Not sure if this belongs here, but I think it does as I am looking for criticism.
I havn't posted here for a while, or been very active, but fear not, for I have not been a total slacker. With our transportation down for the majority of the summer, and with no place to work on armour in our cramped little apartment, I was forced to turn my mind and my hand towards my soft kit.
With the help of my very loving and patient (and soon to be teacher) fiance, I have been learning how to sew, both by hand, and on the machine.
My chosen period is late fourteenth century, though I have not yet pinned down either an exact date, or place. The clothing I picked out to construct roughly fits in with this choice as near as I can tell from the admittedly small ammount of research.
For the projects listed, I had two types of fabric to work with. The first was a nice light weight green wool that I bought from James B. on the armour archive. I am a little ashamed to say that I have no idea what kind of wool, or what weight it is. The other type of fabric was a 3.5oz bleached linen from http://www.fabrics-store.com.
The first project that I started was a set of seperated hosen made from the green wool. I tried to use a few patterns that I found on the internet, but many of them didn't make any sense to me. Kristin and I eventually ended up reverse-engineering a pair of hosen that we bought from http://medievaldesign.com/calzeeng.html. This was my first project, and I was full of energy so I decided to handsew the entire thing. It took a while to mostly complete the one leg, but I'm glad that I took the extra effort. All I need to do now is complete the hemming, and create the holes for the points, oh and fix the other leg which I somehow made too small.
[img]http://corey.greenkri.com/hosen1.jpg[/img]
[img]http://corey.greenkri.com/hosen2.jpg[/img]
The next project was an undershirt made from the linen. I got the pattern from Kass' website at http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/be ... shirt.html
and I remain impressed by the simplicity of her design. Due to a desire to finish up a little quicker, I decided to machine stitch this shirt, it is after all an undershirt. With Kristin's help, it was a fairly easy process with the only real problems coming while putting the inserts (gussets?) into the underarms. It came out great, I need to finish hemming, and reinforcing the corner seams in the armpits.
[img]http://corey.greenkri.com/undershirt1.jpg[/img]
The last project, also using the linen, was the pair of braies seen in figure 3 here http://thescholarsgarret.com/artifact/braies/ this was by far the easiest of the three projects, involving two quick seams. All that is left on these is to finish up the hemming (do you detect a pattern here?)
[img]http://corey.greenkri.com/braes1.jpg[/img]
Whats next? I plan to make a woolen over tunic using this pattern http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/be ... Louis.html and maybe a hood of some sort for headgear.
All in all, I think that this will be a pretty nice first attempt to garb myself, and hopefully I wont look like a complete fool. One thing that I have found, is that the clothes are remarkably comfortable, whether that is because of design or material, I have not decided yet. Please give me your thoughts, what did I do right, how can I improve? And heck thanks for just reading through a long boring post about clothes.
My first clothing attempt.
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Rolland LeMoyn
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Pietro da San Tebaldo
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First off, congratulations! There's no chance you'll look like a fool, not in carefully-made historical clothing built from natural fiber cloth. You'll be ahead of the game, and an inspiration to others. Really, I'm not just saying that!
This rig is tremendously comfortable - I think because it fits in a manner similar to a lot of common modern clothing. (Jeans, sweats, Bermudas and a big t-shirt for example.) I know a lot of folks who say they aren't comfortable in their garb initially because it makes them hold themselves differently. A doublet fits you oddly if you're used to a suit jacket, a corset can be an unmitigated hell if you're used to slouching a bit - and if you don't make the mental adjustment, you can grow to hate the garb. (Or blame your seamstress, even if she warned you...)
Linen is your best friend at warm-weather events, and a light wool gown or tunic complements the outfit perfectly. For cold weather, you might invest in a pair of wool hosen and a second wool gown or coat (of heavier fabric).
As I see it, with the right belt and cap and unobstrusive footwear, you'll be looking good!
This rig is tremendously comfortable - I think because it fits in a manner similar to a lot of common modern clothing. (Jeans, sweats, Bermudas and a big t-shirt for example.) I know a lot of folks who say they aren't comfortable in their garb initially because it makes them hold themselves differently. A doublet fits you oddly if you're used to a suit jacket, a corset can be an unmitigated hell if you're used to slouching a bit - and if you don't make the mental adjustment, you can grow to hate the garb. (Or blame your seamstress, even if she warned you...)
Linen is your best friend at warm-weather events, and a light wool gown or tunic complements the outfit perfectly. For cold weather, you might invest in a pair of wool hosen and a second wool gown or coat (of heavier fabric).
As I see it, with the right belt and cap and unobstrusive footwear, you'll be looking good!
I'm about half and half in home-vs-bought garb and i'm as comfortable in garb, if not more, than I am in normal clothes.
Try making a cloak, they're incredibly useful for all sorts of things. I've slept in mine, used it as a groundcloth, changing room in the middle of a field, rain cover, windbreak, and of course, to stay warm.
My wife's working on a surcoat and cloak for me to more closely fit my persona (early Crusader) as some of my stuff is more 14th century.
Try making a cloak, they're incredibly useful for all sorts of things. I've slept in mine, used it as a groundcloth, changing room in the middle of a field, rain cover, windbreak, and of course, to stay warm.
My wife's working on a surcoat and cloak for me to more closely fit my persona (early Crusader) as some of my stuff is more 14th century.