or pilgrim badge and a dog’s tooth. The coral and the tooth were used as teethers; the remainder were to call upon less physical aid.
This charm from my swaddling days holds coral to ward off the plague, a cross from Rome, an angel, and a pilgrim’s scallop from Santiago de Compostela.

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VPC2017: Baroness Agnes’ Muff

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Baroness Agnes presents this muff, which was made as a gift for Baroness Ginevra, for the category Cover Me.

She says:
The plan was to make a muff to keep hands warm at winter events. That got upgraded to make a fancy muff as a gift for Her Excellency with whom I had discussed my muff plans in the past. Muffs become popular in Europe towards the end of our period. They were typically lined with fur, the outer being either fur or some other fabric. I chose some jacquard I knew Her Excellency would like due to colour and pattern, and some black synthetic fur I had already.  Embellishments were done in white so that the outer was blue and white, the colours of Her arms. The pattern was a simple rectangle. The outer fabric was beaded first then lined with heavier fabric to give the muff some structure. The fur was pinned on, and the pieces were sewn together, turned out and finished. Buttons were added. These were added a little in from the edge as I have discovered joining the muff at the edge lets the draft in – a little overlap keeps one’s fingers nice and toasty.

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VPC2017: Her Excellency Ginevra’s Pin Book

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Her Excellency Ginevra has completed this project for the Challenge: a pin book to hold veil and sleeve pins.

It is entered in the categories of One Metre Material Project (definitely less than one metre of fabric here!) and Containment System.

Categories 12 & 25- a book to contain veil and sleeve pins. Made from remnants of velvet, linen and felt.  I put pins on the felt to figure out what size it needed to be, then cut 2 pieces of felt- one that size, and one 1/2 an inch larger on both sides. I wrapped the velvet around the larger piece, cut away some excess fabric, and sewed it to stay put.  I then sewed a piece of linen to cover the edges of the velvet and the middle section of the felt.  This made the cover. I sewed the pages to the cover along the spine of the book, and made some cords to tie it closed out of silk embroidery thread.  It was a quick and easy project, and something I’d been wanting for a while.

Pin book closed
Pin book open
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