Making a pattern for 16th century joined hose

 In about two weeks our 16th century guild has one of its annual feasts and for the first time in a couple of years we can be inside! I felt that this would be a good reason to finally make David a proper pair of joined hose.

Joined hose is when the hose has taken a step towards being a pair of trousers, they are connected in the back and there is a crotch seam, but the the opening of the hose is covered by a codpiece instead of a closing fly.

A main instriped (and tight) joined hose

Now me and David had discussed if I should make a pair of peasant trousers, which are much more like modern trousers and do not have a cod piece, or a tight pair of hose. Well me being at home with access to the internet, but not the pattern for peasant trousers, decided to go for the joined hose.

Now there are lot of tutorials out there if you search for "landsknecht hosen" "joined hose" or similar terms. Most of them give a picture that is quite confusing, if you like me have never done hose before, and without any measurments or angles to go for. Another common theme to make hose is that you cut up an old pair of trousers and use that as a pattern. I asked and David was not willing to cut up any pair of trousers.

In the end I based my pattern on this instruction, which is in German but thankfully that's a language I know, the instruction was most helpful once I had a pattern to start off from though. In order to get a pattern I found Morgan Donner's Mens' stirrup hose tutorial. She has made it into both a video and written tutorial, which I like. She also uses an old pair of trousers, but she just traces them she doesn't cut them up.

I started off with one of David's pair of trousers. I couldn't trace them quite as Morgan Donner had done, but I manged to trace them enought that I got a paper pattern to start with.

The most important thing for me was to get the crotch seam, or the U-shape correct, so for that reason I have not made this pattern full length,it goes doen to midcalf, for the actual pairs I will need to lengthen them.

I transferred the paper pattern to fabric and added a lot of seam allowance. I made a quick fitting so that I could see what the pattern looked like. Since the fabric is very sheer and it involved David in his underwear I will not share any photos of that. As suspected the modern pair of trousers had a waist that was too low and they were generally too wide. I will lengthen the top of the pattern and I cut off the extra seam allowance, going back to the original seam line that I had made on the pattern.

I marked the pattern with the notes I will need to remember, and then I had a working pattern.

When cutting the main fabric I will still add seam allowance to the pattern, but so much, and it will need more fitting sessions to actually fit well. For David's sake I'm also not going for a very tight pair of hose, it will be ok if there are some wrinkles and loose fabric if that makes him more comfortable.

Plans for 2023

 As I said in my last post, where I recapped 2022, I haven't really found a balance to fit creating things into my new life in a partnership, and I am not happy with my body anymore. Due to that I don't really have a lot of plans for the coming year, but there are two events that will probably be my focus.

First of all there is the Celebration Europe over Easter, so April. I don't plan on any new proper costumes, but I would like to do some fun fandom fashion thing. I fell in love with some Star Wars costumes, mainly from the TV series Andor and Kenobi, in 2023 but they are simply too complicated and the fabric would be too expensive for me to manage to finish them before April. So something fun and comfortable is the plan.

Then in June there are the big 500th anniversary of king Gustavus Vasa becoming king, and I am involved in the project group that will recreate is parade in Stockholm around Midsummer. That means that I and my husband need something suitable to wear. My plan is to either finish my pink gown, that I got into a wearable but not finished state in Visy in 2022, or see if I can remake my courtgown to fit me, since I have added a lot of weight since 2020 when I made it.

For my husband I will need to make him a proper pair of 16th century trousers or hose, we haven't agree on if he would accept wearing hose and codpiece yet, and he needs some nice headgear. I also want to remake the closure of his coat.

I think I will stop from doing any other great plans, and simply see if I get inspiration to make something else.