A very busy and well attended day yesterday at Sewing!
Both Catalina and Eleanor were working on their corsets, with the former finishing hers and the latter coming very close - next it'll be on to dress fittings for them both! Eleanor also showed us all the girdle that she's been working on.
We welcomed along two newcomers, who spent most of the afternoon looking at general costuming books to get an idea of what period/country they might be interested in, then at art books of the relevant periods/countries to get a better idea, and trying on some of Katherina's garb. Caterine will bring some of hers for them to try on different styles next time. Currently they want to make everything, although it possibly looks like one will go with Cranach and the other with a 1550's English court gown - but they're going to start by making shirts and chemises, so they have their own underwear to wear with loaner garb while they start on their own.
Anna worked on eyelets for Katherina's new kirtle, then fitted the straps for her. While she was doing this, Katherina worked on her new red velvet dress, tacking down yet more gold lace.
William de Cameron brought along a pattern for a 14th century coat for Heloise, as she had borrowed his coat for St Sebastian's and found it nice and warm to wear. She was busy adjusting the straps on a 16th century kirtle to make it fit better. William de Wyck also finished the roll pleats on Catalina's new kirtle.
Isabel gave Anna some leather to choose between for a new book that she is making for her, and spent time reading more about book binding and stopping baby Jessica from eating anything that looked tasty.
Caterine stitched some fingerloop braid onto the guarding of her new outfit, then made more fingerloop braid for it when she ran out. The newcomers were interested in this, so Eleanor showed them a simple braid pattern which they tried out. Caterine suggeseted they look at the website www.fingerloop.org and Katherina is going to bring her fingerloop braid book for them to look at next week.