The sleeves on the latest gown I’ve been making have been a bit tricky. It’s a fitted gown, but with wide sleeves like a houppelande, a fashion seen in the early 15th century. Since I took pictures as I went along and it didn’t end up at all like I would have expected, I put together a page explaining how I made my big damn sleeves.
I’ve been doing a little housekeeping this morning, in preparation for handing out my URL at Costume College in a couple of weeks.
First, I updated my How to Pattern a Gothic Fitted Dress page with dated annotations describing how I’ve changed things over the years, how to fit using a straight front seam, and using two panels of fabric instead of one. The changes make the process a little less futzy than it was, and helps fix some problems the old process introduced in the side seams.
Second, I moved the detailed Sleeve Fitting page out of a PDF and directly to a wordpress page. I’ve added some clarification about the measurements, ease, and the mysteries of the shrinking armscye.
Not a lot of new information, but hopefully these small changes will make fitting easier!
I’m currently bouncing back and forth in my brain between different parts of the 15th century. I have a fantastic wide belt that was woven for me for late 15th c., which will have a silver buckle attached. But I’m also working on a clothing document with examples mostly pulled from the first 20 years of the century. While the very wide belts of later on in the century weren’t popular yet, you see some pretty hefty examples.
These images are all attributed to the 1400-1420. Some I believe might be later than this, but not by much. This is mostly just a dump to show the variety of belt widths worn with houppelandes in this period.
Just a quick cloak diagram and explanation. Eventually, I’d like to clean this up and create a real tutorial.
For 14th century cloaks, I recommend a half circle. Depending on length, no sewing may be necessary at all (except for the neck).
The extant cloak I rely on the most for construction information is the Bocksten Cloak.
There are a couple of examples of cloaks like this. They’re pieced along the length of the fabric, using the selvedges. One might consider cutting each piece in half or adding a false seam, depending on the class portrayed, although, it seems that wool broadcloth was generally available. Using the wool in narrower widths and piecing might result in a little less waste, although the full circle wastes less than I thought.
In the late 14th c. at least, men’s cloaks seem to be fastened on one shoulder, and women’s are fastened in the front. The shape of the neckhole changes slightly, but both should be shaped on the shoulders, so it stays on more easily.
As for fabric, use wool, the heavier the warmer! I wouldn’t suggest anything lighter than flannel, but melton or coatweight would be the warmest. I don’t recommend lining cloaks, unless you need it for decoration. If it’s wet outside, and the linen lining picks up any water, it’ll wick it up like nobody’s business. Also, if you have a heavy enough, fulled fabric, you might not even need to finish the edges. This can be a quick evening project.
Construction Diagrams:
Image 1: After constructing the half circle, either by just cutting or piecing, lay it out on a large, flat surface. Fold the sides down along the red lines, which will give you image 2.
Image 2: The cloak, after the sides have been folded down. Here is where you can control how much the cloak naturally hangs open. If you fold it so the edges don’t quite meet, it’ll hang slightly open, like some formal 14th century cloaks, and like I did on a friend’s Pelican cloak. If the edges meet, it should hang closed. I haven’t tried yet, but you could conceivably overlap the edges slightly to help it stay closed better, but I’d play with it before sewing or cutting much of anything.
Image 3: A closer zoom of the neck area. Sew (or rather, pin) along the red lines. This is the fitting around the shoulders that keeps it from slipping back or gaping around your neck. The length of the red lines is from just above the point of the shoulder to your neck. Don’t cut the shoulders yet. The angle depends on the slope of your shoulders – you usually want some sort of slope.
Image 4: Cut out the neckline. Cut the hole too small to start with – by the time it’s on the bias and you add a seam allowance, it’ll be bigger than you think. You can either cut a plain neck, or, as I’ve diagramed here, a little bit of shaping around the front. I think having the shaping is more comfortable. The cloak pins shut where the shaping comes together.
As a note, I drew diagram 4 after 3, because it’s easier to visualize sewing the shoulder slope before cutting the neck. Realistically, you’ll probably mark and pin the shoulder slope, and cut out a bit of the neck so that you can try it on to test more easily. Just don’t cut too much away that you might want later.
Feel free to comment, ask questions, etc!
ETA: Don’t cut the half circle shape until you’ve fit the shoulders, and can have it hemmed. The half circle will actually be slightly elongated to accomodate for the width of the shoulder.
Now that I have WordPress to use, instead of hand building all of my web pages from scratch, new content should be much easier to add. In fact, there are two new articles already!
Patterning Yourself for a Gothic Fitted Dress
And the natural accompaniment to that,
Over the years, I’ve talked to a lot of people who haven’t had access to anybody to help them fit a dress. I got to thinking, *I* haven’t actually been fitted since about 2003 – I’ve been fitting myself this whole time. I also messed around a little bit with drafting by measurement. That process isn’t perfect, but if you draft by measurement, and then fit it on your own body, you should be able to come up with a workable pattern.
Please let me know if you see errors, typos, or have any questions on these tutorials!
Welcome to my experiments in WordPress. Eventually, I’d like to move all of http://www.mathildegirlgenius.com/ over to here. Once I have all of the content replicated, or better yet, new and improved, I’ll make the switch. The old URL should point to the right place, at least for a year or so. I’ll update well before anything is made permanent.
