HSM 2025: Foundations - mending my favorite shift

 The theme for November 2025 is foundations

Make something that is the foundation of a period outfit. This can be a literal foundation (ex: a shirt, stockings or stays) or an item that is a “foundation piece” in your wardrobe (ex: a garment or accessory that can be styled in many different ways). Get creative with your interpretation!

For this I chose to go back to the foundation piece of my 16th century wardrobe, my favorite shift.

This was the first iteration of it, back in 2016 when I posted it for the HSM challenge "tucks and pleats". This really is my favorite shift, it's so comfortable and the linen is so light and soft against the skin. Since I made that first version I quite soon made the neck opening smaller, so I didn't have that very wide opening. I did that by simply making the smocking on it tighter.

Back in 2023 I replaced the worn out facings on the cuffs and neckline, and made proper cloth buttons for closing the cuffs, it went with the HSM challenge "back to the beginnings"

I should probably have gone over the shift even more back in 2023, because this summer I realised that quite a few of the seams had started to go up, and the hem was definitely held in place by just a few struggling stitches. So I took an evening and mended all the holes and rehemmed it. I didn't take a phot of the shift, it looks exactly as before, just not as torn and worn as before.

What the item is: a 16th century smocked shift
How it fits the challenge: The shift is the foundation of all costumes, and this was also the first one I made so it is the foundation that I have based all my other 16th century pieces on. For this challenge I simply mended the worn out seams and rehemmed it.
Material: linen thread from the stash
Pattern: none
Year: 16th century
Notions: linen thread
How historically accurate is it? Mending is always historically accurate
Hours to complete: 2 hours
First worn: - 
Total cost: nothing, just some hours of work and thread from the stash

HSM 2025 February: Under it all - a 16th century underkirtle

 February: Under It All (2013 & 2014, 11th and 3rd most popular respectively): Make something that goes under your outer garments, to protect them from sweat/grime or provide the right shape/support.

During most of the winter and spring I worked on a new supporting underkirtle for my 16th century wear. This post is a summary of the individual posts that I have made during the project. 

It started out with a day of constructing the pattern using the bara system as developed by Mathew Gnagy - the Modern maker.   I detailed the work in this post. But basically the system allowed me to make a better fitting bodice than ever before. It still needed quite a lot of adjustments to make it sit tight enough though, this has a lot to do with my bust shape.

This is the work on the pattern, making sure that I get a deep neckline.

The construction of the kirtle can be found in this post. The kirtle was constructed from one layer of wool and one layer of linen. I opted for side closures, to make sure that it fit really well over the bust. The skirt was cut in gores. I had to keep adjusting the straps to give support to the bust, but I finally had a well fitting bodice and skirt.

AFter that it was only the hemming left, and I used a fairly wide strip of wool to make a hem facing, to give the hem a bit of body and make it stand out from the legs.

I started using the kirtle during the medieval week in Visby, but since it's an underkirtle it's been hard finding photos of me where it's not hidden under my outer gown or my big work apron, I found this photo of me and my husband though.

Just the HSM facts

What the item is: a supportive underkirtle
How it fits the challenge: It's the supporting garment that makes sure that everything else sits nice on the body
Material: 4 m of wool, 1 m of linen
Pattern: Constructed using the bara system by the Modern Maker and the pattern by Magnifica Sylvie La Chardonniere based on that system
Year: first half of the 16th century
Notions:linen thread, lacing cord
How historically accurate is it? Around 80%
Hours to complete: A month, it was an on and off project
First worn: Medieval Week in Visby
Total cost: $2500 for the wool and linen

HSM 25 april: Procrastination - a 17th century loose hood

April: Procrastination (2016, 9th most popular): Complete a garment you have been putting off finishing. Or make something you have been avoiding starting.

I tried to find a post about it, but I am pretty sure that I started thinking about making a loose 17th century hood some time back in 2017 or 2018, when I was asked to dress historically at the annual Christmas fair at Falu Gruva. Most paintings and drawings of 17th century women show a tight hood, but I have always wanted to recreate this image from the margins of a map over Falun mine in 1683.

That loose hood or veil is quite distinct, the artist was local so he has probably used the local residents as models. I was also very happy when I found this extant example of a loose hood at the V&A museum. It is dated to 1610-1620, so earlier than the image of the map, but I still decided that they are so similar that I would use it as a model.

I found that I had some very fine linen in my stash, but the main issue was finding insertion lace. All the laces for sale in the (few) craft stores here only had cotton lace for edging, so with points. I also only found lace that was too wide to look good.

The solution was to go to second hand stores, and in the final one (ironically the smallest one and the one just across the street from where I live) I found a table cloth with white work embroidery, and handmade lace at the border.

I ripped off the lace border, and then I cut it in two to get a really nice and narrow lace that I could use.

Here I am midway in the project, and you can see the pieces of the hood. The original V&A hood only has the gore inserted in a slit, but I cut a separate front piece. I was sure that there was a seam all the way, so this is a lesson to actually look at images on the computer, and not just on your phone when doing decisions like that. So instead of just one piece with inserted gores I had a straight front piece, two gores and two curved back pieces that I sewed together to shape the hood. All the seams had lace insertions.

For the edging of the hood I was in a dilemma, I had a nice off white lace in my stash but it wasn't enough. And when I went to the craft store the only options was to buy either a bright white or ecru coloured lace. It was very good that I had brought the hood with me to hold up against the lace. I would probably have bought the white lace white, but when I held it to the hood it was glaringly white compared to the rest, so the ecru coloured lace was much nice. It was also daintier and more delicate than the white. Even if it isn't the same colour as the rest of the hood, the effect was quite nice and they went really well together.

When finished the hood was really soft and nice, so before wearing it I starched it, I am not sure yet if I prefer the look of the soft fabric or the starched, so I might destarch it before I wear it the next time.

This is me wearing the hood last Saturday at an event where my group demonstrated early 17th century.

I am actually pretty happy with my impression of the woman on the top image.

So here are the HSM facts

What the item is: A loose hood from the 17th century
How it fits the challenge: I had planned and talked about doing this style of hood for at least 5-6 years, and when I was finally getting the chance to attend a 17th century event it was time to make it.
Material: 1 m of fine linen, 1 lace edged table cloth, that I ripped the lace off to use as insertion lace in the hood
Pattern: My own, based on a hood in the V&A collections
Year: 1610-1690 (the hood is dated 1610-1620, I have based my costume on an image from 1683)
Notions: linen thread, 2,5 m of cotton edge lacing
How historically accurate is it? This is pretty close, both when it comes to materials and techniques so around 90%, (deductions for the machinemade edge lace and the quality of my stitches)
Hours to complete: 1 week
First worn: September 30th when celebrating the 400th anniversary of our local regiment
Total cost: linen from stash but $7 for the table cloth and $13 for the edge lace.

A 17th century jacket

 As soon as I got home from Medieval Week I knew that I had only two weeks until I was going to take part in a 17th century event, so I saw this as my chance to finally make an outfit based on an image from Falun in 1683. I had much more ambitious plans, but I had to realize that  wouldn't be able to finish things for both me and my husband. The plan had been to make at least a shirt for him, but no, he had to make do with what he already had, which made hm look enough like a generic early 17th century farmer.

The first thing was to make a jacket. I found this gorgeous fabric in Visby, that I fell in love with, and even if my plan had been to make a brown jacket, red it was. I also wanted the jacket to be fairly generic, so that I would be able to use it for basically all time periods from the 16th century until today when I'd like to wear it with my folk costume. Jackets with skirts do occur in all time periods, and even if there are changes, I tried to make it without clear signs of belonging to a certain era, so for example no wings or rolls at the shoulders, which would have been the best thing to add if I wanted it to be a distinct early 17th century jacket.

For the pattern I decided to frankepattern it from what I had, rather than going all in for drafting a new pattern.

I started with the pattern that I made for my 16th century supporting kirtle. I did add som in all directions though, since I wanted to be able to wear it as an outer garment, over my longsleeved 16th century gowns for example. Here I did make a bit of mistake and added a bit too much at the bust, so it is rather large there, or rather it is a clear difference when I'm not wearing a very full 16th century shift and don't have a lot of fabric filling out the bust line.

The outer fabric is wool and I used linen for a lining.

When sewing I used a technique that I learnt when sewing 18th century, I'm not sure that it's correct for earlier periods. But basically I put one layer of fabric and lining together and treat them as one, I then sew that to a piece of the outer fabric, and I use the final lining piece to cover the seams and make sure that there are no raw edges.

For the sleeves I used my largest S-sleeve pattern. Now this pattern was way too large for the armscye. To make this look good I sewed the sleeve to the lining of the bodice. Instead of trying to pleat or gather the full sleevehead to the armscye I simply pinned the two pieces together where they fit, and then I cut off the excess fabric. I then used the outer fabric of the sleeve to cover the raw edges and first seam.

For the skirt portion I started out with a simple half circle skirt pattern. I cut this piece into four pieces, two fronts and two backs, and at those seams I angled them slightly outwards. Since the front has a distinct V-shape I also had to adjust the length in the front and back so that they would be even.

This is the back piece at the top and the front piece at the bottom. The skirt was also lined in linen, and to hem it I added a strip of wool to help it keep its shape a bit better. The final touch was to add hooks and eyes to close the jacket. 

Here I am wearing the jacket with 16th century underkirtle, my jedi skirt, my generic linen apron and a new hood, I will make a separate post about that. 

HSM 2025 - Challenge 8 - Make do and mend

 As usual I come out of the summer season having produced things that I realize can fit with the HSM challenges. 

August: Make Do and Mend (2014, 5 th most popular): Get your historical wardrobe in order by fixing/mending something that has worn out or gone wrong. Alternatively, you could focus on the historical precedent of making-do by re-making an old garment or remaking something into a historical garment (ex: a chemise from old bedsheets). 

For this project it was time to fix my husbands landsknecht trousers, the short hose. 

 I felt from the start that they were a bit too baggy, I wanted them shorter and tighter.

I started with simply cutting off the lowest row of pieces. In the front that went well, in teh back I had to cut through some of the pieces. HEre you can see the shorter linen lining peaking through as well.

This was the result after cutting out and evening out the hose. I thought they looked perfect, but my husband complained that they were too short. He wouldn't be able to wear boxers under them, and he was not happy with my suggestion to buy briefs instead. ;) Well to make him more happy and comfortable in his new hose I went to look for some inspiration. 

This woodcut from 1510 has a a pair of nice short hose with a daggered hem to them. That is not something I have seen on many people, but I thought it would be a cute and fairly easy way of lengthening the hose.

I took the cut off material and I managed to  cut them into daggers.

I had to do some fiddling at the crotch. The hose had also split there so I needed to add a gore to make them larger. For that I had to use another piece of red wool, since I was out of the original, but piecing and mending is definitely accurate. 

To cover the seam between the square pieces and the points I tacked a grey wool ribbon over them. I didn't have time to do anything more. I do have a plan though to cover all the places where the seams meet up with bows, since I think there are not enough bows and rosettes on landsknecht reenactors.

The HSM facts

What the item is: A pair of short landsknecht hose
How it fits the challenge: I remade the first version into a more sleek shape
Material: The old pair of hose, 30 cm of new wool fabric
Pattern: Inspired by a woodcut from 1510
Year: 1510s
Notions: linen thread
How historically accurate is it? The hose with the square pieces are a mix of two images, one with the rectangles and one with the daggered hem, but still around 90%
Hours to complete: 10
First worn: At Medieval Week in Visby 2025
Total cost: $10 (the new fabric, I bought a meter even if I just used a scrap of it)

Post event-season costume care

 Yesterday we arrived home after Medieval Week in Visby. Medieval week is our main historical event of the year. I mostly spend time in the kitchen, and this year I hardly took any photos at all, also we didn't have any new clothes, even if I had fixed my husband's short hosen, so not much when it comes to costuming things to share here.

This was my look for most of the time, I wore my new under kirtle and then my giant apron, and as you can see, after a week cooking on an open hearth it was really dirty. The dirt doesn't come so much directly from the fire, but all the pots and pans that we need get very sooty, and even if they are cleaned on the inside on the outside they are dirty, and when you lift them and move the around, or brush against them, well the soot ends up on me.

We took the early morning ferry home from Gotland, which made me really tired, but coming home already around 3 pm meant that I had time to actually start caring for my things, and I had also taken today off from work for that. All our cutlery and kitchen stuff got in the dishwasher and could be packed away. I also prepared the linen and cotton clothing by putting them in a soak with water and some "galltvål" ( a brand of traditional washing soap). I had extra soap on all the major stains and the cuffs and collars as well. I don't have my own washing machine or balcony, but the shared washerroom in my building was free for the early morning pass. So I went up early, did some extra scrubbing on the stains and then put the linen and cottons in the machine. I also put our wool socks in the machine, on a wool program, to get them really clean.

Then I occupied the grass and patio area of my house block. The white linens were put on the grass to get bleached by the sun and grass, it was a bit cloudy so didn't get the best effect. The cottons and non-white linens were hung up to dry and the wools were aired. I kept everything there for a couple of hours, until my nose deemed that the wool didn't stink anymore and the linen stuff was dry. The beige underkirtle had some soot stains on it at the hem, but I spot cleaned that with spirit vinegar (ättika) and that was enough.

Then it was my husband's time to do his part, which is to care for the shoes before they are put away. The were cleaned and treated and the shoe blocks were put in. For his cowmule shoes he doesn't have shoe blocks that are square, but he uses regular shoe blocks and stuffs the toes with some scraps of fabric to fill them out.

Then it was up to the attic to sort everything into the storage. My system is that I keep on plastic box for each subtype of clothing, so one box for shirts, one for underkirltes, one for headwear and so on. His landsknecht outfit all gets into the same box though, to keep it all together. I also have cedar wood balls in all the boxes, to protect the clothes. Then I stack them on top of each other, but now I can't fit more boxes into the space so we will see what happens if I make new clothes.

And with that it was done, and I think this is a new record for me to get everything packed away after Medieval Week.

Resources for Leia and Padme costumes

 At Närcon this weekend I talked a lot to a person about Padmé and Leia costumes, and I realized that simply due to the fact that I was around while the Padmé costumes were being analyzed and before social media, I have a lot of information about them, since I followed the progress of my fellow costumers. Today there is a lot of info social media, but it's usually hard to sort through social media posts to find clear and structured information on the costumes. Thankfully though a lot of the early research was done on forums and websites that are still around, if you know where to look, and this post is my way of trying to gather them in one place. So yes, if you want to make one of these costumes, but especially Padmé's, then I really recommend taking the time to read up on old internet post and on forums that were made before the advent of everyone posting videos and short clips of what they are doing.

First of all if you want to make a Padmé or Leia costume, the best way to start is over at the rebellegion. The Rebel Legion standards are lists of required elements if you want to become a member of the Rebel Legion, even if you don't want to become a member those lists are clear instructions on what parts the costumes are made up of. The Rebel Legion also has a forum, where persons making their version of the costumes have posted and are posting their progess, so you can see how other people has tackled a specific costume. Those forums can be found here: Rebel Legion Royalty/Senatorial forums

The most comprehensive website out there for Padmé, and Leia and generic jedi costumes, is Padawan's guide. Maggie, who ran the site, did and amazing job of collecting all available info on the costumes, and it is split between reference images, fanmakes and construcions tips for each costume. She basically summed up all the research that was done and made sure it was available in one place. That it is still alive, even if it hasn't been updated in many years, is a great gift from Maggie to all Star Wars costumers out there today.

A lot of what Maggie posted were summaries on what was discussed on the Jedi Council forums' Costuming and Props board. Back in the early 2000s this was the place where all Padmé costumers gathered and discussed their costumes, and posted their progress. All the Padmé Amidala costumes have their own tag in the forum - so that can be found here. Most of the threads are locked nowadays due to having been inactive for too long, but they are still there and are fill with information. Leia's costumes can be found here.

One costume that I get asked about is the iconic red gown from Episode one, also know among costumers as the "red invasion" costume. Back when blogs were a big thing on the internet Naergi from Germany did an extensive analysis, and the best recreation of the gown I have seen. If you are interested in doing that costume, you need to read her blog post. She also has other Star Wars costumes on her blog, so can be worth looking into for other characters as well. 

With this piece of internet archaeology I hope I can help some people who wants to make their own Padmé Amidala costume, and don't know where to start. Compared to Leia's costumes, that were basically made for a low budget film, all of Padmé's costumes are complicated, either in cut and construction or in materials, or in both so making one will always involve a lot of work and usually quite a lot of money as well. 

16th century underkirtle

 Back in March I posted about constructing a new supportive underkirtle, using the barra system. Back then I only had some fiddling to do, and I hoped to have it finished in time for Leksand's Medieval Market. Well that didn't happen. With Project Toad going on I have had the project on the backburner, picking it up from time to time, but now it is finished as well.

I started with bodice. It's made from wool and with a linen lining. It closes at the sides with spiral lacing.

I was worried on how hard it would be to close it by myself, but when I switched the lacing from being laced up, as I normally do with frontlacing gowns, to lacing it down it was a lot easier. The laces are temporary, I will switch them for more historical ones before packing for Visby.

The skirt is cut in gores, and to be honest I mostly winged them, rather than following a pattern. That also to do with my getting some really low blood sugar while cutting them out, and low blood sugar leads to some strange decisions, but once done I couldn't change them..

I added the skirt, that was still wide enough that I needed to gather it to the bodice, and then I could try the whole kirtle on - and I was so dissappointed. Even if I had taken in the front seam some more, there was no support, even if it felt snug under the bust. The problem was that the straps were too long though, so when I shortened the straps, I finally got some support.

The result of the shortened strap is that it doesn't sit perfet at the back where it joins the back piece, but it is good enough.

Now it felt a lot better, and then it was only the hemming left.

The hem is done by adding a long strip of wool as a hem facing, that is my favorite way of making hems. I really like the extra stiffness it gives to the hem.

The finished kirtle, which ends at around midcalf.

Finishing Project Toad

 So as usual in the end stage of a project I'm not as good with documenting what I'm doing, but the project is finished and I will try to scramble up some finishing details.

In the last post I had just made the hats wearable, and it was only on to adding the big white circles on them. I cut out round shapes and then I glued them on, and that is where I hit a snag, and why you should always test things before going all in.

The textile glue bled all through the white lycra and I got really ugly stains, since I had just randomly squeezed the glue on. It being glue it was really stuck though so there was no way I could remove he spotted fabric. Thankfully I had some extra white lycra left, since I had bought too much, and I could just eke out five new circles. I had thankfully only done one hat at a time so for Toadette I knew it wouldn't work. I simply had to handsew the circles on to the hat. I can say handsewing on the big unwieldy hats was not comfortable at all, so it took me a whole day for one hat, because I had to take breaks. It took me some time to get energy to redo the blue hat. I was thinking about if I had to cut out an interlayer to prevent the stains from showing through, but in the end I was too lazy for that and I just sewed the new fabric on top of the old

This is the end result. The stains are faintly visible, but most people won't think about it, so I will keep it at that.

For Toadette's ball plaits I bought styrofoam balls and covered them in the same fabric as the rest of the outfit. Around the balls I have made a net of fishingline, that interweaves with the fabric, that way the weight of the ball is not just hanging from a thread at the top. The fishing line is almost invisible, and I have sewn it onto the main hat. My idea with the glued on hooks didn't work, when I noticed that one of the hooks had already gotten loose. I guess that they were made for static weight, not for the swinging of three balls hanging from it. I have sewn through the foam, but to prevent the fishing line from cutting into the foam I have looped it around empty plastic thread rolls on the inside, to distribute the weight better.

With the balls done I could make a first costume test, because I had sewn the dress inbetween working on the hats. The dress was simple in construction, but lycra is not a forgiving material to work with.

The pattern for the dress is a simple A-line. I made it by tracing a top, to get the neckline and sleeves good, and then to make it wider I added one triangular gore on each side. I then traced the finished dress to make a pattern for the vest. The vest was cut in one back and two fronts edged with a premade gold bias tape. To finish the raw edges of the sleeveholes, but on the dress and the vest I sewed them together and turned the vest to the front.

My dress was finished and it was time to make his vest, and apparently I didn't take any photos of that process. It was a simply e-pattern for a man's vest that I fond on etsy. The outer fabric was lycra, but to stabilize it the lining is a blue cotton canvas. Here the lycra came to the rescue. When I measured my husband the pattern was made according to his chest measurements, but it was too small at the waist. I solved that by removing the shaping darts at the front of the cotton lining, but I could keep them in the lycra, which is also made it stretch really taught and nice over the lining, and looks really good. I skipped the finer details, like welts and buttonholes so the vest is closed with some snaps on the inside instead