Go Again

by Drew Shiel

It’s been nearly a year since the last update here; life and academia landed solidly on me in the meantime, and this blog languishes near the bottom of the priority list. Nevertheless, I’ve done some interesting things in the meantime, most notably starting to learn to make my own clothes for the Society for Creative Anachronism.

It should be noted that these are medieval clothes, and that nobody cares much about the neatness of stitches; the styles are definitively a millennium out of date, and the standards you’re trying to match are museum pieces. But it’s still teaching me a lot about the structure of clothes, and the way in which the pieces fit together. At the moment, I’m in the process of tearing apart and rebuilding a simple linen tunic, adding gussets (because it was tight under the arms) and gores (because it tends to ride up under a belt when it hangs straight from the shoulders over my ample belly). I’m adding them in different colours of linen, too, because I reckon that work-a-day clothes were more than likely made from what was available, rather than buying fabric for the purpose, and I have offcuts and bits in odd colours. Amusingly, my heraldry for the Society involves a badger, and the tunic will come out in plain (undyed), grey and black linen.

Anyway. On with the show.