The Armour Archive

Evening,

I should start by saying that I can follow patterns, but that's about the extent of my sewing talents. I want to make more of my own clothes because 1) I'm cheap and 2) I like the challenge of doing things I don't know how to do!

So I got some muslin and did a mock up of the St Louis tunic (which I now use as an undershirt under my armor) but now that I'm confident I can sew the gores, etc I want to do a couple out of linen. While looking at various patterns I noticed a lot of patterns for 13th century mens garb seem to show the seem that runs along the shoulder being straight?? I made my muslin one this way and honestly it doesn't seem to have the same drape I see in illistrations? Is it just my eye or should the shoulder seems be cut at a slight angle (10 degrees?) to simulate the natural drop of the shoulder? Or was it more common that the garment was made out of one piece of fabric with a neck whole cut in it so that they only had to sew up the side seems (and add gores where appropriate)?

Thanks, looking to make some garb since my local Joann's has linen on sale for $6.99/yd... figure I'll do up a green, blue & oatmeal tunic to expand my wardrobe with some better quality garb (machine sewn.... I'm not THAT interested in learning something new.... YET!?!?!?).

thanks (should I just thank Karen & James now or wait until they answer )

Will

The seams are probably straight in most instances because there are no seams in some of those extant examples; the fabric is simply one long piece with a hole for the head; a simple way to go about things, certainly... but that doesn't mean that a sloped and seamed shoulder area isn't documentable to general European clothing cut of the time.

You could look to the Moselund gown example -- the front piece has rather slanted shoulders but the back appears straight (?). The Herjolfsnes clothing is often sloped too.

You can get decent drape with no shoulder seam though -- it depends on the type of fabric too, not just the cut of the tailoring. If your fabric is a fine linen (for a shirt, say), then you'll get nice drape, even with a straight shoulder. If you use course cloth or cotton broadcloth or something, well yeah, don't expect miracles.

I'm guessing you've seen Marc Carlson's site:

http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-ca ... khome.html

It's really useful for getting a bird's eye view of the commonly explored extant European garments from the general medieval time frame.

Best of luck,
Tasha

FWIW, there are a couple of extant garments showing a slanted shoulder seam, like the Gown of St. Elizabeth and the Rønbjerg Mose kirtle.

Much agreed with Marcele on the fabric making a difference on the drape of the straight seam (or seamlessness) at the shoulder; sometimes modifying the point of the shoulder where it attaches to the sleeve will make a difference as well.

and I forget Tasha, sorry.

I have seen Mr Carlson's site but apparently forgot about it! I'm going to go back through it now.

basically I'm looking to make myself a couple of "better then off the shelf" tunics for the summer events and figured I would grab linen while it's at a good price. I'm sticking with the earth tone colors green, brown & tan... though I may grab blue & red too. I just want to pick a pattern and make sure I don't buy to much fabric - if I'm going to buy four of five different colors and I buy 3/4 of a yard to much of each then I'm wasting a lot of cash I don't need to ($20 is $20!). I'm having a hard time deciding between doing the St Louis tunic in assorted colors.... do the "supertunic" and make a couple longer undertunics to go with them or go for the Gaston Phebus pattern.

I century hop a lot and like both the 13th & 14th so....

thank you ladies.

Will