On the recommendation of a lady I met last night at fighter practice, I went and checked J.A. Szirmai’s The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding out of the library, and since I’m thinking of getting into scribal (at least the calligraphy part), I also checked out Mark Drogin’s Medieval Calligraphy. While wandering through the stacks, I fortuitously came across a couple books very relevant to the insane Chaucer project!
The Renaissance Chaucer, by Alice S. Miskimin is not, unfortunately for me, about printing. But it does contain a wealth of information about Chaucer’s effect on 16th century literature, and also spends several chapters talking about the Elizabethan “Chaucerian” canon, which was approximately 40% not-really-Chaucer (and much of that not only inauthentic, but bad*). This raises some interesting, if hair-pull-provoking, questions about how authentic I want to be.
I also checked out Pica Roman Type in Elizabethan England, by W. Craig Ferguson. A WHOLE BOOK about the type family I want to use! And tons and tons of pictures of book pages, which will give me a wealth of information about layout and initial cap possibilities! Actually, most of the book is pictures of pages.
I also went to my favorite used bookstore and found a cheap copy of Thomasina Beck’s Embroidered Gardens (maybe now that I own it I will actually read the whole thing, haha) and The History and Technique of Lettering, by Alexander Nesbitt, which looked interesting.
Projects:
Avoided working on the camicia last night on account of going to fighter practice, where I showed Lucretzia sketches of possibilities for her blue linen. That went something like this:
ME: So which one do you like better?
HER: I like them all! I can mix and match, right?
ME: Eep.
Anyway, the plan is to get her some more linen for shirts, and make her some more accurate shirts/smocks in various styles (probably one of each–low-necked smock, high gathered neck, and high ungathered neck). During this process, I’ll work on fitting her for a doublet/bodice, and we will go from there. But not much until after Estrella, probably.
I have promised to finish fitting Melchior’s doublet pattern tonight (he wants me to teach him to draft patterns, but he has unrealistic engineer-brained expectations of a magic formula based on measurements–the thought of “eyeballing” the armscye or the shoulder rise makes him grouchy. I think someone who thinks like he does needs to teach him to draft patterns). It is my first attempt at patterning a doublet, using the instructions at The Renaissance Tailor, and I think it’s going pretty well. I do not think I can fit myself, although if I draft the basic pattern, Melchior probably won’t complain too much about fitting. Is it possible to fit a doublet on oneself or is that one of those duct tape dummy things?
Anyway, we watched “just half an hour” of Elizabeth I (Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons), which was more like an hour, and I did a little more on my first cushion slip. I got sick of outlining, so I’m filling in a few bits. It’s a blue columbine from Tudor Treasures to Embroider, and I was originally going to use the other slips–daffodil, gillyflower, and rose–but counting slips annoys me (I’m not very accurate) and isn’t period anyway, plus I’m unethused about all but the gillyflower (I probably should have done that one, oops). So I think I’m going to just draw the other three slips. Or use the gillyflower and draw the other two. I’m trying to get a good color balance, and toying with either two flowers/two fruits or one slip from each season. But this is probably my modern sensibilities. The slips will be appliqued onto dark red/maroon velvet, most likely.
Possibilities:
- Strawberry (red and white)
- Apple (probably yellow or green)
- Primrose (yellow or some other color)
- Pansy (various options)
- Crocus (purple, yellow/orange, white
- Pine (would be good for winter, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a non-deciduous slip)
I should look through my almost-period botanical catalog for ideas.
On the second go-around, after looking at more paintings, I’m less impressed with the costumes in Elizabeth I, but they’re still quite good overall. It does look like they made at least one of everything in Janet Arnold, regardless of period, though, and there are some oddities. On the other hand, woah, a shift that actually appears to be cut correctly, and out of linen!
Still a lovely movie, though.
