Terminology is always unreliable, but I believe it's a too-squishy interpretation of the really extreme crespines, like Beatrice Countess of Arundel: http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/stothard_charles_alfred_thomasfitzalanearlofarundelandhiscountess.htm There are several effigies and brasses ...

Wow, that is really gorgeous! I remember trying to make one of these when I was a poor student, out of strip brass - it didn't work very well! Do tell, how do you get the hair inside the tubes? Personally, I hadn't heard the term "templars" before - I know them as crespinettes. When I firs...

You mean page 3 girl for the Ancient Sicily Advertiser 191BC (or thereabouts)? Proof that the "bodice-ripper" goes back further than you might think!

I just happened to be reading Melanie Schuessler's article on children's clothing in the Lisle Letters at the same time as seeing this thread: "She hath over grown all that ever she hath": Children's Clothing in the Lisle Letters, 1533-40, in Medieval Clothing and Textiles vol.3. This anal...

If you put your heal down hard on a stone (or even a hard bit of ground), you could bruise it as there is no padding (which modern shoes have) and you're limping for the next few weeks then! Get some fleece or thin sheepskin (rummage in the offcuts bin) and make yourself a pair of woolly insoles fo...

No, it was one of those annoying corners where we couldn't get any of the clues. And I forgot to ask Mother to check the answers the next week.

Kirtle was my best guess, but it's a bizarre description!

I hadn't thought of that interpretation of bliaut structure. But "...to the 18th century"?

Have to try this one on you - a clue from the Telegraph crossword a couple of weeks ago. My mother said "You'll know this one", but I was completely flummoxed.

"Tunic-like garment worn over a smock, from the middle ages to the 18th century" 6 letters.

Any thoughts?

Speaking of dirt and lack of repairs... (What makes me go "!" is people walking around in modern clothes with the hems of their trousers in tatters, becasue they can't even take up a hem - even the steward on our sleeper train at the weekend! Bring back GNER and their red coats!) We did a ...

(Assuming you are male?) the gores need to start no lower than in line with your navel, maybe even an inch or so higher. Young chaps whose shape is straight-up-and-down often think they don't need expansion until hip-level, but putting your gores in too low will make you look a very strange shape! O...

There is a link between upper-class women becoming more educated and the development of Books of Hours - as more women could read, things came into being for them to read, and it was desirable to be able to read in order to follow the Hours and show your piety and virtue. St Anne (mother of the Virg...

PS please don't be put off by this, the rest of the group seems fairly normal (relatively speaking anyhow)

Aw, you've put me off now! I don't want to join a group with normal people in it.

"all authetic needles other than bone will get discoloured quickly if you're using them for any length of time" I just realised this weekend that the brass needle I always use is nice and shiny. The ones that are left in my sewing kit are dull and tarnished. The only time I've had a period...

I've always thought that if you start at one hem the gore is more likely to go wonky? What I usually do is pin and hand stitch the top 2 inches or so - it always takes several times pinning, but it's only 3 pins to keep moving - and then once that is sorted I can quickly sew or machine down the long...

I'm right handed and sew seams right to left. Herringbone, obviously, progresses left to right when the needle is going right to left. Hemming I'm never sure which way I want it - usually do the first few stitches and then decide I've got it the wrong way up. My mother taught needlework (although sh...

On the bliaut, she says it's from a pattern in a book, not a very great book by the looks of it, so bliaut is probably just what the pattern was called. But she does seem to have learned more since making it, so give her credit. I really must bookmark that site.

Ahhhh, I've got visions of frilly polyester blouses and badly crocheted shawls now Yikes, that hadn't occurred to me! I was thinking mill girls, or fish-wives - those blouses that cross over and pin, with no buttons, and woven shawls. Also inspired by the musical theatre group I used to be in, that...

You could always do what us Welsh did, choose an historical era and wear clothes from then That's what almost everyone else has done. Most "folk" costumes around Europe, at least, are some form of historical dress with the variations particular to that area, before fashions started to travel and be...

Presumably unless the material is thick enough to show whether the holes are perpendicular or slanted, there is no way of telling stab stitch from running stitch on a finished item? Having no formal training, I just change from one to the other, from hemming to oversewing etc, as I go along dependin...

Simon, I'd be interested to hear about it if you try a braces arrangement. What would it attach to at the back - would it go right down to the back of the chausses? I've come across attachments to a belt that go down the front and side-back, but none that go right down across your bum. I think there...

Thought I'd leap in here and de-lurk, because I see a confusion about wimples developing. To Viking/Saxon/early Norman folks, a wimple is the thing you cover your head with - usually one large piece of fabric swathed around, possibly with "foundation" items underneath to fix it to. To 15th century t...