Tudor MercWench Smith

"If ever a man needed a decent drink, it would be Durand just about now," Tudor thought to herself as the door clicked shut behind William. The man held himself proud and upright in his seat, but she was no stranger to seeing the weary cracks forming around the facade. And so, the Steward did as the Steward was meant to do. Without offer or request, but seeing the need, she found the mentioned bottle, along with a set of glasses and a table linen. It was an older item, not very fine in make, stored in a small cupboard near the wine cache. It had been stained at some past dinner and was no longer fit for formal usage, set aside for great need or to be cut up for other purposes eventually. The thick weave should prove plenty absorbent. For want of a better towel, this would have to suffice. She first thought to see if she could find one in the Captain's quarters, but she hesitated to rummage among his personals, especially since the Captain had been slightly stingy in his usual hospitality until his rather terse line of questioning was done. She had not paid close enough attention to recount half of what was said, much to her great self-recrimination. From the little she had absorbed, and what she knew of her commander, she could state clearly enough that his irritation was more due to the loss of his men. Durand's recent presence on the very ship, that had so stupidly caused the loss, made him the only available target for that ire. At any rate, she could not be sure if he would be inclined to share a towel at the moment, so once again she erred on the side of caution. Her second thought was to send Ajay on an errand to her small space, where she knew a clean, dry towel could be found. However, besides her discomfort in sending him out on menial tasks she should be doing herself, she hesitated to be alone in the room with Durand, more out of logic than actual fear or distrust of the man himself. After uncorking and pouring, she crossed back to the table where Durand sat and proffered him a glass and the dry cloth. "Sécher le corps et humecter le gosier." She allowed only the smallest pull at the corner of her mouth to show that she was at all amused by her own wit.

Both Tudor and Durand were at some disadvantage, perhaps, as they sized each other up, as both were wont to do by their natures. It was difficult for Durand to maintain the surly and imposing aura he typically preferred when the only thing separating him from the state in which his mother birthed him was linen that was currently more water than flax. Tudor was self-aware enough to know exactly how she must look. Despite her limited interactions with Durand, knew enough of him to know that he was astute. He would have surmised her situation at a glance. In that regard, he had a clear advantage as she could only guess what had brought him aboard in such a state. It ... angered her. Not at Durand, specifically. More at herself, if she was honest, but she was far from likely to be able to explain it even to herself. Nor was it specific to the moment, the past few days, or months, but anger from wounds and insults both scarred over and fresh, all at once. It was the tumult of condemning voices that she had spent the night silencing, and she would silence it the same way she had already done once. By remembering herself. Who she was. What she chose to be. Luckily, the Captain provided the mooring she needed to do this by uttering the word "Steward" as he observed formalities of reintroduction. Tudor shifted her weight just enough to replicate a curtsy, as ridiculous as it may have looked, she being shorn and in slops. "Bienvenue à bord, Monsieur," she said, and with that stubborn adherence to courtesy and routine,the anger eased, and she then turned to her commander. "I believe Ajay has arranged for food to be sent up, sir, but I cannot confirm in what quantity. Should I arrange for more?"

Ajay returned both sooner and later than Tudor had expected—in that she had never truly intended for him to leave should he not find someone within calling distance from the door, but he came back so promptly that she marvelled at the quick efficiency that saw him returned to his post, standing guard as if he were the anthropomorphized form of the ship's namesake, before she had even truly noticed he was gone. At first, she had not immediately noticed his absence. Upon stepping from the Captain's quarters into the adjoining wardroom, she had quickly fallen into the same level of frenetic tidying that had filled her hours from waking until then. Her quest for the sewing kit was temporarily belayed upon seeing the still tumultuous state of the room. In quick order, chairs were righted, debris and detritus cleared from the table, a candlestick picked up from the floor but held onto lest someone other than Ajay come back through the door, and scattered papers were quickly collected and stacked in some semblance of order. The sewing kit had only just been retrieved from the small drawer where she had previously placed it when Ajay reappeared and gave his simple, two-word report. She smiled and thanked him, finally seating herself to retrieve the needle and set to her task, not much bothered by what exactly "Food. Captain" would translate to in terms of what, who, and when things would arrive. Even if she had been concerned, she would not have been left waiting long, as her ear, carefully attuned to listening for his orders over the general cacophony of the ship, picked out the Captain's voice in the companionway, even though it was too muffled for even Ajay to notice. "The Captain's here," she announced, putting the mending down before she had really been able to start any work on it. The large Yoruban did nothing but raise a brow at her, unsure of what she meant or why she stood. But just as she did not have long to wait to find out his meaning, he did not have long to find out hers, as a firm knock sounded at the door after a futile jostling of the latch.

There was so much she wished to accomplish. She was dressed and ready to face the day, having smoothed out her clothes as best she could, roughly finger-combed her newly shorn hair, and slipped her feet back into now mostly dry stockings and shoes that were just ever so slightly tighter after being soaked in the rain. Having been busy since dawn, there was a very real possibility that the captain's chambers were now the most orderly part of the entire ship. She had righted everything thrown about in the storm, made up the blankets and pillows she had attempted to sleep on, and completed any other housekeeping task she could find. But now, with both the room and herself finally put in order, her mind sought more tasks to undertake. It started to venture past the door, seeking out these tasks, even though physically, she would not pass through it yet. She was eager to discover which men had been recovered with the Patricia and in what condition they were found. This had been her foremost concern since she first heard the call from above that it had been spotted. Additionally, she wished to know the general condition of the ship and be of assistance in any way to its ongoing repairs, if needed. Her stomach insisted that it too needed attention, with a higher priority than she would normally grant it, even though on a typical day she broke her fast with little more than coffee. She yearned to check on young Dash, though she could not decide whether she wanted that to be her first task or her last. She wanted it to be first so she could breathe easier knowing the boy was well, but the dread that he might not be gave her great hesitation. Most of all, however, she wished to confront whatever was to transpire with Saltash, and soon. She desired the entire ordeal to consume no more of her time, her life, her worry, and heartache than necessary. Whatever unpleasantness was to follow, she wished it over with quickly. A million other things should and would take priority over it though, but she wished to race headlong into that particular storm, to see the end of it sooner nonetheless. But still she was unmoved; her memory of the prior day was clouded, as if years rather than hours had passed, and she could not recall whether the Captain's orders were for her to remain for the night or until notified that she was free to return to her duties. While her judgment might still be untrustworthy, she chose to err on the side of caution and remain, at least a little while longer, and do what she could from the great cabin. She turned to look at Ajay, who still sat by the doorway, dutifully performing his task, seemingly unbothered by the more tedious nature of it. "Ajay, see if there is anyone passing by in the companionway to take a message, would you please?" She couldn't bring herself to butcher the sentence in a futile attempt to be better understood—such attempts, she felt, made the speaker appear foolish, the listener insulted, and ultimately rendered the message no more intelligible. "See if we can have some food brought to us, and any word from the Captain." She punctuated "food" with a slight gesture to mimic eating, but otherwise, she spoke to him as if he were fluent, out of respect for him. He nodded, clearly understanding her point if not every word, and stood to do as she had asked. While he had gone no further than to the wardroom door, his absence from the doorway made the space feel even emptier, making her even more anxious for a task. There were only two things left that she had not been able to put right—the crack in the porcelain shaving bowl would have to wait until she could find some medium with which to mend it, but a tear she had spotted in the Captain's waistcoat could be addressed immediately, as long as the small sewing kit she had stashed in a drawer in the wardroom hadn't gone amiss in the wreckage of yesterday.

Sorry I didn't respond to anyone last night....was up til midnight baking a cake for my mom's birthday. Will now post a breakdown of what's giving me a breakdown It is the main gore. The turning gore went in pretty smoothly (at least I think). I then went to put in the main gore. Per the instructions .... So, main gore points a and b matches up with the turning gore.... Which puts the fire in "upside down", at least based on the way my brain brains, where the narrow end is at the bottom and the wide end is at the top by the under arm. Ok....it seems weird but I'ma go with it. But then how does the wide end of the gore fit into the under arm/armscye/side seam? Back to the directions.. But where point "c" is on my gore versus where point "c" is on the body does not line up without like, kinda folding the gore over on itself? And then to align point "d" you kind of have to fold it in again If I had to guess, I'd guess that my gore is too long but the cutting instructions were very vague on how long to cut it as the length is supposed to be adjustable but it gives no indication of how long the gore should be in comparison. I have just tried to bully through and stitch it up in various configuration to see if there is just a natural logic to it once I get going but it creates a super wide excess that gaps/needs to fit into the side seam. I've tried pleating, I've tried tucking, and it just doesn't fit. Not to mention it makes the hem madly wonky (at least when it's laying out, when I drape it like a giant bag it looks kind of even but I'd have no idea how to go about heming it without it hanging weirdly.) I have tried sewing it up from the hem and down from point c with little difference. Where am I going wrong?!? I would try cutting it down since length of the gore seems like it would be the obvious problem but I am hesitant cause I don't have any backup scrap fabric to finish the trial on should I mess up the gores. Or, is it supposed to be like this and there is a truck that I'm missing to get it to fit? I'm also not sure what to do with this flappy but they describe here, but I only care if it will help me figure out how this fits together. Any help and or images of the inside of one of these bad boys would be appreciated. The only person I've found that makes/sells them on Etsy would charge me like $900 to do up one in the fabrics i would want. Worth it, but out of budget, so I've still got to DIY this despite the nervous breakdown it's giving me lol.

I quit. Falling asleep on my copy of Patterns of Fashion did nothing to make me understand how this gore is supposed to sit. Anyone know anyone taking commissions on these bad boys lol

So, I have the little black ankle boots I wore at conde I could throw in..they are passable at ten paces, but would either obviously need to be for any other women who join up, or men with excessively delicate feet lol. Otherwise....I unashamedly stole this graphic from an Elizabethan costuming group I am in. I know the style of latchet this replicates is a bit/largely outdated for our period but has the correct shape and general style, so I can keep an eye out on any of my thrift store quests to see if I can find anything like this to commit the experiment on

I believe that is the PoF that I do have from years ago. I did dig it out earlier in the project and didn't see anything that looked pertainate.... But it was also like 1am and I didn't even know what I was looking at probably. I will look again tonight but if you get a chance to scribble something before then I won't say no to it

This is actually eminently helpful, however I haven't even gotten close to the pleating yet. I'm sure it will be a mess when I do as I have no lovely assistants and my duct tape dress form is about 1-2 dress sizes too big now and somehow wasn't a good likeness to begin with. I will cross that bridge when I get there. To put the struggles to better words.....I need to see how the gores get set into the upper sides/ armscye. Like, to my brain, how it gets set into the turning gore at the bottom back then pulled over to set into the bottom front is backwards, but still makes sense and I can execute well enough...but how in the crickey eff is it supposed to sit in the side seams on the upper side? I know my cut was a bit wonky, but not that much that it's bunchy, hanging open, excess flaps of fabric etc. mayhaps does it have to do with instruction line 9 " on both the front and the back of the Mantua body, slit the horizontal line at your point C that says underarm. Also slit along the dash line that says slit here. Fold this Flap of fabric to the inside of the garment"..... Which might as well be in a foreign language for all that it's translating in my brain. I basically brute force sewed it all up tonight, just to see if I could make it work without understanding, and ...kinda maybe? I will keep plugging away at it and hopefully have a breakthrough soon.

How? How is it that my side fires are somehow both to short and too long. If I get nothing else done before December, I swear this Mantua will be it. And if the stress of it kills me....don't bury me in my pitiful attempts. I havent even gotten to the pleating yet....I just wish there was a video/pictograph/cave drawing/interpretive dance on exactly how these horses are supposed to sit on the main body to get past this very ridiculous mental block I am having....

Looking at these, I am wondering if it could be done to somehow disguise the slit where the lid opens up as one of the seams.....

So the coolers I have are just a smaller version of what @Stynky Tudor has. I had not intentions on using foam, cause shape is about right on its own, they are too small for sitting, and since it's intention would be to use around the kitchens I wouldn't want it getting waterlogged. This was more or less what meant to do with mine. Perhaps subtley glue the ropes on and also have a small slit in them so the lida come off....or, it just struck me they could be tied on the sides and act as latches of a sort....keep the kids on in transit but easy to untie and open as needed?

Y'all are giving me ideas....nothing so nice as is already posted here but I have these nice little sturdy foam shipping coolers that I picked up for free last week before a camping trip and I can't help but keep looking at them and thinking "I could cover you in canvas and you wouldn't look like a small cargo bale, and it would be a great way to keep cold items handy in the camp kitchen without looking modern...."

Always pleased to amuse! Tonight finds me face planting in waste poly-cotton...far less pleasant but eminently necessary. Sadly there isn't really any other pattern to bump it against. I took a quick gander through my copy of "patterns of fashion 1" (as if I'd be able to actually do anything with the graphed patterns in there lol!) but despite having sketches of Mantuas, they don't actually have any patterns of them... So it's back to blindly stitching the old duvet together,.hoping I'm doing it right. It's just....the gores are literally on sideways from how I normally put gores in and it's.. Confusing.

I am possibly a lesser evolved brain, cause the pattern/cutting instructions on this just....baffled me. Until I was like, a third of the way into my cut, and I finally understood where and how all the pieces went. This is literally why I do prototypes ..... Have to take the mutineers out to the park and have a crew budget meeting after they asleep this evening so might not get much pinning/sewing done tonight but will post progress if I do....

And away we go again.... Found a king sized duvet at the Salvo for $7. Thought it was a cotton with some sizing on it but turns out it's a poly cotton, so a bit tuck but will work for my macaroni prototype. And at just shy of 6 yards it's significantly cheaper then any other waste fabric I was scoping out. If it turns out very nicely, I suppose it would be usable in an emergency, or sellable to people who like wearing plastic lol

The nice thing about this particular blog is they post the original recipe and then they post a modern adaptation the author developed, so the hard work is already done. Just need to figure out where the heck to buy rosewater since it's in like EVERYTHING lol...

So, today during downtime at work I did a quick Google search for some more period correct recipes for delicious Nom-noms for me to make, (as per the vice royal writ I received at 1721) and I came across this gem of a blog! https://rarecooking.com/ Recipes are all from 1600-1800, and source/original recipe is listed, mostly from the archives at Penn State apparently (who knew my old home states pride and joy school actually had a historical collection worth the time of day??) Of particular interest to me are the recipes for donuts, sugar biskets, strawberry preserves, lemmon cream....but even more important of all, a period appropriate method of brewing coffee!!!! Might try some of these in practice in the coming weeks and post the experiments here

Grabbed this lil guy for 99 cents today. Not pretty or excessively accurate but it's going into my sea chest til the next event where someone might be in need of a mug

I can bring my bottle to 1721! I barely even dipped into it for my hat so I've plenty to go around and no opportunities for the foreseeable future to use it before it goes bad

We will have to call the sizing "Mens XL?". I did my best to match it to general standrd size proportions while still working with the width of the fabric and leaving no scrap lol. Guess I'm finally one of those people who doesn't use patterns but cuts to measurements and just sews it.....at least when it comes to rectangles. Anything tailored give me a pattern or I'll cry.... Side note....need to work with checked patterns moee often...my cuta and stitches have never been so straight lol

In lieu of rubber bands, string or blocks I used.....cardboard, straight pins and one of my kids' keepy-uppy balloons....but the initial spritz and shape seemed to go great.... (Decorative red cord added after drying to get a visual on where it would sit and to determine if I needed to adjust the shape at all) I feel like the crown looks slightly wide and bulbous when it's sitting there but when it's on it looks pretty snazzy. Spray worked great, went on nicely, dried startlingly fast. Made it just slightly stiff without feeling hard or crusty. Ultimately went at it with three rounds of light mist. Might do a bit more when I get home tonight. We shall see. Still no updates on the Mantua plans. Still trying to pivot from my fabric stash failure. At what...three weeks out I'm trying to decide if that would be too ambitious

In fairness, I do blather a lot of nonsense in my posts lol....Easy to miss. I'm secondary fairness, the shirt is also actually more Stynky's contribution....I traded him my labor making it for some other fabric. I wasn't even going to toot my own horn about it, honestly, but I need people to ooh and ahh over my gathers and gussets appropriately or I lose all wind in my sails. In other news, shellac has been soaking in isopropyl alcohol since Sunday night, and I've got to say I think it's about ready....no floaters or sticky bits! I went with the isopropyl instead of methylated alcohol as it was cheaper, available in smaller volumes and because I guess there are some nasty health risks from methylated that I didn't necessarily want to wear on my head....I know the stuff is jus a carrier and will evaporate but why risk it when according to all I read 91-99% isopropyl does the trick. Might start spraying the hat down tomorrow..will see. Don't really have anything to shape it on.

It's better then mashing a crews worth of taters with a wooden spoon and the bottom of a water cup!!!

*eyes up that potato masher with intent*