New dresses and headgear

I took some photos of two dresses with headgear to them for a exhibition application. And I thought that I would share them with you.

This is a headdress of raw hide that have been painted to look like metal with fabric flowers and lava stones. The dress is totally see-through and is made in tulle and tulle based lace fabric.

Cajsa wearing a cotton voile dress with leather yoke, the leather is really thin and nice and is tanned with “wet and white” one of the more nature friendly tanning methods.
The headdress is filled with fake flowers and have real deer antlers attached.

 

buttoned and lined liripipe

I thought that I would show you how I made my buttoned liripipe.

The pattern is a mix of Herjolfsnes no.72 from Greenland and hood no. 246 from the excavations in London. It is a tight hood but it can be worn both closed and open with the front part turned back.

I used a really nice thin grey wool for the outside fabric and a bright fun checked wool for the lining. I study tailoring and we made half a tailored jacket as a exercise and after everyone had cut out their jackets there was a lot of fabric over due to the fact that we pattern matched it. And most people just threw the pieces away since they were pretty small and they thought it was kind of ugly.
So I sneaked around and pulled their pieces out of the bins, free fabric is love.
The colours fit into the medieval colour spectra with a madder red and the other colours are also possible to achieve with plant dyes. So I pieces the scraps together, I know that pattern matching is not that period but I could not help myself, I just love pattern matching.
I sew with waxed linen thread and with sewing thread depending on what I am sewing.

I start with cutting the shell fabric out. I have a pieced liripipe to save fabric so I take my big piece and put it on the lining with the wrong sides together.

Then I baste the two layers together. Making sure that I do not baste to close to the edge at the slits for the shoulder gore.

Then I cut the hood out of the lining fabric. Doing it this way in stead of cutting them separately is that there is no need to match them later, they are identical right from the start.

Cut the slits for the shoulder gore in the lining fabric to.

We are going to start with putting the shoulder gores in. We will sew them in from the right side. It is a easy way to set gores without having to worry about the tip being all wonky.
With a chalk I draw the sewing allowance on the gore. I have 1cm

Sewing the gores in from the right side is a technique that have been found on the garments from Greenland.

The cut slits in the hood have now sewing allowance so put the cut edge to the chalk line.

You should put the gore in between the lining layer and the shell fabric.
This is why you should not baste to close to the edge.

Pin it in place.

Fold the edge of the slit in.

Do this all the way around the slit, see how easy it is to make a pretty tip on the gusset.

Make sure that you only pin the shell fabrics layers together.

Then sew the gusset with this kind of stitch.

Make sure that you only sew the shell fabric together.

And there is your gusset.

This is the backside. The line is there to help me to pattern match the lining gusset.

Do the same thing with the lining gusset. Yes, there might have been some non period pattern matching going on here to, but there is a lot of piecing and that is totally period

Then you attach the liripipe the same way, from the right side. I do this because I am lazy and that it gives you a nice flat seam from the beginning. And the seam will not get any wear so it will hold anyway.

I do not line the liripipe, no one will see it anyway and it will just be bulky.

I cut the seam allowance down a bit, to reduce the bulk even more.

Then I sew down the seam allowance. I use filler threads to keep the edges from fraying, and it looks pretty as well. This is a technique that have been found in the garments from Greenland.

Then I mark out the centre front of the hood. On the buttonhole side I want it to overlap with 0,5 cm so I mark that out to.

I baste the centre front line on the button hole side to make it easy for myself when I am going to mark out the button holes later on.

On the side were the buttons will be attached I fold in the seam allowance completely, since you want the buttons to be attached to the edge of the hood at the centre front.
I cut some notches in the seam allowance to make it possible to press.
On the side where you want the button holes you only press in 0,5cm since you want it to overlap a bit.

I trim down the seam allowance where the notches are so that the notches are cut of, It looks prettier.

Then I trim away the lining a bit, to make it smoother.

Cast down the edge with filler thread.

Like this.

Finish of both sides the same way.

Then you sew the buttonholes. I use a silk buttonhole thread to work mine, It gives the best results and have been found on the garments described in Textiles and clothing.
I wait with the buttons since I always sew the buttons on last. It is a tailor habit and comes from the fact that you can not do a proper last press on a garment if the buttons are on it.

Not it is time to sew the neck seam. I mark out where I want to sew.

I start at the liripipe. Here I sew with short running stitches. There is no stress on these seams and sewing a back stitch is just wasting time.

I sew with short running stitches all the way to this point in the neck, this is where I start sewing with back stitches.

Then I press the seams apart.

Period seam allowances are narrow so I try to simulate that with cutting my seam allowances down a bit.

As I have done with all my other seams, I use the filler threads when I cast the edges down.

Now it is time to hem the hood. I have chosen to tablet weave around the hood.
If you want to know how to do it, I explained this in my tutorial on how to make a open hood.
Click here to go to it.

Now we make the buttons. Mark out the size on a piece of fabric.

Using a strong thread (I use waxed linen) sew running stitches around the circle.

Then I trim the edges. If you have a big button you can leave these on to use for filling of the button. But my button is small so I cut it away.

I gather the the button around my thumb.

Fold the edges inside.

Make a single knot and pull it together.

Then I massage it between my fingers. I find that this makes a better shape and also enables you to pull it even tighter.

Pull it tighter and make the second knot.

And then you have a button small round and tight.

Using the left over threads I sew them right onto the edge. Make sure that they have a bit of a neck or else they will be hard to button.

Now it is time to take away all the basting and to press your hood well. The tailor in me hates unpressed seams, everything is better well pressed.

And then it is done! Worn here with my modern clothes and my Bigritta cap.

And of course the pattern. In cm per usual.

 

open hood with card / tablet woven edge

Last year I wanted to make a open hood with the silly hook on to top, but when I did a toille it looked really off and I decided to make a buttoned hood with liripipe in stead. But at last summers medieval week I saw Saras red open hood I was really inspired and decided to make one for this summer.
There is so many different variety of open hood in the pictures, I have based mine of several picture and these are some of them.
Here are some on my Medieval pinterest board

One with very wide “wings”
A few with that silly hook
One more with a hook
And some with longer “tails”

I also love Isis black open hood

Using my liripipe pattern as a guide I made a toille for a open hood and it did not take long before a pattern was made.
This kind of hood does not require a lot of fabric so it is a great way to use scraps. It was also a really fast project, started on a Thursday and completely finished on the Sunday after, with not that many active sewing hours.

I wanted to make it in wool and lined in wool so I took some scraps from my liripipe for the gray lining and some left overs from my new yellow dress I am making for the shell fabric.
I wanted to tablet weave the edge of this hood and these fabric is slightly fulled so there is minimal fraying of the fabric and that is nice.

When cutting the pieces out I put them all together.

So that the linings right sides are out and the shell fabrics right sides are facing each other.

Using a chalk crayon I mark where I want to sew.

I use a back stitch when sewing all the layers together, all at the same time. I sew with small stitches using a waxed linen tread. When hand sewing I try to make as small stitches as I use when sewing on the machine.

Then I cut some of the seam allowance away on my lining. This is so that it will not poke out when we are going to cast down the edges and it also makes the seam allowances smoother since it thins it out a bit.

Then I press this seam apart, I was travelling by train when I was sewing this so they are just basted down in my pictures, it works just as fine as long as you press your seams later.
I now sew the seam allowances down, I use filler threads when sewing down the seam allowances. They protects the open edge of the fabric and keeps it from fraying and it also looks really pretty and neat. This is a technique found of the garments from Greenland and is described in my favourite book about medieval textiles “Woven into the Earth” by Else Østergård.
I take care and make sure that the stitches only goes through the lining and not the shell fabric.

I do not split my seam allowances all the way. In the hook part I cut the seam allowance down a bit and also cut some notches so the curve does not pull and then I press it apart.
But sewing it down is not necessary, it only adds bulk and it will never be seen anyway.

Then I turn my hood right side facing out. I smooth out the fabric and baste the edges together. Here you can see that my edges have shifted a bit when sewing the top seam.

I trim that off.

Now you can edge your hood any way you want to, but I wanted to show you how to card weave/ tablet weave the edges.
There is no need for fancy materials to do card weaving, I bought my beautiful wooden cards from
http://ampstrike.etsy.com
but you can use a sturdy cardboard to make your cards. The size and thickness is all personal preferences, I like to use thin smaller cards.

I am going to use two cards for my weave, each card have four holes in it so I will need eight warp threads. Using my mothers kitchen chairs I warp the threads to get the same length and to get them sorted out. This is more important if you have a complicated weave, but I do it this way anyway.
The length of your threads are the length you want to edge and then I always add half a meter more, to be on the really safe side, and then a bit more to not come out short in the end.
I just tie the thread to the leg of a chair that is turned upside down.

I put the other chairs the distance apart that I need to warp.

I go around the leg of that chair.

When I come back to the first chair I make sure to go on the other side of the leg.

And the around the first leg again So that you create a crossing of the threads.

Then I do that until I have the right number of threads.

The crossing of the threads is important, it makes sure that you can see in what order you warped the threads.

How it look on the other chair.

We like long kitchens when warping.

I want to save the crossing of the treads for later, so I make this cardboard divider.

Like this.

If you are a bit short on space, this is a good way of warping.

The important this is to get the crossing of the threads.

Or like this.

I tie a knot around the warp threads to keep the end together.

And then I take it of the chair leg.

I tie a slip knot in the end.

And then hand crochet the warp threads loosely to keep them neatly together.

Leave a part to weave with loose and just tie a simple bow around the last loop to keep it from unravelling and then you can take it of the other chair to.

Now cut the end of the loose end above the crossing of threads part.

Now it is time to tread the cards, they are threaded in this order and is threaded from the back to the front.

Now you can see the use of saving the crossing of the threads. You can easily see which is the next thread to thread.

Now I have threaded both my cards.

I now want to put them together, I put them back to back or face to face. I was going to have one more card I would put it back to back with the last card. This is to get a well balanced weave.

I use two safety pins to keep my cards from turning around and getting tangled. I put these in whenever I am going to do something with my project that might make me loose the order of my cards, just to be sure.

At the far end before your crochet braid I make a slip knot, I will put this on my foot.

I put it on my foot and make sure that the warp treads are equally long. Then I tie a ordinary knot in the front after the cards. I attach this to a belt in some way, this is just temporary so I just tie it of with a piece of yarn.

Ready to weave.

For the beginning you are just going to weave a ordinary ribbon. Take out the safety pins, put in a thread, and turn both cards at the same time, it does not matter if you turn them from you or towards you. Turn them one step and as long as you keep tuning them in the same direction. When you turn the cards the threads shift and the thread is secured.

You can now put in the tread from the other side, pull it snugly and then turn the cards again, turn the cars in the same direction as the first time.
Keep doing this for a while and you will not have a ribbon. Remember to turn the cards in the same direction all the time.

It is now time to start the edging, I start in the back somewhere where it will be less visible. Thread the piece of yarn in a needle. Now, in stead of just putting the thread from one side to another, we are also making a stitch in the fabric.

Pull it tight to the braid.

Turn the cards.

Put the thread through.

Turn the cards.

Put the tread through and take a stitch and pull it tight to the braid.

Turn the cards.

Put the thread through.

Turn the cards.

To keep the warp with enough tension you need to keep the warp threads at a good length. I tie the warp thread to my foot or whatever is available, the knobs to hang your purse on the train, the leg of a table.

After you woven a while you want to move where your project is attached to your belt. I use a kilt needle and put it in the middle of the braid and then attach it to my belt.

When you come to a corner you want to just weave a bit of braid to get you round the corner.

After the corner I usually wait with attaching the kilt needle for about five cm, I use my fingers to hold it for a while to get a bit of braid. I find that this gives me nice corners

This is how I do then I want to take a break from the weaving without having it get messed up and tangled.

This is how it looks from the side when turning the cards once.

After a while you will notice that your warp threads are getting really twisted from you turning the cards the same way all the time.

You need to change direction of the turning of the cards sometimes to get the twist out, this is best to do at either places where it will not be seen or where it looks nice anyway, since the changing of the direction will be visible.

When I run out of thread, this is how I do. This is seen from the backside. Leave the thread from the stitch hanging, turn your cards and just start with a new tread. We will fasten these later on.

When I have woven all around and get to the last stitch I do as in the beginning. I just weave a bit of ordinary braid.

I got quite a bit left on the warp, I will save this in my stash, it might get some use if I need to edge something smaller sometime.

Then I cut the cards of.

Now it is time to fasten loose threads.

I tie a double knot as close to the braid as I can.

Then I use a needle to thread the end of the thread trough the braid.

One end in each direction.

Cut the ends of and it is almost invisible!

At the end of the weaving, I cut of the ends, fold them in and sew it all shut. Raw ends enclosed.

Then I take all the basting away and press the seams, the edges and the hood itself. And then you are done!

This is how it looks on, both with veil and wimple, and also with just my Birgitta cap.

And as always, here is the pattern, it is made in cm as usual.

 

Lengberg Castle brassiere

From the first time I saw the Lengberg Castle underwear I knew that I would want to make something similar. Having big breasts complicates things, I would prefer not to wear modern bras with my medieval clothes. But there is no chance that I can get away with not wearing anything at all. The fitted front dresses might work, but I prefer to use ease in my garments and I am not all that fond of the shape my breasts would get in that kind of fitted underwear.

So the Lengberg Castle brassiere was perfect, it is just like a modern bra, but with more coverage and in linen.

There are quite a few interesting articles on the net already, you should check them out in stead of me trying to communicate what they are about.

Medieval supportive underwear at Medieval Silkwork
Supportive underwear in written sources at Medieval Silkwork
About medieval bra(shirt)s and other underwear by Isis Sturtewagen
The “Invention” of Needle-lace in East Tyrol? – University of Innsbruck

I used a lot of needles and draped this pattern on my self wearing my regular bra. It is really hard to drape on yourself so I recommend that you get a friend to help you. But after a evening of contortionism I had a pattern.

It might be the silliest looking pattern I have ever made.

One of my favourite things to do is actually sewing eyelets, my brassiere have 6-7 at each side and is spiral laced.

The lacing I used is lucet braided wool.

The result is this, the seams are made with felled seams that are placed on the outside, to make it as smooth as possible for the skin.

It feels good to wear. I wore it for a full day in school and the only thing was that the bottom edge raised up under my bust but I will be attaching a skirt to and that might fix that problem. Also, My breast went kind of droopy with not as much lift as I am used to with my modern bra at the end of the day. But the linen I worked with is really thin and I will make a try with some sturdier linen and that might keep them up and happy all day. But it was really comfy even if they “sank” in height during the day.

This pattern is made after my body, so a mock up is very important. But I thought that there is always nice to see how the pattern looks, as a starting point for your own pattern.
I wear a European size 80H according to the label in my bra that is a 95H in France and 36H in UK, sorry you US ladies but I have no idea what that translates to. But my body measurements are: Bust 120cm and underbust 96cm.
As usual my pattern diagrams are in cm

 

Patternmaking for the kampfrau – wulsthaube

Happy new year!
I start my new year with a tutorial on how I made my wulsthaube.

My wulsthaube is in one piece, I love that it is so simple to put on, I can even do it without a mirror (or running uphill the streets of Visby to attend 100 landsknecht march as I did 2011 medieval week), not pinning and tugging at a piece of fabric in the morning.
As I always wear a steuchlein my wulsthaube is never visible.

You start out with making a fabric roll. Mine is made out of a piece of linen that is 16cm wide and 44 cm long. It is cut on the bias and when it is sewn together it is stuffed with wool. You can use whatever stuffing you want to and I have also read about people using wicker wreaths padded with fabric for their wulst, I guess that it would be a good lightweight option if you want to do a super size wulsthaube.

Then I take a piece of fabric, I used a old linen panel curtain found thrift shopping. The size is based on the size of your wulst and it is not 100% important as you are draping your wulsthaube. I think that my fabric was somewhere between 65-85 cm long and and 50-60 cm wide. The linen is cut straight on grain so that the front will not stretch. you can also cut it on the bias to make it drape over the wulst better, but then you will need to add a strip of fabric in the front that is on straight grain before putting it on to keep the front solid.

I pin it in the nape of my neck (I look kind of aggressive in this picture, angryfrau!)

Put the fabric over your head.

And add the wulst.

I start with pinning it at the centre top.

Then I pull the fabric taut over the wulsthaube pinning it as I go along.

Now you are ready to start draping.
You can do this while wearing it with the help of mirrors, having a friend wear it or as I do it, putting it on a doll.

Remember to put pins where you pinned it at the nape of your neck.

Put it on your trusty helper.

And start draping.

As you go along you can cut away some of the fabric that is hidden by the pleats, it only adds unnecessary bulk.

When draping it you can decide what shape you want it to have by pulling the fabric taut in the back.

Here you can see that I have cut away some on the inside.
But you don not want to cut it all away, as you will notice in a few step. You will need a flap to cover the raw edges in the front.
My wulst looks kind of gross, but that is what happens if you use wool that is not properly washed. You smell slightly of sheep and the wool geese leaves stains. I recommend using washed wool! ;)

In my finished wulsthaube, I don’t want the ends to meet in my neck, I want some space to be able to put it on tightly and the linen will probably stretch some with use.
So I remove some cm in the neck and put new pins. The pin to the right is the old pin, and the new pin is to the left.

Then I cut away the excess and pin a nice hem.

Lots of pins! I want to sew the pleats down to make them stay in place, make sure to catch more then just the outer layer of fabric. I do the same on the inside, to make it look neat.

As you see here I have only sewn the pleats down for about 5cm

A flap have been naturally shaped on the inside by the draping, sew down the side of it.

Cut away excess fabric.

Hem the edges you pinned a few steps before.

It is now time to fix the finishing on the outside in the back.
See the flap, make sure that it is moderately the same width all along.

Fold it to the font and put some pins.

Trim it down and fold under the raw edges.

Sew it in place.

I then add a band around the head, it is cut straight on grain and is as wide as you like. Mine is 2cm wide and just as long so that I can pin or tie it.

And then it is finished!
I might had wanted to have the square lower in the neck, my other wulsthaube is like that. But as it is always covered with a steuchlein that is not really a problem.

I usually baste my wulst with big stitches to the haube, so that I can take it out and throw the haube in the washing machine after events. But you can also pin it if you want to.

 

My green dress

I realized that I have not really shown you my green dress, except for in a few pictures.
It is made out of a thinner tabby weave green wool from medeltidsmode.se and is completely hand sewn with linen thread.

I have based my model on Herjolfsnes no.38 from Greenland. I am not a fan of the GFD dresses but still wanted a dress that follows my body so this model with lots of panels in the side seemed perfect for the shaping over the bust. I Know that the original herjolfsnes dress was not made as a tight garment but I choose to make it tight anyway.
The reason for not liking the GFD is that I do not like how really tight they are, in my world clothing needs ease. A garment that have no ease tend to look like it is to small for the wearer. I have seen a lot of really nice GFD but with my bust size it tends to look like a over stuffed sausage. And also I prefer to have the front edge straight on the grain, that way I know that it will not warp under pressure and most GFD use the fitted front. My green dress is tight but not so tight as the GFD. I wear a modern bra under my dresses because I need that support but do not want to wear a dress that is that tight.

I have also chosen to make more of a grande assiette type of sleeve as the Moy bog dress, just because I wanted to try it out. I have also made e two part sleeve with the so called “elbow hinge” from the pourpoint of Charles de Blois that cottesimple.com describes.

In the making my armholes turned out to big. But sewing some gartering threads and then using steam on it solved this problem a bit, I love wool.

I have also chosen to make it with buttons as the Moy bog dress, because buttons are pretty and I like sewing buttonholes.

Lots and lots of buttons!

This was my first medieval dress ever and I wanted to try out everything I had read about ;)

Under it I wear a simple linen under dress, It might look a tad bit short, but with this length you don’t get the problem with a wet linen hem against your skin when walking in wet grass or on rainy days. Wet linen is not that nice.

There are some things that I am not 100% satisfied with on this dress. The fit in the armhole is one, but after a few times wear it moulded to my body and looks better then from the beginning. So I really like this dress, it is my first try but the shape of it works well on my body and the many panels in the sides makes it easy to fit.
I love the amount of width in the bottom that is due to the panels. One might think that it is wasteful to make but when cutting it out there was a minimal amount of waste. When laid out on the fabric correctly the only scraps you get is in the neck hole, armhole and thin strips in between the pattern pieces.

 

Patternmaking for the kampfrau – hemd / chemise

So I have spoken about my new kampfrau chemise/shirt/blouse, and I have also documented the whole process of making it so that I can show you how it is made.

This hemd goes under the name of “silly eternity hemd” because it have a rather silly amount of fabric in it, and a equally silly high collar with a ridiculous tight smock, and it really have taken an eternity to sew.
I like things silly, especially with my kampfrau, and I love to work a long time on things, but I have to admit that it might be a bit to much to have 4,5 meters of fabric smocked into the collar.
It is in a thin linen fabric from medeltidsmode.se and is sewn with silk thread.
The seam allowances are felled and when done they are only 0,5 cm wide.
The embroidery is in linen thread.

So here is the pattern, it is in cm and not inches.
I am using the width of the fabric, using one width for the front, one for the back and half a width for each sleeve. Using 3 meters gives you enough fabric for these pieces, the sleeve gusset and for lining the collar and end of the sleeves.
In centre front, we have a slit that is cut open.
As said, to use 150cm to the font and the back might be a bit to much, so if you want to using half a fabric width, 75 cm that will turn out as a nice hemd that to.

When I work in linen fabric, I like to pull threads. This ensures that I cut 100% on the grain.
Using a big needle, I pull up one thread.

Pulling it out until it breaks.

When it breaks, you just use the needle to pull it out again and then when you have gone the full width of the fabric it will look like this.

And now you can cut your fabric.

Voila! 100% straight on the grain.

Now it is time to start sewing. You need to sew your pieces together before you smock. I have a seam allowance of 1 cm.
As you can see in this picture, you need to sew your pieces together so that they form a “tube”. Sew only down to the X mark, witch is in my hemd 31 cm down. My hemd is rather tight fitting around the armcycle, and this measurement decides this. For a looser fit you need to sew longer. Or if you are smaller you might need to have this distance shorter if you want the tighter fit. You can if you want sew just as much as you need for the smocking (15cm) and then when the smock is finished, put it over your head and pin with needles so that it fits right here.
The blue in this picture shows where my smocking is going to be.

Of course I forgot to take photos of how I sewed it together, but I have these stand in pictures to show you how I sew a felled seam. It is important that the finished seam is not wider then your smock pleats, or else it will look funny and you will see the seam in your smocked collar. As my smock pleats are 0,5cm therefore my finished seam is 0,5 so that it blends in. Therefore I start out with a 1 cm seam allowance.
I sew with running stitches as there is no strain on this seam and we are also felling it witch means that it will be stronger because of that.

Then I scrape the seam open with my bone tool, this is a period way of getting flat seams with out ironing them, and linen takes this treatment fabulously.

Then I cut down the seam allowance on one side.

Folds the other sides seam allowance in half, here I use a fingernail to scrape it down.

Fold the whole thing to one side, scraping it a bit with my bone tool to make it lie flat.

And then I sew it down. And that is how I make my felled seams.

So let me introduce my bone tool, it is made as you all can guess out of bone. Moose bone to be exact. I have made it myself and I originally use it when working with leather, polishing the edges among other things.
But when I was reading in “Woven into the Earth: Textile finds in Norse Greenland” by Else Ostergaard there was information about tools found that was connected with textile working (pages 111-115). Among the tools were the “seam smoothers” that were used to make the seams flat. They could be made out of every kind of material, wood, bone, stone, glass, horn, it even says something about a pigs tooth.
So I thought that “well I need to try it” and said and done, and now I use my bone tool with all my linen fabric. So nice not having to use the iron all the time, especially with small seams and narrow seam allowances that you end up burning your fingertips of while working with.
But now, lets continue on our hemd.

Now it is time to hem the top of your hemd, that will become your collar.
I pull a thread at 1 cm and make a double fold.

Like this, here you can see my felled seam.

Now we are going to make a dotted grid for the smocking. I have made a guide out of thin cardboard, this saves so much time! I am going to dot each cm with one cm between each row.
I am dotting 10 rows.

It is just to put it along with the hemmed edge and with a pen make a dot using the grid, This takes almost forever, remember to sharpen your pen now and then.
Yes that is about 4500 dots… yes you are crazy for doing this ;)

Here you can see that I have also hemmed the slit in the front. (or at least one side of it).

The end of the slit is hard to hem in a good way, and it is also a place that have a lot of strain on it. So I finished it of with some buttonhole stitches to cover the raw edge and then some stitches across to make it durable. And it is pretty to.

Now it is time to sew your gathering stitches. I use a regular polyester thread in a bright colour, so that I remember to take it away later. I sew with a long double thread and pick up a few threads at each dot.

Sew all the lines.

Then gather your fabric and tie it of when you have gathered it to your neck circumference + some ease. Hold a measuring tape against your neck to know what you want ( mine is 44cm ).

Really dense smocked fabric, ridiculously dense.

Now I baste some guide threads on the front, to help me with my embroidery. They are 1cm apart.

I start my embroidering with this, along the whole collar, to keep it together.

Like this

Then I want to have these.

And this is how you sew that stitch. If you reverse it you can sew a diamond.

And this is how it ended up, with decorative dots in the middle. And in the bottom is honeycomb stitch.

This is how you sew it.

to get to the next row, skip one row.

Now you just continue on like before.

This is how my backside looks.

And the finished front.

Then it is time to line your collar. My lining is a strip of fabric that is 5cm wide finished width, and as long as my neck circumference, the measurement that we tied of the threads on.

When sewing it on, be sure to catch each fold to sew it to the lining.

This makes sure that your smock stays put and looks pretty.
Do not sew the front shut before you cut the thread knots of, that will make it hard do take them away.

Now take your gathering threads away.

And now your collar is done! I have a pearl closure.

Pearls and thread loops.

A close up of the hemmed slit.

And the reinforcement again.

Now you are going to sew the sleeve seam and the side seams. Put your hemd with your wrong sides together.

And this is how you are supposed to sew. Leave 10 cm toward the X. This is were you are going to sew your sleeve gusset.

Like this.

Now sew your sleeve gusset.

Like this.

The sleeve gusset is also going t have felled seams, put it on your knee and it is easy to see when you work.

Fell the seams on the sleeve and the side seam to. And hem the sleeves and the bottom hem.

And now do the same thing to the sleeves as you did to the collar part. Make dots, sew dots, gather.
But here I gather against a bottle that have the same circumference as my hand. I don want to have a closure on my sleeve but I still need to be able to put it on.

And do some honeycomb smocking.

And then line it.

Remember to not sew it shut before you remove your gathering thread.
Remove gathering threads and sew shut.

Now it is done!

Close up on the collar.

Close up on bottom.

This is where your first seam ends up in the end. Not visible at all when you are wearing it.

Close up on sleeve gusset.

Finished sleeve.

The inside of the sleeve.

Back of hemd.

Back of collar.

How the honeycomb looks.

Inside of collar.

Ruffles on the collar.

As an addition to the button closure I also have a hook in the bottom of the collar, to keep in shut better, it fastens in a loop on the other side.

And then a picture of me wearing the shirt.
I hope you have found this tutorial helpful.

As always I give you, my inspiration for my kampfrau.
Really high collars

And also one, where I got the inspiration for the pearl closure from.

 

pattern making for the kampfrau – steuchlein

As I am in the progress of making a new shirt to my kampfrau, I also needed a new steuchlein to wear over my wulsthaube since my old one is in raw silk just as my old shirt. And here is how I make my steuchlein complete with a pattern diagram.

So here is my pattern, I put the long side against the fold of the fabric and that is also the reason that my steuchlein is 150 cm long. I use the width of the fabric. In the end it is mostly like a liripipe pattern, but without the cape part.

I use a thin linen fabric from medeltidsmode.se and sew with silk thread, because I like it and I find that the linen thread I have is a bit to thick for this fabric.

Start with hemming the end of the end of the tail, I cut my selvage away here, since I do not think it is that pretty and hemming with that gets so bulky. If you have nice selvage you can just ignore the hemming part and use the selvage as it is instead.

Then I sew the long seam that forms the tail part. I sew with small running stitches, using backstitch here is in my eyes just a waste of time since there is not any strain on this seam. Running stitches will work just as good.

Then I scrape the seams so that they lie flat. This is a period way of getting your seams smooth without ironing them. This is a bone tool that I use when I work with leather, but you can use whatever you like tree, bone your fingernails. I use my fingernails when I scrape my hems.

In the end of the tail, I fold in the raw edges and sew a bit. So that no loose threads will poke out.

Then I fell the seams. Not all the way since most of the seam allowances is in the tail part so that felling those would be a waste of time since they do not get any wear or is ever seen. The fabric is also cut slightly on bias here, so the edges will not really fray here anyway.

Then I hem the bottom part. As you can see here, when working in linen fabric I like to pull out threads to know where my fold lines are. This ensures that the edges are 100% on straight grain.

My hems are double folded and when finished 0,5 cm wide, thin and nice.

Then it is time to hem the front of the steuchlein, I pull threads here as well, to know where to fold. I am going to hem it with a embroidery stitch, so I pull two more threads out to guide my stitches.

Fold the front in, scrape the edge to make it flat.

Here I have a single fold hem, using the selvage. Since it will not be seen and helps holding the front together. If you want to you can just hem it as it is now and then you are done.

But as my new shirt is with black embroidery I want to use the same thread on my steuchlein as well. So I decided to hem with a herringbone stitch.
So here are some pictures to explain the stitches. I sew with a linen thread that is slightly waxed to make it easy to sew with.
Here you can understand how it helps to pull out those threads. The embroidery is the exactly the same height all over.

On the back it looks like this.

I made a star it the centre front, to make it easier to put on right.

And then you are done!

With this steuchlein you can make a lot of different styles very easy.

 

kampfrau bag

Summer season = kampfrau and a kampfrau need a bag. Looking at a lot of pictures I saw a model that seemed to be used by both males and females and also used in a very varied social status.
And as I work this way: see pretty thing, make pretty thing. I just had to make myself a bag and as I like to share I also made a pattern diagram.

For the lazy one I have also made a full size printer friendly pdf pattern, so just send me an email if you want that one in stead, and specify if you want it in A4 or letter size. I know that pattern diagrams can be a bit confusing and these are full of measurements and information.

But first, the finished bag.

It is made in Swedish bark tanned reindeer, the lid and strap is in 3mm vegetable tanned cowhide and the red is chrome tanned goat. I usually try to stay away from the chrome tanned leather because of the chrome, but this red is just so beautiful that I can’t stop myself.

As you can’t really make out the backside of the bags from pictures you have to make something up. I decided to use the same shape as on the lid, as that makes it both a bit sturdy, gives me something to put a inner pocket on and it looks pretty. Also when cutting leather I find that you get the most useful scrap pieces if you try to keep your work in rectangles that you then cut down. For example, the things I cut away on the lid and strap can easy be used as other straps or perhaps a bracelet.
Here you can clearly see the seam that fasten the inner pocket.

A close up on the lid. The button is made with a wooden core that have been covered in leather.

Something that I have not done yet is to sew the strap closed, so that you can open the bag without it slipping of your belt.

When you open the lid you can see that it has two external pockets and a drawstring to keep it shut.

The button is fastened in the front piece of the bag.

To make sure that the button stays on, the leather that is used to cover the button is the leather that becomes the piece that is sewn on to the front piece of the bag. I also used extra long threads that I wrapped around the neck of the button to make it more secure and long lasting.

On the inside there is a pocket, I have no historical sources for this, but a bag needs its bag for “girl stuff”. I first sew it onto the back piece, through both lid/strap and the back piece and then sew the seams on the sides, the seams that form the pocket. Before sewing it on I also put some water on the front bit of the inner pocket, and stretched it a bit just at the front piece, this makes it easier to put stuff into the pocket, and you can see how it is slightly looser on the picture

Here we have the pockets, the pattern piece is sewn on so that it forms a pouch, my leather is a bit thick so it does not pouch as well as it should, but it will become softer with use.

The drawstring on these pockets are well thought out, pull it open easy.

Put stuff inside.

And then pull on the long ends to shut it again.

And now on to the pattern.
The measurements are in cm and these patterns are not to scale as my Illustrator does not want to cooperate with me. If you want to save and print email me for the pdf in stead.
The + marks where you should punch a hole, this is most practical to do just after cutting out your leather before any sewing is done. Except at the centre back were the holes should be through bot lid/strap and back piece and therefore is better to punch after you sew it on.
The dotted lines are your sewing lines, where your seams should be or where you should place your other pieces. I use a needle and punch tiny holes through the paper pattern to mark these lines.
The pockets have no seam lines as there is such a small (2mm) seam allowance, and on the front piece the dotted lines is how you should put the pocket pieces to form pouches.

The overview, this one is to scale.

And so, some inspirational picture as well.

As you can see she have only one pocket, it is shaped differently at the bottom and there is tassels.

One with a smaller lid and three pockets.

two other variety.

My bag is kind of the same size as this nice girl.

 

patternmaking for the kampfrau – gollar

so it was ages ago that I made a tutorial for something and I had this one kind of laying around (in the paper version) so I thought that I should make it into a pretty Illustrator picture and upload it here with pictures of my own gollar that I made for this summer.

My gollar is made out of wool and lined with rabbit fur and can be worn both with the collar down and the collar standing, it is closed with three hooks and eyes in the front.
As it is hard to take photos of your own back I bribed my sister to act as a model, she is much smaller then me so it looks a bit big on her.

Here are some inspirational pictures

And finally the pattern, the measurements are in cm NOT in inches, click for bigger picture

As usual a toile is a good idea to make sure of the fit before you cut into fancy fabric. Good luck and happy kampfrauing