Current adventures...

I have finished grad school and am just starting to peek around and notice that there is a WORLD out here. I'm excitedly planning a party and about 15 new dresses, and learning to bake even better than I used to and... More about that later. Meantime. I just wanted to say that I'm still alive and planning to post more stuff soon. I hope you are as excited as I am!

Another kind of glove

Strangely, for a girl who's SCA persona is Venetian, I am quite familiar with the Elizabethan style of gloves with large and heavily ornamented cuffs extending above the wrists, but know nothing about Italian gloves. The early sixteenth century Italian gloves depicted in my source image (Titian's Sacred and Profane Love) are clearly of another style in ornamentation, at least, and required that I look at the question of period gloves with fresh eyes.

These gloves appear to be simple leather gloves in a natural beige/grey color. Just slightly above wrist-length when worn, they appear to be ornamented by turning half the depth of an approximately 2" wrist extension inside out so the former hem is now placed at the wrist and the flesh side of the leather is exposed. I believe the resulting folded cuff of leather was then slashed from the folded edge towards the wrist, perpendicularly to the fold, in small evenly spaced slashes made appoximately 3/4 inches apart.



I love it that they look like they would be really easy to make by simply reworking a pair of commercialy available gloves, but I wanted to do some research to confirm the plausibility of my interpretation before I got started making my own.

I started my investigations by looking up gloves in the Linkspages at Larsdatter.com's collection of links related to examples of Medieval and Renaissance Material Culture.

http://www.larsdatter.com/gloves.htm

In truth, I started and stopped my investigation there, because scanning the list for Italian depictions and viewing the linked materials turned up more examples than I expected, 5 of which meet my criteria for similarity of style and clarity of construction information provided. It seems folded and slashed cuffs on leather gloves were a thing in Renaissance Italy and possibly elsewhere.

Paolo CAVAZZOLA, Verona 1486 – 1522
Portrait of a lady [Ritratto di gentildonna] c.1515-17
oil on canvas
96.4 (h) x 74.2 (w) cm

https://nga.gov.au/exhibition/renaissance/default.cfm?IRN=202404&BioArtistIRN=37006&MnuID=3&GalID=5&ViewID=2

The Lute Player
* The lute-player (St. Mary Magdalene?), first half of the 16th century

http://previous.bildindex.de/bilder/mi00272a06a.jpg

TITIAN
TIZIANO Vecellio
(b. 1490, Pieve di Cadore, d. 1576, Venezia)
Man with a Glove
1520-22
Oil on canvas, 100 x 89 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris

https://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/t/tiziano/10/21/06gloves.html

Moretto da Brescia, 1526
A Man

https://www.wga.hu/art/m/moretto/portr_m.jpg

Agnolo Bronzino
Florentine, 1503 - 1572
A Young Woman and Her Little Boy
c. 1540
oil on panel
overall: 99.5 x 76 cm (39 3/16 x 29 15/16 in.)
framed: 134.6 x 111.1 x 6.7 cm (53 x 43 3/4 x 2 5/8 in.)
Widener Collection
1942.9.6
On View: West Building, Main Floor - Gallery 21

https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.1143.html


Based on these examples I would speculate that in this period gloves were made to extend several inches up the arm, and adjusted to suit the wearer by folding and slashing. Whether these adjustments were made for matters of taste, fit, or both, remains to be seen, but I lean towards the last option. At any rate, I searched the internet for a plain glove in a smooth, fine, tan leather, that extended up the arm a bit. Easy peasy. The gloves I purchased had a built in lining so my first task was a bit of disassembly.

After cutting the lining away from the leather near the wrist I pulled on the lining which turned the gloves inside-out because the
the two layers were sewn together at the tips of the fingers and thumb.

I cut through the stiches and removed the lining.

My gloves also had elastic gathering the leather at the side seams to give a ruched effect to the wrist area of the glove.
I reccomend removing the elastic by cutting it along the seamline and pulling the fragments gently away. If you are lucky that will leave the original side seams intact.

Another option is to remove the stitching and resew the sides of the glove.

IRCC9 - Take a deep breath. on April first, 2019 we're going in!

I'm going to try a 1510 gown this time, based off Titan's Sacred and Profane Love. I've got nearly all my bits and bobs assembled and I plan to hit the ground running. Wish me luck!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_and_Profane_Love

CoBolWriMo 7 - The wonders of eBay!

Today's prompt is to write about a favorite resource and I've got to talk about my favorite go-to supplier, eBay!

I stared shopping on eBay in 2005 or thereabouts, mostly to feed my collection of turquoise-blue milk glass, but I slowly became aware that some truely incredible fabrics, and some great deals, could be found there. Since then I have made two major moves, relocating to vastly different places in the US and I've discovered that eBay us always there for me. :) My only local fabric store is a vastly inadequate JoAnne fabrics and I have almost zero chance of finding something I really want there, but....

Say I want six or more yards of smashing silk for a steampunk ball gown for about $60?

And it is so wonderful that I just have to find natural fiber lace to trim it. In fact I need enough to make pleated lace trim!

How does 27 meters of cotton lace grab you?

Works for me!

Or maybe I just happen to see a really great fabric and feel the need to transform it into a skirt.

Or I happen upon the most wonderful tapestry fabric and decide to drape a room in it?

Again, eBay!

I strategize a lot, and I've learned to hold out for a fabric I love at a price I love too, but on eBay I get access to some truely incredible things. You'd never guess I live far far away from the world of great fabrics. 

CoBloWriMo 4 - Trip to collect supplies for Quiver

So, Tandy Leather.  Such a lovely place.

I used to haunt my local Tandy leather store back in High School. I had a fantasy that I was going to make some wonderful tooled...thing... I visti the store, and stroke the leather and look at all the stamps and dyes and other mysterious stuff and just kind of drool.

It's nice to know that nothing has changed!

The closest store to me is the one in Indianapolis so on Saturday I took a day trip and ran off to the big city with my quiver i-in-process and a whole lot of questions about what I needed to purchase/do to finish it.

And they were lovely.

I did a lot of blinking, and repeating the phrase, "um, what does that mean?" but I walked out with a membership and all kinds of stuff, more dye, and deglazer, and finisher and needles and thread and punches and  rings... I got overloaded about the time I was learning about rivets so I'll have to go back to get them, but I have the basics now. Whew!

So, of course, I went home and started right into it on Sunday. Meet my new quiver!

All sewn together and ready for the finishing touches.

I know I've been a bit skimpy on the process details, but I can see several new leather projects coming down the pike--maybe even some shoes--so I will get to the details. Just let me learn a bit more , OK?

CoBloWriMo 3 - Archery kit gets a new look

So ages ago (about 4 years now) I took up archery again after a break of several decades. Well, that is if to count a few hours spent doing archery in summer camp as having 'taken it up!' :)

Anyway, I made myself a quiver out of 2 liter soda bottles, cardboard, duct tape and some other stuff and those quivers are still going strong. But I wanted to up my game a bit so I've been working on a belt quiver.

It all started with a painting

http://www.warfare.altervista.org/15/Carpaccio-St_Ursula-Martydom_of_the_Pilgrims-lg.htm

And some wonderful info about a project to recreate it

http://web.archive.org/web/20070210195459/http:/www.tirbriste.org/dmir/ArmsArmor/02/0215/0215.html

I am very interested in the cultural cross-over between Italy and Turkey in the renaissence period, and the instant I saw that painting I was struck by the resemblance of the quiver to Turkish quivers. Like this one c. 1550

http://bilddatenbank.khm.at/viewArtefact?id=373802

I had to have one!

Since I have never worked in leather before I worked with a friend to cut out the front and back sides, and then the pieces sat around the house......for an embarrassingly long time......until I saw this!

It's a page from a pattern book dated 1570-ish, and there in the lower left corner is the inspiration for the design on the front panel of my quiver.




I enlarged the pattern to the right width for my quiver pieces and then made several copies so I could cut and paste and play with the pieces until I had a pattern I liked

And then I traced it onto baking parchment and embossed the pattern into my dampened piece of leather by drawing over the lines with a ballpoint pen. The parchment worked well for the tracing, but  tape wouldn't stick to it to hold it in place. It shifted on the leather a bit. Something to watch out for if you try using it.

The next step is to wet the leather and score the pattern in with a knife, cutting about 1/2 way through the leather, it was scary at first, but pretty easy. Just very time consuming! And then I started tooling,

and tooling

and tooling......

I've been having trouble getting pictures to post but I'm back now! And the Quiver is almost Done. Watch for an update soon. :)

CoBloWriMo - Oooooo......Eyes!

All the patches have been stuck in place, now on to the sewing!

and with the first 5 rows sewn on....

Ooo...I like this!