peteyfrogboy

I finished the eyelets on the Flemish peasant doublet last night, so all it needs now is sleeves. I just cut some leather points and tied the doublet and hose together to see how everything fits. It's so comfy! I have plenty of range of motion, no reported baggy butt, and no obvious stress points yet. I need to move the codpiece eyelets about an inch and a half inward, but other than that everything seems to be a go. I'll get pictures once I fix the codpiece, put sleeves on the doublet, and repurpose one of my old 15c shirts. Barring catastrophe, I should have it all ready to go well before Magna Faire.

I finished putting the codpiece together tonight. The pattern was largely built of guesswork and hope, since there was no way to really know how it would fit until the whole thing was built and attached. The seams are only basted together, but it all seems to work and is quite comfortable. It's a bit bigger than strictly necessary, but not out of line with period examples. Pictures of the hose with codpiece installed below the cut.

( Pictures! )

I started on what I'm calling the "birdnester codpiece" last night. I'm building it out of one layer of heavy wool blend for sturdiness, one layer of squishy fulled wool for smoothnes, and a layer of the blue linen to cover it all. There are four pieces total: two in the center for the crotch and the front of the codpiece, and two for the sides. You can see some of them in various stages of construction here. After taking this picture, I noticed that I had made two left sides for my codpiece. This will be remedied. :)

I stayed up late again last night working on the feet of my hose. I took the legs in at the heel a bit and attached the tops of the feet. The entire edge of both feet is finished and ready to attach the soles. Once the feet are done I'll start working on patterning the codpiece. I may mock up the doublet body first so I can see how the hose work when tied up.

I want to use these hose for both early 16c Italian upper class clothes and later 16c northern European peasant clothes (e.g. Bruegel and Beham peasants), so I'll be looking at both sources for details. A lot of these will look familiar, as I've linked to them before.

( Image Survey )

So, from a cursory look, it seems that the codpieces of early 16c Italian and later 16c Flemish peasant hose are strikingly similar. I think this is justification enough to try the "birdnester" construction method, which I think will make the best looking and most comfortable shape.

So, when last we left the story, I had built a short foundation for my full hose. I tweaked that until it fit better, then took it apart and adjusted my pattern to match it. Or so I thought. I cut two legs from the lovely stretchy Pennsic linen and did my best to match it up with the green linen foundation. Nothing really matched up right, so I just made it fit as best I could and basted things together, letting the extra flop around until I was sure what needed to be cut away. I sewed everything up and tried them on.

Of course, it didn't fit right.

( Adjustments )

Today was a very productive day, though most of it didn't come from me. My student Serafina made the long drive down to visit today so I could help her get a chemise started.
( Serafina's Dress )
( Also A Chemise )
( Adela's Shalwar )
( My Hose )

I'm still looking for good pictures of the early 16c style. Right now I'm hunting for evidence of points holding the hose and doublet together. They may just be hidden under belts and sashes, or tied on the inside. There's a possibility that they're pointed to a foundation garment of some sort, but I don't want to go that route unless I have to. I'm also expanding my search to contemporary clothes from other areas, especially Germany.

( More Pictures )

So andrevarigaldi was looking at the pictures from my last post and pointed out a line at the top of the leg in many of the pictures of hose. Here are some examples:

The two men on the left
The two men on the right
The man on the right

In dicussing it with her and greetpg, it seems most likely to be a seam. This is especially supported by the striped hose in the first picture, where the stripes are vertical below the seam and diagonal above. Perhaps it allows the legs to be cut on the grain and the top of the hose to be cut on the bias to allow for extra stretch in the butt? At any rate, it's worth experimenting with, if only so I can test the top part of the pattern without having to commit a whole leg's worth of fabric.

I'm sifting through images from the first quarter of the 16th century, looking for new summer clothing ideas, and I came across this interesting woman's chemise in a painting by Vincenzo Catena:

http://www.wga.hu/html/c/catena/judith.html

The neckline has a small pleated ruffle, but that's not the interesting thing. The lower part of the sleeve has been pleated down tight to the arm. I've never seen one like this before. Granted it's an allegorical subject (Judith), but it seems an unusual choice for a fantastical garment. Given some of the sleeve shapes at the time, it makes a certain amount of practical sense.

I'm calling the boy's clothes finished. The first field test went exceptionally well.



I also finally got some pictures of vox8's Milanese loose gown I made back in 2006. She wore it this weekend with the chopines from 2007, and reported that they weren't too hard to walk in once she got used to them.

From 1570s Milanese Gown

I got the skirt guard put on the green dress. It's standard cotton velveteen I got from JoAnn (yay 40% off coupon!), over a strip of that coarse wool that has made so many appearances as interlinings. I also got one of the hooks put on the skirt openings, which I had totally forgotten I wanted to do until I looked back at my last progress update. Yay for writing things down!

I also started working on an outfit for the boy. I don't want to start him out in boring old t-tunics and pants, so I'm going to do a 14th century kit with braies and chausses and a wee tiny coif. Still working on patterns for that one, but I did get a belt made.

The velveteen I used for the gamurra sleeves is the last bit of the stuff I dyed with red clay back in 2003. The rest of it got used in adelavanbrugge's coat of plates. Just in case anyone wanted to know how to get that shade of orange. :)

Well, the green gamurra isn't quite as done as I'd hoped. The skirt turned out a touch short, so I need to put a guard at the bottom. I also need to add a couple of hooks and eyes on the little flappy plackets on the skirt openings. But at least I have pictures now!

The green wool gamurra is done! Once I get a chance to put everything on adelavanbrugge, I'll get some pictures. My sewing finger is numb now. I still have another lacing cord to weave, but that shouldn't take too long.

The red suit is being featured over at the Realm of Venus Italian Showcase. One of these days I need to make a new set of 15c stuff and/or get some decent pictures of what I already have...

For those of you who may be planning to make chopines, here is what Caroso has to say about them in Nobilta di Dame (1600) (translation by Julia Sutton):

( Snip Snip )

I just finished my first pair of chopines, based on these instructions. I pretty much followed them to the letter, except I didn't glue the sides down, and the vamps were attached after the bases were complete. I also didn't pre-awl the holes, but just went at it with a leather needle and an occasional pair of pliers.

The person I made these for (vox8) bought two pairs of platform flip-flops a couple years back for this purpose, so the bases of these are rubber, not cork. I cut the flip-flops down with a band saw and glued them together , then shaped them with a coping saw and various power sanding implements.

I broke the eyes out of a few leather needles while putting the soles on and wore my right hand out with all the stitchery, but there were otherwise no major problems. The first time I attached the sides to the sole on the second one, I started in the wrong place and the seams didn't line up right, so I had to take it apart and start over. At least all the stitching holes were in the leather already.

They haven't had a proper test run yet, but they seem to be as functional as chopines can be so far.

I started researching a new dress to make for the wife, but I can't find the portrait I was looking at. That'll teach me to not save my links. It was a wide portrait of a husband and wife and about a million children, with the husband holding a big wine glass. I did find a somewhat similar image here:

Portrait of the Van Berchem Family, Frans Floris, 1561

The other one was much much better though.

EDIT:
Aha! Randomly shuffling through bildindex.de found it for me:

Pierre de Moucheron (1508-1567), Merchant of Middelburg and Antwerp, and his family, Antwerp School, 1563.

The girl has needed a new dress for quite a while, so I finally got around to making one. It still needs a few hooks in the front, but all the heavy lifting is done. I also need to make some sort of head covering, and maybe a petticoat and/or apron.