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This essay by Emmet Macfarlane goes over how the Prime Minister (elected by party members) and his apponinted Office have come to marginalize both parliament and the cabinet ministers in Canada https://emmettmacfarlane.substack.com/p/how-canadian-political-parties-select

Parliament has been prorogued until March 24 and an election is likely to be called shortly thereafter.  This will result in a Conservative majority and the Liberals holding just a few seats in big cities and parts of the Maritimes, but how many seats and with whom as leader can still be decided.  To change that outcome Justin Trudeau would have had to resign in summer 2023 and given the widespread anti-incumbent turn (and lukewarm enthusiasm for the Liberals) the Tories would almost certainly have formed the next government anyways.

In Canada the relevant legal category is Fair Dealing not Fair Use https://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/academic-integrity/copyright/fair-dealing  University libraries are often good sources of information on intellectual property and text in your jurisdiction.  They may even have someone who can talk to you if you have any connection with the university (and probably hold free public talks on intellectual property).

Some European countries claim that photos of public-domain works of art can be private domain.  Most jurisdictions disagree but it means that (for example) Italian museums are less likely to share their catalogues online than French museums or US museums.

The black cloth is wool coating that has passed through two people's stashes.  The red silk satin is from Sartor in Prague.

Continued from https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=7001.msg159305 Tired

Sleeve caps and sleeve fitting are rather tricky for me, too. In bespoke dressmaking I was taught to always add a few centimetres to the sleeve cap on a mockup sleeve and then pin/fit it in while you/the person is wearing the dress/jacket/whatever, so the few centimetres extra allow you to let out some length at the top if needed and provide you with a bit of wiggle room to make it sit right. And once it does, you mark the seam line and transfer that to the final pattern piece.

You cannot view this attachment.
Here's what I mean by adding a few centimetres (random sleeve I grabbed from the internet), usually 3-4 at the top of the sleeve and tapering at the sides. Crappy MS Paint picture, but you get the idea.

Then again, this is geared towards modern aesthetics on how a sleeve should fit, it might be vastly different for historical dress. The 18th century for example has a quite different sleeve look in women's dress due to the undergarments: A pair of stays usually will make your torso cone-shaped and draw your shoulders back, all of which impacts the fit, obviously.

If I am unsure whether a sleeve will fit am armhole, I add a wedge on either side of each lengthwise seam in the sleeve. 

I think suits and similar female clothing might not be the best point for a conversation between contemporary tailoring and other styles because most modern clothing has conventional sleeve caps / sleeve heads and armholes / armscyes, its just some formal styles with the very deep sleeve cap which creates problems for arm mobility unless you make other unconventional choices.

German and Austrian news sites tend to be terrible, endless trackers and login walls.  Müller und Sohne's website seems to come from the same school.  Their books would probably be easier to use.

Laying the red satin lining into the lapels with felling stitch.

You might like the pair Tailor's Tools and Tailors Illustrated.  Figuring how much of Gnagy's instructions comes from him and how much from his sources is a goal, the 16th/17th century Spanish books are hard to get on paper or in translation.  And I suspect that precision drafting based on right angles is a circa-19th-century thing but it works for beginners from my culture.

The couple of German pattern drafting books which I flipped through in Austria were not very helpful, lots of measurements and examples but not principles which work outside a few decades of one tradition of fashion.

One day I would like to make a suit coat without the unforgivable terrible ergonomics of the sleeve cap.  If I can't give a lecture or duel with a longsword, my clothes are not formal.

That website does not work for me, it is greyed out with a giant cookie warning with no option to reject all.

Edit: some back and forth about the various Müller books from 1860 onwards https://fashion-incubator.com/vintage_pattern_book_summary/ Maybe I will see if I can borrow one.

I believe that industrial patterns are laid out by computer with parts from many different sizes on the same piece of cloth. Then they are cut with bandsaws.  Commercial patterns often imitate those industrial patterns, even though the efficient way to cut and sew garments one or two at a time is not the same as the efficient way to make them one or two hundred at a time.

One problem is that good books on pattern drafting tend to be 70 or more years out of print, and training is supposed to be hit or miss.  I never found a book on pattern drafting which approaches the sleeve-armhole junction as an engineering problem.  Kathleen Fasanella has a book and some useful blog posts but she has applied education not academic education so her writing has a lot of unstated assumptions that I have trouble unpicking.

The biggest disadvantage of this cut is the long bias-to-bias seams which can stretch before they are sewn.  European cotes from say the third century CE to the fourteenth century CE tend to join mostly-rectangles to almost-triangles straight-to-bias which discourages stretching.  I also suspect that a heavy lining would help with the drape.

Jubal, I will get back to you when I have time and brain-space.  I remember something a year or two ago where you turned a forum post into a front-page post and IIRC linked my forum identity with my other identities. 

The way twitter shared everything you followed with the world was gross. 

Three yards of broadcloth is a basic minimum for a man's gown to the mid-shin in expense accounts and tailor's books from the 14th century to the 16th century. 

Thanks for the image, now I have a clearer picture in my mind. By Leonfelder you mean this, I suppose, that's a quite interesting source I think! And of course I'd be happy to read more about your sewing endeavours if you'd like to share them.

I didn't remember that that site has a full set of scans! I access the Leonfelder MS through barich-mcneally-drei-schnittbuecher That page actually shows a MAPP by SpinWorks Woops! 404 page on my laptop but I think its image 25 on my smartphone.



I have made two previous gowns in this cut since 2016 or so, both fully lined.  This one is black wool coating with the front opening lined with heavy red silk satin (I don't have enough satin to line the whole thing, and decided not to try other linings because nothing in my stash felt right).  The long seams are machine-stitched, the satin is laid in by hand and the shoulder seams and collar seams will probably be done by hand because eg. the front and back shoulder are different lengths.

The cutting strategy is:



Three yards of broadcloth is a basic minimum for a man's gown to the mid-shin in expense accounts and tailor's books from the 14th century to the 16th century. 

I would be happy to talk more but I would need confirmation from Jubal that he won't try to turn it into front-page post or an email.

I have a very visible and time-consuming web presence under my meatspace identity and I am tired. Either I can be conversational and frank, or I can be polished and my public self, its hard to be both.  And I am tired of people who want to cross the streams of my various identities and communities just because social media makes that easier.

I have people who want to have intimate conversations in WhatsApp of all places although at least that is not Googlable.  The idea that casual thoughts on current events or other people's writing should be preserved indefinitely feels wrong to me.

Seriously, there do seem to have been times when people in Ireland and Brittany mostly ate milk products and tree nuts, and agriculture was pretty limited.

Nice additions But what happens to the milk in Ireland?

You drink it and turn it into cheese and curds to eat, obviously?  You are not some wheat-growing, barley-eating weirdo like the hated invaders.

It was a dark and stormy day!  We opened stockings and Christmas presents, had the traditional cinnamon buns made from kits in cardboard tubes, and watched the animated "Mole's Christmas" from 1994.  Did a lot of hand sewing on the 14th-16th century gown I am making so I have a second winter coat.  Was not successful at ignoring the Internet, email, and social media.  Tried to find the right hard drive to back up my laptop on.  Took a call from $relative who is living out of province.  Turkey dinner.

The Christmas Day dinner with family in town has not happened in the COVID era but my mother will visit them in a few days. 

IRELAND: You steal two cows until someone across the bog steals them back.  The monks deplore this violence.  One day the Vikings / Normans / English take one of the cows and burn half the houses in the valley and say they will be back for the other cow next year.  The king says you should make him high king to fight the foreigners.  He is killed in battle and all of his wives find someone to keep them company.

If you are interested in electoral reform in Canada a good site is https://www.fairvote.ca/

A demonstration of the biggest issue with proportional representation is the riding of Timmins-James Bay: one of two ridings in Ontario with about the same size as the United Kingdom and a population under 100,000 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timmins%E2%80%94James_Bay_(federal_electoral_district)  But ranked ballots like in Australia would just cement the monopoly on power of the Liberals and Conservatives.

With this talk about changing leaders, a biography that foreigners should probably read is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Campbell

Electoral reform would be a very good thing and the PM could have easily implemented it during his first term.