When I first started my original blog, I built this post. I'm putting here for more public access.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll start sewing again now that we've moved, and I'll post stuff about it here.

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Someone just sent me an email about Swabian gowns - and I thought I'd use my spanky new recording system to put up some images, and have a chat about the dresses.

The Goddess Myra first coined the phrase "Swabian", based on one of the images she found. It's stuck since then, although I'm not entirely sure that it would be an appropriate term for all of the beaded sleeve frocks. Then again, she reads a lot more than I do!

Most of the images I found of beaded sleeve gowns were from about 1490-1500. Roughly.


This was the first image I found, and very soon after (about 100 pages in the same book, I think) I found two more. She is "portrait of a lady of the order of the swan, 1500" (although I have also seen 1460s attatched to this image).
I have a theory that this is Beatrix Frangapan. I might go into that later.











This is Ursula Greckin, circa 1500. This is a very different dress shape - Myra's inspiration, I believe? She does a beautiful job: http://www.myra.hem.nu/costume/ (hope she doesn't mind!)








This is Barbara Wespach, half of a diptich showing her and her husband. 1500. I love her hat:

So much so that I made a copy of the bead work. I wish I'd had time to make the black stripes too:

Well, that was a beautiful example of formatting! I wonder what it will look like...

Finally, a tiny black and white image in the back of a German Portraits book gave me a design I liked. A few years later, I found the image in colour, and discovered that the dress was RED, not black!! Boy was I excited!

She's a bit hard to see here. The kneeling figures, bottom right -
In gold: Markgrafin Sophia, Princess of Poland
In red, and parti-coloured black/green: Margarete, Sophia, Anna and Elisabeth, her daughters.
Sophia was the Markgrafin of Brandenberg.

The image is from the REVERSE of the altarpiece in the Swan Chapel of St. Gumbertus in Ansbach - the larger image is here:
http://www.schwanenorden.de/Bilder9.htm





So this is my first version - testing the pattern, and my beading skills. There is a piece that covers the bust - like a brestfluck - and the red 'banner' is felt. It was quite an experience. I've never been happy with the amount of beading though. I always felt that there should be more.

And here's a very bad photo of me, in MarkII.

And here's the sleeve, beaded but still on the frame. If I'd had the time, I would have kept on going. Gold lattice work on the 'land', smaller tendrils on the roots, more spangles. Maybe even more tree. It took 3 weeks to do - that includes about 4 days off school. The banner says "Rowani", which is the name of the SCA barony I live in, albeit misspelt.

There are a few other examples of beading on single sleeves in German artwork that I have found since then.
The Babenberger family tree (as found on Mrya's web site - see, told you she was a goddess!) shows a few women in dresses with beaded sleeves.

For example:

Thoman Burgkmair

1515? I think?