Landsknecht hosen part 1

 A landsknecht needs something on his legs, and for that you need to make a pair of trousers, or hose.

Last year I woked on a pattern for a set of full length hose. That didn't work out very well, they ripped, I tried to repair them, they ripped again and then I cut them up and used the fabric for other things.

I then spent a lot of time searching the web for instuctions on making hose. Here are some of the tutorials and information that I read to get me to understand hose construction better.

Schamlatzhose - Very good instructions on how to avoid mistakes when making them. (In German)

um1504.de - has a pattern for a full length pair of hose that you can print, and instructions on how to sew them. (in German)

When I was working on my own pattern Tudor Tailor also published patterns for both bias cut full length hose and doublet. When this pattern became available I was so long ahead in my own pattern that I decided to stick with it rather than buying their pattern.

Anyway I started my new hose pattern just like I started last year's pair, by tracing a pair of my husband's well-fitting trousers. Now wise from the failure last year I decided that I would finetune the pattern until it was perfect, rather than hoping I could fix it by adjusting it in the final fitting.

This is during the fitting process of vesion 1 of the pattern. After this I needed to make the rise a lot higher, this involved a lot of touching and grabbing of his private parts so it's a good thing he is my husband. I also had to raise the waist and shape it more after his bum. This was made by simply adding darts, and then redoing the patten again and again. The final pattern that I had is numbered as v. 4, so it was a good thing that I had a lot of scrap fabric to use.

Once I was happy with the pattern it was time to decide on if I should use a lining or not I have heard arguments both for and against it. The main reason not to use a lining is that linen and wool stretch differetly and that linen might be too tight and rip, the main reason for a lining is to have it be more comfortable and that the lining will take upp more of the strain so that the finer outer fabric don't rip as easily.

In the end I did make a pair of linen hose from the same pattern, but shorter than what the final pair will be, and this will be mounted inside the hose. One thing that is important is to cut the the hose on the bias, but with this pattern that I had come up with it was impossible to get the full pattern on the bias. The narrow piece, that forms the mid back, is at such an angle that I had to chose if I wanted that piece, or the main piece to be on the bias, the rest of the patter would be straight. For this I decided that it was the narrow piece that had to on he bias, since that would experience the most stretch when sitting and moving around. I had my husband walk around in this short pair of linen hose for a while to see that it wouldn't rip or fail before it was time to cut into the wool.

Now here I had decided that I wanted this rectangular pattern on them.

So I started with cutting a lot of strips of the fabric on the bias and then sewing them together.

Now getting nice rectangular pieces to line up perfectly with each other in such an irregular shape as the hose pattern was impossible. 

I had to do some piecing, but most if is on the inside of the leg and under the crotch, so I hope that it won't be too visible.

When I had an approcimate piece of square fabric I placed the pattern on it and cut it out according to the pattern.

Then it was time to start assemble the hose.