kass

Hee hee hee! Gotta give the man props, Josh. The triangle is really his. The "common rare, rare common" thing is mine though... You see, Mr. Foxe, this is what happens when you've been married a long time. You start to sound alike. Next thing you know, we'll start resembling each other. I'm okay with that as long as he doesn't start borrowing my boots!

Awwww... But he's at his best in a pub! Especially with a pint of Young's Special in front of him...

Gorgeous, Mr. Foxe!

Yeah, but I bet it becomes your favourite (and longest lasting) shirt, Pat! Since my portrayal is a Procuress who runs a coffee and chocolate shop in Covent Garden, I mostly try to recruit young girls (and boys) to come work for me. Or I shower men with flattery and try to sell them one of my girls. If the environment isn't right for that, I talk about coffee, tea and chocolate and how different they were than the stuff we drink today. Depending on the attention span of the audience, I might even get into how tea became "English" (because Charles II married Catherine of Braganza, Princess of Portgual and part of her dowry was the port of Bombay!).

Patience, patience, Rue. The women's patterns are printing now.

Greg, please put Bob down for a pair.

The Sailor's Jacket pattern will only include the jacket. The Breeches and Slops pattern is separate and also forthcoming.

I think I remember why they were pink, darling. Apparently pink blends in better with the sand when viewed from a place above. So pink is a good colour for camophlage in the Sahara. Congrats, Greenighs, and welcome to the club!

You know, I like that Janelle... She has such excellent aspirations! (The patterns will be in your hands any moment now, Jack.)

What if the pint glasses were shaped like bucket boots? And Josh, I don't dress like a man...

Sure was, Jib! One need only look at the 16th and 17th century clothing in Irish Museums (Ulster Museum in Belfast and the National Museum in Dublin). There are a number of jackets/doublets in these museums that imitate fashionable dress in general shape. But the cut of the clothing is VERY different from the originals they seek to copy. Matter of act, it is obvious that the tailor who made the Irish versions could have never seen a fashionable jacket/doublet close up. Instead of the skirts being widened by pleats, they are widened with gores, much like medieval garments. And some of the garments don't have side seams but wrap around the body with an extremely efficient use of cloth. The results are quite stunningly similar, but the construction couldn't be more different. Fascinates me...

Ed, is your cocked hat straw?

I got a huge one on my right shoulder from all this pattern drafting, Silkie. A little higher please!

So you won't be asking to borrow Bob's outfit in this picture, huh? Okay... It's salmon. But the linings are pink.

Hey Pat, did you know that pink was actually thought a very masculine colour in the 18th century?

Oh definitely, Pat. I think they could have had a function. But Foxe posts that they were worn on the left shoulder by corporals, and I doubt they were all left-handed. Seriously, I was trying to say, "These evolved from a need to keep the baldrick on the shoulder" and since I can't prove that, I'm not going to say it in print. But I am certainly going to keep looking at the question. Because I agree with you that it couldn't have derived purely for fashion and be so conveniently placed on the shoulder where it's most useful.

Yup! Well, that sort of answers it for me. Shoulder knots were not worn for the purpose of keeping the baldrick on your shoulder, but they could help certainly just by their position. You see, I wanted to know before I posited that they began as a stabilizer for baldricks.

Oh that wasn't a purely Puritan thing, Jib. But there is research that suggestes that the scale of "witch hunts" isn't accurate in Europe or the Americas. Most of the time, people accused of witchcraft were just general troublemakers and "witchcraft" was a convenient excuse. You know about the Salem witch hunt being the product of group hysteria, right? No witches. Just a bunch of girls who couldn't stop lying once they'd started...

Well, Mr. Foxe, the costume books say they were ALWAYS worn on the right shoulder! Never heard anything about them being functional, huh? To be honest, most of the pictures I'm looking at are French. Do you know if they had any rank significance in the French Army. I doubt the Duke of Burgundy is only a corporal! Damned foreigners...

Yeah, I think you're right, Pat. Say, if you hit any snags with that 15th century stuff, drop me a line. My "first" time period was 15th century and I've handled some surviving garments from that period. My opnion of costume books for that period in particular is that they are unilaterally bad. Either they don't understand medieval construction at all, or they think they do but they're confusing costume construction with period clothing construction. The differences are actually vast...

Yeah, that's what I'm seeing too, Pat. They just look so functional to me. But none of the costume texts talk about that functionality. Of course costumers wouldn't necessarily care about their functionality. I guess if you've worn something that tend to fall off your shoulder, you look at things differently...

Hey all! I've been looking at pictures of late 17th century dress and it occurs to me that shoulder knots (like this one worn by the Duke of Burgundy in 1700) may have had a purpose other than just decoration. They are always worn on the right shoulder. It occured to me that that's the shoulder over which a man wear his baldrick. Could these elaborate shoulder knots actually function as a "holder" so the baldrick doesn't slip off your shoulder? None of my costume books give a purpose to shoulder knots. They say they are purely decorative. Anyone ever heard anything different?

Sure enough, Pirate Queen! Blue is a cheap and common colour, even today. I mean, look at the dominant colour of jeans! And that's even the same blue. It's from indigo (still is, natural or artificial) and it's cheap and durable. Unlike red dyes that are notably fugitive, blue tends to stick around. As early as the 14th century we see peasants wearing blue. I was just looking at some pictures of working women in the late 17th century and there are an astounding number of blue aprons on them. A note of interest -- even though blue is a common and cheap dye, it was a VERY expensive paint. Blue paint comes from the semiprecious stone lapis lazuli and was wildly expensive through the 18th century. Don't ask me why they couldn't make paint from indigo. I only know about dyestuffs... I agree with your conjecture about the Skull and Crossbones not being worn. But I don't have the sources to prove or disprove that. However I know one of the guys expounded at length on the subject some time ago, so I'll let them do their bit. Suffice it to say that I think any pirate who wanted to keep his neck nice and unstretched by a noose wouldn't have worn a skull and crossbones anywhere on his person when ashore.

No. A surtout was a coat. It was worn "over all" the rest of your clothes. Wow, Josh... That IS bizarre! In the 15th (or was it 14th) century, knights were described as being armoured "Capapie" -- which was from the French Cap a pied which meant from top to toes -- aka wearing a full suit of plate armour. I wonder if this "pie"wasn't the same. But that would mean "all foot"... Damn... Okay. Train of thought wreck!

The guilt, the long-winded explanation (justification?) of why they got drunk... Sounds like my family! It amuses me because we all know what the Puritans thought of "Papists".