Mining the stash

I’m mining my fabric stash for next spring’s Ontario Society for Creative Anachronism Arts & Science competition. The plan is to use mostly what I have on hand, only buying new materials when there just isn’t anything in the stash that’s suitable.

A bit of background: the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is an international organization dedicated to researching and recreating pre-17th century arts and skills, and the Arts & Science (A&S) competitions include all of those except the martial arts.

A&S costuming competition gets into some pretty extreme authenticity, using only natural materials like silk, linen and wool. Which can be financially challenging – hence the mining of the stash. Luckily, over the years I’ve run into some irresistible bargains that I figured would come in useful “someday”.

Well, “someday” is here!

I’m basing my entry on this 1552 Veronese portrait of Countess Livia da Porto Thiene which is now in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland:

1552 Veronese portrait of Countess Livia da Porto Thiene currently in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.
It’s not going to be an exact copy; for one thing, the colours that suit the Countess look dreadful on me, and for another, my local second-hand stores don’t run to sable, which is what the fur draped over her arm is. Or lynx, the lining in her coat.

So the excavation begins!

By | May 4th, 2014|costume, fur, medieval, museums, SCA, the stash|Comments Off on Mining the stash

beautiful beetles & a costume collection

A book on beetle embroidery I picked up yesterday pointed me to a costume collection I’d never heard of before at the Narrya Heritage Museum (hadn’t heard of the museum before, either)!

The book, The Stumpwork, Goldwork and Surface Embroidery Beetle Collection, mentions a Victorian dress from the Narrya collection. The dress is trimmed with net embroidered with beetle wing cases – and manages to be gaudy in spite of being full coverage and made from a somber black silk.

The most interesting thing about it is that the scraps of trim left over from making it came to the museum along with the dress! That’s pretty much unique.

I’d love to hear whether any other collection has a garment and its scraps!

As for the beetle embroidery book, it’s beautiful and it’s set ideas for incorporating beetles in a design for an Elizabethan embroidered jacket or doublet – or maybe a vest – running around in my head.

More on that later, when I’ve finished reading the book & decided what I’m actually going to make…

 

 

 

By | October 26th, 2013|books, embroidery, insects, museums, stumpwork|Comments Off on beautiful beetles & a costume collection