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Background Story:
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I found out about the Griffin's Needle Challenge from the autocrat of the event in the tailor shop at Lilies.
There seemed to be a Northshield recruitment program at the shop since some of us got talked into going to Northshield's costuming seminar later in the year too (yeah, wasn't hard to do). But yet, the Griffin's Needle Challenge sounded like fun idea and an interesting challenge. The event is based off the golden seamstress (yeah, I like the Northshield name better for some reason), that has been held Ealdormere, The Middle Kingdom, and I think Atlantia has had few too. The event is to bring sewers together and see if you can make one complete set of clothing in a given amount of time. There are different categories from novice to advanced that you can enter, so that if you want to use sewing machines, or do hand sewing and you will be judged accordingly.
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It wasn't until later in June that Her Ladyship Ypolite posted on the Calon_tailor list talking about it would be cool to enter, did the serious discussion of putting a team together for the event. Looking at the rules for the event we saw you could have up to six people on your team, but laurels who's fields are in clothing count as two people. So we started to put our team together, with Ypolite and myself we where at three people, then including her laurel, Her Excellency Mistress Magda and my apprentice Her Ladyship Carmina, we where now at our 6 man team with just the 4 of us. We also decided to enter their pyxis level of competition where everything had to be hand done and all clothing done on site, though accessories could be made ahead of time. Luckily, having run and co-run the lilies tailor shop the last 3 years, I had an idea what could be done in the given time frame. Plus with everyone having worked together in the shop, we were set with a team that could get the job done by hand. Since we needed a victim / model we went with Magda's 10 year old son Melchor. Yes, having to sew at least a foot less seam was one of the factors in the model, especially when you sew each seam 2 or 3 times.
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So where did we get our name? So we were emailing names and not having much luck. I tried to pull from both Magda's and my heraldry, but the idea of "The Gored Mermaid's" didn't sit to will with her (the gore from my device and the mermaid from hers). Luckily for us ypolite had just gotten her Calon Lily at the Lilies war, and Magda and I knew that Carmina was getting her's at Kingdom A&S, so we decided decided to combine the names from the two Arts awards that we were all part (soon be) of. So from the Golden Calon Swan and the Calon Lily we came up with the name the Golden Calon Lilies. After Kingdom A&S all agreed that the name was a good one, but then at some point do to a spelling mistake on my end, yeah really, it somewhere ended up being The Gilded Calon Lilies and once caught, the feeling was yeah that sounds cooler. Or something like that, I'm sure I'll get corrected.
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Design:
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If memory serves me, we would have 20 hours to make a complete outfit. Also, one of my personal goals was that we would be completely done with-in the 20 hours. That meant all seams finished, and outfits hemmed. My first lilies tailor shop that I ran we tried to make two complete outfits in one day (dusk till no light in June), I don't recommend doing that with a 102 fever. We got the outfits mostly done, but there was the big lesson of the devil is in the detail work, besides not doing it when sick, and that it took most of my and other's free time getting it finished through out the week of Lilies. I did get to know my future apprentice out of it. The experience of the last three years was important. for one, our model would be male so no long skirts or tunics. second there will be no late period garb, and third something that isn't going to kill us after being up over 24 hours. My idea was to do something that was 14th to 15th century. On my list was shirt, breeches, hosen, cote / doublet and over cote. It was Magda's great idea to use Bodleian Library MS. 195--Romance of the Rose., and talk about a great source of material showing a wide range transitional cotes. But what caught both of our eyes was the hood sur-cotes in the illuminations, we had to do it. I also liked that the manuscript showed similar style surcotes both opened and closed. We also wanted to stick with the chosen stuff not commonly seen in the sca, so for the cote we want for one of the doublets in the manuscript that had a U shape cut in the front and joined hosen that was laced to the cote. We also expanded our elements to a hat that magda could make ahead of time, and shoes that her Excellency Mistress Comyn hand made for use ahead of time (I hope to get a write up on the really cool shoes from her).. There's one other thing to mention about the design before I get into details. Since making clothing for a 10 year I tried to balance making something that fit perfectly, to something that had the right look and had some room to grow into so that he could where it for a while, this was a challenge for me as a tailor especially since this is the first time doing kids clothing, Hopefully I have accomplished this goal as will as the others.
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The sur-cote:
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There are several design elements in the sur-cote that draw from many examples with-in ms195. Though not complicated in the way of embellishments, I really tried to choose elements that could be sewn quickly but yet had enough difference to get the ooh-ah comments and to catch peoples eyes, and finally to hopefully inspire others. So the hood (still looking for other sources) was a must, and it also had to be usable, I also want with the dagging for the bottom hem of the cote and the bell sleeves. I did not want to line the garment so decided to go with wool and to flat-fell all the seams. to protect the edges we went with a blanket stitch over doing a woven type edging. Flat-felling the seams we went with a running stitch over a whip stitch for speed, but also decided to use the stitch as a decorative element on the outside of the cote. We want with a natural linen thread to sew the garment together. As noted in museum of London's Textile and clothing, by this time to sew with wool would have been a lower class thing to do, and that dyed silk would have been expensive. I know of dyed linen was used for embroidery, but to date I have only found mention of linen sewing thread as being natural. I'm not saying they couldn't have dyed linen thread, but knowing how difficult it is to dye linen, and lack of evidence, I personally don't see any problems using natural linen over using some modern poly thread that matches, also one has to remember Cloaks and Clark's wasn't available yet
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The Doublet:
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Beesides the U shape front of the doublet I mentioned earlier, I decided to add sleeves like some of the other normal doublets and cotes, this was because the bell sleeves being on the sur-cote would make the under sleeve visible. One other change was made at the event and that was instead of putting eyelets around the hem to use to tie the lacing on, when I realized we where running out of time, it was decided to sew the lacing to the cote. Another design change was with the length of the cote. Yes there are many who think that it is to short, it's really to long. This style of doublets should have been cut on the natural waist. Now for modern taste I usually go an inch or two lower. but after making the mockup and trying on the model, it was decided that he would be more comfortable if I added an inch, so it ended up being about three fingers length below the natural waist. (If you think that doublets are cut where you belt your jeans you really need to look at some period paintings, sorry it's just one of my pet peeves and I can't tell you how many doublets I've seen that their shape and lines are wrong because there two long). If I were to make it that way again, I would futher drop the U shape down. I did make that adjustment, but in my opinion not enough. There is one other design element, In the back there is a V shape insert that is place about half way between the shoulder line and the chest line and forms the neck opening. Because of the V shape insert, it was decided to just press open the seams and use a running stitch with to hold the seams open. Again we used we used wool, which meant that we didn't have to turn the seams, we also used linen thread. You just have to love fulled wool.
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The rest:
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The hosen, breeches, and hat were patterned by Her Excellency Mistress Magda, and the shirt by Her Ladyship Carmina. I'll hopefully get them to write something and add it later.
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The Day:
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To say that we where going to have a full two day was an under statement. we were heading up to Madison area from St. Louis, with one of our members starting from Springfield. Once Carmina got into town we killed time going to the St. Louis Art Museum looking at the medieval collection and watching "A Man For All Seasons" before Magda, melchor and Ypolite got to my place to head out. Unfortunately, we did not get out of St. Louis when we wanted to. I'm sure all those in the SCA are completely in shock by our late start. Though you couldn't start on your clothing till 9pm it wasn't till almost 3 hours later that we got on site. Luckily, the site was in a fair grounds inside a building that had garage doors so we could drive right inside and unload, oh how I would have given that ability up for air conditioning (it's no fun drafting while sweating on your paper). So I found the lady in charge, where we needed to be and a rough idea what was going on,. and got started. I quickly rolled out my drafting paper to get started on the cote and sur-cote. oh yes we had to draft on site, I did bring mock up to compare too, but everything was patterned including making two block patterns for the cotes, were done there, thank God for notes. Magda got started on the hosen, Carmina got started on the shirt, and Ypolite got started on the breeches. I will give credit where credit is do, Magda stayed up the whole time we where there and some, I think I got about 20mins of napping at the event, Carmina got some sleep, Ypolite was smart and brought bedding which I wish I would had done for those 20mins, though if I did have bedding would have been longer then 20mins, and then Malchor of course got the most sleep. by morning the breeches where done, the shirt almost done, the bodies of the cote, surcote and hosen where assembled, but waiting for the model to wake up for a final fitting and alterations before finishing the seams. Ypolite moved from the breeches to working on the cotes as we worked on getting them felled, Carmina moved over to helping with the sleeves and the bodies as we all rotated work, stretched and spent to much time looking at cool books being brought to us through out the day. Carmina made the lucet chord during the day and Magda made the metal ends for them. Unfortunately it wasn't till mid day did we realize that we needed written documentation to turn in, but luckily I had planed for that by bringing a laser printer (low on toner though we found out printing the pictures) and Magda. Magda sat down in the afternoon and wrote our documentation, picking our brains and updating things that we had changed from the original plans. Yes we had brought a Documentation pro with us. I would say though the lack of sleep was starting to effect us towards the end, making a mistake here and there, quickly fixing it, I know I had to more then once stand up walk away and then come back or rotate pieces just to work on something else. The biggest discussion at the end was with the blanket stitch, when I started it, it was so small you would barely see it, and would not have been finished in time. we decided to go larger, Some people thought to large but I think when viewing from the distance and looks very close. I'm thinking if we had more time or weren't up for 36 hours by that time it would not have been an issue.
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But we did it. with 20 mins to spare we where done, and our model dressed and ready to own the crowd. everything that needed to be hemmed was hemmed. All the linen was flat felled. The hosen had been back stitched and flat felled. The cote the seams had been pressed open and stitched, yes we brought smooth rocks to press our seams as we sewed. and the sur-cote had been flat felled too. All sewn with natural linen thread. I really can't express how proud I am of our group to have hand sewn an entire garment including drafting, cutting of the fabric in under 17 hours.
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Closing Thoughts:
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Given Time to think, I'm torn between the hours that the event took place over. Versus maybe having the start time on Saturday at 6 or 7am and finish around 2 to 3am on Sunday, then getting roughly 6 hours sleep then having the fashion show, judging and then close site at noon. I think the later is better from a quality of work stand point and getting a fresh start. The downside from an event steward standpoint is the needing to rent site an extra day, pulse arranging an extra day to keep those running the event. But there's just something about the way it was ran, The lax of sleep, the adrenalin, the stress. Yes I am that type of junkie where personally I thrive in that type of environment, but hey I'm a network admin so I'm used to it. So I'm stuck between the idea of getting the best quality vs the experience it currently is.
I also wish that my laurel would have been there, besides the fact that she's a speed demon when it comes to hand sewing, but it would of made our team outside the 6 person limit, or 5 man team would have counted as 7, then that little thing about being 7 months pregnant at the time. It would have been great to of had a team that would have been an apprentice, laurel, grand laurel, and great grand laurel. But we still had a great time and a great family team, ypolite did a great job representing her generation of the family.
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