The Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge #18 is Poetry in Motion: bring to life a garment inspired by a song or poem. Here are few of my favourite poems and songs, and the garments they always make me think of: The Elizabethan ‘Greensleeves‘ is simply dripping with clothes references, from the titular sleeves (which may have indicated a lack of virtue on the part of the wearer), to the many verses about the gifts that her unlucky suitor brought her: I bought three kerchers to thy head, that were wrought fine and gallantly: I kept thee both boord and bed, Which cost my purse wel fauouredly. I bought thee peticotes of the best, the cloth so fine as might be: I gaue thee iewels for thy chest, and all this cost I spent on thee. Thy smock of silk, both faire and white, with gold embrodered gorgeously: Thy peticote of Sendall right: and thus I bought thee gladly. Thy smock of gold so crimson red, with pearles bedecked sumptuously: The like no other lasses had, and …

After lots and lots of voting on your part, and lots and lots of vote-counting on my part, and lots of over-seeing from Felicity, who appointed herself auditor of the votes and protector of the score sheet, we have a result!   The theme for Challenge #22 (due Mon 1 Dec) is…. (no drumroll, you’ll wake the cat up from her nap!)   Option #1: Gentlemen –  Make a garment  for a historical gentleman, or a period garment  inspired by men’s fashions! Gentlemen very narrowly beat out its closest competitor, Heirlooms & Heritage, which  was followed in popularity by The Great Indoors, and then Stashbusting. Thank you to all of you who voted, and to everyone who suggested a theme!

UPDATE: VOTING IS NOW CLOSED!  The votes are being tallied and counted and the outcome will be announced soon! Oh my!  There were a lot of ideas  as to what the theme for Challenge #22 should be!  There were over 135 comments with theme suggestions (often multiple ones per comment), and commentary on the suggestions, both for and against. I spent a good couple of hours over the weekend going through all the suggestions,  combining similar ones, and clarifying others, trying to get the most important points and not change the intent of people’s ideas when I combined and re-worded.  (Democracy is hard!  Vetinari had it right.  I should just be a benevolent dictator.  With committees to give people something to do…) Like Felicity.  She rules with a firm but velvety paw. I didn’t include suggestions where enough people pointed out that they wouldn’t be able to do it, or if I didn’t understand the idea, or if the theme was too similar to something we did this year.  Some suggestions were ones that were …