I’ve been able to finally Make rather than Find files so my pattern book is getting the massive edit it desperately needs. But I had to uninstall the latest Inkscape to go back to what I used before all heck broke loose with my hard drives. The UI is just so different. The old UI though means I’m able to use muscle memory to refamiliarise myself with it all to simplify my shapes to make it even easier to use the newer version.

I had added seam allowances to each bodice shape but I’m going to remove all them all again. One of the biggest problems with including them is that they really need to be approached as fulfilling different roles at different times. I’m not even a fan of including notches for corners, because I only cut these after I’ve got the bodice fitted. I’d rather have an annoying bunch of fabric than have to cut it all over again.

That really is how I cut around my base pattern, apart from the notches and cut off points. I use grain so much for support, yes there is a diagram for that scanned but not yet redrawn as a vector. Quite often I’ll find it easier to fit by pinching/letting out evenly over the seam but then will want to move the seam to the back a little. So this extra fabric lets me do that.

Even with a dress form I find I want this extra fabric. It’s partly why all my patterns that I traced over to make my book line up so well. I do want to keep the allowances for my pages on how to draft, fit, and finish the pattern though, so it’s not a total waste. But

As far as the work involved. I’m removing all the path effects (dotted lines or sweeping lines like a pen would leave) which is time consuming, but absolutely will make it easier for people to use. And I’ll be able to connect paths I had to separate for those path effects too. Making it all easier for me going forward. From what I can tell this work flow is still in use with the new UI, so I’ll just keep going getting the paths all tidy. I’ve got the new version on my flip book so I can use that to learn the layout and possibly new tools.

I’ve been awake for three hours and I’m shattered already. But it’s getting easier to use the controls again. ctl+scroll for zoom, just ctl+z to undo (making it easier than PS) shift+click to select multiple paths. I’m even appreciating the infinite scroll as I’m able to bring paths right next to the side to speed up remong path effects from each path. That would be handy going forward- the ability to remove/add path effects to multiple paths like you can stroke/fill/change width.

I’ve also installed like 300 fonts and I’m really only happy with one. It’s so bad! But I want to pull a Quentel. At least one reference I found suggested the French edition was in house rather than printers in France copying or being given permission to do so. And there are even editions out there with no text put in the box of the title page as well. So this is what I’m trying to do. Make a “plate” for the title page to be in different fonts associated with different cities so people can grab which ever one they prefer.

I really want to redraw all my figures. There are regional differences in proportions too like typefaces. It’s proving difficult to find much in the way of local artists depicting real people but what I have found suggests a richer connection to Augsburg than I thought. It might be the size of the books. I collect all the (digitised) prints of dancing couples and there is quite the difference when you compare large and small sets. I mean it’s obvious really. But I might be putting my own ideas of a large and small rather than going by the actual dimensions.

I’m still going to webify the book because that lets people zoom the entire page or text only or even translate it all. Working out alt text for the pattern shapes is really difficult. It’s not just me. It’s a problem with all the extant books I have as well. Ditto instructions in magazines. There is an interesting phenomenon of where different costs merge. Number of pages, verses amount of ink, versus slugs and cost of illustrations (artist, woodcut/etching) all affect cost.

So by the time of the late 19thC magazines have the tiniest font you can get away with but filled to the last word. So there is a lot of flowery language.

Okay, it’s very humid so I’m off to have a shower. And let what I’ve done settle in my memory.

I’ve had a little time to myself and have genuinely got my research to the point I’ve been able to tackle my folders of my costumes. And also open up my WIP boxes of my Cleves frocks as I have found them too overwhelming. You see this health stuff has set back everything. Ditto my data issues. And mistakes I made a few years back required me replacing a whole lot of under linings that were barely too short. Frustratingly too short.

For my red velveteen gown this was critical. I need to have wiggle room to shift the patchwork of pieces up and down the underlining so I get the very best use out of the tiny scraps I have. Luckily the Moritz von Saschen schaube comes to my rescue. Because there are places where the joins in the guarding are raw edge to raw edge. I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that but I do need to be able to use every tool I have. So I’ll be fusing the very edges and zig zagging them down to the underlining.

And I have an underlining for the minkie, I mean tube rat lining. It’s not overly stretchy, but it is still stretchy so I need to firstly baste it to the underlining and then sew parallel rows down to mimic piecing. I may not make it quite as narrow as I know it should be…

But there is some hard core piecing happening in that layer too as I only just have enough for this and my remake of my dark blue gown. I’m making it into an earlier style and that means fur.

My Gelderlander gown has just one underlayer. Okay. I probably should buy some more calico for a second so that the skirt can be lined and the fur lining go only about to my knees. It depends on how much I trust the Codice de Trajes on some details.

The artist just didn’t understand the overlapped skirts, most people don’t. But, see, I really want to call my red velveteen gown a Gelderlander frock too but I’m making the liste as deep as I can get to push it right up to 1550. These liste are more like 1530s and earlier.

Sorry the museum site is down, here is a link to the RKD site https://rkd.nl/images/59494

But see how we can easily see the gap between the liste and narrower guarding? that tells us how tall it is.

And you can tell this gown has something really similar going on with the guarding around the skirt and sleeves.

And now that it’s so easy to retouch you can see how high up Katharina von Reidt’s liste is! I don’t think we can say that’s just an artifact from the photography or processing or digitisation.

My Anne of Cleves folders are still consuming so much time, but in a way I’m getting a semi fast run through what I have and what I thought I have. But I also managed to get my Anne of Cleves frock out and pressed- thank goodness all my work on basting the layers has been worth it as the calico underlayer and velveteen do work together so very well. I also did a rough estimate as to whether I have enough of the Margaret cloth of gold for alllll the guarding. Now that’s tricky. I might have enough if I ignore what I know *should* happen with her skirt versus what extant garments tell us.

And that is to not waste precious materials where they won’t be seen. Take the Moritz von Saschen’s schaube:

Why yes I’ve covered that the guarding is all on the bias before, but here you can see that it ends about half way under the turned back collar/revers.

So I could just make the gown only able to be worn with the closure on my right and save three strips. And yes it’s that close.

If I cut it all on the bias I do get more. But the problem is each strip is a different width. I can sort of fake that with the narrower (neckline) but just folding a deeper allowance. But the widest strip is closest to the hem and the edge of the overlap is thus the longest continual piece. Okay I guess I can take my cue yet again from the extant and manuals and just do a lot of piecing especially where no one will see it.

But I want to follow the examples of the Moritz schaube and the Festkleid at the GNM which is to use cording at the edges.

But I think I need to really carefully just do teeny tiny seam allowances as that’s what it looks like. I might have just convinced myself it is on the bias. Though not true bias in places. I wish I was able to reverse engineer the pattern of the fabric to work out if it is on the bias or if the weave is what Bruyn captured. Bias really does off best bang for buck, I know this, I’ve written about this. I’m just nervous about cutting very neat strips and getting the edges sealed well enough that I can store the strips between rounds of hand sewing.

But I do need this made for my K’Zoo talk because so much of what I’m speaking about is in this technical side. I want to set up my other frocks in the background because while I’ll have all my files they are a great starter for questions, and they are in colour. So much of what I work with are old micro film images and text.

Now that I’ve got my life somewhat in order, I’ve finally been able to put all my portraits of women from NRW together to work out where my double ups are, and to make sure I’ve kept a record of where each image of the same work comes from. I had kept out images I very much doubt, but they’re now in the folders with ones I do accept. And my doubts are pretty solid. It’s not just the style, it’s not just the clothing, it’s a mix. There are some portraits I don’t think are attributed correctly to Bruyn either, though in that regard it’s down to style.

So far I’ve concentrated on Cologne as we have Bruyn as the archetype. And that’s 270 folders of which 52 are of multiple figures. My Westfallen images are so much easier to organise because there are fewer. My Gelderland portraits are predominantly what feel like copies. But if they are they are still very iconic. And then we move into my Julich-Kleve-Berg folder which is the hottest mess of hot messes.

And I still have other art forms.

I had started to doubt myself, because I had stepped away from where I was comfortable to challenge why I felt comfortable. Now that I’m back to where I started? My comfort was because I did have a really good grasp on it. And that’s even when most of my work has been with low resolution and often very blurry images.

This all began so long ago because people were being discouraged from recreating Anne of Cleves’ ensemble because of the rule of three. That because there weren’t three portraits with exactly the same features you couldn’t trust it. And not even all the Bruyn portraits were enough. It’s true her sleeves are incredibly striking, so very different and even with my work in so many other regions there are only hints of similarities.

There are many trumpet sleeves including in the Enns cutting manual, but when it comes to the kind of divided upper and lower it’s quite rare. I have an intersting example from a massive manuscript, but she is meant to be an historical figure, the other is of Marie Jacobaa.

As for the disc shaped uppers, we do have a portrait by Lucas Cranch of Barbara Radziwill.

An this is why we can’t just set aside images of interesting clothing. Most of the difficulty I face is not that there a few depictions of women but that they get curated out of catalogues.

Thus my 270 folders representing about that many women, and some more children, from Cologne and near by towns. I didn’t create the images, I just pecked through every single catalogue, auction, and exhibition I could to find them.

But now I need a rest, it was a broken sleep, the second part full of dreams.