From experience on my first event with all the time and £ spent on the rest of the family, I didn't have enough layers at our first event. A hood makes an astounding difference to body heat, as did having sleeves long enough to cover the base of my hand. Period correct, thermally practical - because...

Stuart is right - but as he says, he gives a counsel of perfection. In any period start with basic lower status. Even if that is lower than you initially intend. Some can invest lots of money in the knowledge and skills of one of the many, very good to costumiers or producers - and get there straigh...

Guthrie is right - weight and weave means that you can have heavy, warm wool cloth (thick fulled meltons) and fine, cool wool cloth (nun's veiling). You might find it interesting and certainly useful to look at the Sumptuary laws - which often governed what fabric could be or could not be used, by w...

It's a link to an aurora borealis tour website?

The 2018 ball is being held on September 22nd, 7 - 12pm A perfect public time-tarting opportunity. Brilliant evening to make up a table for an group outing or for spoiling a non-camping partner. Fully costumed event using the Assembly Rooms for their original purpose - card room, bar, supper rooms, ...

The 2018 ball is being held on September 22nd, 7 - 12pm A perfect public time-tarting opportunity. Brilliant evening to make up a table for an group outing or for spoiling a non-camping partner. Fully costumed event using the Assembly Rooms for their original purpose - card room, bar, supper rooms, ...

The 2018 ball is being held on September 22nd, 7 - 12pm Full event details here: http://www.farthingalecostumes.com/index.php/17/ including booking ball tickets and workshop tickets. A very pleasant evening, worth the ticket price, with a supper hall, ball room, bar and rooms to chat and stroll thro...

D - please check your messages or email spam filters - S

Other options are that they are high necked kirtles, which should be worn under gowns, (see the train bearer in the first picture for the bloack underskirt) and the train bearer in the second picture (the closure line down the front of the black under garment - also seen in the woman behind). Garmen...

See PM

Spa Rout header.JPG A rout-party in the late Georgian Spa town that entertained Prinny and his siblings, refuge to Harriett Wilson’s kept sister Sofia (later Lady Berwick) in her widowhood. An inclusive evening to dance, talk, enjoy old and make new friends. ----------------------------------------...

But surely there are three basic re-enactorisms which everyone understands? 1) Re-enactment is the only place where men can loudly admire one another's shoes in public without assumptions being made about their sexuality. 2) Put one group of ten re-enactors in a closed room for four hours and when y...

Playing devil's advocate again, Colin? :twisted: That is a question to be decided by a person's group and advised by their authenticity officer. However there is no doubt that there was crappy linen in the C15th, just as there are crappily made tee-shirts now - hence Guild restrictions and internal ...

No, I don't re-use the cotton or suggest (see past posts) it as suitable for medieval or other non-cotton periods. It isn't just the historical imperative of being wrong for period: if you are not used to wearing the full set of past undergarments it is simply practical for several reasons: cotton d...

A perfect public time-tarting opportunity. Fully costumed event which uses the Bath Assembly Rooms for their original purpose - card room, bar, separate supper rooms, hot buffet supper and a large room dedicated to dancing, without having to move supper tables about and orphan diners (I'm always one...

If you give people an idea of the clothing sizes required and the standard you are broadly aiming for ( I like second hand kit for very many reasons but define it in four broad standards - whether it is for fancy dress, for theatrical costume, for beginner re-enactment or for interpretative history ...

The trick is a fillet - pm me for details

A wiser soul told me that due to the modern mainstream fear of the perceived 'difficulty' of wool (moth, laundering, expense, relative wear) a small percentage of selected 'other' fibres are added to enhance wear I think that anything 5% or less 'other' while it still has to be listed as a wool mix ...

ABSOLUTELY!

And that is why any linen apron worn over wool in a later period re-enactment kitchen should alway be tied with a quick-release lover's knot (tie a bow, but pull one end through competely, effectively making a one-loop slipknot which can be released by pulling on one end).

I started with googling "medieval sewing stitches" and there are a raft of items out there, from basic cut and paste website-fillers to archeological reports breaking down stitch usage by site and date - with diagrams (1). So I couldn't even proffer a possible likely selection (2) that you...

Late to the party, but this is what I was taught when still new to things and it has saved false economies. If you are not sure of your fabric content, you need to take a sliver of the fabric in question and a lighter - this is best done over a sink with some water in it - and do burn test. Cotton a...

You can either split wool tapestry lengths down from 4 to 2 filaments, choosing "off" (ie grayed for blues, earthy for reds, yellowed for greens or muted) or plant colours if you know the colours achievable. Often you see bundles of leftover skeins coming up on ebay which is a cheap way to...

You need a pegged slate frames: principle below, but without fancy turning. Examples http://www.royal-needlework.org.uk/shop/index/1 - cheaper, but doubtless subsidised price more victorian http://www.siestaframes.com/acatalog/Slate_Frames_.html - blocky construction, but uncontraversial ebay: http:...

At one early Kelmarsh I needed to press a very heavy wool seam flatter for something we were making on site. Clean Iron ladle with a few embers in it, keep it moving quickly and tell the suddenly-interested to move back or let you concentrate so you don't singe the cloth. It's a modern approach to n...

You can unravel the edge of the fabric you are using and use the threads to sew the garment. A friend did this with a lower status C15th gown made from recycled blanket which had been washed a couple of times. The only problems she had were surmounted by practice by the end of the process 1) that th...

......are you commenting on m'size or the touch of theomorphism (which the tablets are sorting, thank you very much)? Either way, that's the cost of another stamp you're saving me this Christmas.

It is about approach, method and construed argument - not content.

Shame on you, youngling; society expects my cohort to be scary. In suggesting anything else you're throwing the government's conceptualised demographics off and bringing down Ragnarok.......

I know what I know, I know what I do and I hope I know enough to learn from others what I can. Some might argue that there is no point breeding the correct sheep, shearing, spinning, weaving, dying, hand sewing and wearing the correct cut of fabric if you can't publically share the end result. Some ...

Wholly agree with Saracen. C15th square neckline tend to come in with the new Tudor dynasty. For the period of the later Plantagenet dynasty rounded necklines at all levels of society, or very late, wide, straight, barely-on-the-shoulder court necklines are the norm. This gown may be a fancy dress a...

Go-Janet- GO! Exactly. The "Can I wear / is it right to wear/ can anyone point me at provenance which supports me wearing linen kirtles in Late Medieval England" question comes up almost as regularly as Cosmopolitan's "Find Your G-spot" articles. The original poster is asking for...