Hand-sewing a pourpoint and aketon, some lessons learnt

[Daniel S]

Introduction
So I got fed up with the bulk and ill fit of my GDFB gambeson under armour and decided I needed a slimmer option with greater range of movement. In the end I settled for a sleeveless pourpoint, to which I will point the leg armour, and a sleeved, long, aketon that provides the foundation for the armour. My hard-kit will fit the style of Western Germany/Northeastern France 1345-1355. For my soft kit I decided to go a more speculative route and deviate a bit from the more exact dating of the hard-kit. I did this as I want the solution that I feel work best, while at the same time I’m not building my kit for re-enactment but for WMA/HEMA. From my perspective that means I have more leeway in experimenting with the hidden parts of the kit.

I’m not sewing by hand to be historically accurate -- its just that I’m really bad at using sewing machines. It went faster for me to just sew everything by hand than to borrow a machine and try to learn how to use it.

Pourpoint
The sleeveless pourpoint is made of two layers of linen that I patterned to be really tight around the waist to help pulling in the stomach and alleviate some weight from the shoulders when pointing leg armour. To facilitate that I also used the type of seam used for tents or jeans on the shoulders. Don’t know how historical that is but it gives a flat and strong seam. I haven’t done the holes for the points as that will wait until I’ve finished my leg armour.

Aketon
Over the pourpoint goes the aketon with “grandes assiettesâ€

[Daniel S]

And here are the pictures of the aketon

[Daniel S]

And the last picture showing arms lifted from the back

[Tailoress]

Nice work, Daniel! Thanks for the plug. Did you see my latest article about the CdB pourpoint?

Cut to Pieces by a Determined Tailor

That one has more pattern-specific detail in it than the grandes assiettes article.

-Tasha

[Daniel S]

Thanks for the encouraging words and the link -- I had missed that update, looks like a good read!

[Cian of Storvik]

Speaking of the CdB pourpoint, I just saw this the other day on eBay. A 100% silk damask fabric in the pattern of the CdB Pour. The posting ended, but it was listed at $69/yd.
-Cian

[Oswyn_de_Wulferton]

Any particular reason the pourpoint has such narrow shoulders so near to the neck? The ones I have seen have usually had much broader shoulders, to help even out the load. Or is it just a fit and preference issue? Thanks for the pics, I am about to start on a set for myself later.

[Daniel S]

Well the reason for the narrow 'shoulder-straps' was that I wanted to make sure that I could lift my arms without lifting the pourpoint. So I essentially went with the aketon pattern without the grandes assiettes.

Perhaps it works just as well with broader shoulder-straps but I figured I wanted to stay on the safe side. I'm hoping that the hips will releave enough weight to reduce the burden worn by the narrow shoulder-straps. I have however not worn it without the legs attached yet so if anyone else have dealt with this before please chime in.

/Daniel

[Konstantin the Red]

Daniel, how well that width of shoulder strap will work depends on the weight of your legharness. Steel plate all the way up and down would call for more breadth than a set of gamboised cuisses with soupcan cops would.

But if you find those straps cut into you more than you like, making another pourpoint will be easy for you by then. Or snip off the narrow straps and put broader ones on, well stitched into the body of the pourpoint. You've learned all the heavy stuff already.

For a first try, starting with zip for sewing knowhow, these are excellent!

[Fearghus Macildubh]

Daniel,
That's a dang impressive amount of hand sewn work. The results look very good as well.

[Daniel S]

I'm glad to hear that the results are convincing enough!

Konstantin -- My plan is to go the knee-cop plus gamboised cuisse and/or tooled leather cuisse route. And like you say -- making some changes to the pourpoint would be easy enough if the legs end up being too heavy.

For what its worth I'll try to find all parts of the patterns and post pictures of them.

[Daniel S]

Here are pictures of the patterns. Note that there is no seam-allowance added. I basically added up to an inch around most seams to make sure I had enough left after quilting and fitting.

I have also left out the skirt section because it needs the most rework. See some more notes under "lessons learnt" in the original post.

[Daniel S]

And the last patterns. Forgot to add measurements though