Frankenblogging Part 7: Medieval veils and other headwear

Author's note: The Frankenblogging feature is a republication of older content from my former personal webpage, with some annotations. It occurs every Monday morning. This one is late! My apologies.


Today's installment is made of a couple of pages from the old site. The first section is the short opinion/advice piece that grew into a larger research project, on 12th Century French women's court headwear, and the second is a set of pieces I wrote about buckram and other materials in making historic hats, closing with a tiny little thing I said once about straw hats.


A short observation on early veils

The early veil (think Norman Conquest - there are two ladies on the Bayeux tapestry wearing something that looks like this) seems to have been a smaller version of the roman matron's veil.

It's a large rectangle, worn by laying the centre of the long side over the head, crossing the ends over the front of the throat, and tossing them over the shoulders. No bands seem to have been worn with this style of veil, but keeping it in place would have definitely been helped by pinning it to braids wrapped around the head. It's very warm, as well, so if you live in a hot place, make it of thin cotton or linen, with a slightly open weave, to let air pass through. For winter, make it of wool or heavy soft silk.

A good place to get inexpensive, high-quality, premade veils (my early veil is exactly this item) is at Dharma Trading Co. They carry them in silk and cotton (though they call them sarongs).


Buckram and Elizabethan Hats
This is OLD, I wasn't as much of an expert as I thought I was, and this wasn't EVER my main focus of research. I can MAKE hats, and I was trained in modern millinery techniques (i.e. 1800s and more recent). Please have a look at the websites of those who do specialize in this period, like Sarah Goodman and Drea Leed.

I trained with a professional milliner (who is now retired) making reproduction hats, using traditional techniques and materials. I've done theatrical costume and I've also been researching and making documented period costume for over 10 years. Much of what is given below is based on my experience with the various materials.  

That last sentence is pretty accurate. It's practical advice on using modern materials, NOT AT ALL a piece on making authentic reproductions. Keep that in mind!

Period Usage of Buckram  No, not really about buckram at all. I didn't find any. See my cautionary note, above, PLEASE! This is another case of "Ive got a BOOK! Look! Expert! ME!" syndrome. 

Sigh.

I have checked my copy of _Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd_ (Arnold), and it seems that buckram was used in giving body and shape to clothes (as Pellon interfacings are used now), but not to hats, during Elizabeth's time. Stiff felt was used for shaping hats, which would then be covered with the fashion fabrics. I suggest Arnold's _Patterns of Fashion_ for more information (with photos of construction details on an existing example) on at least one hat (my copy is now gone and I have been unable to replace
it). Also, try the Elizabethan Costuming Page, as it focuses more on this period than I do, and may
have more information on where to look. The main downside to felt is that millenery felts are fairly expensive.

Modern Buckram

Modern buckram is made in a similar way to period buckram. 10-years-ago me seems to know SO MUCH about things I haven't really researched personally. Please ask someone who really knows what they are talking about! "Buckram" basically is now defined as a coarse-woven cloth stiffened with starch, and the meaning of the word has not changed very much over the intervening time, save that in the 16th c it also referred to the unstiffened cloth. If you want to use it for hats, you should look for and purchase millinery buckram as it is superior for hatmaking. It should, in any case, be reinforced with a millenery wire frame securely whipped down onto the buckram, in order to produce a reasonably sturdy hat. Buckram's main advantage is that hats made with a wire-and-buckram base are less expensive to make, and are lighter, cooler and tend to breathe better than felt hats.

Other materials (In hatmaking)



This is actually pretty good advice for people wanting to learn how to build hats on the cheap. I've used posterboard, plastic jugs, coathangers, cardboard pizza boxes (unused), cereal boxes, etc. Alternative materials are a great way to learn.


Now, if you are wanting to *practice* making hats (or if cost is an issue), lightweight posterboard is a reasonably cheap and practical alternative for working out shapes and fit before working with an unfamilar (or expensive) material or technique. Also, medium- or heavy-weight posterboard is quite sturdy for costume hats, and is often used for making headwear and props for theatrical productions on a smaller budget. A posterboard base can be covered with fabric and finished just as a buckram-and-wire base can, and I have a few 'practice' or 'stage' hats in my costume closet that are indistinguishable from the 'real' hats to the uninformed. I have found that using an equivalent weight of posterboard for a base structure is almost equally durable as an inexpensive sized felt.

All three materials (sized felt, buckram, and posterboard) are sensitive to moisture and will lose shape if they get wet, are crushed or damaged in any way. I suggest that you start out with posterboard to begin with, and, once you are familiar with the shapes, fitting, etc, you can then move on to a felt base hat. The successful 'practice' hats, if nicely finished, will do nearly as well as felt-based ones would for camping events, loaners, dress-up hats for demos, or other situations where one's best costume isn't really recommended anyway.

On Straw Hats
Wow, actual good advice without too much Authoritative Tone. Straw hats are nice, anyway. 


The basic woven grass/straw 'farmer hat' has been around for at least 2000 years. They are shown in many medieval illuminations of field workers. I have also seen Roman artwork depicting travellers and laborers wearing woven grass or straw hats of a very familiar shape.

I suggest, if you are unsure of whether they were used in your period, that you check contemporary artwork for images of travellers, laborers and other persons who might need protection from the sun.

Frankenblogging part 4: Medieval Half-Circle Cloaks

Author's note: The Frankenblogging feature is a republication of older content from my former personal webpage, with some annotations. It occurs every Monday morning. 

More Old Content! Please feel free to post comments, questions, and crticism :)

On the wearing of half-circle mantles

At least one surviving (non-ecclesiastical) example has two ties, one on either side, which are rather farther down than you would expect. This fits with my experience of wearing one, and actually helps to 'fit' the
garment to the body so that it stays.

My heavy, fulled wool, winter mantle is a pure half-circle, calf-length, and is worn opening at the front, clasped with a heavy double pin (bridged  by a chain of approximately 6 inches). It does not tend to slide down the back, but that is because the double brooch is pinned at shoulder level, /after/ arranging the cloak so that the extra cloth wrinkles up at the back of my neck (nice and cozy in cold weather). This is usually
about 16-18 inches down from the crease when the cloak is folded in half.

My summer mantle, being a little shorter and of finer wool, can be pinned to my gown with lighter brooches and doesn't wrinkle up much at the back of my neck because the lighter fabric drapes more easily across my shoulders. It is light enough that it can be comfortably pulled over my head (in the veil/mantle manner) if I need to do so. 

Note: This observation really has not changed at all in the intervening 10 years since I first made it. 

On decorating mantles

Virtually all of the surviving cloaks from period (And yes, I mean the whole 1000+ year stretch) that we have are decorated in some way. Some, like the 'Schnurmantel' and the coronation mantle of Roger II of Sicily are elaborately embroidered with designs that stand out from the base fabric, some are only 'trimmed' with embroidery (the Mammen cloak). The cloak from the Burgos collection is decorated in that it is made of an elaborately patterned textile of Moorish origin.

Due to artistic evidence of undecorated cloaks, I'd venture that lower classes wore them, and that these would be unlikely to have survived as they would be ideal candidates for recycling into other things (and also
because the richer garments were given into the care of the Church after a period of secular use, which helped to preserve them).

Half-circle cloaks were pretty much the norm from about 1100 on, although scattered survivals of the earlier rectangular cloak (mostly among poorer or isolated peoples) continued on for some time. The more extravagant 3/4 and full-circle cloaks seem to have evolved as weaving technology became more efficient, just like the rest of the world's fashion did. If you want easy, rectangular cloaks are very easy and practical, in that
they convert quite easily to blankets.

Pardon Our Dust

I've been doing some consolidation, some redesigning (just now I threw on a nice skin from the handy blogger template thingy just to make it look different), and some other waffling about. I have decided to roll my old art blog into this one, since I doo ALL my infrequent updating over at deviantArt for the time being, and also my perpetually-on-hiatus house restoration blog. I'm going to leave the posts on those blogs that are linked from elsewhere in place, with notes that they have been relocated, and delete the other posts.

There are a few other things I am planning to roll in as well, like all my public posts at my livejournal, which go back to 2003 (this may take some time), and older stuff from my personal websites, in order to make it all searchable, taggable and accessible in one easily backed up place. Eventually, when things get better, this may get embedded into my future new personal site.

I have quite a lot of Real Life commitments to deal with at the same time, so this may take a few days.

Ikea MALA easel, hacked for two!

I have two boys, and inevitably, when one wants to draw or paint, both want to do it. We recently moved and reorganized/resized our art/school/creative play area, so we needed to replace our old easel, a Melissa and Doug adjustable height easel, with one that folds flatter when it's not in use.

We picked the MALA easel (not on the US website right now) at Ikea because it's really flat when folded, and that's what we needed. It's the same height as the old one, so my boys won't notice much of a difference in use.

The only issue I had with the new easel is one I've always had, and had previously solved with an additional sheet of paper and another clip, but it meant that if one boy is still using the roll and the other is done, boy one will have to wait for more paper. Not practical, and really a setup for sibling rivalry!

Well, Ikea also has a small, portable paper roll holder, also in the MALA line, and it happens to fit perfectly on the rails of the easel's roll holder/tool bin. So, I've combined the two, and with the assistance of clips, converted the easel to work for two artists at one time. This is the back side of the easel, where the white board is:

And this is the front, where the chalkboard/paper path is (say hello to underpants-superman, my assistant):

I've altered the paper path for optimum tension, as well as to make it easier to fold when not in use, and to make it a bit easier to trim off fresh masterpieces without having to re-thread the paper through the retaining slit. It goes through the slit, up and folds a bit over the top, where it is held with the clip.

The clips are repurposed garment hangers with integral spring clips. I like these, because they are sturdy, easily replaced, and the clips are widely spaced. This means that you only need one for a big sheet of paper, instead of two.

Here's a repeat of my initial image, so you can see the paper rolls and the paper paths from the side without having to scroll up and down:

The tabletop paper holder has one of its removable crayon trays removed (I just set that aside) and sits on the rails of the easel's paper holder, the paper goes up over the white board and is clipped with a second repurposed hanger. It's not attached permanently to the easel, because I want to be able to remove it easily so I can fold the easel flat for storage.

ETA: If you want to secure the paper roll holder to the easel, use two to four long velcro cable ties, and just wrap them around the foot of the roll holder and the tray bar. The structure of the easel and the roll holder help to keep it in place, but if you need extra peace of mind, this works quite well .

All I have to do to fold it flat is to un-clip the secondary paper at the top, pick up the small paper holder, roll up the paper, and put the other crayon tray back in. Then I can put it up, and fold the easel flat, slide it next to the desk, and both are put away. Even adding in the crayons, that's less than 2 minutes for cleanup, which is fantastic with 2 busy kids in the house!

Underpants Superman gives the idea The Purple Crayon of Approval. So do I!

Review: DadCanDo

I'm not a dad, I'm a mom, but I LOVE dadcando.com, I love the projects, the sense of wonder, and the joy in nerdiness and creativity that is the basic spirit of it. I've been a fan since I first found it, back when he had a few paper airplanes, a wand how-to, and some fun paperfolding crafts up there. It's been a couple of years now and it just keeps getting better and more fun.

My kids are getting a little older now, too, so the projects are really more fun for them than before, as well. The content has grown so much that it's hard to know where to start. it seems a little late to post a review considering I've been kind of a fan for a while now, but there's a reason for this entry.

Recently, at least since the last time I downloaded a project, the website changed over to a membership-required site (there used to be a support suggestion at every download, and now downloads are members only). I have to say to EVERYONE with kids (or a yen for Harry Potter crafts!) that this site is worth every penny of that membership fee. His design skills are great, his how-to's are well put together and easy to understand, and moreover, the projects are versatile, customizable, and fun to do with your kids. You are essentially paying for a well put together activity book that keeps updating with more stuff.

... And then there's the stuff for the parents (there's general stuff, parenting advice, and a HUGE amount of stuff for single parents, which is wonderful since so much that's out there assumes two parents). I'm not a single parent, but I sure spend a lot of time pretending to be one - that's the lot of a military spouse - and advice on coping with single parenthood is useful to me, too. Oh, and I'm not a dad, but I have two boys, and sometimes it's hard to remember how to tap into the wonder of childhood and exploring the world so you can share that with your kids.

I love this website. I can only suggest that you subscribe. I have.