Warm hands will be important later if not now.

'Tis summer yet, a Snuftkin be your lot!
But  'twill be winter one day, doubt ye not.

I'm loving that bit from a poem by Sir John Davies. A favorite of Elizabeth I, his poem has one of the earliest mentions of the snuftkin, snuffkin, snoskyn or muff.  What fabulous names.There's something sort of Willy Wonka to them.

I was also reading this article today:, Rainbow for a Reign:The Colours of a Queen's Wardrobe by Jane Lawson. Published in 2007 in Costume it is flat out scrumptious. It has a selection of the items from Elizabeth I's New Year's gift rolls examined by color. There are quite a number of snuftkins in a wide range of colors. Pinks and purples and oranges and tawnies with passemaine and embroidery. The descriptions are totally delicious. Now I'm thinking my muff might be a bit plain.

I love the Italian style buttoning muff though and with the buttons and border I hope it bears at least a bit of a resemblance to the inspiration woodcut from Vecellio. I decided on some of the original buttons I made for the loose gown with the brighter yellow and no blue between the spines. I've got 12 dozen, they may as well get used for something. I made the shanks and button loops blend into the fur, so they are done with brown thread. just simple buttonhole bars that curve, using a wooden gauge for size just like my last muff. I guess we have to call me an addict now with three of these now. Warm hands are nice to have and they look rather lovely hanging from a girdle. I'm certainly happy with the result. I suppose I will have to live with the Venetian name of manizza or the Florentine manichino. Snuftkin is just so much more whimsical.

One more heart to stitch. Also, I have a hacksaw

My children have once again made off with the batteries for the camera. Probably just as well, there really isn't much to take a picture of. I am so very, very close to finishing the leather applique for the muff but it isn't done yet. Hopefully I'll finish it before I go to bed. I still need to mop the kitchen floor though, so it may have to wait until morning.

I really want to finish it though because I promised myself a goofy reward. We do the Bountiful Baskets fruit/veggie coop and last week I got a coconut as part of a tropical pack add-on I bought. You may remember my discovery of the magical historical coconut cup back in February. The pre-done coconuts I was going to buy then were back ordered and the plan never came together. But there is a coconut on my counter. There is a hacksaw in my toolbox. There is a sheet of copper in my craft room. Once the applique is done I am determined to get into some mischief with these items. Then there should be something to take a picture of. Assuming I can steal the batteries back from my children.

About half way through with applique

Doesn't look like much, but this was my free time today. I machine tacked the linen interlining to the upper fabric and stabilized the blue with a fine line of glue so it wouldn't continue fraying. Once complete, the edge will be bound with fur and then covered in ribbon so I'm not worried about it eventually, just while stitching. I also needed an edge to stretch since the border is so close to the edge of the fashion fabric, so I cut the linen extra large. I don't need a very tight fabric for applique so I went for speed and put it in one of my  Q-snap frames rather than stretching it on a better frame. I should finish the stitching tomorrow or Wednesday.

I'm using 1000 denier Kanagawa silk in turquoise and a glover's needle to quilt the leather. It is a heavy 3 ply filament silk with a great deal of shine. I'm just doing a basic running/stab stitch but I want there to be significant contrast between it and the leather and no question that "I meant to do that."

I'm considering changing the buttons and either doing them in the turquoise silk or possibly leather covered ones. I need to see how it really looks with the fur and ribbon in place. While I'd like it to coordinate with the eventual loose gown I want it to look good on its own.

In other news, I never showed off the pictures of the bag I made for Baroness Jennet. It is a version of the silver dragonfly and thistles of her heraldry. I talked about it here and it is one of my 50 favors and tokens for A and S 50. So here's the picture of it before I forget again.

Some progress on the muff

I finished cutting out the rest of the leather applique for the muff. Now to start stitching it into place. I have some turquoise silk that I'm considering using but need to test how it looks first.

Someone asked me about leather applique and if it was a period technique for apparel. There is the absolutely gorgeous suit from 1615 held in the Museo Parmiagianino (Reggio Emilia)  featured in Patterns of Fashion that is a carnation/gillyflower pattern done in ivory suede on red silk. The stitching is pink silk. It is incomplete and some of the pants do not have the sections between motifs cut out yet so the construction details are apparent.

I am doing a bit different technique. The original involves layering an entire sheet of leather over the fabric, sewing it into place, and then cutting out the void spaces. It is much more of a reverse applique technique. As I am doing a border rather than an overall pattern, cutting out the decoration and then stitching it into place in regular applique seemed more appropriate. Not to mention used far less leather. For an absolutely gorgeous loose recreation of the doublet as well as sketches POF, check out this project diary at Stimpzilla Sumptuary.

Leather applique on the muff

Very much in the middle of this project, but thought I'd check in and show you what is going on. I considered doing a rounder thinner muff this time around rather than the envelope style with the buttons, but well, I adore buttons. My other two muffs have been pretty much about the fur and fabric with some simple trims, so this time I wanted to do something a little more exciting.

  I went looking through modelbuchs today for pattterns. Rather amusingly I was doing the same thing basically a year ago exactly. Just like then, we're headed to the Ren Faire tomorrow for my Mother's Day present. Man, I'm predictable.  This design is from Giovanni Ostaus' Perfection of Design. (which I also have babbled about before.)  Page 56 of the PDF. Rather than drawing it up, I just zoomed the pattern to the size I wanted, printed it and cut it out directly. Then I traced it on to a thin maize colored pigskin leather. I've still got several more lengths of it to cut out, but it's going pretty quickly. I'm stabilizing the blue silk with an interlining of linen and then lining it with a faux mink reused from a thrift store jacket. My other muffs are vintage fur, but I picked this up to do hats for my kids and it has a large piece that is perfect for a muff, while still leaving large pieces for the hats. Since I had it pulled to pieces and out, it was convenient and I grabbed it rather than piecing fur. It's actually a really nice fake.

I'm going to further define the applique with rows of the silk herringbone ribbon on each side and coordinate the muff my loose gown a bit by using the same style buttons. I certainly had practice making them. I figure the more pieces I have that coordinate the more mixing and matching I can do.

Turkey and button loops

I'm sure they go together somehow or another. I didn't get much else done today in between baking and cooking and feeding people turkey and potatoes and pie, but had a few minutes for handwork in between turns while playing Chinese checkers with my kids. I finished the button loops on my muff and tacked on a chain for fastening it to the girdle or skirt.

This is the same envelope style I made for my IRCC muff. While muffs may be a little later than my preferred 1540's gowns, with most references to them not coming until 30 or 40 years later, I love having warm hands and adore the Italian envelope style muff with the embellished outer, fur inner and fabulous buttons that allow the whole thing to be opened up into a mini lap blanket so I made one. I don't think its too outrageous or jarring. Furs were certainly being used as accessories in 1540's Italy as zibellinis, mantellinos and capelets, and similar stole type drapes. While the fashion craze didn't hit until 1570 I doubt the fashion police are going to arrest me for jumping the gun a little. I was going to type up my earlier notes on documentation from when I made my first muff in May, but honestly, Jaquelinne Serafina Katerina and Bella have it covered pretty darn well. I do make my button loops differently than any of them do, but that's about the only place I have anything useful to add to the discussion.

Regarding this particular muff, some of the same accent fabric I used for my tassel bag makes the outer. It's lined with a lovely vintage chinchilla. Buttons are made from glass pearls with a spacer bead below and a blue bead that matches my girdle sandwiched between two large copper seed beads. Contemporary descriptions of 16th century Venetian muffs mention the crystal buttons they were fastened with. I looked for some large clear glass beads to use but all I could find were cheesy plastic ones so I settled for the pearls. I actually much prefer the thread worked buttons that fasten my other muff to these for functionality, but the pearls are very pretty.

As I said, I do my button loops differently than the ladies I previously mentioned. Rather than doing loops of trim tacked in between layers or otherwise attached, I finish the muff and then do 3 or 4 loops of embroidery floss. Then I cover the loops in buttonhole stitches. Basically its this technique My reasoning is this: the technique is used to make edges in period needle laces so it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume they might have used it and it holds really well. Since its an integral loop rather than stitched in the chances of it pulling off are very small.

This time around I got to use my new set of buttonhole gauges. My friend Patience made me a set for my birthday. I'd never used anything like them before, just eyeballing things, but the gauges are nice and easy to use. Just wrap the thread over the gauge and pull tight. Once the threads are anchored you can pull the gauge out and each loop is the same size. I did mess up on one of my loops whn I gauged it and then had to go make whip cream for pumpkin pie. When I sat back down I didn't regauge it and it wasn't anchored so it pulled a little more open and is slightly larger than the others. I may still snip it off and redo it but haven't decided how much its going to bother me yet. I'm definitely looking forward to using my gauges for ding button loops on my camping Persian coats, though. I've got 4 or 5 coats all in need of a couple of dozen buttons and they're going to make the process SO much easier.

Kickstarting the Russian project

I keep looking at updates on the IRCC instead of doing what I'm supposed to be doing and getting started on my ensemble for 12th night and the Artemisian Costuming Challenge. It's daunting to start from a blank slate again. I have a stack of research material on the floor next to my bed and its taller than my 4 year old. Right now I'm trying to settle on the embroidery designs for the smock (called a sorochka or rubakha.) They're highly symbolic and are amulets for protection. Additionally, place is a big part of what patterns are used. I've been researching this for a couple of years and still feel like I don't really know enough to make the correct choices. Then I get overwhelmed. So, I've decided to start something else. Something small and fast. As I said before, the big pile of accessories is what kept me going to finish the IRCC. So, the new plan is to build up some finished items for motivation.

I've been watching Serafina and Jacquelinne's progress as they work on their Italian muffs. I totally adore the muff I just made for the IRCC and can't wait for winter. Since this ensemble will be worn at 12th Night making a muff for it seems like a wonderful idea. This one will be Russian, however. Russian muffs have some significant differences from the Italian version. The most obvious one is that they are more narrow. Similar to the Italian, they were made from silk, velvet, brocades, and gold cloths and were lined with the fur on the inside. That is totally in keeping with the Russian approach to fur in general. Only the poor couldn't afford fabric to cover their fur. Fur was common in Russia, silk fabrics were not. In addition to the fabric, the muffs were decorated with pearls, gemstones, and gold embroidery. (Info is from Giliarovskaia, N. V. Russkii istoricheskii kostium dlia stseny. (Russian historic costume for the stage) Iskusstvo, Moscow, 1945 p. 102.)

So, today I get to flip through my books and pick out some fun motifs for goldwork and pearls. I'm doing the ensemble in reds, greens, and gold so I'm considering using left over red velvet from the Italian dress for the Russian muff.

Here we go again. Wheeeeeee!!!!

Its almost a muff

Fur and the red gold scrap I used to make the pocket I posted yesterday inspired me to make a muff. One thing about having a Russian persona, I have no lack of fur in my stash. The trim is one of my favorites. I was sort of thinking about using it on the dress rather than making my trim, but I think its too wide for the dress. I love the sheen of the gold in person though. Its not plasticey and overly shiny, in a bad way, like a lot of trim. I've actually pulled this trim to bits a few times and used the cord for doing my own goldwork when I'm being cheap and haven't purchased passing thread. Its kind of a fun effect and makes for nice couching practice. So that's fabric, fur, and trim pulled from the stash. Seemed like the perfect quick project. What I didn't have in my stash and needed for the muff was crystal buttons. I didn't have anything I liked at all. I spent more time looking for something to work than I really should have. I finally decided to just make some. At least temporarily I did some quick basketwoven threadworked ones. The loops are buttonhole stitched bars. I still need to do the two in the center, which is why its almost a muff. I have a jam packed day today though so it was either post it now or not post today.

I got about half a yard of lace made in the car, so that's plugging along. Probably won't get much done today with the family party and festivities, but I have found some really interesting info on the subject of my portrait and the accompanying portrait of her husband, so I'll probably share that tomorrow.