Allegretza's Insanity Page

This blog is a chance for me to talk about my insanities that are in the form of various projects that I do for fun. (grin) Yes, fun. I am currently working on a project for the Artemesian Costuming Challenge (ACC). You can see in the photo that my work is cut out for me. (grin again) I will have to keep looking for a good picture of the cloak to post. It is absolutely amazing. A good link for the whole ensemble is http://http://medieval.webcon.net.au/extant_mammen.html

My project I am entering will also be entered in Kingdom A&S happening in May so if it seems to be over the top and crazy, well, that is because it is. Have you seen some of those entrees? Yeah. I am not the only crazy in the Kingdom.

I am re-creating what is called the Mammen Man. The dig is near Viborg, Denmark and is one of the few digs with enough remains to actually see the embroidery and fabrics. The man is assumed to be wealthy since his clothes are of wool, twill, linen and fur and are heavily embroidered. I will be tweeking some things to make it more personal to my man, and I will explain those differences as they come up. The entire project will be sewn by hand, using period stitches and techniques.

Ok. On with the show. Or whatever it really is...

We will start with this week, which is Week 1.

In researching trousers I discovered that it is a guessing game since most pants didn't survive the time passing. All I could find for certain was the boys had gores in the inner crotch and girls did not. This was so they could ride a horse without blowing out their pants. Most "patterns" on the guess work known "as what did the pants look like?" were rather snug fitting which my hubby does not like so with the help of Mistress Bianca we found a compromise-roomy in the top portion, fitted and tapered legs. These pants have a six sided crotch piece and 2 slender gores attaching to the long sides of crotch piece and extend down the inner thigh. They use russian style pants as the bases for the pattern. Using Bianca's husbands' pants as a pattern I tried to make them smaller in the seat and more tapered in the legs. First try was too baggy in the legs and very friendly in the crotch. Take #2-I added 2 inches to the length of the waist band to drop the crotch and took a deeper taper on the legs. Success. I cut out the blue linen I am using for the pants and used the overcast stitch for my seams and then flat felled them, stitching them down with hemstitch. I rolled over the waistband to make a casing, and used a backstitch to sew it as well as hem stitching the edge. I made eyelets for the lucet cord on the waist band. I checked measurements and then hemmed the bottom hem. I am now making the double strand lucet cord that will be his belt/tie cord using two strands of size 3 pearle cotton in dark brown.