A Pleatwork Apron – Flemish Style

Inspiration strikes at the oddest times. I was visting the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my husband and was walking around enjoying the exhibits when we stopped to look at a tapestry. It was pretty cool, having a harvest scene surrounded by the signs of the zodiac. I walked away, stopped and walked back, something catching my eye.

There was a pleated apron on one of the women in the tapestry. Not only that it was different than anything I had seen before. So I took a picture and continued on wandering around the museum. After I got home, I started looking at the few picture I took and there was the picture of the tapestry and that apron. I HAD TO MAKE IT!!

Now I have been making pleatwork aprons for almost 10 years. I own two, I have given piles away. I really dont need another one. So I put the call out to see if anyone wanted one if I made it. Well one of the people who answered  happened to have a middle class Flemish persona (in the Society for Creative Anachronism). Her research has been in cooking. Who better to need and get an apron!!.

My challenge with this project was just trying to figure out what the heck was going on. The apron was a strange merger of what I consider a Flemish Apron (rectangle of fabric) and the pleatwork aprons that were a favored accessory in the Germanic areas during the 16th century.

What I found was more and more pictures of aprons. While I did not uncover another image that looked like this one, what I found were images of aprons that had various elements of my inspiration image. Once again, it all came together and a new apron was born.

This was my third entry in the Kings and Queens Arts and Science Competition for the East Kingdom of the SCA and the one I think was the most “fun”. I actually had to keep trying it on to show people all the fun elements. I have been accused of spreading apron fun through the SCA. If this is the influence I have had, then that is a good thing indeed. I mean really, who does not love a pretty fun accessory:)

As with the other projects, below is a link to the write up, and some pictures.

https://medievalhandwork.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/a-flemish-apron.pdf

A Knight’s Hood – 14th century appliqued hood

I have been honored  for the last few years by a good friend to serve as his consort in tournaments for the Society of Creative Anachronism,  in the East Kingdom. This past summer, Jibril al-Dakhil became a Knight of the Society. I had promised him that I would make him a gift befitting. As with many projects, this one had it’s challenges.

He did not have a preference between a hood or a cloak. He has fairly simple tastes and did not want anything too over the top, but that being said it had to kick ass:)

His persona is that of a son of a Spanish woman who fell in love with a moor (son of a nobleman).  He turned against his faith when forced to choose between family and service. He grew up in southern Spain, and went off to the crusades and became a squire to a European knight. While he still remains true to his roots he is a Christian warrior. As befits his somewhat humble background he prefers simple accoutrements, and in fact as a new knight he is still building his estate and his wealth.

This was  my second item entered in our Kingdom’s Arts and Science competition this past weekend. When I was asked to talk about the hood I brought his persona into my explainations of material and design choices. I think my favorite moments were when I was discussing  access to the fabrics ( Merino wool from Spain because his mother was Spanish, and the Cashmere wool, that he likely “aquired” during the crusades) and when I explained that unlike the elaborate hoods described in wardrobe accounts, he was still a lowly knight and had not yet made his fortune, so he would not have been able to have a garment dripping in pearls and precious metal. The documenation linked below talks more about this. 

My goal was to completely hand make a hood, representing his new order, incorporating his personal heraldry, make the garment as period accurate as possible, but also keep it practical for SCA use and his desire to keep it somewhat simple. In my opinion I accomplished this goal and also somewhere during making of it, I fell in love with it. I am very proud of how it turned out, and I only hope the recipient loves it as much as I do.

PS, as of this writing he has still not seen it:) Yes, I am mean that way. Enjoy, and please, I would like to hear from you on what you think.

https://medievalhandwork.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/a-knightly-hood.pdf

Front

Back

Close up of the Falcon

Side View

The Finished Project

The shirt is finished and it met all my expectations. When I set out to make this shirt, I wanted to first make a side opening version, because they are rarely seen, and two I wanted to test out some construction theories:

• Stiff collars
• Stand out from the neck
• Rounded top edge
• Geometric embroidery

I really feel that I accomplished what I set out to do.  By folding over the fabric for the collar, the edge once pleated provided a nice clean edge. The double fabric allowed for thick, stiff pleats. The added benefit is that you need less fabric in the body to pleat up the neckline. The pattern darning created the geometric patterning that I see in the inspiration portraits.

This was not the easiest project. I put a lot of hours in to rip out embroidery and redo it. But with each failure came more understanding and further success.

Below is the link to the documentation for the shirt. It was recently presented in the Arts and Science Competition for the East Kingdom of the SCA. I am also recapping details of the shirt below in a full gallery.

https://medievalhandwork.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/the-italian-shirt.pdf

The charted pattern

Neckline is pleated.

More neckline

Neckline is curving

gathered up

Showing the gathering threads

The ungathered test piece