It’s not until next April, but I’m really looking forward to it, as it brings a number of my interests together into one place.
The conference is the occasion for the launch of their next book, The Typical Tudor, which examines not the court dress of previous books, but the clothes of the ordinary Tudor person. It also contains knitting patterns, which I’m very excited to see!
The focus of the conference is on the hunt for evidence, which is much more difficult when you’re talking about clothes that weren’t preserved for posterity in the way that court dress often was. The search for reliable sources around intangible history is really interesting to me, as it’s a difficulty that I’m facing in my research into early modern medicine. The Herbals exist, and we can trace who owned and used them… but what about the people who didn’t have access to the books? Those who couldn’t afford or couldn’t read them? I’m hoping that the conference will introduce me to different ways of looking for evidence, and how to distinguish what is most likely to be both reliable and broadly representative.
And of course, on a purely practical level, I can’t wait to get the book and start sewing! Despite having owned The Tudor Tailor for many years, I’ve never actually constructed a Tudor outfit. Everyday clothing is far more my style than court dress, so I’m really interested to see the patterns and decide what I’m going to make.
I’ve had an idea in the back of my mind for a couple of years to put together a period-correct outfit suitable for swordfighting in. We primarily study Manciolino and Marozzo, who both published treatises during the 1530s, so these patterns will be spot on.
Obviously I won’t be allowed to fight in Tudor clothing – not unless I build it in such a way that I can safely incorporate my modern protective sports kit. But I would definitely like to go through some of the exercises and flow drills, just to make the point that it would have been absolutely possible for a Tudor woman to be a fencer – if she’d had the opportunity.
I needed it to be soft, to have a wide brim, and to be suitable for folding up into my rucksack so I don’t have to carry it about with me all day.
This hat is none of those things.
But I spotted it on Instagram, and immediately fell in love.
It’s made by Karen of Mind Your Bonce Millinery, and it’s upcycled from a previous incarnation of straw hat. I ordered it on a Thursday afternoon, it arrived on the Monday, and it fits absolutely perfectly. What more could I have asked for?
I’ve recently bought some wide-legged linen trousers (which turned out to be a saga and a half, let me tell you!), so I reckon I could rock a late 1920s/early 1930s summer style without looking as though I’m on my way to a fancy dress party.
I just need to fold a tote bag into the bottom of my rucksack, so I can pop the hat inside it when need to. The hat is very sturdy (more so than I expected from straw, actually), so I think it will cope with being carried about when it isn’t on my head. Although, to be honest, I think it’s going to be on my head whether it’s sunny outside or not.
Okay, so I didn’t go to University last week with two different shoes on. But I did set out in the morning wearing a cardigan, and with a cagoule and my rucksack’s rain cover packed up just in case. By the time I came home I had no need of the cardigan, and my feet were covered in blisters from wearing my new summer shoes actually in the heat for the first time.
(Note to self: put the summer socks at the front of the drawer!)
1) these effects can persist for a long time after you’ve stopped taking them, and 2) it doesn’t necessarily mean just sunburn. It can also mean poor internal temperature control, so you can suffer from heatstroke and end up quite poorly before you’ve even realised that you’re too hot.
So, check the paperwork for any medications you’re taking, and think about other things too – St John’s Wort supplements and bergamot essential oil are just two things you could be taking or putting on your skin that could increase your risk of sunburn and heat sensitivity.
I’m susceptible to both the heat and the sun, and I’m also allergic to every single brand of sunscreen that I’ve tried. Yes, including all of the “sensitive” and “hypoallergenic” ones. (Thanks, fibromyalgia!) This means that in the summer you’ll quite often see me covered up from head to toe, especially during a heatwave like the one that’s started in Germany this week.
Liberty print summer witch’s hat
Last year I made this hat, as a response to the question “what would a witch wear in summer?”. It has the advantages of being very light, and just as easy to pack into a rucksack as my cagoule. (Yes, I’ll be carrying both until it’s time for my winter coat to come out again.) But, because of its unusual style, I didn’t pluck up the courage to actually wear it very much last year. I can’t be lugging about my enormous straw hat everywhere I go though, so something that folds up into my bag is absolutely essential, especially if I’m going to try and stay fit by walking to campus and back when I’m well enough.
I’m not doing any sewing at the moment, as I’ve managed to injure my back, so I’m half-heartedly on the lookout for a soft summer hat that I might like. Really though, every time I see one that might just do, I think about my sewing patterns and I’m itching to make something new.
blast from the past – gothstuff light reflective bat tshirt
Way back in the early 2000s, when we started printing t-shirts, we did all of the work ourselves. We bought a heat press, and lots of rolls of flock and plastic, and printed every single t-shirt by hand. Direct-to-garment digital printing hadn’t really been invented yet, sublimation printing was in its infancy, and this light-reflective film was pretty much the height of the technology that was available to us at the time.
blast from the past – gothstuff skull & crossbones shirt and tie
The up side of printing every single garment individually was that we could offer a lot of flexibility. We quite often printed onto customers’ own t-shirts, and we also had a range of unusual-at-the-time items such as printed shirts, ties, and even underwear!
The down side of printing every single garment individually was that it took AGES. The more intricate designs took a long time to weed away the excess film, and the multi-coloured ones required several passes through the heat press. As a result, despite appearing to be successful in the numbers of t-shirts that we sold, I was never able to pay myself, and we didn’t recoup the costs of the printing kit until we eventually sold it all.
I’m working on a range of new t-shirt designs (like the one above) at the moment, and I must admit I’m looking at Redbubble and wondering whether my designs, or perhaps some of Miss Mouse’s photographs, might work well on coffee mugs and cushion covers as well as t-shirts.
Miss Mouse tote bag
You’ve seen Miss Mouse and the Woodland Gang’s tote bags in the shop, of course. I chose Inkthreadable to print these for me because they have both organic cotton tote bags, and these which are made from recycled polyester and cotton waste from the garment industry. They also have a range of organic t-shirts, which I’d much prefer to be using over non-organic, but if their sizing isn’t inclusive… I don’t know. I don’t want to get to that place where my shop has so many different options that it’s too confusing to buy something as simple as a t-shirt, but at the same time I do want these things to be available to as many folks as possible.
I have dipped my toes into the water of Redbubble with two notebooks featuring Miss Mouse in Autumn and in Winter.
They’re printed in and shipped from the UK – unless you’re buying them from outside Europe, in which case they’re printed in and shipped from America. As with all print-on-demand products, there’s no next-day shipping, as the notebooks literally don’t exist until you order them! And making things takes time, even for large companies with (presumably) oodles of people and printers. So delivery usually takes about a week.
I’ve also uploaded some A4 diary pages. I designed these for myself, and have been using them to keep all of my University and volunteering activities organised.
If you’ve known me for a while you’ll be well aware that I have a terrible addiction to all kinds of diaries and planners… and also a total inability to remain faithful to one for an entire year. These A4 pages are undated, so I can print out a few, write the dates underneath the days of the week, and when I get bored with them or decide that a different format would better suit my needs, I can design something new! That way I don’t end up buying two or three different diaries each year, as I can just print out new pages whenever I need them. It also means that I don’t need to carry around an entire year in one go! At the moment I have three months’ worth of pages tucked inside a plastic wallet, and that’s so much more convenient – and a lot less heavy! – than hauling around a giant organiser. I strongly suspect that more of these will be forthcoming, particularly once I start back at University and need to keep track of all my lectures and deadlines.
I must admit that, as a lifelong hands-on maker, it does feel a little bit weird to be handing over the manufacture of my designs to a third party. But, with the best will in the world, I’m not going to set up a printing studio in my office (unless I suddenly come into possession of an entire letterpress workshop, which seems unlikely!), and this way I don’t have to buy boxes full of t-shirts or other printed items that may well sit on a shelf for years un-sold.
So, all in all, I’m going to say hooray for the third party!
After my lengthy waffle about making myself a new steampunk costume, I decided to bite the bullet and just dye my existing dungarees. They were black, and I ran them through a 95º wash (I hope they haven’t shrunk!) with a box of Dylon pre-dye. I had been intending to dye them Espresso Brown, but I’m glad now that I didn’t buy the dye in advance, as it turns out I didn’t need it! They came out this lovely rich brown colour all on their own.
The patches, quite coincidentally, popped through the letterbox just as I was getting ready to take this photo, which couldn’t have been better timing. They were a gift from Lisa at Off With her Head Millinery, and they’re by Doctor Geoff. While I was browsing his patches, I spotted this enamel badge for the RSPCAM – the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Abominable Monsters. If my character’s going to be an in-the-field catcher of magical and/or mythical beasts, I’m definitely going to need one of those!
My first order of business is going to be mending and reinforcing that tear at the edge of the bib (you can see it in the bottom left of the photo) which I hadn’t noticed was there. Then I can start covering the dungarees with patches and enamel pins, before I start thinking about my accessories.
Sometimes I worry about myself. For lots of different reasons, it has to be said, but most often for the fact that my brain absolutely cannot and will not stick to the most basic version of any given idea. It always wants to escalate things until a project is impossibly ambitious.
My current steampunk-ish outfit
This is a frankly terrible picture of what passes for my current steampunk-ish outfit. Knee length tweed breeches (held up by braces which are hidden by my scarf), tall leather Faerysteps boots, a collarless pintucked shirt, and a cap that’s covered with badges. This outfit came about for two reasons. One, I need to be comfortable. (See: comfy sofa, warm scarf, earplugs, walking stick, tired face. The concrete floor in that otherwise excellent venue did not go down well with the fibromyalgia. Not at all.) Two, it’s common for a lot of steampunk imagery to be very upper-class-colonial-Victorian-explorer. That makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, and when a friend pointed out that you never see a lower-class “steampunk urchin” costume, I knew what I had to do.
My intended costume (I was going to say “planned”, but that’s a bit of a strong word at this stage) is going to be for a character who’s an in-the-field catcher of magical and/or mythical beasts. Think of a kind of a steampunk / Hellboy / Harry Potter / Fantastic Beasts / Ghostbusters crossover.
Nerf Zombie Strike Doublestrike
The first order of business was to buy a second-hand Nerf pistol from a friend. Nerf guns of all kinds are a common steampunk accessory, and I wanted a small one that Paul could transform for me into something that looks like a tranquilliser dart gun.
I have a pair of oversized black dungarees that I usually wear to do the gardening. So far, so good. I was going to bleach them and dye them brown to match my cap. I figure that it doesn’t matter if they come out a bit patchy, as they’re supposed to be working overalls. But then I thought that perhaps I should wear something that gave a bit more of a nod to a recognisable movie costume.
Top: Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon in Ghostbusters Left: Sigourney Weaver in Alien Right: Jewel Staite in Firefly
A brief online search later, and that turns out to mean boiler suits or flight suits rather than dungarees.
Kate McKinnon in Ghostbusters
(Although, to be honest, this photo of Kate McKinnon in Ghostbusters isn’t so much a costume as a bunch of stuff that I could pull out of my wardrobe right now. I love it when that happens.)
Simplicity patterns for a Firefly / Serenity / Rogue One costume, and reproduction 1940s dungarees & hooded blouse
It turns out that boiler suits are EXPENSIVE. (Health & Safety, and all that.) So I thought that I should maybe just have a little look at some jumpsuit sewing patterns. I knew that Simplicity had a Firefly/Serenity pattern (now being sold as Rogue One), and some 1940s reproduction dungarees with a hooded blouse that I definitely don’t need but am simultaneously looking for an excuse to make.
I haven’t yet made any form of final decision, except for thinking that paying around £12 to chuck some Dylon pre-dye and Espresso Brown at my existing dungarees is going to be a lot cheaper, quicker and easier than buying a sewing pattern and fabric and starting from scratch. And it’s definitely cheaper than any genuinely utilitarian, as opposed to fashionable and therefore largely pocketless, jumpsuit that I can currently find online.
And then, of course, there’s the issue of accessories and props. What does an in-the-field catcher of magical and/or mythical beasts need to carry with them? I’ll have the Nerf gun, I already have a sonic screwdriver (obviously), and I’ve seen a miniature fire extinguisher (water pistol) that I’m definitely going to have to hang from a belt loop. (Mythical creatures might breathe flames at you, so a miniature fire extinguisher seems like a sensible thing to have.) I’ve been looking at small vintage suitcases, thinking I could maybe put together something Newt Scamander would be proud of… but I suspect a backpack of some sort would be a bit more practical. And of course it will need to double as an actual handbag, given the ridiculous amount of Stuff that I carry around with me at all times.
While I was wittering on about all of this over on Facebook, a friend spotted these enamel pin badges which are frankly PERFECT. They’re by aimeekitty on Etsy, and although I’ve never (yet) had to resort to “finished with hot glue”, I have definitely made costumes that have required blood sacrifice – or that I’ve been sewing right up until the moment we got into the car to travel to the event! I don’t currently have a particular event in mind for this costume, but I’m pretty sure that one or two of these pins are going to apply.
They’re made from 80% recycled cotton with 20% recycled polyester. They measure 37 x 43cm (so they’ll easily fit an A4 pad sideways), and they have a small gusset at the bottom so they’re not completely flat. The handles are 65cm long, so the bag will tuck neatly under your arm.
fox & badger tote bag
There are four designs, each on a different colour of bag, and they’re £15 each. (If you’re a Patron at www.missmou.se or a subscriber to the mailing list, you should have a discount code.)
Mr Magpie tote bag
The tote bags are produced by a company called Stanley/Stella, who are based as far as possible on sound ethical principles. (I have a grumble about the fact that they don’t offer any plus sizes in their t-shirts, but that’s another story.)
They’re printed by Inkthreadable, who are a print-on-demand drop-shipping company. This means that you buy a tote bag, I confirm the order with Inkthreadable, and then they print it and send it straight out to you. It takes a few days – there’s no next-day delivery because it takes a while to do the printing. But if you order a bag, it should be with you inside a week.
Woodland Gang chocolate coins tote bag
I think this one’s my favourite – it makes me laugh to think about carrying a shopping bag with the Woodland Gang saving up their chocolate coins. Well, except for Pip – as usual!
Why are plus size organic cotton t-shirts still not a thing?
I’ve been doing t-shirt-printing-related things for around eighteen years now, on and off. (These photos are from 2004.)
To begin with it was impossible to get plus size t-shirts at all (note to manufacturers: size UK16 is not a plus size!), and now you can, from a few brands, but apparently not from any of the organic ones. And they’re still not easily available from print-on-demand companies, who tend to offer a smaller selection of brands and styles, now that we no longer own the heat press and vinyl cutter ourselves.
(Also, while I’m having a rant, making things in a “loose fit” doesn’t mean that you can offer fewer sizes just because the actual width of the garment is the same as a larger size in another style!)
blast from the past – gothstuff light reflective bat tshirt
I really want to design some more t-shirts, but organic cotton is apparently only for people who have a narrower than 43″ chest. Oh, except for men. Who can have organic t-shirts up to a 62″ chest. Why can’t women have that?
blast from the past – gothstuff Baby Cthulhu tshirt
Well, apparently they can, because most of those t-shirts are labelled “unisex”… but because the sizes get longer as they go up in width, well, heaven forbid that a shorter person might want a XXXL t-shirt that doesn’t come down to their knees. Or with flapping great sleeves down to their elbows.
I really want everything I design to be available to as many people as possible (which is why I made my dresses up to a size 30+), and it’s making me very cross that, eighteen years since I started printing t-shirts, this apparently still can’t happen.
I recently starting following the #visiblemending hashtag on Instagram, and am currently filled with inspiration! I’ve been thinking about replacing this jumper for a long time (I’ve been wearing it for more than twenty years), but now I’m wondering whether I might just buy a ball of wool and re-knit the cuffs instead. The rest of the jumper’s fine! Although in the spirit of visible mending, and also using what I have, perhaps it would be even better to have a rummage through my box of odds and ends, find something in the right weight, and replace the cuffs with that.
blue jeans with an almost worn out area
My jeans are going to need repairing pretty soon as well. When I bought my Monkee Genes I deliberately chose the longer length, despite being a short person, so that when they inevitably needed mending I could chop a couple of inches off the hems and use it to patch the knees. As it happens, they haven’t yet worn out at the knees, and I actually rather like wearing them turned up. The place where they are starting to wear out, which is on the thighs, also needs more fabric than I can scavenge from the turn-ups, so I need another solution.
I did think about going to a charity shop and buying a sacrifical pair of jeans, that could live in the sewing pile and be used to make patches until my Monkee Genes have worn out completely. And then I thought, again, that I have miles and miles of fabric in my stash, so why not use some of that?
square liberty print patches and a rotary cutter, on a cutting board
What I’d quite like to use is some Liberty print cotton, as I have quite a few rather small pieces. Even though it’s very fine, the Tana Lawn is a very closely woven fabric, so with a bit of something plain layered up behind it, it should actually make quite a serviceable patch.
But… given the nature of the floral prints… and given the nature of the area that needs patching… is it going to look as though there’s been some kind of disaster in the underwear department, if I patch the thighs of my jeans with Liberty lawn? I might have to loosely tack some pieces on, and see what I think!
Skirt up a tree! A very bare lilac tree, on a sunny winter’s day. It snowed on the morning that I took this, just a little bit, and the rest of the day was bright sunshine. Lovely.
The colour doesn’t show too brilliantly here, it’s actually a lovely green overdyed on top of a gorgeous swirly coral-like pattern. The translucent effect is what happens when you dye over an existing pattern, particularly on a polyester/cotton blend fabric. The dye doesn’t stick to the polyester, so you get a lovely textured effect. In its former life the fabric was a big circular Marks & Spencer tablecloth, and the ruffle is original.
I find it difficult to photograph skirts – even on the mannequin they look a bit sad because it’s the movement as you wear them that brings them to life. This one has pockets (of course!), and the waistband is elasticated at the back so it should be super comfy. With leggings or nice thick tights underneath, it will be nice and warm for the impending cold weather – not that winter is putting Sarah off from getting outside with her camera. If you follow her on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll see lots of gorgeous winter portraits, and there’s even a special package where you can book a set of photo shoots across all four seasons!
