Imperfectly Period

Several months ago while my sewing machine was in the shop, I got the wild hair to hand sew a set of bodies based on the extant effigy pair. A friend draped some cotton muslin around me and I used that to sketch out pattern pieces based on the ones in The Tudor Tailor . I used the pieces to cut out some remnant linen and some cotton canvas given to me by the same friend who did the draping.  Even though I had canvas at home and had thought of getting linen canvas, I have problems saying no.  It raveled if you even looked at it funny, so I added a line of straight stitching along any unbound edges on top of herringbone stitching. Months of stitching 1/4" wide boning channels with linen thread and watching Modern Maker videos on YouTube taught me a lot about hand sewing even though I've been doing it since elementary school.  Double lines of stitching might have been overkill, though.  The contrasting colour might make any mistakes or sloppiness...

I volunteered to host a display table at our principality's Arts & Sciences & Bardic competition tomorrow.  I went to sew up a beaded partlet today only to find it had some serious issues. Since I can't just bring a pair of bodies, hurling balls, and a scribe card, I whipped up a piece of micrography using part of an Anglo-Saxon poem called "The Ruin," with some artistic liberties for a better fit. I used a Brause 3/4mm nib and found I'm not a fan of it for micrography because it's too big.  Yes, too big.  I am determined to some day achieve the 1mm tall letters of the Sephardic scholars.  Maybe with a reed pen like they used, but not today. It's pretty rough because I was rushed and it took about 2 hours from idea to finish.  It's still drying so I haven't erased the pencil lines yet.  You can tell where I sat my hand down on the left wing and smudged it.  At least I'm good with a razor. It was a scrap piece of pergamenata that refused...