Patterning Success!

Hello again! I'm up to my 5th post this month, wow! You guys must be sick of me lol :P

So first of all, you know that page I posted in my last blog post of the Splendor Solis manuscript? Well, I couldn't find a nice-quality not-watermarked image on the interwebs, but I opened up The Tudor Tailor the very next day to find a whole-page version of that same page. *facepalm* anyway so I've had a closer look at it. It's pretty amazing.

Anyway, what I want to blog about today is patterning because over the weekend I had some epic success at kirtle patterning.

I said "I" had some success there, obviously I don't mean that "I" had the success. "I" succeeded only in that I stood about and got my arms out of the way while other people did the work, and by the end I was in possession of a kirtle pattern for myself.

So this Sunday was the Eric & Enid tourney. I've heard that it was actually very good. I umm-ed and ahh-ed over going but in the end I decided not to because Sunday was the best day that Rosie was available to come round and help me do patterning. In the end I'm actually glad that I stayed home to pattern, because I got useful stuff done and didn't get rained on!

Rosie came round just before midday. It was so good to see her! Anyways, my mum wasn't home for like 45 minutes after that but we got on with all the preparation stuff.

Patterning Tip: use a double layer of fabric for your patterning!!

This was something that I honestly did not even think of. Aimee & I had just used 1 layer of fabric, mum & I just used 1 layer of fabric... it never occurred to me that the 1 layer thing could be a problem.

So to start off, Rosie cut out two backs and two fronts of approximately the right shape in calico (she did that while I set up the sewing machine). Then I machine-sewed around the edge of the two fronts and then did some vertical lines down to hold the pieces in place. I did the same to the back. Now we had one back piece and one front piece, both double-layered with lines all down them.

I'll take a moment here to mention that I didn't take any pictures while we were doing this. It's not a super-flattering process tbh and anyway it's hard to represent the patterning process in pictures. You really have to see it happen to understand it, imo.

Next I put on a chemise and took off my bra - you absolutely cannot pattern with a bra on because then you have to wear a bra with the dress. Then we pinned the pieces together and I put it on. When I tried patterning with Aimee and with mum, I didn't wear a chemise, we just did it with naked skin. The pros of this method were that it was easier to adjust myself without all that chemise fabric in there. The cons are that I will be wearing a chemise with the final dress so it made sense to pattern the dress over a chemise.

So, with a chemise on and the two halves of this bodice pattern pinned fairly loosely to me, what was the next step?

Well, first of all Rosie pinned all the side seams in so that the bodice was actually starting to become approximately my shape. Then I adjusted my bust and she pinned the side seams a bit tighter and then adjusted the shoulder seams, which provide all the lift in the bust, apparently.

The bodice was properly on me at this point, but it was not really that fitted and it also had lots of excess fabric all over the place. The first excess fabric problem that we solved was the length.

Patterning Tip: a Tudor kirtle bodice should come to just above your lowest rib, by about 1cm or 1 finger-width.

I had seen in plenty of pictures that kirtle bodices tend to be quite short, but I didn't really think about it until Rosie told me to find my lowest rib and then she said that the bottom of the bodice would be above that point. It seems counter-intuitive but the logic behind it is totally sound: if it's higher above your natural waist, you've got room and flexibility to bend all about the place and actually get on with doing things.

Patterning Tip: snip to the first wrinkle.

This is true for the waistline of the bodice but it's also true for the armscye (arm-hole). When you snip up to the first wrinkle, the tension in the fabric is released and most of the other wrinkles will just vanish! This means that you're snipping up to the best level to allow for movements and good fitting and all that stuff.

We did more adjusting. The adjusting process is pretty simple for the person being fitted (me). All I had to do was arrange my bust so that I was supported (or at least so that I was holding up my bust). But Rosie really needed to strong finger muscles! She pulled in the side-seams first. I think she mostly started by pulling in the under-bust side-seam pin, and then did all the other pins along the side-seam. At the point I could let go of my bust but she would then adjust the shoulder seams to pull everything upwards.

Then it was time for more snipping. Again, Rosie followed the rule of snipping to the first wrinkle. She checked that the waistline was okay but after the first adjusting it didn't actually need much more snipping. Then she did the armscye which needed more adjusting than the waistline. You have to be really careful when making snips in the armscye because snipping a little too much can really ruin it. Rosie was so meticulous though, it all turned out perfectly.

In all the snippy parts, Rosie turned the tabs that remained under the rest of the bodice, so that it made a smooth line and you couldn't see all the tabs sticking out. This was really helpful when we finished adjusting because it made it easier to look into a mirror and see what the final thing would look like - I didn't have to "look around" all the sticking out bits, because they were tucked away.

This process of adjusting, re-pinning, snipping, adjusting adjusting re-pinning re-pinning snipping re-pinning... it went on for a really long time!! But in the end I had a nice tight bodice that was supportive and seemed to fit really well.

The next thing was that Rosie drew on all the lines. She drew on all the lines down the seams and where the straps would be and along the waistline and along the back-neckline and the actual neckline and basically just everywhere there were lines.

Then I got unpinned and could go put on real clothes, yay!

Patterning Tip: if the sides are different, choose the smaller one.

The sides of our toile were actually pretty different - and I don't think it's because I'm that lopsided lol! One of the sides had much wider straps, for example. We determined that it was the more supportive side and chose to go with this one. All we had to do was cut straight down the centre of each piece so that we isolated the good front half and the good back half. We made a few changes, like making sure that the shoulder seams were the same length, and that the waistline was smooth and that sort of thing. The side seams were, conveniently, the same length already, woo!

Mum wanted to make the underarm part more "square" - apparently that's a modern sewing thing. Rosie said no. It was pretty interesting. Mum accepted in the end that we wouldn't change the underarm part at all because part of the supportiveness is in there. But I think she was upset because "that's not how she learnt it" or whatever. I don't even know.

Aaaaaand that was the whole fitting process. Overall it took about 2 hours. That seems really long but apparently some fitting can take a whole day so I was pretty happy with only 2 hours!

I'm going to cut my pattern out in cardboard so that I have it saved for later use.

The only decision left to make is what, exactly, I'm going to use for interlining. I think I will use one full layer of calico and then do a smaller part basted on of canvas or horsehair buckram stuff. Apparently it's very good, and period. Hmm...

So I owe a HUGE thank you to Rosie. Also thank you to Aimee and to my mum, who helped out. But mainly thank you to Rosie, for straightening out all the kinks and finally getting my pattern to be perfect.

I'm really looking forward to getting started on my dresses. Blog-readers: I'll keep you updated!

♥Nancy♬

16th Century Kirtle Update

Because more blog posts are better, right?

Tonight I tried to do some more work on my kirtle project. I took the calico pattern that Aimee helped me with on Thursday and transferred it onto canvas, because that's what I intend to use as interlining in my final kirtles. And then I got mum to help with pinning it onto me, just to check that it actually would work in the more rigid fabric.

It won't work. I can tell you that for certain. We bent like 5 pins in the process of trying to make this thing fit me. We tightened it as tight as pins can go and readjusted my breasts all over the damn place and nothing would straighten out those annoying problems - the exact same problems that I faced on Thursday. Weird lumping around my breasts, unusual gaping near my underarm... ARGH!

So I messaged Rosie who is an absolute GENIUS at patterning. Like seriously, think of the smartest person that you know and Rosie is better at patterning than they are at anything. She gave me some handy tips and this week (probably Wednesday) I'm going to try again to make this pattern (with mum's help). I found a few patterning tutorials online. There was one that was for a cotehardie but it starts at the most basic level and when I read it I thought it was pretty clear how it all worked. Rosie suggested the step-by-step instructions in the Tudor Tailor so I'll have a look at that too. I'm going to show both to mum and whatever makes most sense to her is what we'll go with. I definitely think I need to use a laying-on-the-floor method because this whole standing up thing is not really working.

Anyways, so I have a plan for how this is all going to happen but that doesn't change the fact that my second patterning failure has kinda got me feeling down. :(

So I thought I'd better re-inspire myself to work on this project! I spent ages this evening googling pictures of 16th-century middle class and working class clothing. I found some great pictures from the 17th century lol :/ but anyway, here are some cool pics that I found and my thoughts about them.

Firstly, "Children's Games" by Pieter Bruegel (1560)

Here it is: http://www.learn.columbia.edu/arthumanities/websites/bruegel/children/ along with closeups of some parts.

In particular the woman in the red dress playing knuckles (in the 2nd closeup) - her bodice has lots of seams which I think is kinda weird because I'm not sure why it would need that many seams. But I like that it's a sleeveless kirtle with pinned (I think pinned) on sleeves, a waist seam and a pleated skirt. The way the skirt is sitting makes me wonder if they are cartridge pleats, but I have previously done knife pleats on skirts. They are definitely easier but I'm not sure which is more period. Her bodice must be laced down the front because her back and sides are quite clear in the picture and I can't see any lacing.

Also, the woman at the back herding children (in the 3rd closeup). Her kirtle seems to be pretty much the same design, with a waist seam and no sleeves. Her apron hides her skirt so I can't tell if it's pleated or what sort of pleats. Her sleeves are probably pinned on, also, although I guess they could be laced, but the way they seem to be connected to the shoulders by only one point makes me think that they are pinned. I can't see any lacing down her front. Her sides are in shadow so there could be lacing there. It might be down her back although I have read that back lacing tends to be for upper class people - or whoever can afford to hire someone to help with the lacing - so I'm not sure if it would be back lacing.
EDIT: that link seems to be broken so here is the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Games_(Bruegel) and another website with the picture on it: http://www.childrensgamesproject.com/cgp_painting.html

Next, "Women Washing Clothes" (or some variation of that title) from Splendor Solis (1535)

Here is some info about Splendor Solis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splendor_Solis it's pretty awesome. It's German. I get the impression that lower/working/middle class clothes were very similar even in different countries so I'm not too fussed that it's not from England.

So obviously this has a watermark because I stole it off that website. Have another version.

Also with a watermark, apparently, but it's less annoying than the last one, although this image is a little smaller.

Anyway, stolen images aside, there are lots of good examples of kirtles in this picture. They are all sleeveless and you can see their shirts underneath. They have their shirt sleeves rolled up out of the way of their washing. They also have their skirts tucked up (I believe they have been pulled up over their belts because I think I saw something like this in a picture where you could see the belt hanging out underneath, but I don't really remember) but you can still see that their skirts are pleated. One lady (in the bright blue) has a shirt with a high collar, which is probably also pleated like the shirt pattern in the Tudor Tailor. That's the kind of shirt that I want! I can't really see any details of the seams or lacing on these kirtles because the picture is too small :(

This picture is by Hans Holbein the Younger. It is of an upper class woman in a gown and a gable hood. I think it might be one of Henry VIII's wives but I can't remember which one.

The reason I have this image is because you can clearly see the back of her dress. I really like the V shape at the back. This gown would not have been very supportive because it would have been made of fancy and delicate materials. This lady must be wearing a supportive undergarment and it could be very similar to the kirtles that I want to make. You can't see that undergarment so it must be cut in the same way, although maybe a little lower, than the gown. The pattern I am working on will have a V neck as well. :)

This is another sketch by Hans Holbein the Younger, of a family and they are not an upper class family.

I like this picture because you can clearly see the shape of the bodice. It has a soft curve across her breasts and is flat down her stomach but it is only a very gentle curve - the bodice is almost flat. However, it has quite a distinct curve when compared to the last sketch, of the upper class gown. I think that this shape is evidence that the garment is supportive - it is flatter under her chest because it is tighter and that is what is supporting her breasts. Because of the position of her arms I can't tell if this dress is side-lacing or back-lacing. I also can't tell if her sleeves are sewn in or attached some other way because her shawl obscures her shoulders. The skirt is pleated. I think her hat looks silly.

This is a picture of Three Gentlewomen of London and a Countrywoman by Lucas de Heere. It is from around 1570, which is a little later than I was hoping for pictures but it's the best I can do, clearly :P

I like that the gentle shape of the bodices is evident in each of these outfits. Even though the woman on the right is clearly of a lower social rank than the other ladies, her bodice is a similar shape. Her class is marked by her apron mostly and by the gowns that the other woman are wearing. I think this picture is interesting because of her skirt, too. It seems that there is not much fabric in her skirt - there doesn't seem to be much evidence of pleating so I think maybe this is a skirt made from shaped pieces. Maybe she could not afford that much fabric. Her shawl (which seems to be pinned in the middle, which is cool) hides her shoulders so I can't tell how her sleeves are attached. :( the dress is clearly front-laced. It is quite open. I don't know if it was meant to be more closed or if it is more like the Flemish style where they had very wide-open lacing. I really like that every one of these women (regardless of status) is wearing a shirt that has pleated collar and cuffs. So cute! :3

And that's what I found for tonight :)

Looking at these pictures has given me some things to think about. Firstly, I already wanted my bodice pattern to be a particular shape so I'm happy that once I get it working it should be the right kind of shape (mostly flat). Next, I am confident that pleating my skirt is the right thing to do. I want my kirtles to be working clothes but not necessarily super low class. Pleats take up more fabric so you'd need to be richer to do pleating, which makes me think it's appropriate for the look I'm aiming for. I don't know what sort of pleats to use. I'll probably go with knife and/or box pleats because they're very simple. I am definitely glad to be doing a kirtle with a waist-seam. I've been reading about 15th-century kirtles and they could either have or not have a waist-seam, but 16th-century kirtles always have one, as far as I can tell. I originally wanted lace-on sleeves - I was going to have lacing holes on the kirtle shoulders and ties attached to the sleeves. Now I'm thinking that pin-on sleeves would be a better choice. Hmmm. I'm definitely still going to do a shirt that has pleats at the collar and cuff. It's going to look awesome! :D I think that these pictures support my plan of a square neckline and a V-shape back-neckline.

One of the concerns that I have is that some of these pictures show a number of seams in the kirtle bodice that I am not intending to include in my bodice. I don't know how important they are. For the sake of simplicity, I will probably just stick to the most basic bodice design, even though it will use less seams than are depicted in the pictures.

Searching for these pictures was actually hard work and kind of frustrating, but I'm glad that I'm finding the sorts of things I was hoping for. At the very least, it distracted me from the bitter disappointment that followed my fitting failure.

I'll get back to this project later in the week, and maybe even update you about it!

Wish me luck :)

♥Nancy♬

SCA Project Update

Hi everyone!

I'm on a blogging spree this week! :D

I thought you'd like an update on my current SCA projects. This is likely to be quite rambly but I'll do it in sections so that you can skip past the things you don't want to read.

The sections will be 1. College Stuff, 2. Garb, 3. Other Stuff

College Stuff

With second semester underway there are two things that need immediate attention, and that is College Challenge and our OGM.

Roobi is stewarding College Challenge and I've been helping out with logistical stuff - especially since it has become extremely difficult in that aspect due to Official SCA Business such as insurance and GST. I am really trying to encourage Roobi to do most stuff herself though, because getting newbies running things is a crucial part of being in a College.

The Guild requires us to hold an Official Meeting every semester which means that we need an OGM. On Monday I have to advertise our OGM in G-News and put up posters (which is stupid, but that's Guild policy for you). I'm hoping to get some newbies doing bigger jobs this OGM - ideally switching out my beloved executive committee for some fresh faces! Although I will miss referring directly to Dylan&Alana for College business :P

My other big thing for the College at the moment is to make sure that people do useful stuff at training. I'm cool with people studying at training but once last semester I had four or five people playing Minecraft on their laptops. Not cool folks, training is for doing stuff!! So I'm encouraging people to bring projects to work on or to come prepared to work on College Projects (such as the Round Shields project) so that they're actually using training for something worthwhile. I also intend to start a Chair Covers project soon, once I go through the College Fabric (yes, there's College Fabric and yes, the Chair Cover project is primarily designed to use up this fabric so that I don't have to keep it in my house!) Hopefully if we have enough stuff for people to work on and we keep everything busy and interesting then lots of people will still come to training and it will actually be productive.

Garb

Have I blogged about my never-ending hat project? Well, for a while now I've been researching a particular style of hat from the late 15th century (French/English). This project has been just an interest but after learning heaps of cool stuff from people at Rowany Festival I've decided to get more serious about it. Today I collated my documentation, which at the moment consists of a list of different possible constructions (some from books, some from websites and some that people described to me at Festival) and a whole lot of artwork from the period depicting this hat. I came up with a total of 6 possible constructions and I haven't found any evidence from the period that supports any particular construction (there's one that I'm pretty sure is wrong but I want to try to anyway, for the lolz I guess). Now that I'm organised I'm going to make all 6 of my possibilities (probably out of calico or scrap fabric). When I've done that, I'm going to choose the ones that look closest to the examples in the artwork (I'm hoping only a few options turn out looking right) and then I'll make them in linen, which of course is the historically accurate fabric choice, and do my documentation up all pretty and maybe put the hats in a competition. Or something. I don't know yet really but as long as I end up with a cool hat at the end I'm pretty much good with it! :P

I blogged about one (or both?) of my practise kirtles earlier. Now I'm getting started on my real kirtles! I have all the linen I need (must prewash!!) so I have no excuse left. On Thursday at training, Aimee helped me to pattern a bodice to use for my kirtles. Unfortunately, it didn't go as well as we'd hoped and although Aimee assures me that the pattern will work fine when I try it in the canvas that I'm going to use as interlining, I'm a little worried about it. Not sure if the problem was the stretchy calico, our patterning skills or my lumpy-bulgy body but whatever the case I'm not feeling confident about this pattern. And I really need to feel confident about it because I'm using my linen for it so it has to be perfect :3 of course, I may have made it trickier by requesting that we pattern the bodice without adjusting down the front of it - I want to focus just on the side-seams so that I can easily convert the pattern to front lacing or side lacing as required. I wish I could remember how we patterned my black Italian... :( anyways, my current plan is to turn the calico pattern that we came up with into a canvas pattern and try it on as best I can, just to see if Aimee is right and it will work perfectly in a more rigid fabric. I think she's right, she's pretty smart about these things! Once I get my pattern working the rest of the project should be fairly simple - I actually enjoyed making my practise kirtles so hopefully I'll enjoy sewing the real thing! I haven't started to work on the documentation for these yet but I am going to try to do some up. I'm not sure how detailed it will be - definitely not as good as my hat documentation because I'm not as obsessed with 16th-century kirtles as I am with 15th-century hats!

Cotehardie! This project is still quite a way off because I want to finish my kirtles before I start the cotehardie project. At Festival I bought some beautiful blue linen. It's quite light so it won't do for a supportive garment but it will be pretty good for an overdress. When I saw it I immediately decided that I wanted a blue cotehardie, so I quickly asked Erin how much I'd need and that's how much I bought! I'm planning to order some heavier linen when it comes time to do this project - I'll do a long-sleeved proper supportive cotehardie in some kind of yellowy-goldy-browny colour I think and then a short-sleeved over-cote-thingy in the blue, with gold buttons. I'm planning to ask Erin and/or Catherine for some help finding pictures as evidence. I don't necessarily want to do up proper documentations but I want to have the resources available, and I'll feel better about making it if I know for sure that it can be documented. Also I'll have a look at hat options because hats are cool. I need more hats.

Other Stuff

So, I'm planning to run Bal D'Aneala this year. I technically can't say that I'm running it yet because it has to get all approved by council and that sort of thing, and someone might put in a better bid and then they would be running it. But I am really super hoping that I will get to run it. Heck, I'm even going to council to make it happen so surely I get points for that. I wish council was still at Tex's place :( I have heaps of ideas already for a theme and competitions and how I want to set up the hall. I have a date picked out for it but I haven't booked the hall yet; I plan to do that in the week before council so that all the hall stuff gets sorted out in a short time, rather than dragging out the stress-times for longer. The only thing that I haven't decided is how to do the food... :S food is pretty important at an event and I really want to run a good event. ... if you're reading this and you feel like running a kitchen at the ball (mostly heating stuff and serving it at appropriate times) please let me know! :P I do have some ideas (thank you thank you thank you to Catherine who let me know what's been done in the past, it was very helpful) so hopefully I can make a proper decision soon. It's funny, as I type about this I'm adding more to-dos to my list (check date with B&B, check date with Alanarama because she needs to run a Bardic competition, etc.) Anyways, I'm quite excited about the idea of running it (if I run it) but in the end it's going to be the Best Event Ever no matter who runs it because, you know, it's the ball. I love to dance :D

A while ago I had an idea for a tourney. I'm definitely not going to run it anytime soon but the idea is rattling around in my head so I might start planning it anyway... I want to run a Canterbury Tales themed tourney. I thought it would be fun because lots of people have beautiful 14th-century garb so everyone would look cool, and because Chaucer rocks. Some ideas I have is to have the actual tourney part themed in some way around the Knight's Tale, like your consort for the day is your personal "Emily" and maybe something about Arcite and Palamon and their fight to win her love. Hmm... anyway, during the day people could read out bits from the Canterbury Tales and every little bit of the event would have a different Tale as its theme, like a Wife of Bath A&S competition, or a Prioress Pot-Luck or something. I don't know. Like I said, it's all just rattling in my brain. Hopefully one day it will take form coz I think it would be really fun and a little bit of literature at a tourney is always a good thing. I hope it won't be too much for the minuscule brains of the armoured combatants! :P

Also, I'd like to learn embroidery. Maybe I'll have a talk to Branwen or Tex and see if they might start giving me lessons. I would really practise it like a good student, I triple promise!! It would be so cool to learn all that stuff and then I could do blackwork on my 16th-century shirts and that sort of thing. I wonder what type of embroidery they did in the 15th century...? Anyway, that's another thing.

Done!

I think that is pretty much everything that is going on in my SCA life. Quite a lot of stuff but some of it is super easy and lots of it is still just conceptual or in the not-really-started part of the project.

One thing that I didn't mention is my dyeing project. I have bowls and alum and onion skins and wool - basically everything that I need to do some dyeing. But, I've been putting it off and putting it off so I'm going to be realistic and say that my dyeing project is on hiatus. I will get back to it eventually, that is for certain. But I'm not going to get back to it anytime soon so I don't want to write about it as a project on-the-go. I've lost interest and while I realise that it's important to finish every project that I start, I don't want to stop enjoying myself while trying to stick to that. The dyeing project is now no longer on a back-burner, it is off the stove entirely (but maybe still waiting on the bench to be put back on to cook at a later date). Analogy win!

Hope this was interesting for someone :) I'll try to update again soon - maybe when I've actually made some progress on any or all of these things!

♥Nancy♬

Hair Taping

Hi everyone,

After a request from the lovely Elimy (read her sometimes-literary sometimes-make-uppy but always very good blog here: http://elimy.blogspot.com.au/ ) I've decided to have a quick word about hair taping.

Myself and my friends (shout-out to Aimee and Alana!!) do hair taping because it is a historical method of hair-styling. I usually think of it more like hair-controlling, because sometimes you really just need your hair out of the way, and this is a great way to achieve it. The most important reason that I like it is that my medieval hats don't like to stay on my head unless I have a hair-style (such as a hair-taped-style) to keep the hat stuck on there!

At Pencampwr, Aimee and Alana did my hair. I honestly have no idea what method they used to tape it up but it was different from the method that they used on Feast Night to tape up their own hair in the Italian style.

Here's a picture of us in our Italian gowns with our taped-up hair-styles:

From left to right: Aimee, Alana and Nancy. Aimee and Alana have their hair taped in an Italian style. I have my hair taped in some other style, that may or may not be historical and/or Italian, but it definitely held my hat on during the day and looked pretty cool at night.

Photo credit: this is stolen shamelessly off Alana's facebook. I think Michael took it. Used according to the copyright law of "it belongs to my best friend so she won't be mad at me."

I was going to include a photo of our fronts, too, but it won't upload D: feel free to trawl facebook to find a picture though - it's likely that I'm tagged in one so it should be easy to locate, and I'm pretty sure everyone reading here is my facbeook friend! :P

Hopefully someday soon the girls will teach me how to do my hair the Italian way, which is how they're wearing their hair in the above picture. It looks so good!

The way that I had my hair there was pretty simple. They braided my hair into two plaits, twisted them up around my head and then sewed them on (with a ribbon and a blunt needle).

At our most recent event, Anealan Midwinter, I wore my hair taped in an entirely different style. Unfortunately I had no pictures but it's easy to describe.

I had my lovely sister Eileen braid my hair into two braids. While she did this, I held a ribbon at the top of my head (in the middle of my head I held the middle of the ribbon). Eileen treated the ribbon as if it were another strand of hair, working it into the braid. By the end I had one piece of ribbon going across the top of my head, ribbon braided through both braids and a length of ribbon hanging out of the end of both braids.

When I got to the feast, I wrapped the braids around my head (I wrapped down around and up and the ends of my braids ended up on top of my head so I had to tuck them in, it was very inconvenient). Then I continued wrapping the excess ribbon around my head, tying it off at the nape of my neck.

This method was very quick and easy to do, but of course nothing that easy ever really works out how you want it :/ naturally, during the evening, even though I had this hairstyle tucked away under my slightly-too-small hat, it began to cause problems. Because the braids weren't actually sewn into place, they moved on my head. And then my hat wouldn't stay on D: which mostly wasn't a problem, until we started dancing and all the bouncing was throwing my hat off, so Aimee had to quickly retie my ribbons on the dancefloor so that my hair would stay up.

Moral of the story: don't skip the sewing!! Even if it is quicker that way and easier on your sister.

I can't find the website that I usually look at for hair taping info so I'm going to link you to two that I just googled (but have read before, I promise).

http://longhair.livejournal.com/2412414.html

This one has very detailed instructions on a method of Italian hair taping. It may even be the same method that Aimee & Alana use! The reason that I've linked it is that it contains a gallery of pictures that might clarify some of the instructions. It also mentions the method that I used (the pin the ribbon to your head and braid it in method) so at least I feel like that was a legit way to do it! :P

http://www.mfgraffix.com/hird/faoilt/hairtape.html

This one was written by an SCA person for the SCA, so at least you can be sure that it's documentable pre-1600! It's good in that it offers two differing styles with clear diagrams along the way. Notable here is that she recommends hair-twisting rather than braiding, which seems to match the pictures that she provides as evidence. However, I see no reason why you couldn't adapt these methods to involve braiding because I know I, at least, would find that a lot easier than twisting.

My personal area of interest is not the Italian renaissance. I prefer England, particularly in the late 15th and maybe the very very early 16th centuries. I haven't found any pictures that document hair-taping-styles in England in this period. But I haven't looked very hard yet and I'm hoping that I find some in the future, because it is a really super convenient hair-style!

I recommend trying it out, even if it's just for fun. :)

♥Nancy♬

Experiments in Hair Care

Hi everyone!

Firstly, let's disregard the fact that it's been a really long time since I last blogged. I'm sorry, okay!! Anyways, now that that's over...

What I'm about to tell you may seem shocking. Not shocking in an "oh a surprise party!" way, more like shocking in an "eww stinky" kind of way.

So here it is: up until yesterday, I had gone 2 months without washing my hair.

...

Before you freak out, that statement is more shocking than it really needs to be because I'm being fussy with my definition of "washing."

Have I treated my hair in a way that removes dirt? Yes.

Have I treated my hair in a way that removes oils? Yes.

Have I treated my hair in a way that makes it softer and easier to brush, etc.? Yes.

Have I put chemical-based shampoo and/or conditioner on my hair? NO.

So now that I've clarified how I actually was not completely disgusting throughout this hair care routine, let me tell you all about it. And just for the record, when I say "wash" the implication is that it involves shampoo, unless I specify otherwise.

A number of things led me to decide to (temporarily) join the No-Shampoo movement. First and foremost was the fact that, before I did this, I used to have to wash my hair all the damn time! Usually I washed my hair every second day, or every third day if I was being lazy, or occasionally every day if that's what it took to keep it looking nice. The second reason is that I used to use a lot of shampoo and so I went through it really quickly, and it doesn't exactly grow on trees. The third reason is that the shampoo I use, Herbal Essences, contains sodium laureth sulfates (as do most shampoos) which are really bad for the environment. The last reason definitely impacted me less than the other reason but I guess it contributed: I started thinking about how people treated their hair before all these chemical products were around to strip them of oils.

Anyway, I did a whole bunch of research before I started. I read lots of websites about the No-Shampoo movement, I read a lot about natural hair care and hair care on a budget. I read testimonials from people who had tried it. And then I jumped right in.

How do you take care of your hair without chemicals? Well, I "washed" my hair once a week using these household products:

* bicarbonate of soda

* apple cider vinegar

I used about a tablespoon of each.

The bicarb functions as a shampoo replacement and if you remember your high school chemistry then I'm sure you can work out why - it's a mildly alkaline substance and alkaline substances are cool because they help to break down lipids (that's fats and oils). So when it comes to oily hair, bicarb is actually pretty good at "washing" it. I tried two different methods. The first was to make up a paste of bicarb and water and gloop it all over my hair and then rub it all in. Bicarb isn't sudsy so you can't really work it in a lather the way you do with shampoo. That way probably the weirdest part for me - the lack of bubbles. The other way I tried was just to dampen my hair and then rub dry bicarb into it in the same way. This was the method that I stuck to, just because it was quicker and going for an easier hair care routine was half the point of doing this crazy hair care experiment!

I thought of the apple cider vinegar as a conditioner replacement but really what it did was more like clarifying than conditioning, I think. It's a subtle difference. It's also mildly acidic so I figure it probably balanced out the alkaline bicarb, which was probably good for my skin or something. Using apple cider vinegar on my hair was actually pretty easy - I had it in a bowl and I just dipped my hair into it. It didn't need to go on the top of my head, just like the bicarb didn't need to go down the lengths of my hair. In case you're wondering: no, I didn't smell like vinegar all the time. I was really careful about rinsing my hair and when it was dry it didn't smell at all.

Even if you accept that baking soda and vinegar did a good job of "washing" my hair (which, to be honest, they actually did) there's still the problem that I only did this once a week. Through the rest of the week, I did two things to take care of my hair and keep it looking nice:

1. rinsing my hair with warm water - sure, it doesn't make it oil-free or give it that just-washed look, but it gets any dirt out and it spreads out the oils so that my hair didn't look disgusting at the roots. I did this nearly every day and it actually worked pretty well.

2. brushing my hair with a natural bristle brush - these brushes are made specifically to redistribute whatever dirt and oils might be in the hair. I brushed my hair from roots to tips with a bristle brush and it kept it looking nicer a bit longer.

So what were the results of this crazy regime?

Well, for the first couple of weeks, my hair was pretty gross. I kept it tied back all the time and really tried my best not to just give in and shampoo it. But over that first week I noticed my first hair change: I was losing less hair!! This point will become more important a little later. At the time, it was just enough to inspire me to keep going - at least until I hit the 6 week mark, which the internet told me was the maximum time it would take for my hair to adjust.

At about the 2.5 week mark, Pencampwr happened. In case you don't know, Pencampwr is a really big camping weekend with the SCA. I "washed" (with baking soda & vinegar) my hair on the Friday morning and then went camping. My hair looked pretty good after the "wash" but I knew that by Monday when we went home it would be really oily and gross. But, in the end, I was wrong! I kept it tied up in a plait and during the day I wore a hat - this helped to keep the dirt off so that was pretty good. On Saturday afternoon, Aimee and Alana sewing my hair to my head in braids, which might sound insane but it actually looks really cool and it made my hat stay on, so that was awesome. Now I don't really know if my hairstyle and keeping my hat on all weekend made a difference to how my hair looked later, but I figure it's worth mentioning anyway. It might have been the hairstyle. It might have been the hat. It might have been that my hair was actually adjusting to not having the oils brutally stripped from it every two days...

Whatever the reason, when I got home on Monday, my hair still looked pretty good. Ideally I would have given it a water-only wash on Monday, but I decided that was too much effort. I didn't even untape my braids from my head! And because I didn't have to go out anywhere on Tuesday, I didn't touch them then, either! Admittedly, by the time Wednesday came around my hair was looking pretty oily. It didn't look dirty - there is a difference between dirt and oil, that's something I learned through this experiment - but it was way shinier than I usually like my hair. So I bicarb-and-vinegar washed it, and it was fine again.

But can you believe that? I went all through Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday with my hair looking great and Tuesday with it looking pretty okay before I had to "wash" it on Wednesday. That's at least 4 whole days. I could never have gone 4 days without shampoo before! My hair had started to adjust.

After that the whole routine got easier. That is, until I got lazy. I decided that putting vinegar on my hair was just too much trouble so I stopped using it. BAD IDEA. I can't tell you for sure what the vinegar actually did to my hair, but the result of leaving it out was that my hair got really really dry. Sure, it looked neat and clean and non-oily on top. But the lengths of my hair (which are usually very soft and conditioned) were all gross and stringy and dry.

Before I went back to using the vinegar like I should have been, I decided to try a different hair treatment. After all, if this had happened during my previous hair care routine, I would have done a deep-conditioning treatment (I have a good one from Dove that I highly recommend). In keeping to my all-natural hair care thing, I bought a jar of coconut oil from the health food store. Coconut oil is pretty cool in that it's a solid in the jar, but the heat of your hands is enough to melt it. What that means is that I just had to scoop out a chunk of oil and then I could smooth it all through the lengths of my hair. I tried to use just a little bit, so that my hair wouldn't look too oily or smell too coconutty. And then I braided up my hair and went about my day.

Firstly, coconut oil does work well as a deep conditioning treatment. My hair was immediately softer and smoother and easier to brush - just as if I had used a chemical-filled conditioner like I used to. I spent that day obsessed with touching the ends of my plait because it was just so damn soft!! But coconut oil as a hair care product does have it's obvious downside: it's an oil. So yes, it made my hair look oily, which is gross.

Because coconut oil is so soft and melty, I had hoped I'd be able to rinse it straight out with just water. It mostly worked, but my hair really didn't look as good as it should have so the next day I bicarb-and-vinegar washed it. That worked perfectly! My hair was all conditioned from the oil, it was de-oiled by the bicarb and the vinegar had done it's thing so that it wasn't all dry and stringy or whatever.

For the remainder of my hair care experiment, I stuck to bicarb-and-vinegar washing my hair once a week and only-water washing it every day or second day. And you know what? It worked pretty well.

Here's the main downside: in a No-Shampoo regime you're only meant to treat your hair with chemicals once a week. More than that, and your scalp gets dry and irritated which leads to excess oil production (No-Shampoo fans will tell you that that's why you have to shampoo your hair so often, and in general I guess they're right about that). But for my hair, which seems to LOVE producing oil, bicarb-and-vinegar once a week just isn't enough. Bicarb-and-vinegar every 5 days might have been okay, but then it's harder to get into a routine and washing my hair more often would have defeated the goal of the experiment, which was to find a hair care routine that was easy and less work.

After about 9 weeks in total, I decided to go back to a normal hair care routine. My reasons for this are quite diverse. Firstly, you've gotta admit that it's a little weird to wash your hair with food products - normality was calling me back into its fold. Secondly, I keep my shampoo and conditioner in the shower but when I wanted to bicarb-and-vinegar my hair I had to go fetch some from the kitchen, which meant that it wasn't really quicker or easier at all. And thirdly, using bicarb-and-vinegar to wash my hair eliminated all the dirt and thus all the smells, which was a good thing. My hair just smelt like... hair, I guess, which really smells like nothing... for the whole time. But when I wash my hair with shampoo and conditioner, my hair smells all exciting and fruity! :D that's why I use Herbal Essences products, because they smell good.

Before I washed my hair, I decided to do one last natural treatment - I coconut oiled my hair again. This time I used way more because I was just hanging out at home. I oiled my hair and let it sit for an hour while I watched a lecture (productivity, yay!)

Then I washed my hair.

The first thing that was different was something that I did on purpose: I used way less shampoo and conditioner than I used to. Measuring out my bicarb and vinegar has taught me something about portion control. I don't need a million litres of shampoo and bubbles to clean my hair. So I used just a small amount of shampoo, and then just a small amount of conditioner.

There was something really comforting about having bubbly hair again, so that is one thing that I am glad about washing my hair properly again.

This is going to sound crazy, but shampoo is actually not that good at cleaning hair. I shampooed my hair twice, to make sure that I got the coconut oil out. The next day: still looks oily D: seriously, I know for certain that if I'd used bicarb then all the oils would be gone. So that's weird and sucky :/

But I've resolved to keep doing one more thing from my crazy routine: I'm going to wash my hair less. So now, instead of washing my hair 4 times a week, I'm going to wash it twice. I'll keep doing water-only washes because I found that it's actually a good way to refresh my hair without plastering it with chemicals. So my hair will just have to stay tied up now and wait for its next wash lol.

Another difference is the feel of conditioner as compared to vinegar and/or coconut oil. It's a really weird feeling. Conditioning my hair, even after I washed it out, didn't make my hair feel clean, it made it feel slimy. I've heard people talk about Pantene saying that it coats the hair, so I wonder if Herbal Essences does that too. I don't think I want my hair coated :( and the slimy feeling was not sexy at all. :( But something that is a huge improvement using conditioner rather than anything else is that my hair became infinitely easier to brush. So nice!

The other big difference I noticed going back to shampoo is the one that I am the most upset about. I actually mentioned it before - way less of my hair came out while I was washing it with baking soda. But from that very first shampoo wash, I lost SO MUCH hair. D: Seriously there was just an insane amount of hair falling right out of my head. Over the last 2 months, I have washed my hair with much gentler chemicals but the way I've been treating it physically has been a lot rougher - I was rougher when I was bicarb-ing my hair and I was rougher in that I was brushing it extra because I used a normal brush to detangle and a natural bristle brush to make it smooth and shiny. If anything, I should have had more hair coming out of my head. But I swear, I lost more hair in the 2 months of my No-Shampoo routine than in that one first shampoo wash. NOT HAPPY. I really hope that it's just because of the sudden difference in treatment, and not because shampoo is actually that bad for my hair...

Anyway, something that I thought all through this experiment and still believe now is that the best thing you can do for your hair is a) avoid mistreating it and b) be consistent. My experiment focussed on that first point - avoiding mistreating hair. But I don't really think that shampoo and conditioner are bad for your hair, even though they're definitely harsher on the hair and scalp than bicarbonate of soda and apple cider vinegar are. I think that mistreating your hair is a bit more extreme, like always using products in it or straightening and/or blowdrying it too often. I'm not really going to damage my hair by washing it, anyway. And while it might struggle a little as I go back to a Yes-Shampoo regime, I think in a few weeks it will be the better for it.

In the end, this was a really interesting experiment. I tried some new things, I learnt some things and I went back to my old ways making a few informed differences.

Not shampooing your hair isn't as gross as it sounds - it's just different. It definitely works, I can vouch for that, but it's not for everyone.

I'm currently still using my Herbal Essences shampoo & conditioner because I had some left, but when I use it up I'm planning to use a more environment friendly product - hopefully something that doesn't contain sodium laureth sulfates, but still lathers well and smells great. After all, it's always good to help the environment and all that stuff.

I'm also going to go back to my Dove deep conditioning treatment. Coconut oil works pretty well but it's hard to wash out with shampoo :(

And in other news: coconut oil makes a surprisingly good moisturising face mask. (You gotta experiment with the products you have available, right?)

Hope you found this to be an interesting read :) - I welcome any comments or questions.

♥Nancy♬