Medievalling like monkeys...

Well K and I had a busy week last week. As I said in an earlier post, we are going to Tewkesbury Medieval Festival at the weekend and we needed to make her a kirtle and shift so I can borrow the set that she had originally borrowed from our second cousin, Cas. We tried to get a pattern but it hadn't arrived by the time we started so we had to make our own pattern from the borrowed kirtle. Kristy made a fine job of this so we used an old bedspread to cut out a mock up and sewed it together, adjusting it to fit.



Look at how fast she is moving :


She is SO proud!


Hot fuzz in the back ground. Mother Huggers...


We then took the big step of cutting out the pieces out of the very expensive fabric that Kristy bought from Herts Fabrics - a gorgeous chocolate brown and a nice olive green. Once we had got the brown stitched together and right we then did the same with the brown.

We then stitched together the two around the top seam, unstitched the shoulder seams again when I realised I had mucked up and it couldn't be turned right way out with them stitched and finally we cut out and made a shift. When I say we, I really mean K as I am useless at sewing by hand or by machine as I don't have the patience.

I did, however, go on interweb and find out about medieval fingerbraiding so then I could make all the cords for lacing up the dress and tying the shift. I was quite please with how they turned out with a basic round braid for the front of the kirtle and to tie the sleaves on (we never made the sleves btw) and a flat braid for the lacing of the shift collar and cuffs.

All of this sounds pretty straight forward, however it took the best part of 4 days to do. Throw in the fact the Sherb had to have yet another operation on yesterday (another £600 down the drain when we really can't afford it but he is already much happier than he had been so it is worth it) and a temper tantrum from J and basically by Thursday, we were pooped.