More on the fleece tabi front

""Two standing orders in this platoon: One, take good care of your feet, Two, try not to do anything stupid, like getting yourself killed."  - Lieutenant Dan, Forrest Gump.

The good Lieutentant was on to something.
My Sol Socks, ordered Sunday evening, arrived in this afternoon's mail - postmark is North Carolina, sent first class mail - you can't say they didn't get the order out fast.

I ordered a pair each of the Ivory and the light Heather, both size medium, both light-weight fleece.

Sizing: Medium says women's 9 -10.5 or men's 8 - 9.5 on the packaging. I take a women's 8.5 - 9 shoe and I'd say if you're at the high end of the size range, you might want to go the next size up. There's plenty of stretch widthwise, less lengthwise.

Color. The "Ivory" is just that, ivory, not white. The light Heather is very neutral and innoffensive, sort of Pennsic-Dirt Beige. My monitor read the photo on Sol Socks' website made the Heather look greyish, but it's definitely in the brown range.

Label. There's a bright green blue and gold brand logo label on the outer cuff of the right sock only. It's serged onto the sock - easiest thing would be to simply cut the tag off.

Fleece weight - light-weight is what it says. Sol Socks says their fleece is made by Malden Mills - these are the folks who manufacture Polartec and Polarfleece brands. Thin without being flimsy, I think they'll be just the thing for really cold events.

Authenticity? Well, no, of course not. Modern construction, modern materials. On the other hand, there are two standing orders in this platoon....

1 Week Regency

The story so far: I had acquired 8 yards of 16" wide kimono silk from eBay that was originally intended for Shinto vestments (hence the unusually wide bolt-width). It was gorgeous, it was worth what I paid and it was not long enough to get anything Japanese out of!

PEERS is holding a Pride and Prejudice Ball on March 1. So last Saturday I dug ol' Simplicity Retro Costume Collection 9221 out of the depths of the sewing basket it's been living in since 2001, unrolled the bolt and started calculating. I had enough for the skirt if I used five widths of silk, I had enough for the bodice if I made it in four pieces, but there wasn't enough for sleeves! While the daring Miss Bingley might swan about with naked arms in the latest Paris frock, I am no longer  a sweet young thing by any stretch of the imagination. I was going to have to piece something into the sleeves. A yard of gold dupioni from Silk Road Fabrics later, I had my solution.

 


Skirt assembly, sleeves and bodice assembly are at this point complete.

To do: pleat bodice into waistband. Pleat skirt into waistband. Hem skirt. Look fabulous.

The pattern I used is no longer in print. Being a costume pattern, it eschews such period details as those interesting V back and shoulder seams one often sees on Regency dresses, but it's not awful. Review of the lovely Regency Costume Companion website is helpful in choosing which pattern options to tweak or ignore completely. Given all the tucks and pleats in the sleeves, bodice and skirt, doing this whole thing by hand is actually pretty easy.

I'd better get an A+ on your homework.

http://community.livejournal.com/sca_silkroad/25033.html

She Who Sucks The Least does not mind answering questions. She minds answering incomplete questions and discovering that the questioner is leaving stuff out.

Yes, it's really cool to get some SCA garb out of a college project, but it's a college project. That means doing the research for real. That means comprehending what one is reading and looking at. That means going back and looking at something again and again to see if you understand it or not. I've only been doing Japanese in any sort of depth since 2002 and I still find new nuggets in sources I've looked at over and over again.

That also means understanding that sometimes you WILL have conflicting sources and that you will have to pick what makes the most sense to you and make a case for it. Yes, you will have to take the chance that you'll get it wrong too! Particularly when you're trying to study 900 year old clothing with no extant examples of complete garments, some scattered, highly stylized artwork, and translated literature and diaries where the translators inevitably sigh, throw up their hands and decide to call everything a "robe" because there are too many different kinds of robes.

Nobody just said, "Taira out, Minamoto in, we are all going to dress completely differently as of today because it is the Kamakura Period!" Clothing styles change or don't change for a variety of reasons. Context is everything. The evolution of kosode from undergarment to outerwear is not all that unlike the evolution of plain white tee shirt in the late 20th century from undergarment to billboard, but it took longer to disseminate in a traditional, hierarchical feudal environment than one with movies, newspapers, radio and television. Yes, there was a reaction against what the court aristocracy wore by the bushi of the new Kamakura government, but by degrees.  Men adopted the hitatare kamishimo (the loungewear of the aristocracy) as their daily wear. Women began wearing fewer layers and eventually abandoned their nagabakama, but they didn't just chuck it all right away because clothing proclaimed status, even in the new order of the Kamakura shogunate. You want to look important, dress like you're important - just tweak it slightly so folks can tell you're important without mistaking you for some wilting kuge flower.

Can I please go to bed now?