Years ago, I turned an old tweed jacket inside out and created Treasure Hunting Jacket (above, left). It was inspired by ancient African hunting jackets, which were heavily embellished with charms to magically aid the hunter. Maybe I could do something in a similar vein with the fibulae, also attaching them to an old tweed jacket (above, right).

Normally, I would head straight to Goodwill and pick up a great jacket for under $10…..but these are not normal times. However, Ebay had several for under $50. One just arrived!

(above) Is it brown or is it gray? Depends on the lighting. The mannequin came from a big sale at the warehouse of the New York Opera Company. He’s been standing in my living room, waiting for his chance…

Wouldn’t it be great to pose him with his arms held high, in a what-the-heck-is going-on pose? But how would I ever ship it anywhere??? Eventually, I removed his arms and tried wrapping the sleeves (above, right), and pinned on the paper patterns….oh, that does NOT look good.

Stop. Think. What am I trying to say here? I want the fibulae to represent the maintenance behind the garment, to have the fibulae literally holding the suit (the man?) together. The fibula-women spun and wove the cloth, they created it, and they keep it all together.

(above) But it can’t look like they’re poking him in the butt.

To create the impression that the fibulae are holding him together, perhaps it should look like he’s falling apart. I started padding the mannequin. What you see (above, left) was only the beginning. Now the figure bulges and the seams are splitting (after I carefully helped with a razor blade). His shirt is not ironed. He’s shlumpy.

And I made more fibulae (below):

(above) I found an image of a medieval woman sewing with an embroidery hoop. I enlarged the hoop, and have small holes which will (I hope) allow me to stretch some of the tweed over it.

(above) This pattern combines parts of 3 different figures. The clay has holes poked at the waist so that I’ll be able to attach her chatelaine ( see sample on the right). A chatelaine was a collection of sewing tools hanging from a belt on fine chains.

(above, left) This fellow is napping the cloth with teasels. After a quick Photoshop sex change, she’s constructed in clay as a split-level figure - the hand and brush are slightly raised so it can fit over the cloth. NOTE: I started to write an explanation of teasels, but it’s complicated, and fascinating (yeah, Diane, NOT likely to go viral…). So next week there will be a whole post devoted to teasels and their use in making cloth. Won’t that be exciting?

(above) Another split-level figure, with her clay arms resting on a knife handle to keep them up while she dries.

(above) I used this same Medieval figure in my Marginalia tapestry (above, left, top). Here she’s holding a pair of scissors.

(above) These two Singer Sewing cards provided figures for my Fairy Tales tapestry (above, left, top)

(above) Remember how this whole project began with the history of buttons? Sometime in the mid 1800’s, button manufacturing began in factories. This is a very early image of button-making.

By next week, I hope to have all the ceramic fibulae dry and fired. Currently, they’re slowly drying, while I keep going back and scraping a bit here, sanding some there, never leaving well enough alone.

Stay safe. Stay sane….you can see the light at the end now..