A gentleman’s handkerchief (or, the most pitiful HSF item I will make all year)
I have finally finishes an item for the HSF Gentlemen challenge (well, actually I finished it on Wed the 3rd), but I have very ambivalent feelings about counting it. This is my hand sewn, 16th century blackwork embroidered linen handkerchief: Only it isn’t. Why not? And why am I so hesitant to include it? Because it is completely and utterly historically inaccurate. Yes, it’s linen. And it’s handsewn. And the embroidery uses period stitches, and a motif taken from a period source. And the lace isn’t too bad as a modern approximation of a late Renaissance lace. The handkerchief is, in fact, the perfect example of how you can use period materials, and period techniques, and period inspiration, but end up with something that is just a terrible, un-historical pastiche. The problem is that I depended on memory rather than checking my sources. I knew that there were numerous 16th century portraits that show women holding handkerchiefs, some plain, some with blackwork, some with lace (this seems to be most common in Spanish portraits). I …