The Sempster

Good morning from the workshop :-)
Tidying up today as I got given a lot of things lately, and have to find a home for them.
Does anyone know what these scissors are for? The little brass k**b is a screw and if extended stops the scissors from closing fully,

Nice to see my work in use :-)
Archers at a show and tell display this weekend at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth.
Garments are based on the finds from the Mary Rose and the images of the Encampment of the English at Portsmouth from the Cowdray Engravings

Update, I’m back it seems 🙂

Will catch up with everything now!

I seem to be locked in my business account but with only access to my private account so I can't do anything on either! Hopefully back to normal in both accounts soon! In the meantime, please use [email protected]

Posting day :-)
Almost all of the linen voile is now getting sent on to new homes, I hope you’ll enjoy working with it! I’ll unpack mine later, just have to figure out a way to mount the camera ;-)

For St. George’s day I give you St. George and the Dragon at the Storkyrkan in Stockholm :-)

I had very sad news at the weekend: Lindy Pickard from Cloth Hall passed away on Saturday.
I am thankful for the time we were able to spend with her at TORM, being opposite her stall, and for the chance of some light banter and laughter playing Simon’s Tormopoly, and of course for the many years Lindy’s beautiful fabrics and her good advice made my work so enjoyable.
I will miss her!

And that‘s another TORM over :-)
Thank you to everyone who stopped by for a chat, and an especially big thank you to those that bought or ordered items. Tomorrow is dedicated to get it all back home and sorted, and business as usual will pick up on Tuesday.

Photo Credit Catherine Wetton, and the beautiful fabrics were my „bed“ with the kind permission of The Cloth Hall ;-)

Apologies for the confusion with the website, as we are working on it we were experimenting with the newly transferred domain name and had forgotten to lock it down, so you at the moment see the name on top of a generic page! I‘ll get it sorted asap but it might take until tomorrow. The new, improved and working website will be up soon, I promise!
Picture of work in progress for the algorithm :-)

Back in stock!
Pins, needles, thimbles and needlecases

We made it to TORM :-)
It is amazing what you can squeeze into a Mini Clubman!
Though I did forget the box with all the linens in it…
Looking forward to seeing some of you soon

UPDATE 10.03.2024: I have now placed an order, everyone that had commented has been contacted. I might have some spare after I make the samples, I will post about them when the fabric arrives in May.
As algorithms seem to have buried this post I am sharing it as well:
Anyone looking for fine flax based linen fabric, this is your chance to get your hands on some 🙂
Tied to History will ship to the UK, is there anyone else who wants to order some? I’ll order some for 14th century veils and 15th century kerchiefs and neckerchiefs but only for sample pieces; let me know if you want some, or want a veil or kerchief made out of it, so I can order accordingly. Maybe check with your reenactment group and order straight from the States. Don’t let this opportunity slip away :-)

UPDATE: THE MINIUM ORDER HAS BEEN MET AND EXCEDED!!! This will continue to be a stocked item. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Friends, I have sad news. Due to low turn out for the pre-order sale, it looks like I will not be able to continue to stock the Linen Voile. As of right now, the minimum order requirements have not been met. Because of the good relationship I have with the manufacturer, I will be able to fulfill all the pre-orders. However without the minimum order I cannot stock for the coming year.

My heart is breaking to say this as Tied to History is the only place that has 100% Flax Linen Voile. Our competitors are all Ramie, not flax.

The algorithm has apparently turned against me and this page is no longer getting information out like it used to. If you know of other places this can be shared, your help is appreciated so I can continue to supply this magical fabric to the historical community.

https://www.tiedtohistory.com/collections/linen?fbclid=IwAR3xNEtl7iCh6tD0Z7alezt-GbmyqaQbZOk9jJnO-ZrFfZpgPybW0khoCbs

Update:
All is running smoothly again though I have to take an interesting shortcut to get to messages, but at least it all works again 🙂

Apologies to anyone trying to contact me, Meta has run *another* update overnight and now I can’t see my messages! They did add useless filters to the comments section instead. Sigh…
If you need to get in touch, please email me at [email protected]
Photo from adding a new fluffy lining to a mid 14th century dress

Looking forward to the second half of an excellent conference on historic knitting

More Ashmolean for a Monday morning :-)
Not about textiles, but accessories:
Annular brooches, copper alloy, dated 1250-1400 (probably from artwork), all with a religious inscription. The most interesting to me was the one with the inscription Jaspar-Baltasar, the three magi.
The pretty finger ring was silver gilt, with another religious inscription.
Wooden rosary,
Cross pendant, copper alloy, 1350-1450 Decorated brooches, mix of copper alloy with glass, copper alloy and silver gilt, and silver, all dated 1250-1400.
The last but one photos show a heavily decorated brooch with lions passant and fleur-de-lis on one side, the other side carries a hail Mary prayer and the names of the three magi, dated 1300-1400, and the last one is a tiny gold brooch decorated with a sapphire. Not sure what the two bits at the top are, they look almost like a broken loop.

More from the Ashmolean Museum.
I’ve not come across such big pins before, I think! I wonder what they were used for? Made from a gilt copper alloy I assume they were used to be seen, so maybe hairpins? Some of the long ones are rather thin. What do you think they might have been used for?

Gilt copper alloy pins (1350-1700) and copper alloy strap-end (1400-1500)

Last Saturday I went to the Ashmolean museum in Oxford and was delighted to see some of the dress accessories on display. I’ll post photos of them over the next couple of days :-)
The dress hooks are dated 1500-1600, the button 1550-1600, and the aiglets 1350-1600. The longest of the aiglets is about 3 inches long!
The close ups are grainy but give you an idea of the details

Tools of the trade:
As I was drafting several patterns this week I very much enjoyed my new pattern weights, and I realised today I had not shared pictures of them:
I use divers’ lead weights as pattern weights, and I had sprayed them with clear lacquer when I first got them. The lacquer is slowly wearing off and I was a bit worried about handling them as I don’t think they are food grade lead!
A friend has very pretty pattern weights made from big washers wrapped in wool yarn, and she had mentioned she needs more so I thought I’ll make some for her for Christmas, and afterwards use the leftover washers to make some for myself.
When we exchanges gifts guess what I got 😉
The ones in the paper box are made by me, my new ones are the cloth and wool ones on the table, and they came in that fabulous crocheted bag in the back, which I can leave on the floor when cutting very big pieces, without stubbing my toes on the container 😉
I’ll make some more crocheted flower shapes to cover my divers weights over the next couple of months, see how they work out.

This came up on my feed only today and is not tailoring but textile related 🙂
I’ve come across a couple of linen windows and always loved the ingenuity of mimicking stained glass

After the mild December I have noticed the recent drop in temperature, I had the heater on since 8am in the workshop and it has only just climbed over 10 degrees 😉
It is slightly warmer away from the window, of course, but the double glazing does a decent job. I changed the window decoration to reflect the hopefully coming cold spell, my garden could do with a break from the rain! Warm enough now to stop tidying and settle down to some design work, and later a big pile of wool fabric on my lap will keep me warm 🙂

The Medieval Dress and Textile Society (MEDATS) is offering a FREE online talk about linen underwear, and I know there are many of you who’d love to attend, so sign up and put it in your calendar 🙂
As many of you know Sarah Thursfield was (and still is in many cases) my teacher and this is a great opportunity to get a glimpse of all her knowledge!
See you all on the 28th of January :-)

MEDATS Free online talk:
“Shirt, Smock and Seamstress:
early evidence for linen body garments” with Sarah Thursfield

Sunday, 28 January, 2024 | 16:00 GMT

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/medievaldressandtextilesociety/1104090?fbclid=IwAR3-TYjMmb8FfbTnj4aAHNA8oKERj2yYG67Fzwubz7Q9Arv_Fxx8Ap3K1i8

Sarah Thursfield has long studied the cut and construction of linen body garments. Despite dramatic shifts in headwear and outerwear fashions, the construction of the layers worn closest to the skin shows consistent methods over many centuries. Because the study of the medieval shirt and smock is frustrated by the low survival rate of extant examples, modern reconstructions have often been based on more recent garments. This talk will reassess the cut of medieval body linens using visual and archaeological evidence and experimental reconstructions.

These came up in my memories 🙂
Wishing you all a happy Christmas, and peaceful holidays ❤

Finally back in the workshop after a busy TORM :-)
I was so busy I never got round to swapping the hood for a proper veil, and this photo was taken when it was still cold in the hall and I’m wrapped in layers of cote and surcote!
Big thank you to the everyone who stopped by

Sadly I had to miss this fabulous study day but I hope some of you were able to go!

Glowing review of Secrets of the Castle, and my work on the garments. Thank you Frock Flicks

Secrets of the Castle (2014) Sometimes you just want to watch something like The Great British Bakeoff and not a full-blown costume drama, but you’re still in the mood for something costumey (and you have to write a post…

Finally back on my feet again, so here are the clothing and textile photos of my visit to the Vasa museum a couple of weeks ago:-)

Day 8, still going strong :-(
Business will hopefully resume in a week, fingers crossed

I am back in Sweden for a work week with Vea Veas historiska Dräkter och Högtidskläder🙂
Guess what we are making 😉

I’ve just found out that this publication is now available for download! I’ve always regretted not having bought more than one as the catalogue went out of print after the exhibition, but now you can have it for free, it seems :-)

In Mode: Kleider und Bilder aus Renaissance und Frühbarock | arthistoricum.net-ART-Books Accompanying the exhibition in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum from 3 December 2015 until 6 March 2016 the volume features 50 costumes from the museum's collection dated between 1560 and 1650 that - along with international loans - were shown in this special exhibition for the first time. They are p...

I spent the weekend at The Merchant’s House of The John Moore Museum in Tewkesbury, with the Walsingham Pilgrims ❤
I learned that a long veil can double up as a mask to protect from very dry and dusty straw while stuffing mattresses, and even did a bit of sewing 😉

Time for some more extant fabric posts!
Question to my friends with weaving knowledge, what is this type of fabric called? Brocade? looped brocade?
Being able to touch and handle this fabric was amazing! The weave is fairly stiff, and the fabric quite heavy, but I had not expected the small loops of gilded thread to be so stiff, they resist pressure completely (not that I tried too hard!), but they felt like loops of wire. I have handled modern passing thread, and worked some gold work embroidery with modern thread so I technically and theoretically knew that putting a thread like that in tiny loops would put them under quite a bit of tension but experiencing that was a completely different level!
What so amazed me is how much of the gilded metal wrapped around the silk core survived in the loops! You can see the odd gold yellow silk loop, especially at the corners of the design, where the metal wrapped around it has worn off completely, but most of it is intact, though a lot of the shine and sparkle it would have had when new is gone. I included photos of the back because they give an idea of what the colours might have looked like, though the darker colours also seem to have faded a bit more. The weft looks like bundles of silk, in two colours? See the photo of the rip in the fabric, which shows all the different colours. The metal wrapping the silk core is gone on all the long threads on the back of the design showing how much more exposed to abrasion that would have been over the lifetime of the fabric. I wonder what this would have been used for! Wall hanging, or other furnishings, or a gown? Pleating experiment was similar to the other silk.
The fabric was classed at point of purchase as late 15th century, that’s all I know, sorry to not have more information.
Enjoy some sparkle on what so far has been a grey rainy morning here in the UK :-)