Inspiration

A visit to the National Gallery of Victoria has piqued my interest.  There, in the long portrait gallery, was this portrait:

A not great photo, but check out the sleeves, the partlett,
and even better, the coif!!!

Detail of her head-wear and partlet

Smaller detail of the coif, showing the wired veil

Velvet sleeves with separate tabs and ruffs

The Hankie

What an excellent project for Oman! First the head-wear, which seems to be in three pieces.

1. Wired veil - seems fairly self explanatory, but quite short.

2. The fall - which at first glance seems fairly standard, but where on earth does it come from?There appears to be a white band under the lace of the coif which may be where the fall itself is attached, so it may be a separate piece.

3. The coif:  The coif has a band with a bag attached.  The band could be lace, there are certainly plenty of lace patterns that look like that.  Interestingly, the bag has a net so it may possibly be burato.

Starting the search for a lace pattern

The search will be a little slow since all my lace books are in a box waiting to be sent to Oman.  However, this is one of the potential patterns for the band.  It's taken from page 28 of Le Pompe libro secondo 1562, which I cunningly found at http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/books/pompe2.pdf.

It's not actually the same, but it does at least give an idea of how it could be done.  I'm pretty sure that there is one similar to this in Nuw Modelbuch.  Once we finally get to leave the country and arrive in Muscat and I get my books.  Another thing to wait for, yay!