Waisted Kirtle

Sunshine inspired productivity

I had a relaxing weekend at home. It’s rare. In fact since the beginning of the year this is only the second weekend I’ve been at home… and the first weekend was the weekend where we did an open house.. so that doesn’t really count.

I’m about 75% done with Fearghus’ new banner. I need to do the embroidery on one side and then attach the front to the back to the loops that hold the banner on to the banner pole. I think that will be my project this week.

On Saturday afternoon I got kind of bored with the banner so I started thinking about (and then working on) other projects that have been on the back of my todo list.

In December I pulled apart F’s old Waffenrock and made him a new waffenrock. This left me with a TON of nicely fulled black wool (med weight) in 21.5″ widths. I hate the idea of just throwing it away.. and I also hate the idea of just throwing it in my fabric stash(it’s an oddball size so I had a hard time using it in a project but if I toss it in my fabric stash then since I’d -have- black wool I’d feel bad buying more black wool).. so I decided I’d use the fabric to make myself a nice simple 6th century Kentish (Anglo-Saxon) over jacket. It’s short and fairly simple and should almost exactly use up the fabric I had. After I rounded up all the stray bits of fabric it turned out I was exactly right. I now have a nice Kentish over-jacket.. and maybe 3 square feet of leftover black wool.

To finish the Kentish outfit I need pins (on order from Raymond’s Quiet Press) and then to split the front of my green tunic and add trim to the sides of the split. I also need to add trim along the front edge of the Kentish over-jacket. I’m not totally sure what trim to use. I’d kind of like to use some tablet woven trim.. but seeing as I want to wear the outfit in 3 weeks I doubt I’ll get trim woven before then.

On Sunday I added some gussets to the green tunic I hand-sewed for F at Pennsic (he’ll need to try it on to see if it will work for him now) and then in the afternoon I worked on a bodice pattern for myself.

An event inspired by Gason Phebus is coming in April and I need something adequate to wear. Anglo-Saxon or basic tunics are too early and Landsknecht is too late. So I decided that I needed to make myself a waisted cotehardie. This has been on my todo list for a while.. and I’m really anxious to work on it. So Sunday I fiddled with the fit of my bodice. The bodice on German gowns is a lot shorter then the bodice needed for a cote. On my German gown the bodice ends at the bottom of my ribs. For the cote to look right I needed to bring the bottom edge down to my natural waist.

Honestly I’m not sure how flattering this will be. I’m awful bumpy below the ribs.. and in the German gowns I can camouflage that with the very high waist.. I won’t be able to do that in the cote. Regardless by Sunday evening I had a fair stab at a 4-panel fitted bodice that ended at my natural waist.

After some quick back of the envelope math I figured out that if I want a “so full it’s scary” skirt with 8 panels.. that means I need about 8 yards total for one layer. Double that if I want the skirt lined. Sadly I only had 5 yards of the gold linen I’d originally picked out for the dress. After thrashing around for a bit I changed my mind and will now make a black gown with gold pin on sleeves (I have 15 yards of black) with a lined bodice and unlined skirt. If the unlined skirt turns out to be an issue I’ll look to line it with some inexpensive cotton in the future (in fact I’m tempted to go out and buy “radically inappropriate color/pattern inexpensive cotton” as lining just to be contrary).

Armed with a plan I turned to attack the black linen to get started.. only to realize that I’ve never washed the black linen. So after kicking my self in the butt I threw the linen in the wash. I think I will be able to get started cutting it out on Monday night.

Project list:
Finish F’s Banner (due March Crown)
Split front of green tunic, finish it and add pin button loops (due March Crown)
Trim for Kentish outfit (stretch goal) (due March Crown)
Add metal rings to the bottom of the Regent tent (stretch)(due March Crown)
Black waisted cotehardie with gold sleeves (due Gaston Phebus)
Chemise for under cotehardie (due Gason Phebus)
Blue Nordland #63 tunic for F (due Gaston Phebus/Beltane)
Grey chausses for F (due Gason Phebus/Beltane)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.