Mi Contra Fa

Merovingian clothing

Where to start.

1. I recently discovered "my" colors, shades that really look good on me.  I wanted to refresh my garb wardrobe a little, to try and reflect this.
2. When I started in the SCA, I mostly wore shirts and pants.  I didn't want to be a noble lady, I wanted to be a swashbuckling adventurer.  I've received confirmation from  multiple sources that, when I do wear shirts and pants, I seem more myself.
   1. Masculine garb could be an option, but I also loves me my jewelry.
   2. Neo-Celtic was really big in the barony I joined in the 90s, and I retain an affection for plaids worn with a ton of amber.  But see #3 below.
3. I wrestle with "the only thing required is AN ATTEMPT at pre-17th cen clothing" and "when you know better, do better." 
   1. I don't judge people whose SCA interests are not clothes-related, and who buy something plausible from a merchant and call it a day
   2. But I also appreciate how far we've come in improving our costuming
4. I have a LOT of gear suitable for a 6th/7th century lady of Kent, which just so happens to be fairly close to the gear needed for a lady of the Merovingian Empire.
5. Reconstructions of Merovingian (noble) women's dress vary, but the presence of ornate buckles on the feet and mid-shins have led some archaeologists to reconstruct their gowns as calf-length, and worn with linen hose or leg coverings.  These may not be the best or most recent reconstructions, but I see European re-enactors sporting the look.

So my current plan is to use some of the fabric in my stash to make a calf-length tunic, and pair it either with one of my three existing caftans, or else I have some wool (in one of "my" colors... ish, the monitor lied to me somewhat) to make a second winter-weight one that fits better than the diamond twill.  (The fabric on that one is spectacular, but the cut and fit... not so much.)  I'll wear it either with gartered trousers or knee hose and see how I like the look.

I have some linen in a 'natural' shade that's cooler than I'd ideally like, but I think it'll be okay.  I have a silk tie with geometric patterns that I scored at a thrift store a while back - I think I may use it for edging the neck and cuffs, if I can turn it into enough bias tape for the job.

If I like the look, I can take it further:

Suvia's LJ post on extant garments

Suvia's blog with her Arnegunde reconstruction

A reconstruction of royal tablet-woven bands

Pictures from a trip to the museum where the Chelles relics are kept

Close-up photo of the silk from Bertille's burial gown. More pre-1000 textiles including the Bathild embroidery.  Home page of photographer.

Tablet-weaving pattern for the bands on Bertille's gown.

The utter ridiculousness of the measurements of Le Grand Robe

A recent paper on Merovingian graves and reconstructions (in French)

SCA paper on Merovingian dress, requires login

20-year old chapter from the Met on Merovingian brooches

1997 paper on... I don't know, it's in German, but the pictures are of reconstructions

From the Grez office of tourism, information on their necropolis and the Lady of Grez (in French)

SCA paper on the Princess of Zweeloo, sign in required

 

 

 

Incan Tunic - Completed

Well, that was an adventure.

Dyeing the Fabric

I hemmed both pieces all the way around prior to dyeing, because I had time before I could go dye shopping.  This might not have been the best idea.

The dyeing did not go as expected.  The orange piece dyed just fine.  The dark blue-black lost almost all its color after the rinse, remaining a (lovely, but not what I was looking for) dove grey.  I used enough dye for the fabric by weight, so what was the  problem?  I didn't use the Rit Dye Fixative, so maybe that was it.  I bought a bottle and did it all over again, this time in the washing machine (because my shoulder got sore from all the stirring.)

Same. Darn. Thing. Only now with a few color blotches. Sigh. I went ahead and used the grey fabric.

Sewing the Tunic

Pinning the orange "interfacing" to the longer grey "undertunic" was harder than I expected.  Here is where pre-hemming the fabric was a bad idea, as the edges did not always exactly line up. I did my best to fold and fiddle things into alignment. I sewed around the neck slit first, cut it open, flipped the orange through, and then sewed down the orange on the outside.  The neck slit wanted to rip, so I reinforced each end with some buttonhole stitch (on my machine).  I suspect on the original, this was woven in.

I turned it inside out again and sewed up one side, keeping about a 5/8" seam allowance except where I wanted the armhole to stop.  I angled out to the very edge of the fabric there. See, since the layers were already hemmed, I wouldn't be folding them under. If I'd just stopped without angling it out, there would have been a 5/8" step from the seam to the sleeve.

Turning it right-side out, I laid the yellow ribbon down along the waist at this point.  I used a commercial yellow satin ribbon, I think 1.25" wide.  Obviously not period, but I was not up for dyeing a long strip of cotton yellow just for this.

Inside out again, to sew up the other side and tuck the ribbon edges under themselves to prevent fraying.  Then, because the hem wasn't even, fold up one side so that it was.

Cats!

My wool felt arrived in time.  I blew up the image of the cat and used it as a pattern.  The yellow eyes were more of the yellow ribbon, stabilized with Wonder-Underish stuff.

The cats were all sewn together. I have lots of experience sewing felt faces, thanks to my son's insatiable need for felt plush toys!  Yellow eyes to red eyes to face; white teeth to red mouth to face.  I considered needle-felting the pieces together, but I don't have a lot of experience with that, and the examples I've seen of it didn't have crisp lines. 

Cultural Appropriation Panic!

It was at about this time that I stopped to wonder if these were jaguars.  I still don't know a lot about Incan culture, but I'm pretty sure jaguars were sacred animals.  Was I making the equivalent of priestly vestments for casual wear?

I did a quick Google search for jaguars in Incan art.  They uniformly look different, with large fangs always represented at either side of the mouth.  Plus, there are several species of smaller wildcats in South America.  The Pampas cat can have a black coloring, and its (modern) range includes the Rio Ica region where this tunic is from. 

So... okay.  I might still be doing something wrong, but at least it's not the sort of big, obvious thing.

Finishing

The only thing left was to attach the cats to the tunic.  I seem to have gotten the proportion slightly off - when I positioned the cats with their faces about the right distance apart, I had more margin by the sleeves.  I am okay with that.  One cat got sewed down.  I got impatient with the other cat and Wonder Under-ed it.

Accessories

Wikipedia and other lousy Internet sources describe the llawt'u headdress as 'cords wrapped around the head' or 'a turban.'  Most of the images on the Internet are only from the front, and show something like a wide headband. Sometimes there are ornaments at the center forehead.

I found some great pictures of Inti Raymi, a re-enactment of an Incan sun festival in Peru. While many of the photos center on the more spectacularly-dressed nobles, here are as close to some 'regular guys' as I could find. In one or two images, I thought I saw a simple tie in the back. 

I tried a Storvik llawt'u, with a red and white striped band and a drekkar ornament.  It... did not really go with the tunic. At all.  So I got a piece of trim with appropriate-ish geometric designs.  The feathers were bought for quill-making but have found new life.

Fringe at knees and/or ankles seems to be a thing in the pictures from the manuscript linked to last time. I bought some nylon fringe in red - doesn't really go with the tunic but I also wanted fringe for another project and red it is. I stripped some of the fringe from the ends of two lengths and tied them on at the knee.

Sandals were of llama rawhide. Not having any to hand, I'm substituting in a pair of Roman (?I think? Sylvanus Perrin made them ages ago) leather sandals.  I also found a pair of gold leaf-shaped earrings - big round circles would be better, but I don't have any.

 Some more resources, for future reference:

https://archive.org/details/elreinodelosinc00vegagoog

https://books.google.com/books?id=PQYQruNKzaYC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://www.peru.travel/en-us/what-to-do/festivities-and-events/inti-raymi.aspx

Incan tunic

Goal: A low-fidelity reproduction of a 15th-17th cen. Incan tunic.  Part of an effort to bring diversity to A&S. Also fun for Halloween.

Background: All the information I have directly about this tunic comes from its webpage at the Met. I've downloaded two of the three exhibition guides mentioned, but none of them have any more information on it - just a picture and the snips of info already given. It's cotton and camelid wool.  Other tunics in the same style in the Met collection are camelid wool only, with patterns woven into them.  The look like they're one piece - taken off the loom and worn, like a lot of very early European styles.  I don't think that's true of this one, though.  Looking at the right side of the picture, where the yellow band is - it seems to clearly overlay itself. It couldn't do that if it were part of the weaving.  There's also a hint of blue underneath the orange layer, showing at the arm hole. I'm not sure if that's an artifact of the picture, or if this is a blue tunic with an orange overlay, with the yellow band covering the seam.  The orange also seems to gather into the yellow band at the left side.  Again, might be because it's a 600-year old shirt.  But I'm tentatively thinking this is two pieces, joined at the middle with the seam covered. 

This is a men's tunic.  The Met has two women's dresses (one) (two).  This is from Dress One's page:

Women's wraparound dresses, made in the Andes of southern Peru during late preconquest centuries, were worn pinned at one shoulder and held in place by a wide belt. Basically such dresses when worn were large rectangles that were folded over at the top to form a kind of wide collar or double bodice. Those with panels of an intricately repeated pattern top and bottom, such as this example that is folded over at the top, were carefully balanced visually, the wide panels effectively framing the ordered diagonal elements in the center. Consistant with the Chuquibamba textile style, this dress is thought to have been woven in the southern Andean region near Arequipa, and to have been contemporary with Inca textiles that were made within a similar highland textile tradition. It was a tradition based on the use of camelid hair, here probably alpaca, with a design program of small scale repeated elements, and strong color of closely related hue. Two shades of red, a dark blue, and a dark green, were used here, all of which are well set off by a gleaming white.

The Chuquibamba textile style has only recently been distinguished from the larger body of Inca work, and women's dresses isolated from among other large rectangular pieces that have been called mantles.

Random Internet Sources have said the dresses pinned on both shoulders, like peplos.  I could see either being worn, to be honest.  The one near-contemporary image I've found of a woman in a dress without a mantle is in profile and only shows one shoulder:

This is from El primer nueva crónica y buen gobierno (The First New Chronicle and Good Government).  The whole thing, all 1200 pages of it, is available online, with transcriptions of the text that Google Translate kinda sorta works on.  Guaman Poma, the author, was a Quechua noble, writing in the early 17th century (the book was finished around 1615). He wrote and illustrated the book, which contains a biblical history, then a history of the Incan peoples before the Spanish came, and then chronicles their mistreatment by the Spanish. He sent it to the Spanish king to protest their treatment.  It is a handwritten manuscript, but Poma followed the typesetting conventions of his day (including the black and white pictures) in the hopes that the manuscript would be published.  It was not, and it somehow ended up in the Danish Royal Library, where it was found in the early 20th century.

Most of the pictures of women in the book are of queens.  They are just about always (so far - I'm only 400 pages in) shown with a mantle pinned over the top of the dress:

When drawn from the front like this, the dress is consistently rendered with those two lines near either side, as if showing the fabric overlapping or perhaps seams.  When shown from the side, these aren't evident. 

On the other hand, the drawing style is clearly heavily influenced by European models.  Some of the dogs and critters wouldn't look out of place in an average 13th-14th century bit of marginalia.  Drapery (like skirts) looks a lot like illuminations in European manuscripts.

All of that is a lead-up to say that I don't think the cat tunic would make a good dress.  The design and decoration of ladies' dresses appears to be very different from men's tunics.

Methods and Materials:

The cat tunic measures 31" wide by 41.5" long.  My plan is to make it slightly wider (because I am fat) and a smidge longer (so it reaches about to my knees).  I'd feel comfortable wearing that in mixed company.

I am assuming (the Met gives no detail, and my email has gone unanswered) that the tunic is cotton and the confronted cats are camelid wool felt.  Their other tunics are wool, but this one is also from the Rio Ica area.  This is near the coast, where Random Internet Sources say that cotton was more often worn. This sort of makes sense - it's cold in the Andes mountains, not so much on the Pacific coast.  And felt cut-outs wouldn't fray.  Also, I don't want to wear wool next to my skin.

I am not sure if I want one large blue tunic with orange on top, or two pieces sewn together to make one layer.  Given that it can get chilly in October... maybe a full blue tunic would be better.

I have a high thread count white cotton sheet that has a luster similar to that seen in the picture of the tunic.  I don't know what the weave ought to be, but the image of the backstrap weaver seems to show four shed bars, so a twill isn't out of the question.  I bought some Rit dye in orange and indigo to dye it.  For the yellow, I got a 1" yellow synthetic satin ribbon.  I've ordered black, red and white wool felt for the cats, crossing my fingers it gets here ahead of Harvest Wars.  I think their yellow eyes will be made from the ribbon too.

My plan is:

• Today, cut out the full tunic and the top overlay.  Weigh them, wash them, dye them, rinse them, dry them.
• Hem blue fabric all the way around.
• Sew orange to blue like the world's largest interfacing around the neck slit.
• Turn right sides out; press orange seam allowances under.  Sew orange onto blue.  (I may need to get orange thread.)
• Apply ribbon over join on either side.
• Wait for felt to come in the mail. Stress.  Print out a template for the cats, enlarge.
• Cut out felt cats, stitch together (probably by hand).  Stitch to tunic.
• Stitch up sides to tunic to at least the yellow ribbon, possibly higher for modesty reasons.

 

 

Viking silk cap

My new hat is done!

This hat is in the Coppergate or Dublin cap family - simple rectangles. It's silk like Coppergate, but pointy-headed like Dublin.  It's "inspired by" rather than a direct reconstruction.

Materials

The fabric is an old silk shirt.  The decorative braids are silk.  The ties are linen whipcords. Stitching was done with silk thread.

Sewing

I left in the existing flat felled seam that was used to construct the shirt - it runs up the back of the hat.  I also left the original hem around the bottom, but turned it up, tacked it down and covered the edge with one of the blue silk braids.  I did this because the fabric of the original hem was fraying in places at the edge.

The hat got made twice. The first time, it was too large.  I repinned it and resewed it, and now it may be a touch too short.  The front edges were originally rolled, but had to be double-folded to take in more fabric and even things out.  The top seam is a modern French seam.  Sewing was all done by hand.

Whipcording

I whipcorded four lengths of thick linen thread together to make the ties.  I used Shaker pegs for the bobbins - they are shown below, used for braiding.  I was able to suspend them from a short rod held under my arm and manipulate them with two hands to do the whipcording.  They are sewn on with red silk thread, and the ends that are attached to the hat have a sort of aglet made from buttonhole stitches.  The free ends are knotted.

Braiding

I used a closed cell foam pillow, two pins, and six Shaker pegs to do the braiding:

The silk is secured with a half-hitch at the top of each bobbin to keep them from unraveling.  I found that this method kept my fine silk threads well-organized and under more constant tension.  The braid came out much better than when I try to free-hand it.

For the first braid (around the bottom of the cap), I stuck a pin through the braid when I had to secure the work.  This distorted the braid and left it wiggly.  The second braid, used for the two lines around the face opening, was secured just by wrapping the free end around two pins in a figure 8:

You can't see the cross-overs, but those are figure-8s.  This was surprisingly secure, even when carried from room to room.  I might have been lucky, and if I were taking it in the car, I would have definitely secured it with something stronger than friction.

It is sewn onto the cap with a running stitch (with a backstitch here and there).

Result

This might be my first selfie.

#nofilter

The silk looks much nicer in-person.  The shape and fit of the hat are pretty much as-shown.

Conclusions

1. Review sources before beginning work, even if not interested in officially authenticating the work. 
2. Use bobbins for making long braids.
3. Careful pinning and ironing makes a nicer finished pieces, yes really!
4. Wash face before taking selfies!

 

1/8/2017

(These are some notes I took. I didn't make them into a blog post because omg, Facebook people might come by to read it and this isn't very interesting, is it?  I should save it and make a final write up! ...but then I realized that no, I really want to keep all the fiddly details and pondering, even the ones that wouldn't make it into a final report.)

Comparing the various threads and yarns I have, I decided to go with the thicker linen thread.  (Is it 20/2? 40/2? It's not labeled, but a similar hank is.)  I did a whipcord sampler, then decided I liked how the thread looked when they twisted together.  I did that, knotting both ends, and the thing promptly (mostly) untwisted. Rather than go into an extended search to find out why this was, I just went back and whipcorded instead.  The ties are going to be mostly behind my head, so how they look isn't really of utmost importance.

To do the whipcording, I used two double-length pieces of string.  I folded them in half and used a larks-head knot to secure them to that hand distaff I was wondering what to do with. :)  Then each of the (now four) dangling thread ends was tied to a shaker peg, wound onto the peg, and secured with a half-hitch.  I rolled the whipcord onto the distaff as it got too long.  Worked great! I also found that the whipcording went faster and more cleanly when I leaned forward a bit as I sat.

First hat post.

Second hat post.

Spinning and Dyeing

Spinning

I picked up a drop spindle at the MD Sheep and Wool Festival, and have been spinning uneven beginner yarn on it.  I also tried to make a small spindle, using a bamboo skewer and a flat, round bead I bought at the Swedish History Museum gift shop.  It worked kind of okay - I think the spindle needs to be shorter, and after a while, the bead started falling off.

I'm still working on the mechanics of it.  I've been over to 15th Century Spinning and Spin Like a Viking, but haven't really studied how they're doing it - just been muddling along with memories and my gear. Now that I've dug up those URLs for this post, I'll go back and pay closer attention. This is why research journals are good!

(I don't have a spinning tag or a general textile arts tag, so I've put this under Weaving.)

Dyeing

While working on our Garb Wars entry, Meisterin Johanna made a mock-up tunic that fits me beautifully.  It is a, ah, vibrant shade of coral pink.  She recommended I try tea dyeing it if I wanted to mute it.

I brewed a strong cup (~4 bags to 12 oz water) of tea and put a wet scrap of the fabric in, then let sit overnight and dry. It turned out a lovely dusty rose with orange undertones.  So I got a 3-gal pot, put in about 2 gallons of water and boiled it.  Then 11 'family sized' tea bags (each does a quart of tea) - pretty much all I had in the house.  Low simmer for an hour, then in with the wet dress.  

I didn't put the dress in carefully, and air got caught in the wet fabric. Poking with a spoon got out some but not all, so I put another pot on top of it to weigh it down.  I lowered the heat so that the tea was steaming - later, I tried to return it to a simmer, and the air in the dress expanded and it started poking out of the tea, so I turned it back down.  I think I left it on the heat for about an hour, then turned it off and let it sit practically 24 hours.  (Overnight + work the next day.)

I dumped the whole pot into the washing machine, and did a cold rinse and spin, then into the dryer on low heat to try and set the dye.

Looks great! No blotches, very nice color.  The trim I used is somewhat stiff, and I think I'll look for some linen twill tape to replace it, or I'll cut some bias tape. Something softer.

Garb Wars prep

We're doing Birka for Garb Wars, and I get to be the model! Which means I get to shop for the supplies. 

I have most of what we'll need already, but my only linen is heavy. That's on purpose, I bought it for undergowns, and I don't want them see-through. But I needed some handkerchief weight linen for a veil.  Off to G Street Fabrics! Linen acquired.

I wanted to buy silk brocade, but they had nothing appropriate.  The brocades were mostly rayon and Orientalizing; the bridal silk twill was plain white and $100/yard!  Lovely, but no.  There's an ecclesiastical fabric vendor I may hit up, or we could skip this. The silk would be used only for binding the top of the smokkr and/or making a hanging strap for Stuff Hanging from Brooches.  There are alternate ways to bind the smokkr, and alternate ways of making hanging straps (including making a bronze link chain).

We are planning on making a cloak/shawl, and in the interests of making it more interesting than a hemmed rectangle of fabric, I thought I'd look at the faux fur.  ZOMG.  This is not the fake fur I remember.  It was so soft.  Also, the remnant pieces were $40/yard, down from $60.  I stared at the piece of... ermine? I dunno, it was white with a 1/2" pile, but I have no idea how it would work with the wool suiting we have for the cloak, or if there's any info on what fur was used for the Mammen cloak or... and it was a lot of money.  Also, it's rare that a seriously heavy cloak is needed or packed for an SCA event.  But so soft.  I may try to come up with a project just to justify buying something.  (Coverlet?) In the future, because I think I've spent all my fabric money for a while.

I also grabbed some diamond twill!  Tiny diamonds - smaller even than the ones Alfrun ketta had at KASF that were to period scale.  So maybe too small. But they were, if not monochrome, then only really really subtly two-color (I have to check more closely).  And it's wool suiting again.  Still!  Yay diamond twill.

So I bought the linen because there's a Birka find that's interpreted as a brocaded band and linen veil.  I have fine silk in the house, and maybe I should have just used that, but must be anal retentive.  Although on second thought, I've been wanting a linen veil for a while.  All my veils are currently either cotton or Random Modern Stuff from Target.

 

Skjoldehamn-ish Hood

While back, I stumbled upon the Skjoldehamn Hood, which is from Viking Age Norway. I got fairly deep into the online weeds about it, but took no notes.  I like hoods - they are useful layers, especially in the rain, but most of them are later period. This is the only one I've seen so far from the Saxon/Norse region.  So this is more about "I would like a hood" and less about "let's create an authentic re-creation of this hood!"

I had been saving an old suede skirt that was made up of four larger and four smaller square-ish panels.  I deconstructed it and pieced it back together as the hood.

My new hood

3/4 view

 

I started this a year or so ago. I think at the time, I was doing a double running stitch, and it took forever. (I was also trying to use the existing holes in the leather, rather than poke new ones.)  I came across the bag of parts today, and just went straight running stitch. Finished it in an afternoon. 

Meisterin Johanna recommended that I open up the back of the hood to set the rear gore a bit higher, to make the hood fit my head (it was too tall).  I did this, and it works well. The original hood did have a sort of cockscomb feature - I wonder if this was a different way of making the hood the right head-height?

It's a little wonky around the neck, probably the result of the squares being "the size I had" rather than "the right size," but I'll wear it for a bit and see if it's a problem.

Bog Shirt

There's a simple pattern handweavers like to use to make shirts, because it's zero-waste.  It's explained over here, and it's based on a Bronze Age Danish bog find.

I've struggled to explain the form of the Kentish overcoat to myself. If you use the standard period T-tunic construction, then you make a gown and slit it up the front.  That seems... weird.  Not impossible - in fashion, so little is impossible - but definitely weird, when in general the watchwords in early costuming are "save fabric."

I remembered this pattern today.  The two edges that fold in under the arms are selvage. You'd want to cut a slit from the neck through to meet them, but that's it.  

The few pictures I've seen of people wearing this have not been very impressive - very boxy. Not surprising, as it has absolutely no tailoring - no gores, nothing to shape it.  I may try drafting this up out of crap fabric and see how it works.

Pleated (?) undergown

Feeding my caftan obsession...

Sources for Anglo-Saxon women's clothing in the conversion period is scanty.  There's some good stuff, but you're in the awkward period when they were starting to bury folks in Christian shrouds, but before a lot of manuscript illuminations are getting made.  One source Gale Owen-Crocker points to is the Genoels-Elderen ivories, which have a scene of the Visitation.  I don't want to yank the photographer's picture, but here's a link to a really good shot.  Mary and Elizabeth are wearing open-fronted long jackets with decorated edges and bands on the arms (or the jackets are short-sleeved, and also decorated gown sleeves are showing - you really can't tell).  They have on long rectangular (I think?) veils, open at the neck, which look like they may be worn over a coif of some kind. They wear narrow belts over their jackets.

The current focus of my interest, though, are the undergowns, which are gathered or pleated across the front.  I'm not sure if this is an actual fashion feature, or an artistic tradition - earlier Mediterranean models for this image show more Classical-style drapery with lots of folds.  On the other hand, this is pretty detailed and tallies well with Ottonian fashions (as far as the placement of decorative bands on the arms and such goes).  

I poked around the Internet a little bit, reading up on pleat types.  Cartridge pleats or simple gathering seems like the most likely thing for early stuff.  All the knife pleats and box pleats seem to be 15th or 16th century.

I have some heavy white linen I've been saving for an undergown, and I tried cartridge pleating a section of it.  The result was not that great.  The folds in the ivory seem pretty big, and the cartridge pleats went in pretty small.  And then they poufed out immediately, so that there wasn't much of a "fold" look going down the cloth.  Also, not sure if a pleated/gathered front will be a good look on a short fat lady.

Alternatively, it might work better on a finer or lighter fabric.

Addendum: I looked at some of the other figures on the ivory and have two thoughts:

1. Everyone has folds and pleats, even Jesus' tunic. It may just be an artistic way of denoting "loose fabric."
2. Mary in the Annunciation panel seems to have a lot in common with Book of Kells Mary from a few weeks ago.  Same hood-sort of looking thing.  Should consider a closer comparison later.

Distraction: Book of Kells gown

Although stylized, the image of the Virgin Mary in the Book of Kells is surprisingly detailed, and could serve as the basis for a nice reconstruction.  Finnican Dub has a great primer on Irish evidence for early clothing which helps put some of the garments into context.  And Christian de Holacombe has an article on the use of metallic spangles on garb, documented to England as early as the mid-12th century.  So it might not actually be unreasonable that those three-dot patterns on Mary's mantel were actual real-life decorations, as opposed to a flourish of the illuminator.

I need to finish (start) the garb projects I already have fabric for, but maybe one day...

The headpiece seems to be a yellow/golden veil with the bit around the face trimmed with something.  A band across the top, turning to scallops lower down.  I thought the scallops were hair at first, but if so, the lavender/pink hood/lining? is under her hair.  There's an additional golden band across the forehead, marked with dots - maybe a fillet. Dub reads the pink layer as a hood coming off the leine (tunic) layer, and since it merges with the layer on her chest, that seems right.  The yellow veil's draping is drawn very clearly.

A white undertunic is visible high on the neck.  The top line (dividing the tunic from her flesh) is black; two additional lines are red.  Are these decorations or wrinkles?

Between the white undertunic and the lavender/pink leine is a bit of knotwork, gold on a black background.  It's got a border around it, indicating that it's a completed piece.  Could be a decorative flourish (this is the Book of Kells, after all) or a legitimate piece of embroidery on the leine.  Some kind of metallic possament is possible, but I'm not aware of any evidence for metalwork decoration of that type in the isles.  Maybe jewelry - a necklet in the Byzantine style, only... well, those were usually collections of round things, not a solid bar.  A brooch?

What's weird is the pleating going on right underneath it.  There are a lot of thin folds of the leine gathering around the neck, mostly running vertically - except right under the knotwork, there are a pair of folds running horizontally.  Is that some sort of tie at a keyhold neck, gathering all this fabric into pleats?  If so, the knotwork can't be sewn in place on the lavender/pink fabric.

There's an odd random line on the left side of the Virgin's face, right at eye level.  Is her neck actually white and not peach-colored?  That might be a wimple.  Then the little white oval is... a lock of hair?  A coif?

The lavender/pink garment visible at the neck seems to be the same one forming her skirt.  If the outline of her legs is indicative, it's very fine.  (Then again, her breasts are explicitly drawn under her brat, and that ought to be a heavier garment. But then-then again, that might be the monks making sure we understand that we're looking at a woman.)  The hem is edged with a golden band.

Her arm, though, is in a darker blue sleeve.  Dub interprets this as a sort of jacket, which is certainly agreeable to me.  I loves me my caftans.  Two bands, dark and light gold (or orange and yellow), edge the sleeve.  There's a final dark colored band - I think I'd interpret that as decorative appliques set back from the actual sleeve hem.  But the final dark band does seem to be closer to the body than the rest of the sleeve.  Could be the gold/orange bands have some sort of wrist clasp to narrow the sleeve?  Or it's yet another layer, but that seems excessive.  We've already got the white undertunic, the lavender/pink leine, and the dark blue caftan.

Finally, the wine-colored brat, edged with a gold band and decorated with small silver spangles.  It's fastened with a triangular kite brooch.  (Like this one, I think, which is the news article that got me started down this path in the first place!)  Interesting notch detail in the brat hem.

Unsurprisingly, this whole 'look' isn't far from the Anglo-Saxon stuff I've been working on.  Different in the details, naturally, but the undertunic/tunic/jacket/cloak look, topped with a draped rectangular veil, is very familiar at this point.