The theme for the March Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge is Protection: make something to protect yourself (from weather or injury) or your clothes (from soiling etc.). The theme wasn’t my idea (and my apologies, but I can’t find my notes on who suggested it), but as soon as I saw it I thought “what a brilliant idea for a HSM challenge!” Protection, after all, is the ultimate use for clothing.  In its most basic form, it exists to protect us from the cold, or to shade us from the sun, to shield our skin in rough conditions, and to provide a barrier against injury in dangerous conditions. Though it’s less common now, throughout much of history we also created garments to protect our clothing itself.  So many garments were so expensive in time and cost to create and own that simpler, more economical clothes helped to shield the costlier garments from wear and use. Examples of garments that protect us are cloaks, coats, gloves, hats, scarves and wraps worn for warmth; sunbonnets and large hats …

February’s challenge for the Historical Sew Monthly 2016 (due by the end of Feb) is Tucks & Pleats:  make a garment that features tucks and pleating for the shape or decoration. Tucks and pleats have been used for shaping and decoration almost as long as clothing has been around.  This 5,000 year old tunic is  one of the  (if not the) oldest extant garments, and the pleating of the sleeves is used to give it shape and interest: My first reasonable historical costume was a 16th century working class Flemish outfit, for which I learned to do roll-pleats, in imitation of the deliciously round, full pleats shown in paintings like Breugal’s Wedding Dance.  According to my research at the time, we still don’t have any evidence that rolled pleats were used in 16th century Flanders, but they certainly do give the look. The large cartwheel tuck of turn-of-the-17th century fashion is something that I am still not brave enough to tackle.  It both fascinates and revolts me – but if I could replicate Arabella’s spiderweb …