Early 14th century Gambesons

[Sigurd Fjalarson]

So I've abandoned the hope of getting an off the shelf gambeson to fit my skinny frame, so I guess I get to try to build one. I have some linen as well as cotton padding, but I lack a pattern. I have the RH CdB pattern, but I'm not sure how to modify it so it has the longer style of the early ones. For reference, my kit is loosely based on Otto Von Orlamunde. I watched the awesome video with James B and the others about arming, and the lady speaking said that his gambeson was basically a tube, with no real shaping to it. Is that how I should start? Anyone have a pattern or a starting point for a relative sewing novice? And do I need to prewash my padding before sewing?

Thanks,
Sigurd

[Ernst]

I would suggest something along the lines of the Bocksten tunic, without the front and back gores. 2-gores in the sides are likely enough. You may want to split the front and button or lace it for ease of getting out of it when damp. Buttoning the forearm also helps. Don't pre-wash cotton batting or raw cotton, as that will compress it and make it clump.
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-ca ... ktunc.html

[Sigurd Fjalarson]

Thanks again Ernst. So you're saying to start with a standard rectangle tunic basically, with gores on the sides and under the arms. Split it up the front and from elbow to wrist to allow lacing? That seems rather doable to me...

[Ernst]

The side gores should come up to the natural waist, and I don't think you need to go all the way up to the elbows on the sleeve slits, maybe not even halfway up the forearm. Other than that, I think you've got the gist of late 13th and early 14th century tailoring. I always find the cutting of the side gores of interest, designed to maximize fabric use on a rectangular piece: the splitting of a rectangle into an isosceles triangle and two smaller right-angle ones, like splitting the fabric with a giant "M". The two smaller ones are sewn back together to make a second isosceles gore.

[aetheric991]

When I made mine, I was shooting for about 1345, so pretty close to Otto von Orlemunde's 1340. I started with Reconstructing History's pattern for the arming coat of the Black Prince. I then dropped the hem to a little above my knees, removes the seam at the waist, so that there were only 4 panels for the torso, and fit it as tightly as I could thru the body. I then realized that I'd made a padded coathardie. While I don't naturally have the ideal 14th century shape, this puts me a lot closer.

A couple of thoughts, in no particular order.

Make sure that your gambeson is slit up the back to about your tailbone. While I don't have a horse, I think this would make it easier to sit on one.

If your gambeson is slit in front and back, you don't need very big gores at the sides. Add too much here, and it will look dumb, especially under a mail shirt.

I chose to lace mine, rather than button, in case I get fatter than usual.

Don't make it too thick. If you are wearing mail and a coat of plates, the gambeson doesn't need to be bullet proof.

I'm too much of a luddite to post a picture, but I'll email one if you PM me an address.

[Iain mac Gillean]

For what it's worth, I used this patter to make both of my gamebesons. Her Grace's method is excellent, and I've had zero complaints.

http://www.aemma.org/misc/gambeson_instructions.pdf

[Sigurd Fjalarson]

Thanks guys! I think I have enough to go on with that. One more dumb question though... When I go to quilt it, is it just lines of backstitch spaced evenly, or is there a special stitch? I don't use a machine and have no clue.

[leekellerking]

For what it's worth, I used this patter to make both of my gamebesons. Her Grace's method is excellent, and I've had zero complaints.

http://www.aemma.org/misc/gambeson_instructions.pdf

Just be darned sure your moving pad is COTTON and not the synthetic crap (as mentioned in the article).

Don't ask me how I know. LOL

[Ernst]

A straight running stitch should be fine.

[Sigurd Fjalarson]

1/8th inch or so stitches? And thanks again gents, I truly appreciate it and hope my kit is worthy of the help I've received!

[Tailoress]

Technically you'll probably be using a stab stitch, which is another way of describing running stitch where the material is too thick to actually "run" the needle in and out more than once before pulling the thread taut. It saves time if you can put it on a quilting frame and use one hand to pull and push the needle below the fabric, and one hand to pull and push the needle above the fabric.

I'd recommend staggering your stitches so that the ones appearing on the front of the garment are a little shorter than the ones appearing on the back. This reduces the amount of thread available on the front for cutting when you get hit.

So, something like this in ratio but scaled down smaller:

__ __ __ __

[Tailoress]

Well, phooey. The code running this forum stripped out my extra spaces between my "stitches" above. *sigh*

[Sigurd Fjalarson]

Thanks T! something like this?

- - - - -
__ __ __ __

[Iain mac Gillean]

For what it's worth, I used this patter to make both of my gamebesons. Her Grace's method is excellent, and I've had zero complaints.

http://www.aemma.org/misc/gambeson_instructions.pdf

Just be darned sure your moving pad is COTTON and not the synthetic crap (as mentioned in the article).

Don't ask me how I know. LOL

My wife's the seamstress in the house, and she threatened my life if I went with a synthetic (seriously..she knows where I sleep!)

[Tailoress]

Thanks T! something like this?

- - - - -
__ __ __ __

More like your first example, yes, but perhaps with not quite so much space between the stitches. You just want the space to be a little longer than the stitch.

How come your use of the space bar worked but not mine? Grumble...

[Tailoress]

OK, I'm losing my mind. First I see yours with lots of spaces, now I don't... I give up! I'll make a jpg and post that. Such a simple concept, but I'm blowing it on the vaguaries of mark-up language. Argh!

[Tailoress]

OK, hopefully this worked.

quilting stitch.jpg (1.4 KiB) Viewed 359 times

[Sigurd Fjalarson]

Ah so the stitches on the front would be slightly shorter than the space on the front, meaning the back laces would be slightly longer. Now I see where you're headed. Thanks again!

Edited to add: So I'm just going to use this as a way to show my progress and ask for more help. First off, what stitch should I use to finish the raw seams in linen? And also to ask since the black prince jupon pattern was mentioned above... I have the Burgundian arming coat pattern from RH as well, could I conceivably use this in a similar fashion to start with? Eliminating the waist seam, elongating the skirt etc?

[RandallMoffett]

Sigurd,

Have you looked at images from around when you are shooting for to see what other aketons are being used at that point?

I'd avoid a tube for sure unless you have slits of some nature on it.

Otto Von Orlamunde is pretty late. I'd expect something that is getting much more shape and more or less not a simple tube but something moving from that to the Charles VI.

Tasha's description makes a great deal of sense. It gives you the strength and keeps the strong from being caught as well as keeping the labor down of making small stitches on both sides.

RPM

[Sigurd Fjalarson]

I haven't found too many that aren't covered Randall, hence my confusion. Given the effigy of Otto, I assumed it's shaped much like a CdB or one of four quarters. Thats why I'm trying to see if using a pattern I already have at this point could work. I suck at patterning.

[James B.]

My 1340s gambeson based on some artwork is just a straight tube with set in sleeves open in the front, laced from the waste up, and split on the sides from the upper thigh down. As seen in the video from Kalamazoo

[Sigurd Fjalarson]

Thanks for weighing in James, it was that video that started me thinking on it. So is there no gores to your side skirts? And what exactly is a set in sleeve?

[RandallMoffett]

If you have the slits you do not need the gores or more extended lower section to the aketon. They both allow for movement.

[James B.]

No gores. A set in sleeve means the armeye is curved not straight. The arm pattern where it attaches to the body is curved, more material at the shoulder less at the armpit. The seam in mine is under the arm.

[Konstantin the Red]

There are two basic ways, with similar-sounding names -- set-on and set-in. Set-on is like if you took a towel, folded it into a tabard, and stuck a sleeve on each side. This leaves a lot of extra fabric right around the arm where it joins, and particularly in the front. It makes big wrinkles, graceless. They figured this out, that the problem was one of rather too much cloth there, and cut into the body fabric in a scoop-out, to make the set-in sleeve, with the extra fabric snipped out and a nice smooth lay of the cloth up there. You can spot that the armhole seam curves some; it isn't ruler straight. Most of the other seams and stitch lines may be, but that one isn't.

For an extreeeeeeme example of the set-in sleeve, look at a Charles de Blois coat, where the armholes are huge, way deep to most of the way to the sternum, and the sleeve top flares out like a trumpet's bell to fill them, to the point where it needs gores inserted to get the job done.

Gores do for you what slits do, except they're less airy. In fact, you start with either a slit cut in the material or not sewing the seam completely all the way down -- and slipping a triangle of cloth into either, to fill in. There's not a lot of difference between a gore and a gusset, except that gussets might be shaped like a stretched diamond shape for some applications -- for instance, under the arms, making the torso flare out wider in the chest, putting the widest part of the gusset in the armpit, and then also giving ease to the upper arm, which tapers down again as the gusset comes to its other point. Gussets may also be fitted into the crotch of trousers -- very good for Chuck Norris fighting bluejeans, which were quite comfortable, just a bit stretchy, and allowed a lot of freedom for side-kicks to as high as gi trousers would allow.

[Konstantin the Red]

Finishing over raw seams in linen: blanket stitch. It's designed to hold ravelly fabric's threads in.



Tute: how to sew a blanket stitch -- starting it, going neatly around a corner by not pulling it tight, and ending it. Very nice really. It can tie seam allowances together for tidy pressing, greater strength, and holding everything together while you run another line of stitching down a seam pressed to one side or the other and thus double stitch the seams for strength.

It would go like: first, sew together the pieces with the raw edge sticking up, so it's like this in cross section: _||_. Then sew the top ends there together using the blanket stitch. With that done, press what you've sewn into one piece down flat to one side, so it ends up kind of like ---====--, the equals being the two layers laid over; yes, there's yet another layer under the two laid down. Lastly, sew all that down, this extra seam parallel to the seam that sewed the two pieces together. Lot of steps, but all of them simple and easy to see.

[Sigurd Fjalarson]

Thanks a bunch Konstantin! That helps immensely. I think I just might be ready to give this a go.

[Konstantin the Red]

...with all those layers, I didn't make space to write.

You've got all those major pieces now, quilted up into fabric lasagne, correct? Here's how to sew these pieces together so the seam isn't a giant lump or ridge.

Code: Select all

You've got two pieces, of a lot of layers
_______     ______
_______     ______
_______     ______
_______     ______

Let's have it that the outside layer, the shell, is the bottom lines, everything else being padding and lining fabric.

First, fold back and pin out of the way everything but the shell. Putting the shell sides of the two pieces to be sewn back to back together, pin and stitch the shell layer together, just like "put the fabric right sides together and sew" in the traditional wording, only this is thicker. You know to stick in pins perpendicular to the line you are stitching, right? Needle just hops right over pins in crossways. Pull the pins and flatten out the two pieces again. Now they're held together by their shell layers being sewn together:

Code: Select all

___>           <____ lining
____>        <_____ padding
_____>     <______ padding
_______||_______...the shell layer

Press the seam you just sewed together flat, either to one side or open, flattened out either side like butterfly wings.

Now you need to make room on either side of the stitch-line you sewed in the shell for one side of each layer to lie flat. On that first layer in from the shell, trim away what you folded up on one side; then put the other side down into the resulting space; it overlaps the seam you sewed; discard what you trimmed away.

Code: Select all

You cut away on this side
______>       *___... it's cut
________=______ ... shell fabric w/seam folded and pressed

To lay down the other in the resulting space
_____________ ____
________=________

And now do the same but the other way on the next layer in:

Code: Select all

___ ___________
__________ ____
_______________not drawing shell seam; it's in the middle

Then pin the liner layer together for sewing so you get:

Code: Select all

______||_____
__ __________
________ ____
_____________ 

Sew the lining, cut one side of the seam allowance you sewed with down about halfway and press the other side, which you left full width, down over it flat, and sew this into and all the way through the various layers of the gamby. You can put seam tape over all this if you want, very neat. You can hold the seam-allowance tightly flat with fusible interfacing as you press it over and flat, so it seriously won't wander out from under your sewing machine's needle! The trick to seam tape is to stitch it down both edges as near to its edges as you can get -- tidy, and added strength too.

Always sew using both the threads the color of the shell; it makes the stitches match the exterior. Otherwise you get funny colored dots showing in your stitchlines.

[Sigurd Fjalarson]

Whoa... lot to digest there! I'm gonna reread this a bunch of times until I think I got it before asking any questions. Oh and no sewing machine for me Konstantin, we don't work well together so I just hand sew.

[Konstantin the Red]

Well... it's a power tool. Plugs in, has an On/Off switch, and all that. A knowledgeable maven is helpful, as is a machine in good condition and adjustment. Simple old ones are often the better choice for the inexperienced -- or the bad-experienced.