Monday 22 February 2010

Pictures of St. Louis Shirt

I hang around on a few mailing lists and in a few groups, and usually I just lurk in there and read most of the posts. Sometimes I wonder whether it would not be a smart move to unsubscribe from most of those groups and lists, since I don't participate much and since there's often chatter that I find distracting. And then, once in a while, a real gem comes up that makes me glad again about my subscriptions.

A few days ago, such a gem turned up on the 75years mailing list, a list focusing on the years 1250-1325. In a conversation about SCA baron titles (which I almost didn't read, since it falls under "chatter" for me), Michael posted a link to his flickr album with pictures from the St. Louis shirt.

In case you do not know about this shirt, it is said to have belonged to St. Louis and is nowadays in Paris. There was a bit written about the shirt by Dorothy Burnham, but as far as I know, there is no in-depth research published yet.
As Michael writes in his post, the shirt is in the Notre Dame museum, on display and quite easy to see - and no-flash photography is permitted. That is what he made good use of. You can see the photos here on his flickr page - and thank you very much, Michael!

4 comments:

A Life Long Scholar said...

Not in-depth research, but have you seen this article? http://heatherrosejones.com/stlouisshirt/index.html Written by a friend of mine in California after she got a chance to look at it in a museum.

Teffania said...

Heather rose Jones's article is a great improvement on Dorathy Burnham's article, but these photos allow extra analysis.

For example, knowing that the armseye is sloped from Heather Rose Jone's article, the photos enable us to see that it's not a simple slope because the top of the armsceye angles back outwards again. (As noticed by michael poster of these photos)

Annother example is the bottom of the neckline.We already know that the binding forms a cross on the inside of the garment. And in fact in her photo we can see a third line - a vertical one following downwards from the point of the V. In the new phtos it can be seen more clearly. I was trying to bind a keyhole neckline the other day, using the cross method to end the binding, and it works, but not well. I was wondering if the trouble was it wasn't a V -shaped neckline, but this tiny detail gives me an alternative - the extra tuck taken out means that at the bottom of the binding there is actually fabric at the fold to cover, rather than trying to bind a raw edge. (I'm probably not explaining it well, but I can't wait to try that out on my next chemise)

Teffania said...

Oh, and when you follow a thread in the neck photo, the back has a straight grain, but the front V's away from the neck - it's like a slit open neck combined with a narrow v neck to create a wide v neck.
So cool.

a stitch in time said...

Thanks for the reminder about Heather Rose Jones' article - yes, I know that one, and I should have mentioned it in the post, so thanks for covering me : )

Teffania, yes, it's an amazing neckline. Ah, so many things that would be cool to sew, yet so little time...