Drachenwald Crown Tourney has come and gone, actually more than a week ago? I did kind of massively overdo things that weekend and spent most of the week recovering. But! I went!
I did finish my fitted gown in time, thank god, because it was chilly.
Going up the spiral staircase to the dormitories in the tower in multiple layers of long skirts was….terrifying….and I ended up just hiking my skirt up to my knees for the steep steps. How women who went up and down this stair every day dealt with this I have no idea, but every time I went to grab something or put it away I nearly tripped myself.
The site was beautiful but all the photos I took were on my mom’s phone, so I can’t show you. I did for once get good pictures of this outfit (thanks mom).
Annoyingly you can’t see the ruffle that took a full day to set in with 3mm cartridge pleats and killed my hands but IT’S THERE. I PROMISE.
Although everyone from Drachenwald was super welcoming and friendly…. I miss my friends in the West. Also because Drachenwald was a principality of the East initially, their court ceremonies are different enough from ours to throw me off just a little.
I was very worried about my clothes, as European reenactors tend to be more serious with their kit. I would say that is indeed true, and it made me very happy to see so many people in veils and wusthaubes and hats! Probably helped by the fact that it was not a burning inferno. Most of the clothing was 14th or 16th C (English and German particularly, no one was repping Alcega) and fairly focused on Western Europe. There were a couple people in persians, but I would say the big differences were as follows:
Several people in 1570s-1590s English
No one in Slavic/Rus, which is very popular in the West right now
No East Asian, but we have a small yet devoted Japanese contingent in the West
Outfits were generally more complete
Elizabethans notes:
The shift is a mess. I really need to just make a partlet and suite of ruffs, but I might give my hands a break first. If I ever make that yellow dress from that Juan de Burgunya relatable it’ll be great for that.
I think I should take the short bits of whalebone out of the CF and put some in that go all the way up. While I was trying to keep the softer silhouette as discussed in one of the TT intros I am not the correct shape to do that anyway, so I might as well have a straight lacing gap.
Other projects!
My first needle lace sample for understanding textiles is done! Yay! Only…er…two more?!
My corset is corset-ing…. Curved flat felled seams in coutil are a MENACE why am I doing this to myself.
I was very excited, however, to find a natural form corset in the collection of the Met in my exact Wacky Victorian color scheme!
Mine is reversed–drab with weird storm blue/green/grey flossing– but yay! Go weird colors!
The West Kingdom embroiderer’s guild is doing a display of bags at Twelfth Night that will then be for largesse. I am doing blackwork (gee)(anyone surprised?) BUT at a normal human scale on 32ct linen! It’s so fast!
The green motif is from my favorite T.14.1931 sampler and the red is from the Jane Bostocke sampler. The acorns and the flower lattice make it really Western and echoes our crowns, so that’s cool. I’ve got some gold silk coming from Pipers so the second one will hopefully be green and gold.
Not Another Costuming Blog 