kass

Oh Jack! I'm so jealous! I would much have rathered been with you guys than in subzero temps in Chicago! I'm sorry Janelle's bane acted up, but it sounds like it was manageable and she had a great time anyway. My best to you both.

You girls aren't real. You're all just figments of my overactive imagination. Didn't you know? I just can never resist taking a ageist pot-shot at my boy Foxe.

Cool! That's the way to do it, Michael -- barter. No tax on barter. Luckily my knitters are elvin. There are no labour laws for elves, so I can work them hard and not pay any payroll taxes. RH702 is probably my most popular pattern, so it won't be lonely if you don't buy it, Michael. Yes, RH713 -- the GAoP Accessories pattern! Now that RF2 is over and my house is no longer a disaster area, I have the brain space for that again. I expect it will be on the website in March. Watch this space.

Think of it this way, Saltypots: stays are just rows of straight stitches. Just one next to another. Don't think about how many. Just do one. And then do the next. I did a set by hand once and I worked on one row at a time. Before I knew it, they were done. There's no rush. And there's no time limit. Work on stuff when it's fun and don't when it's not.

RH705 (see, I know all my babies' names ) Damn! No RH702 for you then, Michael? <sigh>

You're welcome, Saltypots. I find making the little bits quite satisfying. But that's what I do. As a potter who wants to try to make bits of her kit, you might find it a fun diversion or you might find it annoyingly complicated. Do what pleases you and enjoy! Hey there, Skittles! The stocking pattern (and other knitting patterns) will be on the website by March. The actual stockings (and hats and gloves and stuff) will follow. We tried to get some samples by RF2, but we just had too much to do and Foxe was not into knitting in the car on the drive...

Hang in with those buttonholes, Michael! You'll be so happy you did. {Just don't ever attempt a 1700s frock coat! I think that's 150 buttonholes... } I think a nickel would be better than a dime. A dime might make a button that's too small to manage easily. Frankly, for your first shirt buttons, the size Skittles suggests is not a bad idea. Just remember to pull those gathers together tightly. And do post pictures. I feel like this sailor's jacket of your is one of my offspring.

I dunno, guys. Yeah, I've met Greg twice and... well... Foxe... :dreamy face: But back when I only knew them from the PB Yahoo group, their way of posting is totally different. They really don't sound alike at all. Two VERY different personalities. Pat, I've been working on getting a period-appropriate, working knitting frame for the past ten months... ...But I'm much closer to producing period-pattern handknit stockings knit in the proper gauge with yarn from a documentable sheep breed. :)

1/2" is probably the upper end of the size of shirt buttons. Shirt buttons are typically tiny. I'd make them closer to 1/4".

Google "knitting frames", Chole. When my main computer crashed a few months ago, I lost all my bookmarks, but I used to have one on the history of the knitting frame. I found it doing a Google search.

To make a fabric button, you do basically the same thing Pat describes, but without the penny. Where you put the penny, you stuff with little fabric scraps instead. Buttons with wooden or metal disks inside are documentable for waistcoats and coats and breeches and the like, but I've never seen buttons with anything but fabric in them on shirts. Kinda makes them too heavy.

Good Lord! How young were they then? I'm trying to imagine "too young" for you...

Hi there Jack, We see alot of shirts in pictures, but unfortunately they are worn with stocks that cover the closures. So we don't have a good deal of information on how shirts were typically closed. Extant shirts have both buttons and buttonholes and buttons sewn together and used like cufflinks through buttonholes on both sides of the cuffs. The only extant shirt from the GAoP has fabric buttons made from the same linen as the shirt. Thread buttons were also known. Ties sound reasonable, of course. And I'm loathe to say they weren't used because they are so practical and easy to make that it's hard to say they weren't. But I can't think of any in use this late... Kass

Nope, Mick. Those stockings are actually both the same patterns. I think it's just the way the light's hitting them. Both have the faux back seam of which I speak.

The Slop Contracts specify grey -- which means any undyed colour of fleece (brown, black, white, red, grey, etc.), not just the colour grey. And undyed stockings would have been very common. Another very common colour, particularly in the Colonies, was blue. The Germantown Blue Dyers dyed many stockings with indigo. Blue was probably the most popular colour of knit stockings in the Mid-Atlantic states. Other colours seen in street scenes include reds, yellows, greens, black, brown, and just about everything else you can think up. White shouldn't be avoided, but because of the dirt potential and the need to bleach the wool to get it very white, white was a less popular colour among working people. Does that help you, Mick?

Blackjohn, You have nothing to worry about. I read the emails from these slandered CW reenactors and they were decidedly misquoted. No one at Reenactor Fest has or ever had any problem with Pirate reenactors. Kass

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted, kids. Been busy and sick and snowed in... Let's clear up some misconceptions, shall we? First of all, cloth hose (stockings made from fabric) are really going the way of the dinosaur by this point. Very poor people and slaves are still wearing them, but by the 18th century the stocking frame is making knit stockings more affordable for all classes of society. So unless you're portraying 17th century or someone of very desperate circumstances, you should be wearing knitted stockings. That being said, the most common knitted stockings in the 18th century were NOT knitted in the round on needles. They were knitted in the flat on a knitting frame. This frame made it possible to produce a large quantitiy of stockings in a short amount of time. They were knit flat but to shape (in other words, not a tube), and sewn up the back. Modern machine-knit stockings knit in the round are incorrect because they don't have a back seam. If we were strict with our authenticity, 90% of the stockings we wear would be frame knit. Unfortunately no one is knitting frame-knit stockings so this is an impossibility. Modern handknit stockings are not wrong if they are knit according to a period pattern (the Gunnister stockings are the most popular example). The ones Foxe and I bought from Paul Meekins are very good. But they're not perfect. They are too large a guage yarn and knitted on needles that are too large. Meekins does this because knitting in the tiny 20 spi guage of common 18th century stockings would take his knitters so long that their price for the stockings would make them too expensive to sell. They are also knit with modern super wash yarn which is chemically processed to not be fuzzy. It's wrong, but modern people buy it because it's soft. It's not yarn from a period breed of sheep if you care to get that technical about it. However, Meekins stockings are the best on the market. I highly recommend them until someone starts selling frame-knit or proper guage Gunnisters. A couple more corrections to things I've heard in this thread: - Period stockings were not tubes. Heels have been turned since stockings were first knitted. The period heel, however, is very different than the modern knitted heel. It's bulkier and much more noticeable. - Foxe, your stockings from Meekins are not backsewn. They have a few pearl stitches at center back just like the Gunnister stockings. It fakes a backseam, but if you look at them you will see that they are not sewn at all. But they are appropriate since the Gunnister stockings were not sewn either (nor are other 17th and 18th century handknitted examples). Only frameknit stockings are sewn up the back. The guage of most stockings sold to reenactors is not too fine. It's too coarse! The extant stockings that we have and the patterns and other documentation for stockings from the 18th century put them at a much finer guage than what we get from sutlers -- especially those who are handknitting. And the extant stockings are not those of noble or rich people. Those to which I refer have come down to us from common people. They are finer. They knit on needles we call "0" and "00" and even "000". Furthermore, handspun yarn isn't bulkier. People who spun for a living did great work. Their spinning was as fine as you could imagine. It wasn't the "chunky" handspuns you find today. Today, we like the chunky stuff because it looks rustic and hand-made. But in the 18th century, the fineness of one's spinning was prized. Women who spun for a living did this as their profession and they were good at it. The extant stockings are shockingly uniform. But it's our modern perception of handspun that's tripping us up. So in conclusion, no one is selling perfectly period-appropriate stockings. The majority should be frame-knit and no one is doing that. Cloth hose are out except for the poorest most desperate people. Hand knit stockings are too bulky and too coarse a guage, but if they're being knit according to a period pattern, at least they're the right pattern. Paul Meekins in the UK is selling the best out there right now. And how you guys keep mistaking Greg (GoF) for Foxe, I just don't understand...

Yeah. By the time we got to Indiana, I was the one taking care of two sick boys. I guess what goes around comes around. Chole, your kind of "stick in the mud"-ness is always welcome. You helped me more than you know.

Hi all. I'm finally back in commission and threw Mr. Foxe off my laptop. Bloody foreigners... Sorry I didn't get to spend more time with those of you I met at RF2, but I'm sure you understand that I didn't really want to spend the whole time sick in my hotel room. It was lovely meeting the delightful Merry Death, the ever-sunny Lady Barbossa, and the light in my Sunday, Captain Pete Straw. I hope it won't be too long before we meet again! Mister March, Rats, Skittles -- great to see you all again. Sorry I wasn't around much. Thanks to Jessie K and Sarah for helping out and entertaining the boys. You two are the best. And a special thanks to Chole for making me feel like I was there and keeping the stall neat and tidy in my absence. The recovering, Kass

Well, her petticote and stays aren't her whole outfit. They are actually underwear -- the layer under her dress. But if you say "underwear", it brings up even different items in the modern mind. If we're talking about the word "dress" meaning her outfit entire, there is certainly no reason you couldn't use the word "dress" or any other synonym but "clothing" might get you fewer poison pen letters.

Not to mention our very own Ed Foxe

Jack, you're a silly, silly man...

Anyone got a copy of Dampier's voyage on the Royal Navy vessel that sank off the coast of Africa? I only read the account in "Pirate of Exquisite Mind" which just gives an overview, but there was a mention of using some kind of "plug". If anyone would have describe the thing and its use extensively, even in an emergency, it would have been Dampier.

My God, that's cool, Jack! Thanks for sharing!

Kathryn, The link you posted is about 17th century petticotes. Did you post the wrong one perhaps? If you posted it for the pictures of ladies with their heads uncovered, thank you! This reinforces my point. These ladies all have their hair dressed. It is pulled back on top with short bangs and the side pieces elborately curled as was typical of the upper classes in the 1660s. A woman would indeed go out dressed in this fashion. She would not, however, go out with her hair hanging down as we see in boudoir portraits and minatures. Kass