Historical Sew Monthly – 2023

Jupe Courtisane skirt pattern

It’s been many years since I started participating in the Historical Sew Monthly projects, and as years have gone on, I’ve been able to participate less and less. For 2022, I only completed ONE of the twelve suggested themes, though given my mood, budget, Covid, and lack of participation in my local reenactment group (largely due to Covid, amoung other factors) I wasn’t really surprised to do so little towards the challenges.

However, each year I DO find the themes inspiring, so once again I’m making my “wish list” post, for the challenges for 2023.

Capsule collections – by colour

Crossing out colour combinations I don’t like

One of my current sewing objectives is to buy less fabric (and trims, etc) and focus on using up what I have first. When I built my capsule collection idea, that was really intending not just to make more cohesive “wardrobes” for each of the eras I was interested in costuming for, but also to make choices around the fabrics I already have acquired, and how I might use them – both for historical costuming, along with fantasy costuming and mundane or party clothing.

I was going through my boxes of fabrics recently, and realized that one of the things I could do to organize my stash better would be to allocate fabrics into their intended collections – for garments I already know I want to make.

15th Century Capsule Wardrobe

V-neck Burgundian gown worn with my red horned hennin

The next “Capsule Costume Collection” is another small one, but one that I think is perfect for doing as a capsule collection because there is the potential for multiple layers with certain styles, and I have created an abundance of amazing headdresses for this era.

German Costume Capsule Wardrobe

German Renaissance Cranach gown costume with gown, chemise, gollar, cap, sleeves, and hat.

A fairly poor contender for my capsule wardrobe collections is my German costume – namely because I only have one gown with a few accessories at the moment – it’s not a layering costume where pieces can be interchanged to create that “capsule” impact. As much as I utterly adore that gown – I don’t really foresee myself making another.

My existing costume is a Cranach style gown, but I also want to make a Landsknechte style costume as well. Since I have a lot of fabric ready for that outfit… and lots of other fabrics I need to weed out – I figured that it would be a good idea to at least brainstorm colour schemes for that outfit as well.

Byzantine Capsule

11th Century Byzantine costume

The next “Capsule Costume Collection” is another small one- I have two main outfits (and a few extra accessories and pieces) where some of the accessories play double-duty.

Byzantine Capsule Costume Collection

I didn’t originally think I’d end up making very many outfits in this area. I made the original for a thematic contest/fashion show (where I won first place in the advanced category!) and really liked it- but it’s so far out from the time frame I’m mostly interested in.  Then my friend from Adventures in Block Printing got an amazing Persian Prancing Pony block and lent it to me… and another outfit was born.