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.

 

frilled veil

When I saw Elina at Neulakko post about her new frilled veil, and that my veil sparked the idea for it I realized that I have not yet shown mine in close up.

It is made out of long strips of linen that are 8cm wide that when hemmed turned out 6cm. I think I had 4 widths of fabric for it, that would make it 6 meters long. The strips are then sewed together with a very small felled seam, as small as I could manage.
Then it was some hemming to do. The linen is medeltidsmode.se thinnest bleached linen, that sadly is not on the webshop at the moment. I hope she gets more of it, it is fantastic so I bought extra much of it last time to have for my summer sewing.

Then the strips was folded in half and gathered with two rows of running stitches. I was not really that precise with my stitches. I made sure that the stitches was parallel to each other, but I did not mark out how long they should be. But I tried to make them 1 cm long. A 1cm stitched gathered tightly gives you a frill that is 0,5 cm thick. I did as my English smocking, and picked just a few threads before the new stitch.

Then I secured the treads and enclosed the bottom with a straight on the grain piece of linen, like binding any edge; so that the frills will keep in place.
I wanted to make this frill like a separate piece, so that you can just baste it on whatever shape of veil you feel like for the day.

Then I spreaded the frills, the fact that the frills are so short (just 3cm in total, and of that 3 cm only 1,5cm is the frill), and gathered so tightly makes these frills holds up without starching. Even in rainy weather!

The frill is kind of heavy and falls nicely and holds a nice shape.

And here it is on a veil and on me, I like it best with a wimple, and I need just four needles to keep it in place all day, one in the wimple and three in the veil.
I also wear Birgitta cap under, to pin the veil and wimple on.

 

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.

 

How I wear my steuchlein

I thought that I would show you how I prefer to wear my steuchlein.

I start with putting my wulsthaube on.

Then I throw on the steuchlein

Oops a bit of.

It is nice to have that star so that I know it is on straight.

Then I tie it in the back.

Like this.

I throw the tail to the front to make it easy to tie it.

Finished

If one wanted you could always use needles here in stead, to minimize bulk.

Then I adjust the steuchlein over the wulsthaube

Tighten it in the back

Hold it in place with my left hand

The other hand twist the tail part into a tight twist.

When you have twisted for a while, you can let go of the left hand and use it to twist, it goes faster with two hands.

Then I put the twisted tail over my head, holding the back in place

Like this

The twist goes around the head.
And is tucked under itself.

Tada! like this. At this point I usually throw my hat with ostrich feathers on.
And this is how I wear my steuchlein and here is also a sneak peak of my new kampfrau blouse

 

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.

 

princess of the forest

So I am at a new school now, studying tailoring in Uddevalla, direction woman.

I wanted to share some pictures I took last weekend of my friend Bella in my raw hide crown and a lace dress I made.

 

medeltidsveckan 2011

Promise to say Hi! to me at medeltidsveckan if you see me.

 

Wulsthaube

Every one needs silly things to wear on your head, so to my kampfrau outfit I wanted a wulsthaube. It was super simple to do, I used these instructions but the triangular part I cut on the bias and sewed on a band that was on straight grain. That way it would drape over my bump nicely whilst still having it fit snugly around my head. If I would not have then band the area around my face would stretch over time and it would be to big. I also wanted it to be a complete thing, and not in parts. I want to be able to put it on without lots of needles or an under cap.

My roll was also cut on the bias, to make the curving nicer, and then it is stuffed with wool.

I draped it in pleats it in the back like in this painting by Hans Baldung Grien from 1505 It will also have the square detail in the back as in the pictures, to cover up the edges of the pleated fabric.
Now it just needs some hand sewing to keep the folds and everything else in place, Ill put up some pictures of the finished thing soon.