If you have browsed my earlier tutorials (and videos on my Patreon) you might have discovered that I really looove pressing my seams all the time. But how did they achieve good looking seams “back then” without the use of a modern iron?
A smoothing stone: a flat stone or piece of glass (in Swedish “glättsten”) were used with a flat polished wooden board to smooth out fabrics and seam. I have seen several finds from the Viking age but there are examples dated iron-age to medieval period.
Putting the fabric/folds/seam on the board, and then pressing down with a smooth piece of glass/stone will work pretty well, and give you strong arm muscles too…
A smoothing bone or pointed bone creaser (falsben): A polished piece of bone that you can use for flattening out seams, both in textiles and leather. I wanted to show you some historical examples, but couldn’t find any photos to borrow, which makes me a bit unsure about the history of the tool. I was taught it was a really old tool, basically used since forever (in Sweden, that means at least during the 19th century…) That is not medieval, but since I have seen similar items from earlier periods, I use it. You could use the backside of a knife handle or a bone awl or stylus as well.
This works really well, and makes the seams beautifully flat, smooth and glossy. I actually use mine to finish of handsewn seams in linen, the hemming on fine veils etc. It is a bit of extra work, but quite fast and easy. The pointy tip gives an advantage over small smoothing stones in my opinion.
Heated irons are heated up by fire, and used in the same way as a modern iron with a damp pressing cloth. Historical items are both solid, and with a compartment for putting in pre-heated pieces in. This method is demonstrated in the series “A stitch in time”.
In Sweden, it seems that the iron came in use during the 16th century, placing it at the end of the medieval period. In Europe I believe it to be a bit earlier, and it is found in China during the 4th century.
Apart from having to make a fire and wait for the heating this is basically the same thing as using a modern iron, when you get used to the tool and how to estimate the heat.
My two favourite things for flattening the seams when I don’t have an iron around:
Smoothing bone: for linen, leather and thin wool items. Makes a really glossy and nice finish on linen shirts and veils. If you want one; buy one in bone, not plastic.
Gripping the seam with your hand to flatten it out while sewing down the seam allowance: good for thicker or fulled wool fabrics. You simply hold the seam allowance in place while sewing it, and the fingers on the underside of the fabric stretches it out and create the flat appearance on the outer side.
Both of these methods are nice, but I rarely use them in my everyday work, to save my fingers and joints from strain. Choosing ergonomic methods is also important, but every once in a while it is nice to make an item with no modern tools at all!
Just wanted to give you all a quick update about some of my plans this spring!
Between 8-10 of March I will be holding a workshop in medieval clothing in Norway; check out this event for a weekend of fun, new knowledge and lots of sewing!
I also have a weekend of tablet weaving in my hometown; https://hemslojden.org/activity/keramik-2-2/ were we will be doing lots of practical handcrafting, look into some historical finds, have fika and meet new friends.
Both workshops have their own way of booking by their site- just wanted to show them here for you!
I also have some free time yet before the summer for weekend workshops with your group or at a location of your choice. Just send me an email if you are interested, to linda.handcraftedhistory @gmail.com. I also have time to make a couple of outfits for customers, so are you planning to order some clothing for yourself before summer now is a perfect time to do so! (waiting time is now until early May)
Then my main market season will start, and am I looking forward to that! Medieval tents, summer winds, lots of happy people, swimming in lakes… Yes, please! Let’s hope the spring and summer will arrive soon here!
This is my method for attaching pewter buttons to a garment. It is easy, simple and makes it doable to remove the pewter buttons before washing or to use on another garment, and then re-attaching them quick afterwards. Another great thing with this method is that you will not lose your buttons as easily as if you sew them onto the garment one by one, since you will have a secure ribbon to hold them in place.
Here is where I start; the sleeve at the top is finished, and the sleeve at the bottom already has its buttonholes and hems. You will need to make S-sleeves (with the seam at the back of the arm, going just over your elbow) and then fit them snugly over your underarm. I recommend doing a mock-up sleeve first in a cheap fabric to try it out. Do you notice the curved edge of the bottom sleeve? That will create room for the wrist and the start of the hand which are also inside the sleeve.
Start by marking out where to place the buttons, use a pen and compare with the already made buttonholes. Work on the inside of the sleeve. Depending on the size of your buttons you will need different seam allowances, I had small buttons and used 1 cm, but recommend that you use at least 1,5-2 cm.
Use an awl and make small holes in the fabric, for the buttons to go through. If you have a thin or sensitive fabric, you need to reinforce the sleeve before you begin, otherwise, the buttons may rip through the fabric when put under stress, such as moving or lifting when wearing the dress. A simple piece of fabric would do the trick, like on the sleeve above where the buttonholes have a strip of silk (sturdy linen is better to work with). Sew it into place before making the holes.
Do you see my trick now? I do not sew each button in place separately, but pull them through the holes I made with the awl. When I have them in the right place, I thread a sturdy ribbon (this one is in linen, but a braid, twisted linen threads or anything similar will go) through each buttons loop, to keep them in place.
The ribbon makes the buttons stay in place, and makes it impossible to lose them. Note that the ribbon is twisted from left to right to pass through each button from the same direction, this will give you a smoother seam later. The buttons are placed with the flatter side towards the sleeve.
When the whole set of buttons are attached and the ribbon threaded through them, fold the ribbon back, and leave a piece of it lying under the loops to keep it in place.
Final step! Fold the seam allowance over the buttons stem, loop and the ribbon, and whipstitch it in place. To remove the buttons, you will just have to rip the whip stitch open, remove the ribbon and take out the buttons to wash the dress in the machine, or use them elsewhere on another garment. To replace the buttons, repeat the steps above (the marking and holes should be left so you don’t have to redo them).
It takes me about 30 minutes to reset a sleeve, so quite doable instead of having to buy new buttons for each garment you make. This also works on bronze buttons of course, but fabric buttons I usually sew onto the garment one by one as is visible in finds from London (Dress Accessories 1150-1450). Also, note that you need the typical medieval button with its long stem, most modern buttons are flat and don’t work with this technique.
Because the books are in Swedish; so will this blogpost be. Update; the books are being translated and some of them are available in English!
Kommer ni ihåg att jag skrev om mansdräktsboken förut? Nu har även kvinnoboken kommit ut, och jag ville förstås bläddra i den också!
Boken påminner mycket om mansdräkten med samma lättöverskådliga layout, enkel och tydlig text, och stycken som efter en snabb genomgång ger dig koll på dräkten. Det är den typen av bok jag skulle börja med att skaffa om jag ville göra 1400tal, eller ge till en nybörjare som vet *ingenting* men gärna vill vara med. Det sena 1400talet är en komplex period med många samexisterande stilar och plagg, men jag tycker ändå att det känns som att den ger en överblick över det tyska modet, även om det inte finns plats för så många sömnadstekniska detaljer som jag skulle vilja- det är ju trots allt mitt intresse =)
Boken innehåller, förutom referenslistor, också massor av bilder från perioden. Bredvid varje avsnitt om plagg/material osv hittar du alltså både historiska referenser, bilder, skisser och materialförslag från ett modernt perspektiv. Dessutom finns ett uppslag om hur du får till 1400talslooken med en “turbanslöja”, jag förutspår att det här kommer vara nya innestilen till sommaren…
Uppdatering: 1300tals kvinnodräkt har också kommit ut! Jag fick tag på min via http://www.Handelsgillet.se och den innehåller gott om exempel på olika typer av klänningar att sy + tips på accessoarer och slöjor.
The last 1- 1 1/2 year the 15 century has been one of my main interests. It is a really interesting period in history, with lots of changes in both politics, society and how trade, money and people moved. My main interest has been the clothing in middle Europe, around what is today Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands (more or less, influences and fashions spread and you can see similar styles in areas boarding to these ones).
From these areas came several great artists, there are lots of paintings and artistic work left, and Scandinavia were greatly inspired by the clothing and fashion movements from the German area.
To both challenge and inspire myself I decided to make a Golden Egg challenge on the topic of 15th century clothing. The Golden Egg is a household in the SCA; you can read more about it here. My goal is now to research and make a whole outfit from the late 15th century for myself, and the timeline is one year between start and presentation.
I wanted to share some of my research, as well as some good sources for you to read for yourself. My main interest is the clothing for women, but you will find lots of good inspiration for men’s fashion as well.
Some important points to remember when studying 15 c fashion (or any historical fashion really) is:
The diversity of the period. Fashion shifted over a certain time, and during the 15th c it shifted quite fast. It also differed over areas (such as towns, countries) as well as social classes. It is not possible to sum up the period by stating “a women wore this and this, in such a way” but some things are similar, like wearing a linen shift, middle kirtle and over dress of some kind. How these looked, what materials they were made in and how you wore them differed greatly, as did the accessories.
The art and paintings of the period is a really good source, since there’s a lot of them, and the fashion of art suggested a natural, realistic reproduction of the people living during that period, with lots of details regarding seams, models, fashion and materials. This was also the period when portraits became popular for others than the nobility, with the ever-increasing burgher class economy as a base for portraits. This give us a source of good depictions of people of the time, and also gives a good clue on what kind of clothing and headwear was in fashion. It is important to note that there also were sumptuary laws regarding what you could wear, and how you were to be portrayed according to your status in society, making the understanding of art and symbolic meanings very important.
Religious art was also very important, and great artworks were often the result of a whole workshop with different painters, studies and sketches from different areas and periods, as well as saints depicted with biblical clothing and symbolic tokens. This means that you can find different styles in one and the same painting, both considering fashion and the style of the artist, even though the master overlooked the work on each artwork. It also means that flowing robes and cloaks that appear might not be the fashionable items like the gowns and doublets right beside them, but more some kind of biblical clothing.
Colours, technics and styles regarding painting developed greatly during this century, with the use of different mineral sources etc as a way of getting vibrant, expensive and fashionable colours. But this does not mean that the colour tone on a painting was the same as the depicted garment from sketches and models; the colour was foremost the result of the client’s budget, where vibrant reds, dark blues and golden inlays were important for the fashionable and rich client. Does this mean that paintings can’t be the source for fashion studies? No, of course you can look at art for getting an idea of the clothing of the time. Just keep in mind that the colour that you see on your computer screen is the result of both a computer screen setting, the photography of the painting (with editing) how well the painting has withstood time (mineral paint tend to change over time) as well as the idea of what a really expensive colour looked like in art versus fashion.
Artists of the time was more handcrafters and less artists in our modern use of the word. They trained for masters, belonged to workshops and worked with paintings as a team, not as one expressive personality. The money came from churches, rich nobility and the burgher class who commissioned art pieces (or bought ready-made pieces) such as piety paintings, portraits and, later on, everyday scenes from their home. This means that art was the result of society, fashion, study and individuals, greatly inspired by the ongoing social development as well as other painters. Of course there were room for personal style; compare Rogier van der Weyden to Durer and you will find style differences, even if you are not a trained art historian.
The artist had knowledge about the fact that fashion shifts; and that what was worn everyday when the paintings was made, was not the clothes of the time depicted in them. So in a painting of Christ’s birth; you can se both people dressed in the high of 1470’s fashion, as well as mythical and religious figures dressed in cloaks and robes that were meant to be seen as “some kind of long time ago clothing”. This might be pretty obvious, but to make it a bit trickier there is also paintings with 14th century fashions depicted (in a rather loose style) in 15th century paintings.
Dress for your age; as for society today, people tend to dress after their age, with the young girls and women of that time preferring high fashion dresses, loose hairstyles or flowing hair for the unmarried (or soon to be crowned queens) while older women seems to be more covered, with additional layers and more elaborate veils. Older women can also be seen in “unfashionable” garments; what was the thing 10-20 years ago at their prime seems to hang along.
Having this in mind, you can clearly se that if you aim to make an outfit as historical accurate as possible (…possible for your means, skill etc) an important start is to choose a certain time and period. The social standing is also important, so a good starting point could be a woman from south Germany (or a city of your choice) from the wealthy burgher class, who lived during 1450-1470.
I have chosen to focus on the area of Germany, the Netherlands and the Flemish region. This because there were some great artists living there that I want to study further, but I also enjoy the fashion of that area and how the geographic areas and countries influenced each other. If you compare this areas to (for example) Italy or France, you will find that both style in art and fashion differs greatly.
Another thing to consider, is to search for sources besides art; like finds, surviving clothing items, sketches, written documentation etc. This will give a depth for your understanding of the period, where the beauty ideals and painting technique might touch up certain details to the point of it being difficult to interpret (like, how did all the women have those small round breasts sitting high up on the body?)
These are some important painters and artists from the German/Netherland/Flemish (Belgium)/Burgundy region during the century that I have chosen to study in more detail:
(About the dating: Sometimes it is difficult to find the year of birth/death for individuals, so the dating in uncertain, but it will provide with a overview of when they lived and were active)
Limbourg brothers (1385-1416) Germany
Hubert van Eyck (1366-1426) Flemish
Jan van Eyck (1395-1441) Netherlands
Rogier van der Weyden (1399-1464) Netherlands
Petrus Christus (1410-1476) Netherlands
Hugo van der Goes (1440-1483) Netherlands
Hans Memling (1430-1494) Netherlands
Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1504) Netherlands
Gerard David (1460-1523) Netherlands
Hans Holbein the Elder (1460-1524) Germany
Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) Germany
If you are interested in this period and want to learn more about the art, there’s some good books about different artists, and this really good (and free) article at Wikipedia about the subject.
I have also studied books on different artists, the Prestels “Masters of Art” series have been very interesting. There you can find both Van Eyck, Durer and many more.
Want to see more artwork from the time? Check out my Pinterest folder!
Fur can be tricky, so here’s some help on the way if you are going to fur line your garment (like this late 15- early 16th century gollar). This method may be used with a good fake fur too!
I am guessing that you historically either treated the fur like a garment of your own (sew the fur together to a garment, then attach it to the outer fabric) or as a fabric lining (cut out the pieces of fur and stitch it to the seam allowances of the outer fabric once this is sewed together). A mix of these two might also be the case, due to the different challenges you face when fur lining a garment without it getting bulky.
If you only want a strip of fur on your garment, I find it easiest to cut out the fur pieces, and treat them like fabric lining; cut them straight and clean, join small bits if necessary before sewing them to the outer fabric. In contemporary art the fully fur lined garments seem to be the most common one, but some artwork you could interpret as only having trims in fur. Fur was both fashionable and warm and used in many garments, and I have a fully lined gollar. This one becomes too warm during summer, and also take a lot of space in the bag when packing, so I thought this new one would be a good alternative; fashionable, with the fur to warm me against the wind, but lighter in both warmth and packing space.
I started with my wool gollar; I cut out the main piece and the collar and sewed them together with running stitches. A common thread for the period is uncoloured linen thread, so I used that and waxed it to make it more durable while sewing backstitches. After the pieces were joined together, I pressed down the seam and cut down the seam allowance on one side, and felled the seam allowance with whipstitching. This makes the seam more smooth and adds durability to the garment.
I tried to lay the gollar out flat, for you to get a good look. Note that it is not a full circle, you want it to lay flat against your back and shoulders in a tight fit. The fit on the gollar you’ll have to try out on yourself; so make one out of scrap fabric if this is your first one!
I measured the collar and the front where I wanted the fur to be, and cut out strips of fur to match them. I then sewed them into place with linen thread and a small, regular needle. A thinner needle makes it easier to sew in fur, and pinning the fur into place makes sure it doesn’t stretch or slides. If you find it hard to use pins, try with fabric clamps/sewing clamps instead.
At the corners, I just sew the fur to the fabric and leave the leftover fur for later. Note that I treat the fur like fabric; sewing the furry side to the right side of the fabric.
When the fur is sewn onto the fabric, I cut away the leftover and trim the edges down.
At the corners I trim away enough fur so when I fold the fur inside the garment it will not get bulky but fit together edge to edge.
At the bottom edge, I want the fur to follow the curved front of the gollar, so I mark this with a pen and then cut it away.
After trimming down the fur, I fold it to the inside of the gollar, and pin it in place. Make sure it lays flat when wearing the garment; fur can be tricky and does not adjust the way fabric does. When you are happy with the fit, sew the fur in place with whip stitches, or attach it to a lining. In the corners the two pieces of fur should barely meet, the hair will hide the seam, so just sew them together loosely.
I chose to have a lining inside my gollar in a thin woollen fabric, to add warmth and make it easier to sew the fur down with no visible stitching.(a fully lined gollar can be seen in art.) For the lining, I cut out another gollar, without a collar (because the fur strip will cover the inside of my collar) and without the parts that would be covered with fur. When fastening the lining in the gollar, pin it or baste in place and then sew it at the same time as you attach the fur on the inside. Start with the collar, and then the front opening going down.
Sewing in fur is time-consuming and quite tiring for the fingers. Nice company or a movie is good to have!
When the fur (and lining) is attached around the gollar I stitched the lower hem with whip stitches. To make the seam smooth, I cut away some excess lining fabric, as can be seen in the photo. So; adjust the lining, cut off excess seam allowance, pin and whip stitch.
To fasten the gollar you can use dress pins, small fabric strips, ribbons or lucet braided strings, hooks and eyes or do as I did; add a fancy clasp at the throat. At the end of the sewing, I didn’t really like that the fur was so visible at the bottom, so I trimmed it down quite hard. Another option would have been to let the fur finish on the inside of the gollar, so it was not so obvious that the gollar was not fur-lined all the way around. Cheating is hard sometimes…
The clasp is a late 15th century find from Sweden, with A standing for “amore”. It added nicely, but for a commoner, a hidden fastening would do better.
A note about fur; I recommend you put some thought and money into the purchase of fur. There are still many fur-fabrics and farms that treat animals like shit, where the animals suffer greatly to become your hobby-based garment. If you buy rabbit skin for 7-9 Euro/skin you probably support these farms, even if not buying directly from them. A better option would be to buy fur from local farms where you can visit the animals, and get to leave the skin at the tanner yourself. You can also find good choices on the internet, buy second-hand or choose fake-fur from the fabric store (not the most historically accurate, but I rather go modern than using unethical furs) I had the fortune of finding a lady breeding rabbits in her garden as a part-time income, and got to buy furs from her, tanned locally by a handcrafter. These were about 30E a piece, so really reasonable in price!
Volare Digital Capture
Some examples of gollars being worn by 16th century common people during dances. Some of them seem to have a fur line around the hem (as being fur-lined) while others could be unlined or lined with fabric.
Sometimes I get the feeling that I never get anything done, or that I haven’t made a piece for sale in like, forever. So I made a list of some of the things I have done this year, both for customers and for myself and love, and then I felt that yes- maybe I have been quite productive after all!
In the beginning of the year, I think I accidentally started this Herjolfnes recreation, all hand stitched.
I made our wedding outfits for our Midsummer wedding:
Supporting linen dress, white silk dress, velvet over dress, purse, belts and for love; silk shirt, silk brocade doublet and under west, woolen hose, bag and belt. Also, I remember sewing some tunics and dresses for our families for the wedding.
Did I sew this houppelande also, or did I finish it the year before? It is also all hand stitched, on wool, silk and rabbit fur.
During autumn, I apparently needed to redo my apron dress, make a whole new viking coat by hand and put it all together to a new outfit, along with some tablet woven bands.
Also, some commissions took place, like this coat…
… as well as a number of hoods, shirts and tunics (here’s some of them along with the silk cotehardie)
I also remember some viking hedeby trousers (baggy pants)- four of them i think.
As well as some hand sewn viking clothing…
I updated my shop and market stall during the spring with cloths, small flags and my own logo hand painted on a linen fabric.
Made a whole bunch of veils in linen and thin wool for different outfits;
I studied 16th century tailoring manuscripts and sewed two jackets for women, in wool fabric (one for my friend Linnea and one for myself)
Oh, and rosaries were totally a thing- I have read a lot about them, made a whole bunch of drawings, some pieces for sale and a folder about how to do them yourself, as well as holding some workshop on the subject.
This is far from everything I have made, and some pieces have not even made it to being properly photographed though I have been wearing them on several occasions. Also, quite a few items and commissions also are just on fb or my Instagram accounts, otherwise this post would be far to long.
All in all, I think I have; 1. made quite some things and 2. need to be even better at documenting them and writing about them here on the blog.
Because the book is in Swedish; so will this blogpost be. It is about a new book about the late 15th century clothing for men.
Jag fick hem en helt ny bok, skriven på svenska, som handlar om den sena 1400talsdräkten för män. Det är så fantastiskt roligt att en sådan här bok görs, på svenska, av skickliga medeltidsmänniskor, med syfte att underlätta för andra att förstå och skapa 1400tal. Förutom att det är en lätt väg till kunskap så är det också ett tecken i tiden på att medeltida återskapande av olika slag blir större och större i Sverige!
Boken har en lättöverskådlig layout, enkel och tydlig text, och stycken som efter en snabb genomgång ger dig koll på dräkten. Det är den typen av bok jag skulle börja med att skaffa om jag ville göra 1400tal, eller ge till en nybörjare som vet *ingenting* men gärna vill vara med. Jag gillar att den tar upp en historisk överblick och talar om formspråk, för att därefter ge förslag på plagg som tillhör perioden. Det finns inga mönster eller steg för steg instruktioner för plaggen, sådana finns istället att köpa via reconstructing history eller görs själv med hjälp av en mönsterkonstruktionskurs eller Tailors assistant. Är du en sådan som vill forska vidare själv, så gräver du i referenslistorna som innehåller både bilder och litteratur. Det är helt enkelt en handbok riktad till återskapare som vill börja med perioden- så himla smart och häftigt!
Anna, som är en av två författare, har jag träffat flera gånger på event och hon är en skicklig hantverkare och återskapare, som också bloggar om mycket 1400tal (Willhelm känner jag inte än, men ring mig så tar vi en fika och nördar 1400tal!) Boken innehåller, förutom referenslistor, också massor av bilder från perioden. Bredvid varje avsnitt om plagg/material osv hittar du alltså både historiska referenser, bilder, skisser och materialförslag från ett modernt perspektiv. Mycket bekvämt med andra ord, eftersom mycket arbete som du behöver för att kunna återskapa dräkt redan är gjort i boken.
Rikard och Helena från Handelsgillet är också delägare i Chronocopia som ger ut boken, och arbetar (förutom att sälja material och produkter) med att sprida kunskap om återskapande. I boken finns det en del produkter från deras shop, vilket kanske kan ses som reklam- eller ett praktiskt sätt att få tag på bra material att fota för att belysa tygfärger, material och vad man kan hitta för att praktiskt återskapa perioden. Jag tycker att det är ett bra initiativ, jag vet att de gör mycket efterforskningar kring färger och val av material de köper in för att allt ska vara historiskt, och här är deras shop Handelsgillet för dig som vill hitta material från boken (den tunna kyperten som syns har jag använt till flera av mina dräkter).
Nästa bok behandlar kvinnodräkten- gissa vem som ska klicka hem den också…
A post about shopping, giving discounts and what I am up to now.
Today it is black Friday, and you are apparently supposed to buy lots and lots of things and all companies are having lots of sales, special offers and the like. Not me. Why?
As a small business runner, I have discovered lots of thing about selling and producing things, and about the market in general, so to speak. One of the things I have learned, is that to have sales and discounts on things, you will have to either 1. earn less (not an option for big companies) or 2. earn the money in other ways. So if your favourite store or brand have large discounts and sales all the time, it means that it isn’t really a discount but the regular price – the price they want for the product to sell it with profit. All the other times when they sell on full price is just an extra income; more profit for each product. It really is very logical; why should a professional company sell things that they do not profit on?
This means, for me to have regular sales, I would have to rise my prices with about 20%, and then sit back and enjoy every time a customer bought a piece on full price. But that doesn’t feel very honest. So every time I do offer something on sale the cut goes on my income; it basically means I have been working hours for free. Sometimes I take that cut; to sell items that has been in stock for some times, or to give a close friend or a regular some discount. But I will most certainly not do it because it’s a shopping day, on which people are supposed to buy things just because…
With second-hand things it is a bit different. I often sell items after just a couple of uses, and that is mainly because they are experiments on new materials, technics or garments that I really wanted to make, but maybe not needed. Also, some items is getting sold because they don’t fit, or don’t get used enough. These items I do not sell as a part of my business main income- but to give myself space and income for a new project to take place. For me it is really important to not just make pieces on order, but allow myself to get inspired and creative in order to grow as a tailor and seamstress. For this reasons, you can often find barely used garments for a much better price at my facebook page.
This time of year is a bit slow for reenactment business, and I finished my last orders a couple of days ago. So now I am writing on new blogposts, working on new tutorials, reading books and sewing some new things for myself and the shop. Like this hood; just a small piece that turned out quite lovely, and is going up on the fb page for sale.
Do you want a special item made for yourself, as a Christmas gift or for next years season? Now is an excellent time to order; by late spring I usually have quite a delivery time if not fully booked. Hope you are having a nice weekend- with more snow than drizzling rain.
I recently made (ok, rather recently…) this new green wool dress. It is an overdress for the 15th century outfit, and is commonly called a houppelande, which is like french for just ‘overdress’. The fabric is from Medeltidsmode, it’s a tabby woven fabric with a soft rich fall, and quite warm. The lining and the whole sleeves are lined with silk ( which is both fancy and in the case with the sleeves, very practical as the dress gets easier to take on and of) and the front is lined with a rabbit fur, that is from an animal/ecofriendly farm, and tanned with plants in an old-fashioned way. The dress is completely handsewn.
I wanted to show you this, because it’s a dress I’m very satisfied with, and also – I’m planning on a later tutorial about houppelandes and how to draft patterns for them. So, enjoy – here is a picture post about the green houppelande!
Great amounts of fabric gives you nice, deep and dramatic folds.
Under the houppelande I wear a blue silk dress, and rasberry-red shoes that I traded with Hans-Gunnar.
The belt is made of black leather and bronze fittings from a 15th century painting. The purse holder (to the right) is a way to be able to wear a purse in the belt- but I have not found that exact solution in any sources. It seem to be more common to carry your purse under the dress, in the belt of the kirtle. I had my Very-Fancy-Purse in the belt that day, but if you want to strive for a more historical accurate look- go without any visible purse.
Holding up the fabric is almost a must if you want to move around
Here you can see one of the gores I put in to save fabric, but expand the width.
The houppelande is a fancy dress, and should pool around your feet when you walk, if you don’t lift it of course! If you want to make one yourself- do it overly long. When I stand still, the dress arrange itself around me in deep folds.
Another thing is the width of the dress, and the amount of fabric it takes to do it. I had around 4 meters of 1,5 m width, but could definitely have used more fabric. As you can see, the dress gets very wide, and dramatic when hold up.
working at home is fun, but also tiring when the work spreads through the whole house
