frualeydis | Entries tagged with tunicella

Eight years ago I starte on a silk tunic for Rickard, inspired by the tunicella of the Holy Roman empire coronation costume. Then I really wanted to make it like the original, I even started making templates in fimo clay for the gold ornaments, so that I could make silicon moulds to cast bronze. (You can read about it here, here, here, here and here.)

This is probably the reason why it never got finished. I made a silk cord with fingerloop braiding and put it all away. Until a few days before Double Wars when I decided that I was goign to wear fancy 12th century garb so was he. So I took the remnants of the zari trim that I had used for his fancy cloak almost as long ago and sewed it on like cuffs. Tom hide some of the zari-ness I put brass bezants on it.

After I came home I continued decorating it, putting glass beads on the cuffs and neck trim, to try and tie them more together colour-wise. I also made silk lucet cords to cover the edges of the trim. And I sewed the ties at the neck, since I actually did find them - you see, a few months ago I moved the cord to a safe place and of course I couldn't find it when we were leaving for Double Wars, so he had to use a brooch to close it.

Yesterday I made him put it on and pose for the camera.

( Close-ups of trim )

One of the most gorgeous, extravagant presents after my disputation I got from

myralea. In this post she writes about real gold thread she had bought. Well, I got some of it!! Both 5000 m of good quality fake (you can see the spools on the lower left picture) and some (quite a lot) of the real stuff! I mean, real gold thread!! This is such a lift for Rickard's silk tunicella (which I haven't worked on for months). Now all will be real: real silk twill, fresh water pearls, a silk tablet woven band and real gold thread (the original has small gold tubes, but this is an inspired product, not an exact copy). Now I just need to get the motivation to start working on the embroidered cuffs.

Current Mood: grateful

Yesterday, at Lödöse medieval market, I found silk tablet woven trim, ca 15mm wide. It is not the same pattern as on the original tunicella; this pattern is made by turning all the tablets at the same time while tablet woven trim from the middle ages was patterned with tablets being turned individually. But it's still silk and tablet woven and I don't have to make it myself. So I put it around the neck and then put freshwater pearls along the edges.

( This is how it looks: )

Current Mood: content

A friend just pointed me to these pictures of the tunicella. they are lovely, you can almost make out the pattern of the tablet woven band around the neck and you see the enamelled ornaments really closely.

I came home around half past three and was met by the sight of a half naked, partly black man. Our new (laser) printer and a scanner (we didn't have one before) had arrived and somewhere in the process of disposing of the old one my husband managed to open the container with ink/coal and sprayed himself and the computer room with lots of black dust. It is very clean now.
While he was busy cleaning I started on dinner. Since

myralea is vegetarian I decided to make lasagne with lentils in tomato sauce. It turned out very yummy. Then we started modelling the templates for the ornaments for the cuffs on Rickard's tunicella from some kind of plastic clay. After hardening them we sanded them. A lot. One of them isn't finished yet. I will then, when I'm happy with them make a silicone mold so I can make them from pewter. They will then be "bronzed" before epoxy glue with colour pigments in it will be used to fill the holes and create an impression of enamel.
I have sanded my fingers a little to much and I'm very tired. But also very happy and grateful to

myralea for her help.
I have also felled all the seams on the body of the Herjolfsnes dress and will start on the sleeves tomorrow.

Current Mood: satisfied

The sleeves on Rickard's tunicella has been bothering me for a while. They were too wide and almost reached to the top of the side gore (which also may be placed a little too high, but I'm not sure). So the day before yesterday I unpicked the seams and now one sleeve is attached again, after being cut down. I'm not that keen on unpicking hand sewn garments, especially not when they're made from thin silk twill, but with all the work I plan to put in on the decoration I think it deserves to be as good as it can. But it's boring, so yesterday, at 11.15 pm I decided that now was the time to cut a new Herjolfsnes dress. So I did that. The sleeve pattern needed some testing so I only cut one. I basted it together today, while

amonik and Anna were here, and tried it and it looked good and fit in the sleeve hole so now I will cut another. And make a paper pattern for it so I don't have to do it again next time I'm doing a dress from the second half of the 14th century. The lovely periwinkle wool blend I used also turned out to be all wool and not a blend (I did a burn test), so I'm really happy about that, I paid c. 2,5 $/metre for it. But that means that I feel obliged to sew this dress by hand too. I know they're nothing wrong with machine seams on the inside, but I just can't seem to help myself.

Has anyone seen anything even vaguely resembling the enameled ornaments on the tunicella that belongs to the coronation insignia of the Holy Roman Empire?
They don't have to be shaped like the original, round would be fine and the pattern doesn't have to be exact either, just of the same kind. It could be ornaments or buttons, as long as it's possible to sew them. Preferably an on-line shop of course.
Yes. I am finally going to start on the embroidery for Rickard's silk tunicella.

Current Mood: hopeful

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Entries tagged with tunicella

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Rickard's 12th century silk tunic

Presents VII - wheee!!

Neck trim for the tunicella

Tunicella pics

A productive afternoon and evening

I just can't help myself

Looking for enameled ornaments

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November 2021

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