I didn't get much planned mending done this month (too much rushing to finish projects for different events in different eras), but I did end up doing a lot of hand-sewn repair work on my kirtle and both pairs of linen stockings. Again. At least it was in different areas of the stockings each time.
August is my busiest month for reenactments (and rush through projects), so I'm way behind on writing them up. As I start on the backlog, however, here's something fun: a free sourcebook about people with disabilities living in western Europe during the middle ages.
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| Medieval Disability Sourcebook: Western Europe, ed. McNabb |
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| It's a start. It's also pirate weekend at Faire. |
Next up, I need to hash out the hand. I was aiming for a combination of Elizabeth I's Italic hand, supplemented with the Italian capital letters from A Booke Containing Divers Hands (1550). The letter (1554) written by the future queen has almost an entire set of minuscules, but only six capitals. I selected these two styles, as they were the closest-to-my-desired-time-period complete models I could get ahold of, and the capital A in each bears a close resemblance (the other capitals aren't very different, but have some variations on their flourishes). Unfortunately, I keep trying to slope the letters like Victorian cursive and/or add serifs based on some half-remembered Carolingian minuscules I learned in elementary school, so there's a lot of room to improve.
Bucking the norm two months in a row, but for want of surviving garments from the early modern period, it's visual depictions again this month. It's almost Faire, after all!
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| Haymaking, early 16th century manuscript illustration, The British Library. |
This one's definitely worth clicking through: the viewer has a great zoom function, showing details of the gentlewomen's accessories, the laborer's clothing, and even a peasant woman with a white kercher and apron over a sheep-colored kirtle or gown.
