Proposed Costume Classes

Jan. 3, 1999

Katherine, our Vicereine, and I (Elizabeth) have been conferring on class requests that people have made to us and come up with the following tentative schedule:

Saturday, January 23rd, at Elizabeth's house (Call 718-565-9484 or email me for directions) I will be teaching the very hands-on workshop "Fiber vs. Weave vs. Finish: Fabric Properties" class. I will have a lot of fabrics out for people to handle and compare them.
Saturday, February 6th, at the EKU in Rusted Woodlands (pending approval by the Chancellor of EKU), Katherine will be teaching "Elizabethan Whitework", as per requests, and Elizabeth will be teaching "Evaluating Historic Clothing Skills" and the slide lecture, "The History of Medieval Textiles".
Sunday, February 28th, Katherine will be teaching "An Overview of Period Embroidery Styles and Their Applications". Location either her house or my house, call 718-767-0757 to confirm.
Either Saturday March 20th or Sunday March 28th (get your vote in now), Katherine and I will be teaching "Integrating Embroidery into Overall Clothing Design", at my house or her house, call 718-767-0757 in March to confirm.

These workshops will proceed, excepting the EKU event, as they have in the past, with coffee and visits beginning at 12:30pm and the workshop itself starting promptly at 1:00pm. We usually take a break around 3:00 and wind down about 5:30pm. Refreshments are potluck, so please bring something brunchy. Please note: For the apprentices among you, Attendence is Recommended.

We have a number of requests for feedback. From the seneschals and the chronicler: what is the best way to get information to the populace at large about what we are doing? Is it possible to coordinate a ride board so that people with cars can take people without them who might not otherwise come? Are there public spaces available to you where larger, more general classes can be held? Have people asked you for specific classes that fit into our subject matter?

For those interested in our classes: What sort of classes do you want to see? What sort of classes do you want to teach? Are there class ideas that you have which fit into our proposed series (more on those in a minute)? How often do you want to have classes? Debbie and I have a boodle of ideas, and were wondering if having one Friday night class a month and one Sunday or Saturday workshop a month would be too much? What days are you free and which do you have standard commitments on? Would you be willing to be part of a phone tree to contact people about workshops? Should we host an EKU or local University, and do a day long track of this stuff?

In order to get all of you thinking, and to respond to requests, Katherine and I have decided on the overall theme of "interpretation". Good historical clothing requires interpretation of lots of kinds of information into specific garments.

Here are some of the classes and series we are working on:

The Raw Materials:
- Fiber vs. Weave vs. Finish: Fabric Properties (repeat)
- History of Textiles slideshow (repeat of Pennsic sauna)
- Evaluating Historic Clothing Skills (repeat)
- Resource guide to the Garment Center (Maybe people want to send me their favorite places, and I can compile info?)
The Tools:
- Things You May Have Missed By Teaching Yourself to Sew (repeat, looking for volunteer instructors, will train)
- Handstitches and Their Applications (repeat)
- How Your Sewing Machine Works (repeat, Henry Kersey, please?)
- Research Skills for the Non-Academician
  - Part I: Book stuff: how to find information
  - Part II: Working from patterns of extant garments
- Walking Tour/How To of the NY Public Library
- Walking Tour/How To of the FIT Library
- Fitting:
  - Part I: The Body's Trouble Spots (lecture)
  - Part II: Workshop: Everybody bring 3 troubled garments, their questions, and their confidence, and we'll work through them
- Intro to Interpretation of Visual Sources (repeat)
Interpretation for Specific Periods:
- Using Sources to Recreate Early Period Clothes:
  1. Literary
  2. visual
  3. extant stuff
- Cutting Garments Before the Cotehardie
- International Gothic (c. 1340-1480) Overview
- High Gothic Couture Dress: Hands On Draping: Part I & Part II
- Draping Gothic shifts, an Experiment
- Renaissance Clothing: Types of Sources
  1. Literary
  2. visual
  3. extant stuff
- Renaissance Undergarments (repeat)
- Fine Tuning Bodice Fit, and Corsetry (repeat)
- Doublet Tailoring (repeat, Henry Kersey, please?)
- Skirt Draping Workshop, Experimentation welcome
Details
- Basic Millinery Techniques
- Overview of Embroidery in Period
- Incorporating Embellishment into Overall Clothing Design
- Elizabethan Blackwork (Jean? or Eric?)
- Elizabethan Whitework (repeat)
- Laidwork
- Applique (repeat)

Note that we have no particular schedule for these set up. Probably it will be best for some items to work in series, but to overall alternate general overviews with specific period workshops. But popular acclaim will go a long way toward determining the order of precedence, so let us know what you want to see.

Remember, Feedback! We want feedback!

In serviciam,

Elizabeth