Today I am experimenting with glues for flat gilding. I've read a lot online about it, but I learn better when I do things for myself.

Here's what I've learned so far...

Fish glue- very runny and tacky. Sets up in a minute or so and dries clear. Not ideal as the gold leaf will not survive the burnishing without tearing or shredding. Does not dry flat. Can I assume hide glues will do the same? Might have to try some- we have some rabbit somewhere.

Gum Arabic- sets up very quickly. Dries clear. Not a bad glue, but not ideal. Better for shell gold, I think.

White glue- next on the list.

Gum Tragacanth- looking for some around the house. Thinking it's not a good choice, but since we're playing, might as well add it to the list.

Glair- Pete just bought eggs, so I'm going to whip that up in a minute. Have used eggs in gesso for raised gilding, so I know it works. Also used to support pigments for painting. I'm going to expect this one to be the right choice.

Crazy Glue- you know I just have to. It's like using duct-tape to fix shoes, but there it is. I don't expect I'll do anything except glue my fingers to the table, though.

Anyone have any luck gilding on pewter? Just thinking about all those buttons we've been making lately...

Finally got the jupon done.  Well, except for the buttons, it's done.  I was so frustrated with yesterday's, I pitched the whole damn thing into the fireplace and started over.  See, burning stuff did make me feel better!  New scissors helped.

This new jupon is a little less elaborate than the one I planned, but still looks ok.  It has the angry squirrels, as promised. 

Peter finished the gorget- he's put butterflies, ladybugs, leaves and flowers all over it.  He wants to call it Nazgul.  I think he might have missed the point of making armour.  It's not supposed to be pretty.   I'm very pleased that I'll have all metal and leather- the last gorget was plastic so I'm not sorry to see it go.

I'm going to take a pile of pictures tomorrow, in various stages of undress.  We're just about done and I can't wait to put it all together!

Epic fail today.  Work on the jupon today was a complete waste of time!  I cut everything out, measured it, basted it and fit it with the armour on.  I used this trial model to make a pattern for the heraldic coat and cut everything out for that.  Then I sewed and serged the trial coat, only to discover that it is tremendously too small!  It fits Teah.  Damn.

Worst problem is that I had already cut out the pieces for the heraldic coat and have no more fabric.  Or money.  Or patience.  I've decided on a radical change of design and spent the rest of the evening burning things to make myself feel better.  The new design is kinda boring, with half of my heraldry missing, but it should still have giant, angry squirrels on it.  If I don't screw that up too.

Berend got the breastplate finished and it looks great!  The fit is better than I was expecting and I think it'll go good with the gorget I'm stealing from him.  Snicker.  

I need a break.  At least there is an end in sight.

Kinda stalled today by a project not related to the armour- I'll blog about it later.

Berend spent some time in the garage cutting and shaping the breastplate center piece.  We're planning on doing a Cherbourg style breastplate, which has several articulated plates attached to one sheet of leather.  I don't like the globos style that Berend wears, so I'm going for this one.  The hardest piece to do is the center, as it is a complicated form to create.  It bends both horizontally and vertically, which can be tricky without a large dishing stump. 

He's working on the boots now.  I expect to take over as soon as he gets tired or bored (any time soon!).  They're based on a low boot from the 14th C and are pretty generic.  They will have 3 buckles and a tongue.  I'm going to get the buckles cast out of silver from a detector find I have, but that will have to wait until I get the time.

We discovered that I do not have a gorget.  Not sure what happened, but it was plastic and needed replacing anyways.  Not a big job and I'll get to learn how to roll steel and do the roping.  Cool.
 

While I'm waiting for the oil to dry, I thought I'd do an update.  No pictures, though.  Feeling lazy today.

I spent the better part of this afternoon ripping apart my old arms and fixing them.  I thought I'd get away with a bit of dye and some buckles, but turns out my arms sucked so bad they needed a re-do.  I pulled the steel bands off the old ones and pitched everything else.  I took some of the heavy leather we bought for the legs and using the old pattern, cut and shaped new vambraces.  I added a tab to the top of them and riveted the elbow cops onto them, as well as the steel bands (after painting them black- they were hopelessly rusted).  I added straps, instead of those bloody stupid laces I had before, and dyed everything black.  Cutting, redying the rerbraces and adding them to the top of the cops was the final step.  With the rerebraces in place, I don't seem to need a strap right on the elbow crease.  Field testing will pass or fail this theory.

Berend tossed out a new set of articulated shoulders for me.  They're longer than I planned but he rolled them so nicely that I couldn't complain!  I've pointed them in two places and have added all the points to the arming jack.  I use a variation of the "Beusoleil" method- the difference being instead of just sandwiching the fabric between two strips of leather and sewingthem on, I have added a cloth belt to the construction of the fabric to support them.  This adds structure to the garment and works like an internal harness.  It should add a significant amount to the lifespan of the jack and points.

Not sure what I'm going to do tonight- I'm waiting for the breastplate to be completed before I can fit the jupon.  I might pad Adrielle's helm so it's ready to go.  Just going to do a blue cell job, since it's not my helm.  I don't see the need for a fancy fit if I'm only going to wear it a few times!

Finished the legs today!  The leather was cut yesterday and today we got it shaped, strapped and the knees attached.  Berend dyed them black and I got them all oiled up.



Front view of the legs.  The will be pointed onto the jack at the hips.  We added the leather below the knee cops to keep them from tucking the greaves.



Back of the legs before I oiled them.



Underclothes, except for the tunic.  I'm pretty happy with the fit and think it will work fine.  I'm not pointing the legs until I get the shoulders finished.  I can't see the point in not doing them all together.

The shoulders are started and I'm going to work on my gauntlets tomorrow.  All I need to do is fix the thumbs and clean them up a little.  The shoulders shouldn't take too long to do so I anticipate getting started on the breastplate tomorrow.  Once that's done, or at least shaped, I can start working on my heraldic jupon.  That's going to take the longest.

First thing I did today is make an inventory of the things I already have:

• helm, borrowed from Adrielle
• elbows and vambraces (need some work)
• Bocksten tunic for fighting in
• gorget

Things I need to make:

• hose
• braes
• arming jack
• jupon
• shirt
• boots
• breastplate
• padded coif
• kidney belt
• greaves
• cuisses
• shoulders

I'm sure there's plenty more things to do as we go and I want to have it done by Thursday, but Saturday will do.

I began sewing today with the hose.  Berend really enjoys his, so I'm making a set for myself.  I bought some melton wool on sale- 75% off, thank you very much.  I chose melton because it's a very heavy wool and will take a lot of abuse.  It will also keep the shape I need and hold the padding in place.  

I draped the fabric and had Berend pin them for me to get a good fit.  I used 3 layers of cotton quilt batting and 2 layers of wool for the padding.  I finished the pad with a piece of linen for strength and to help with the itchy wool on my knees.  I then sewed them up and finished them.  Easy peasy so far.


The padding before it was sewn together.

The hose, front and back, before sewing them up the back seam.

Next on the list was the arming jack.  I'm calling it that for lack of a better term, but it's basically a jacket that the armour ties to.  I'm using the same setup as I did for Berend's as it seems to work pretty well.  The jack includes a built in belt to support the points without tearing free.

I picked up some really nice linen at the orange bag store and used some of the leftover belt from Berend's jack.  I used a basic cote design with larger arm scythes and a really tight fit.  The belts are placed to support the points for the legs and the shoulders.  I then sewed the jack together.  I'm going to use white shoelaces for the ties and then it'll be done.


Back of the jack showing the strapping.


The side front of the jack.  The legs will point from the horizontal belt and the shoulders from the vertical one.  I am planning to have two points for the shoulders but it depends on how they go together.

Berend was able to fit, cut and strap the cuisses and greaves.  The knees will go on tomorrow, we hope.  I'm going to dye the leather black as well. 

Not a bad first day.

I wrote this article a year or so ago, but made significant changes.  Having nowhere else to use this article, I thought I'd repost it here, should anyone be interested.  It's behind the cut as it's quite long.

There is a great deal of debate on the uses of tea in mead.  Black tea includes tannins and for some strange reason people have it in their heads it needs to be included in mead.  I think that our lack or inclusion won us the brewing competitions we entered!

This one is based on the patterns Adrielle gave me, with some changes.  I added a longer undertunic (pirahan) out of a patterned Indian cotton.  I made matching salvar as I had loads left over. 

The coat is a blue/gold brocade pattern, with a large, repeating desing.  It looked pretty cool, but I'm not sure how accurate it is.  It's certainly better than the red one- that was very modern.  I lined it with a polyester (gasp) faux sari silk, with small flowers in a geometric pattern.  It's actually the reverse of the fabric, but the front was dark purple and graded.  The edges have a peacock pattern, which I placed along the center seam for interest.  I used buttons and cord for closure so it's reversable, but I doubt I will wear it gold side out. 

Berend made me the blue suede shoes (snicker) using the boot pattern.  I got the impression looking at some of the illuminations from the period that most women wore low shoes inside.  I even found a few where they are wearing a version of pattens with them.  I whined and Berend made me some of those as well. 

The hat is green wool that I felted, shaped and stiffened.  I used a mixture of water and white glue to stiffen it.  I found several websites that suggested hide or fish glue, but they all warned that they are not waterproof.  I found one of Drea Leed's sites where she recommends using white glue.  Her arguments convinced me to use this.  It's a little unevenly stiff, but I'm not going to have the time to fix it right now.  I added a piece of trim and pinned the veil on over top.  I have found quite a few pictures of women wearing this type of hat from the 16th C. with the same type of coat and shoes I am wearing in the picture.

Codex Vindobonensis, c 1590, from Dar Anahita, a great website run by Anahita.  She has lots of useful links and pictures.

I finished "Disco Stu" part two tonight.  It's from the same book as the last one I did- 15th C. German, with bright colours and almost cartoonish people.  It's a bit of a departure from the English ones I've been focusing on lately, but so pretty I couldn't resist.

For this one, I was aiming to improve my grasp of dimensionality and shading.  

P sat down with me and showed me some tips that have sent me off in a totally new direction.  Previously, I've been using my gouache more like a watercolour; trying to shade using washes instead of graded colours.  This has failed miserably and left me with very flat designs.  Mixing and layering the shades with a fairly dry brush was the ticket.  It's interesting that most of the colours need to go from dark to light, except yellow, which is working better from light to dark.  My pallette has never seen so many mixed colours!

The other thing I was working on is Medieval perspective.  My modern mind is having a great deal of trouble adjusting to some of the odd perspectives and weird sense of balance!  I've given up trying to adjust things so they are correct and simply using the angles that exist in the original painting.  It looks like the drawing does, but I just can't get over the nagging sense of imbalance.

I'm planning on finding more in this style as I think Disco Stu needs to have some adventures!  

I'll scan and post them both when I get the time.

I started a new illumination today!  It's been a while.  This one is based on a 15th C. German bible I found in my book "In the Beginning was the Word".  I'm entranced by the bright colours in this one, plus it's terribly silly.  The male figure featured in it has been nicknamed "Disco Stu".

P talked me into picking up some Permanent White gouache, so I'm playing with it.  I usually use China White, but I get rather frustrated with it.  The permanent stuff is nice so far, but I haven't used it much.  I'm also struggling with the viridian and think I want to change it.  It's a very nice shade of green, if I can get it to work, but that's rare.  Normally, it's clumpy on the brush and it separates as soon as it hits the vellum.  It also doesn't mix nicely.  Time for a new tube.

Things I'm focusing on in this piece-

• textures of cloth
  
• drawing Disco Stu (working on proportion in human figures)
• layering the gouache and getting the shading right
• whitework (fine lines and dots)

P has made some suggestions for me to try and I can already see a difference!  I'll scan and post when I'm done.

The coat is done!  Finally.  Not happy with the fit- I think the front gore might not have been necessary after all.  I'll try it with the rest of the outfit and a belt this weekend and see.  Losing that gore means a better fitting liner, without a fussy angle, but I'll see.

Things I learned:

• Persian is not Turkish.  Safavid is not Ottoman.
• Veils need to be stiff so you can breathe trough them.  Habotai silk is not a good choice. 
  
• Hats would be better- more my style.
• Linings are easier than they look.  Just sew two separate garments and put them together at the neck and sleeves.
• Make the gore smaller on the salwar and they fit just fine.  You don't need a really deep seat to get the right fit.
• Boots make the outfit!

I'll be wearing it this weekend at Winter War.  Come check it out- I'll have snacks!

I'm supposed to be sewing trim, so I thought it might be more fun to go to the shop and tinker.  Berend and I bought some cups a few years ago when we were in Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.  They're really cool; based on a 14th C. bowl in their harem collection, but they are sort of silvery looking.  I really want to gold plate them, but we keep running into snags.  I've cleaned off most of the silver metal (not really sure what it might be) with the polisher and am down to the copper.  It looks pretty, but not for long! 

I'm going to try finding some citric acid for a pickel, but we're having no luck so far.  Not sure what to substitute for that.  Tried hydrocloric acid on it, but suprisingly nothing happened!  Nothing happened with the carbolic acid either (of course, it was only a little bit of Coke- should I boil this next time?).  So, find a suitable pickel and then nickel plating tonight, if we can find the right stuff.  Hopefully, that will work!  If I can get a good nickel coating, then I can gold plate it.

I also think that the gold plating solution has issues.  I think the piece we're using might be too big for the technique, or the solution is getting weak.  Might try using a scrap piece of gold (doesn't everyone have a drawer or two just loaded with scrap gold?) to see if that works better. 

Plan "B" is spray paint.  Grumble.

In keeping with the current theme, I've whipped up a batch of sekanjabin for this weekend's event.  I was inspired to try this last fall by Tempus and quite enjoyed it.  I think it's more of a hot weather drink, but it's still tasty.  I based my batch on a 13th C. Andalusian recipe, "Libre de Diversis Medicinus".  I expect it was thought to be medicinal, but it seems like everything except furniture paste was as well.  I am somewhat familiar with medieval cooking theory and expect this was considered warm and moist, but might have also tipped into the cool side of things, just to complicate the issue.

Either way, it's yummy.

Here's what I did:
4C white sugar (you could use honey for sweetness, but I'm being cheap!)
1C vinegar  (I used white, but you could use pretty much anything.  I think malt might not be great, but that's just me)
2 1/2 C water
handful fresh peppermint

Bring the water and sugar to a rolling boil.  Add vinegar and lightly bruised mint.  Hard boil for 20 minutes.  Cool and bottle.  This works really nicely at a 5-1 water to syrup mixture.

For fun, I did another batch and substituted pomegranate syrup (grenadine) for mint.  It's fantastic!  I'm going to play with some citrus flavours, but I'll save that for another day.

Berend is just about finished my boots!  I found the illumination that they're based on, but I don't have a link for you.  If you have Tashen's Masterpieces of Illumination, it's in there, page  422.  The book is "Jami: Haft Awrang- The Seven Thrones" and is Persian from about 1560.  The colours are different (mine are blue with red highlights), but the shape is very similar.  I know the heels are supposed to be high, but as I won't be riding in them and Berend has a lot to learn about footwear, I'll go with what I've got.

I'm still working on the purple coat.  I've lined it in blue silk with pink trim and have to put the closures on the front.  I bought some truly heinous trim today and have to mod it a bit before I can use it. 

I've been researching hats and headwear.  I enjoy wearing veils, so I'm experimenting with some of the styles in the illuminations I've been looking at.  There's a specific look in a lot of the Persian ones, with what looks like a circlet with a small point in front.  I've seen it with a feather stuck in it, which is fun, but silly.  I tried a peacock feather, but it's a little too big for my taste.  I found an odd style with the veils- they look really high and pushed back.  Thing is, if you have a face-veil attached to the circlet and throw it over your head, it looks like the paintings. 

Here's what I did:  I took a thin strip of brass, cut it to shape and covered it with black silk on the front and blue on the back.  I stitched them together and added a ribbon to the back to close it.  Then I grabbed some habotai silk and made a semi-circle out of it.   I tacked this to the front of the circlet so it won't slide around on my head.  Habotai is brutal for moving about!  I then took another piece of habotai, dyed it green and cut it into a rectangle, for the face piece.  That got tacked to the circlet, so it will cover my face. 

I think that habotai silk was not the best choice for this project.  It's lovely for veils, but it's so tightly woven, you can't breath through it.  It looks cool, but as soon as I put the veil over my face, I suffocate (which is bad) and the veil moves with my breathing (which is dorky).  Perhaps linen or a different weave of silk.

I'm going to take a trek into Chinatown next week and see if I can find one of their "Mongol" style hats.  They are the nifty ones with the round brim and point at the top.  Many of the women pictured were wearing hats, particularly with the boots I have.  I know that veiling was not required during the Safavid era, which is the one I'm looking at, so wearing a hat would be just fine.  I'm being lazy by buying one, but I'm a bit swamped with work right now, so picking one up to tinker with is about all I'm good for right now.

I'll post pictures of the outfit when I have the closures attached.