For our recent Queen's Champion tournament, I wore my 1495 Venetian gown. The dress has three layers: the camicia, gamurra, and giornea. My camicia is white linen, my gamurra is brocade, and my giornea is cotton velvet with hand-beaded details. With Arianna! Coloring some scrolls.

More about this dress here: www.morgandonner.com/2014/03/ascension-day-dress/

At some point during the summer of 2022, I was cleaning out my costume closet and decided I could revamp my old 1570s French Valois Gown into something … my friend Loren of The Costumer’s Closet had made some very pretty gowns inspired by The Borgias (2011-13) TV show, and that gave me an idea.Read the Rest of this Post...

I've been needing to make myself a heavier zimarra or cloak for quite some time now. About the only SCA event I've been able to consistently attend for the last few years has been Uprising, and its usually bitter cold and wet, and so I'm quite happy for this excuse to make something warm. I basically have two options. 1. I recently made a waist length wool cape for a close friend and love how it turned out. I have enough of a dark green wool coating in my stash for the outer layer, but nothing suitable for a lining. I'd either have to invest in some velvet or flannel or something, which my budget right now does not really allow. I'd probably to a fairly simple guard along the edges for trim. Without looking, I'm thinking I remember several examples of this style in 'Moda a Firenze'. 2. My other option, which I think is more likely right now, is a flannel-lined wool Zimarra. I have some heavy black wool coating and some bright pink cotton flannel in my stash right now that I think would look striking together. I found this portrait on Bella's site with those colors, and the same basic shape I would want to go for. Gian Paolo Lolmo, c1580: Portrait of a Woman Aged 19 Years I would probably make the sleeves closed instead of open up the front for added warmth. And since my wool is plain and not patterned I'll have to do some other type of trim. I'd love to do surface embroidery over the whole thing, but don't think I could accomplish that in a month. I've been browsing Ebay and searching for some sort of appropriate trim, but have been having difficulty. I'm thinking I'll probably end up doing something like the embroidered trim in this portrait of Countess Livia by Paolo Caliari; Cotton flannel is what I will use since I have it, and it will be warm:-) But something I need to research is the use of flannel in period. I'm pretty positive about the existence of wool flannel, but I have my doubts about the existence of cotton flannel. I don't know where wool flannel would have all been used....Does anyone have any insight on period flannel????