Re: [h-cost] formula for spiral lacing
Now I've wondered more than 2 hours why you would need to wonder 2 hours! No one else has posted to ask about this, so I guess I will: Where was your difficulty originally, that made you come up with this formula? It sounds like the formula determines distance between holes based on the number of holes. But I would determine the spacing of the holes first, and the number of holes would be however many I needed at that spacing. I frankly wouldn't know how many holes I was going to use till I was done, and I don't think I've ever bothered to count them. It's the spacing I care about. Well, I make a larger distance between the holes, at least 1inch, so if I started marking the holes from the top to the bottom, in the bottom there might be an either too small or too large distance from the center front seam. That wouldn't, I guess, look very good. So that's why I first mark the first and last hole, then measure the distance, say how many holes I want (to make approx. the distance between them I want) and calculate the exact distance between the holes. I admit, it really sounds complicated, but for me it's not and I'm sure that the last hole will be in the right place. By the way, the making of that formula didn't take me more than 5 minutes, I just wondered a bit about how do I actually calculate it and put it into a formula. But if you place holes even under the center front seam (that means the holes are in place where there is no opening any more, did I get that right?), then your method is surely easier. I actually never even thought about placing the holes there. I never had the chance to go to a museum where I could see a dress with spiral lacing clearly in detail. So that's why I didn't even think about it:-)) Now when thinking about it, I don't only make medieval dresses, I make corsets and other garments of later periods where I use spiral lacing. And there it's sometimes important to have the first and last hole in the right place, so that's maybe why I'm making it all so difficult:-) Something I do before I start all of this: I baste a line down each edge, exactly 1/2 or 5/8 inch from the edge and parallel to it. When I mark my eyelets, my marking lines cross the basting line, forming a + . The eyelets go on those intersections. The basting helps keep the lining and the main fabric from getting off-kilter while I sew the eyelets. I remove the basting after the eyelets are sewn. I do that, too. Zuzana - Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta. ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] formula for spiral lacing
On Wed, 16 Aug 2006, Zuzana Kraemerova wrote: But if you place holes even under the center front seam (that means the holes are in place where there is no opening any more, did I get that right?), then your method is surely easier. I actually never even thought about placing the holes there. I never had the chance to go to a museum where I could see a dress with spiral lacing clearly in detail. So that's why I didn't even think about it:-)) To my knowledge, there are no existing dresses from my period (14th-15th c.) complete enough to tell us about the front lacing. We have some survivals of garment edges with lacing holes, but we don't know what kinds of garments they came from. We have some garments with intact lacing holes in other uses (e.g. a Herjolfsnes garment with a few holes at the neckline). But no center front openings that show how the lacing holes related to the end of the opening. There are a number of useful sculptures, brasses, and paintings that show spiral lacing down the center front, but when the dress is depicted as laced-up, you can't see where the holes go in relation to the edge or the bottom seam. For practical purposes, though, on a full-length fitted dress, you can start that opening a little higher or lower if you want to put it in a particular relationship to the eyelets. Even if you've already sewn the lower front part together, if you're hand-sewing, it's a trivial matter to add or remove a few stitches after you've marked your eyelets or even after you've sewn them. If you're machine-sewing, you might have to make that adjustment by hand -- but of course the medieval seamstress wouldn't have had that consideration, and the style developed using medieval techniques as parameters, not modern ones. One of the nice things about spiral lacing is that it enables the sides to overlap, as the lace does not pass between the two garment edges; it wraps around them, turning them into a solid column. If that column includes the outer layer, the lining, and the seam allowances for both turned to the inside, and all that on each of two edges that overlap into a single stack, that makes a narrow line of eight layers of fabric wrapped around with a lace -- almost as strong as boning, but flexible, and it resists gapping. To encourage that overlap, I sew the center front seam with the overlap already in place, so that there isn't a pucker at the bottom of the laced area. And if the overlap is built into the bottom of the opening, it's very easy to continue the holes slightly past the point at which the opening is sewn shut. The point at which it changes from sewn-closed to laced-closed is invisible. Now when thinking about it, I don't only make medieval dresses, I make corsets and other garments of later periods where I use spiral lacing. And there it's sometimes important to have the first and last hole in the right place, so that's maybe why I'm making it all so difficult:-) On a corset, bodice, or anything else where the lacing has to end at the end of the garment or at a waist seam, you definitely need to have the last hole at a certain place. I'd daresay, though, that for earlier garments, the holes may end up being a bit uneven in distance to accomplish that, reflecting a laxity in measuring. By the 18th or 19th century, I'd not be surprised to see them more precisely measured. And for the decorative sorts of lacings -- say, on a German or Italian Renaissance bodice, particularly the ones where a carefully arranged open front lacing is a design element -- I'd also expect the measurements to be more precise. --Robin ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] formula for spiral lacing
I always thought this site said it all. http://www.festiveattyre.com/research/lacing/lacing.html Well, I make a larger distance between the holes, at least 1inch, so if I started marking the holes from the top to the bottom, in the bottom there might be an either too small or too large distance from the center front seam. That wouldn't, I guess, look very good. So that's why I first mark the first and last hole, then measure the distance, say how many holes I want (to make approx. the distance between them I want) and calculate the exact distance between the holes. I admit, it really sounds complicated, but for me it's not and I'm sure that the last hole will be in the right place. By the way, the making of that formula didn't take me more than 5 minutes, I just wondered a bit about how do I actually calculate it and put it into a formula. But if you place holes even under the center front seam (that means the holes are in place where there is no opening any more, did I get that right?), then your method is surely easier. I actually never even thought about placing the holes there. I never had the chance to go to a museum where I could see a dress with spiral lacing clearly in detail. So that's why I didn't even think about it:-)) Now when thinking about it, I don't only make medieval dresses, I make corsets and other garments of later periods where I use spiral lacing. And there it's sometimes important to have the first and last hole in the right place, so that's maybe why I'm making it all so difficult:-) Something I do before I start all of this: I baste a line down each edge, exactly 1/2 or 5/8 inch from the edge and parallel to it. When I mark my eyelets, my marking lines cross the basting line, forming a + . The eyelets go on those intersections. The basting helps keep the lining and the main fabric from getting off-kilter while I sew the eyelets. I remove the basting after the eyelets are sewn. I do that, too. Zuzana - Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta. ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] formula for spiral lacing
Zuzana wrote: I've made up a formula for how to calculate the distance between the holes in spiral lacing: y = x/b + x/(2b2) ydistance between two holes xlength of the opening, from the first hole to the last bnumber of holes (without the 1/2 distance hole) It may sound a bit weird, but it's much quicker to use this formula then to wonder 2 hours about how to make the holes. Now I've wondered more than 2 hours why you would need to wonder 2 hours! No one else has posted to ask about this, so I guess I will: Where was your difficulty originally, that made you come up with this formula? It sounds like the formula determines distance between holes based on the number of holes. But I would determine the spacing of the holes first, and the number of holes would be however many I needed at that spacing. I frankly wouldn't know how many holes I was going to use till I was done, and I don't think I've ever bothered to count them. It's the spacing I care about. In other words: I've learned that to make a non-gapping opening down the front of my fitted dresses, I need to place the holes about 5/8 or 3/4 inch apart. (Not coincidentially, this is the width of my finger.) So, I start at the top. I go just below the area of the seam allowances (which are folded inside the lining and trimmed) and mark the first hole with a sharp chalk line or a sharp pencil line. Then I mark the rest of them, one at a time, one finger-width apart. I do the marking on the inside, with the dress turned inside-out. I do this down to the end of the opening and usually put one more hole past the point where the center seam begins. (I've already sewn the center front so that there's a slight overlap, but that's a nicety and not absolutely necessary.) Then I hold the unmarked edge up next to the marked edge, just as they will lie in wear. I mark the first hole at the same point, straight across from its mate. Then I go down half a fingerwidth and mark another hole. (This is easy to eyeball.) I continue then at one finger-width apart, always watching the opposite side to make sure I'm staying at the midpoints between the first set of marks, on the opposite side. At the bottom, I leave them uneven. The lacing cord eventually will come through whichever bottom hole sits lower, after being fastened on the inside of the garment on the opposite side, at the same level as the lower hole (meaning the lace will be fastened a little below the last hole on that side). I do all the marking before I sew because sewing the eyelets can change the stretch/tension of the fabric and interfere with the evenness of the measurements. Something I do before I start all of this: I baste a line down each edge, exactly 1/2 or 5/8 inch from the edge and parallel to it. When I mark my eyelets, my marking lines cross the basting line, forming a + . The eyelets go on those intersections. The basting helps keep the lining and the main fabric from getting off-kilter while I sew the eyelets. I remove the basting after the eyelets are sewn. Once you're used to this method, you don't need pins or measuring tape, though I only abandoned those a little while ago, after many dresses. It's really simpler now. The more I sew, the less I measure. It's quite likely that 14th-century seamstresses did not use measuring tapes marked in numerical increments. (If anyone has any evidence that they did, let me know. The closest I've heard of are tapes with a specific person's body measurements marked on it, for reference, but even that appears to be rather later, and something that tailors used when sewing independently of the wearer's body.) --Robin Robin Netherton This is my webmail box. Please reply to [EMAIL PROTECTED]. ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
