The HSM 2025 recap

This year I didn't think I would finish many challenges for the Historical Sew Monthly challenge, but with my end of year projects I realised that I had actually made 8 out of 13 challenges, so here they are in one post. IT definitely helped that I got interested in 1930s fashion, which just made them eligible for the cut off year of 1938.

The theme for this year were challenges from the past that had been the most popular challenges with the most entries.

January: Tops and Toes (2014, 12th most popular): Create an accessory that goes on your head or on your feet. - link to my post about my Christmas hat

 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. - link to post about my 16th century kirtle

March: Black and White (2014, 10th most popular): Draw on the opposite ends of the shade spectrum to create something in black, white, or both. Link to post about my 1930s skirt

 April: Procrastination (2016, 9th most popular): Complete a garment you have been putting off finishing. Or make something you have been avoiding starting. Link to my post about my 17th century headwear.

 May: Pink (2014, 8th most popular): Make something in the colour pink. Or make a garment that involves pinking/slashing as an ornamental feature. 

June: Accessorize (2013, 7th most popular): Accessories add polish to your outfits, helping to create the perfect historical look. Create the perfect period accessory for yourself. - link to post about my 16th century hairnet

 July: Stashbusting (2015, 6th most popular): Make something using only fabric, patterns, trims and notions that you already have in stash.

August: Make Do and Mend (2014, 5th 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). Link to post about mending my favorite shift

September: Blue (2015, 4rd most popular): Make an item that features blue, in any shade from azure to zaffre. 

October: UFO (2013, 2nd most popular): We all have an UnFinished Object or two (or ten!) Now’s the time to complete one of your unfinished historical costuming projects. 

November: Foundations (2015, most popular challenge ever!): 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! 

December: The Final Touch: Make an accessory or garment that is the finishing touch to an outfit.  - Link to my post about a 1930s belt

**Bonus Challenge** Since the HSM is celebrating thirteen years, we have an optional thirteenth challenge for 2025. Let’s show some love to the “Worst of All Time”, the challenge with the fewest ever entries—a mere five! The WOAT: As Seen on Screen (2022): Make something inspired by something you’ve seen on screen, whether it’s film, television, or YouTube. - link to post about my 1930s Christmas blouse

Looking back I think it's strange that I didn't do anything for the "pink" or "stashbusting" challenges, since my stash is quite full of small pieces of pink fabric. Well still 8 out of 13 challenges in a year when I didn't think I would finish almost any isn't too bad.

HSM 25 - The final touch - a belt

 As a final post about the historical sew monthly challenges it's quite fitting to have the "final touch" challenge

The Final Touch: Make an accessory or garment that is the finishing touch to an outfit.

The Christmas blouse that I made had a pattern piece for a belt, and belt were important in the 1930s, both for evening wear and everyday wear. I hadn't bought enough fabric to be able to get the belt out, and I was also out of time to find a belt buckle for it, so I skipped the belt when I cut out the blouse. After having finished the blouse, and realised that it was big enough that I could pull it over the head I really felt that it needed a belt to not feel too baggy. I took out the scraps of fabrics left and realised that I could get half the belt out, it just wasn't wide enough to double up. But I had a thick poly satin in my stash so I cut out half the belt in the green viscose satin and half of it in the in the poly satin. I added a fusible interfacing to the viscose satin, sewed the fabrics into a tube and turned them right. I added topstitching, a belt buckle that I found in my stash and added some eyelets to be able to adjust the width of the belt.

And here I am wearing it on Christmas Eve, with my mother beside me. To bling it up I added a small festive brooch to it, but that's hardly visible in the photo.

What the item is: An evening belt to go with a 1930s blouse
How it fits the challenge: The belt is needed to give the final silhouette of the blouse
Material: 10 x 150 cm of green viscose satin and 10x150 cm of heavy poly satin
Pattern: Lady Marlowe 8380
Year: 1930s
Notions: a belt buckle, eyelets with washers, fusible interfacing
How historically accurate is it? Pattern is correct, hard to say about the rest of the materials, so 50%
Hours to complete: 1 hour
First worn: On Christmas eve
Total cost: $20

And with that I have finished up posting about all the HSM challenges and projects for the year, so it's time to summarize the project year 2025 and look forward to 2026.

A quick hairpiece under the hainet

 When trying out my 16th century hairnet I realised that my own hair wouldn't be enough to fill it out. I have quite long and thick hair, but each hairstrand is so thin that when I braid it the braids ends up as tiny stumps. Good when you are wearing a full wig, bad when you want to a hairnet without just a lot of air inside it. I decided to make a hairpiece that I can easily put on and wear under the hair net. Since this is a piece that's supposed to go under the net I also felt that I didn't have to be too picky about it, loose strands and uneveness would be hidden anyway. This is also good because since I switch haircolour from time to time, even if it's within the red spectra, I didn't have to worry about an exact colour match, this is just for volume.

Back in 2016, for Star Wars Celebration in London, I made this Tudor version of princess Leia, and I still had those red hairpieces that I had used for the buns.

For the hairpiece I used the two old hairpieces and a long piece of cotton tape.

I combined the two hairpieces into one and braided them together with the cotton tape. I started in the middle and braided outwards from that.

Then it was just playing around with the shape of the braids until had a bun that I was happy with.

The bun was sewn into shape with some thick thread. I also found a some extra hair tuffs that I twisted together and added to the middle of the bun.

The finished piece was dosed with a generous amound of hairspray. When wearing it I tie the tape around my hair, and then I do my usual braiding of my own hair, which is also braided with some tape, and then my own braids are laid around the fake bun. 

This is a quick test of the bun, when wearing it properly I will make sure that I use black tape for my own hair as well. I'm also thinking that if I want to make the bun wider I can add the hairpiece and then use my own hair to make two buns on the side of the hairpiece. All in all it took me around 30 minutes to make this hairpiece, it's not the most tidy and perfect, but for volume under a hairnet it will do.

HSM25 challenge "tops and toes" - a Christmas hat

 After having made my cute sprang mittens I wanted a cap that would match them, and my sprang book had a pattern for a cap with an interesting pattern made from switching from s to z twists, crearting diamonds and diagonal shapes. Should be easy peasy, or so I thought.

I followed the pattern, and there were 128 loops, and I could just barely fit that many loops on my frame. Going from z to s twists shouldn't be too hard, but I found it hard to do the edges. I also didn't have enough of the yarn that I used for the mittens, so in the end I used four different yarns, all with different stretch on them. In the end I kept dropping threads all the time, I really wasn't happy with the result. While I was working I couldn't really see any pattern forming either. Well I finished it, cut it off from the frame and realised that it was huuuuuge. I didn't want to waste all the yarn and time though and wanted to turn it into something I could wear.

I had looked around at quite a lot of 1930s fashion, preparing to make the Christmas blouse, and just with all the wonderful sleeves the 1930s also had quite a huge variety of fun hats. I didn't have a specific hat or pattern, but by folding the too lare bottom of the cap up to create a brim and adding some gathering threads in the back I could create a hat instead.

The final touch was to add a big yarn ball on top.

What the item is: a soft 1930s hat
How it fits the challenge: A hat to go on top of everything else
Material: Yarns in mostly wool, but probably some cotton as well
Pattern: The basic cap from Tine Abrahamsson's book "Språngning", but the shape was free handed by me
Year: 1930s
Notions: none
How historically accurate is it? It is inspred by the shape and style of hats in the 1930s, but I have never seen or heard about a hat made in sprang in that time period. Since it's inspired by I would set it around 20%
Hours to complete: Several weeks
First worn: On Christmas.
Total cost: All yarns were raided from my mother's yarn stash

HSM challenge "accessorize" - a 16th century hairnet

 The reason I started sprang is that I really want to have a hairnet similar to the one worn in the portrait of Katarina on Bora, wife of Martin Luther, in her portrait by Cranach.

I set out to try and make my own hairnet, after having failed on the male nets. I made mine in black wook, and it was quite a lot harder to work black compared to yarn in brighter colours. I got a net done, with just one row of mistakes. I still consider this as a proof of concept and that I can continue working on it, most importantly I want to make it in a finer yarn.

For the ribbon at the edge I decided to learn a new skill and that is tablet weaving. I had gotten a set of tablets in Christmas craft calender so I felt that I was a sign to actually try making my own ribbon.

Warping took longer than actually making the ribbon. It's definitely wonky, but it is a first try so if I want to I can make a tablet woven band in the future. I also liked that I found this pattern with squares in stade of the more normal v-shapes that are common in tablet weaving.

The band was sewn on to the sprang net for 2/3 of the way around, and for the final third I added a fingerlop braid that I weaved through the loops of the sprang, so that I could tie it in the back and adjust the size.

 

Just slapping the net on to my head made me really happy, even if it's just a text piece it actually gave me the shape I wanted and I could definitely see me wearing this at a 16th century event. I need to wear something under it to fill out the hairnet, my own hair is not enough.

Here is what it looks like on my tiny styrofoam head.

What the item is: a 16th century hairnet
How it fits the challenge: It is an accessory
Material: 2 ply wool yarn
Pattern: My own, but very much from the instructions by Carol James' paper on 16th century hairnets
Year: 1530s
Notions: Just the yarn
How historically accurate is it? I think it's mostly a matter of me lacking the skills so far that really make it into something that would fit in the 16th century, but the materials and techniques are all accurate, so 85%?
Hours to complete: 3 days
First worn: Not yet, this is more a proof of concept until I dare doing this in finer and more expensive materials.
Total cost:

Further adventures in sprang

 I really haven't updated my further sprang works. Well after the last post about it I felt that I was ready to make proper 16th century hairnets, and I started with making male ones, since I figured it would be easier to work with bases that were smaller than what is needed for a female net, where I need to have space for a wulst under it. I also wanted to explore different stripes.

Here I have the male nets that I made, and they are all too small for my husband, I felt like tried to make them bigger and bigger, but as soon as I started to sew them together and add some of the shaping, they shrank too much. I simply think that I have reached the end of what I can make with my small sprang frame. Also the yarn, a pure 2ply wool, is a bit too thick.

I also tried to make another set of fingerless mittens, and I got really happy with them. It's obvious that the bottom half of the sprang weave is a lot looser though, because that mitten ended up a lot larger than the one made on the top half.

With me being restricted by my sprang frame, I also felt that I needed to simply learn more about techniques and simply being able to make different thing than a basic net. So I bought a pdf-book "Sprang Unsprung" by Carol James and for Christmas I bought some reflective yarn so that I could make smaller reflectors, them being text pieces but still being useful.

These are all made in different sprang weaves, and I felt that I am more happy with making holes than working with s and z twists to create fabric patterns. It was definitely good for me to do these.

And with that I do have made some pieces that I will post about in further posts. I still feel that I need to get myself a larger sprang loom though to be able to fully explore and continue working on larger projects.

HSM25 bonus challenge - "as seen on screen"

 This was a bonus challenge, picked up because it was the worst challenge of all time, with just five entries. 

Make something inspired by something you’ve seen on screen, whether it’s film, television, or YouTube.

This is really an inspired by, rather than an exact copy of something. This year I saw the wonderful series "Outrageous", about the fascinating Mitford sisters.

 The sisters moved around in the highest society and the whole series is filled with wonderufl 1930s costumes. Up until this year I hadn't really  been into the 1930s, I always felt that it was a decade that didn't suit my body type, since to me 1930s was a lot about slinky, bias cut dress that really only fit slim figures. Now I realised that all the draping  and crazy sleeves, I don't think I've ever seen a decade with such a variety of sleeve shapes, would definitely be something that I could make. Now Diana Mitford was a terrible person, but beautiful and her dresses and outfits were the most interesting. Unfortunately my ost faorite outfit of her was the one she wore when she got married to Oswald Mosley, the British fascist leader, and with Adolf Hitler as a witness. I really didn't want to make her wedding outfit.

I tried to take a screencap of it, and to me the destinguishin features were the huge sleves and the draping on the bodice, together with a tight fit over the waist and hips.

I found this pattern by Lady Marlowe, both available as a download pattern and going up to XL in size, it't not easy finding patterns larger than M when you want vintage patterns.

I used 3 m of a green viscose satin, making it a nice Christmas blouse. Now figuring out my size according to to the measurements wasn't easy. The size chart had my hips being too large for the largest size, but just, so I went with that size and cut some extra large seam allowances in order to have more margins to work with. The instructions for the pattern were quite bare, but easy to follow. If you have sewn garments before it shouldn't be a problem following them, but it's maybe not something for a beginner, especially since slinky, satin fabrics can be tricky in themselves.

In the end I probably picked it a size too large. I found that I could pull it over my head without a problem, which on the other hand meant that I didn't have to fiddle with a tricky and visible size closure. I felt that there was a bit too much fabric ove the bust though. For the sleeves to stay up it's necessary to have the lower part be really tight, and I had to take that in a few times on one side. Overall I should probably have shortened the upper sleeve a bit, but still the sleeves are my favorite part of the pattern. For a pattern like this the right underwear is also important. When I worked on it and fitted it I wore my normal underwear, and then I had to take in the waist but use a tiny seam allowance to make the hip area bigger. When I wore the blouse on Christmas I wore it together with some shapewear, and then it was obvious that I could have kept the regular seam allowance. I have cut out the pattern in another fabric as well, so I need to remember these alterations when I sew it up.

The finished blouse

Me wearing the blouse together with the skirt I made for the "black & white" challenge earlier this year, and my Irregular Choice Christmas shoes.

What the item is: A 1930s blouse
How it fits the challenge: Inspired by the costumes from the 1930s set tv series "Outrageous"
Material: 3 m green viscose satin
Pattern: Lady Marlowe 8380
Year: 1936-1938
Notions: sewing thread, poly satin binding
How historically accurate is it? Pretty accurate, it should have been proper silk satin, but that's too expensive, the pattern and the methods are correct though, so 90%
Hours to complete: 2 days
First worn: On Christmas Eve
Total cost: $40 for the fabric

Spranging on

 Sprang is totally addictive due to two things. I can see a result almost straight away, and it is something I can do with the TV in the background our talking to someone. So of course I couldn't keep myself from testing more things. I set up a warp for a male hairnet of 44 loops and 35 cm in length. Carol James had a suggestin for 44 loops and 30 cm for a 16th century male bonnet, since my husband has a really large head I increased it to 35 cm. I made what she calls the "double grid" stitch, that is also called "holes all over" in my book about sprang. It was a fairly easy way of working, the hardest thing was to remember which part of the cycle I was in, the pattern consists of a cycle of four rows. I did  miss in at least one place and got a row with double sized holes in it.

The hairnet worked but was too tight, so the next time I am going to make it both wider and longer, yes my husband has a really large head. I felt confident enough to order a nice coloured wool yarn to make a proper hairnet though.

But I couldn't wait for the yarn to arrive, especially when I found that I actually had two colours of yarn that I hadn't used, but now I have gone through my whole limited yarn stash. In the book by Tine Abrahamsson there was a pattern to make mittens which didn't seem to be too complicated, if I skipped the diagonal geometric pattern in them. The pattern called for 22+16+22 loops, I increased that to 28+20+28, since I thought my yarn was thinner than the one in the pattner, but most of the measurements in length was made by siimply holding up my hands to see if it looked about the same size.

The warp consists of three indivdual warps, that you will join together after a while. Two longer ones, that will be the hand of the mitten, and one shorter part in the middle that will be thumb.. I also decided to try making horizontally stripes. As usual it took me longer to actually set up the warp than to get going. I worked the basic intertwining stitch all the way. It was a bit tricky to start, where you have to sort the two different yarns so that you separate one colour for upper and one colour for the lower thread.

After having worked the three warps separately they were joined together, with a row starting with picking up  two threads at the start. It worked fine, but after having finished it was clear that there were quite loose loops at the joining of the warps, and that after having joined the warps together my overall tension got looser. I worked as far down as I could, with the last few rows being taken in by treating two threads as one, and starting with either two or four threads. I would have liked to make the mittens longer, but my frame is too short for that.

This was the finished pieces after blocking. The bottom was ended with a fringe, and the tops were chained together. I also found that it was a lot easier to chain when I first put a safety line through the top and took them off the sticks to chain them. It's also obvious that the bottom part of the weave has gotten larger, also probably having to do with difference in tension and that it's easier to pack the top part tighter than the lower one.

When you fold tie piece in half you get a mitten with a thumb. The sides were whipped together and the rest of the threads were weaved into the whipped seam. For the larger mitten I felt it was too big, so I took it in by making a dart and closing it by weaving a thread through the weave. It got a bit clumpsy on the inside, but looked a lot better on the outside.

The finished pair of open mittens. This was a project where I learnt to make stripes, adding width and taking in width but also to make a fringed endings. I would have preferred to make them longer, I love wearing cuff warmers since my wrists do get cold, but for that to work with my short frame I would need to make them shorter, probably starting by the thumb instead a covering the fingers. Or I need to find a way to make a bigger fram. 

All in all it took me one day to make the mittens, so I think they are nice projects to start learning new techniques and maybe even patterns, if I make more cuff warmers then I acutally get something I can use, instead of making an endless supply of hairnets that I only use in historical recreations.

Sprang - an actual result

 Well I couldn't wait to try more sprang. I found that I had a purple yarn of unknown fiber in my very small yarn stash. It felt like wool and it was definitely thicker than the red and brown yarns I had tried in the first projects. So I set up a new warp, once again winding it around the plastic board for the picture frame. I also decided to go back to the basic sprang stitch, not the one making larger holes. I felt that I needed to understand better what was going on, and I needed to learn how to deal with the sticks and endings, and with the basic pattern I could concentrate on that. I also tried to once again make a wider pieces, so I used 60 loops again.

The first rounds didn't go well. I got large holes and I tried to work with lifelines rather than sticks, but kept on failing. The 60 loops just fit my hands when working on them. Then something fell into place and I understood how the threads were supposed to be moving around each other, with the thread that I picked up tugging on two treads and not just one. With that I started to get row after row without having to redo as much. I gave up on the lifelines, but I could use just four sticks, which what was I had in knitting needles, for this piece the chop sticks were too short. Also when I made a mistake I could see it and if it wasn't too close to the start I didn't have to unravel the whole row but could just go back to the mistake.

Here is as far as I could work the piece. On the last row I did drop a few threads because it was too fiddly to work them, so I decided to quit. When the threads started to get tight I worked with one of the sticks that I removed and then I twisted a few threads, put the stick there, went on another few threads and so on. I had a tendence to make mistakes and drop threads when I took a bread to insert the stick and then continue, but it made it possible to work until there were only a few cm between the top and bottom. I then chained the bottom, top and middle to prevent everything from unraveling. After some wriggling with the piece the weave evened out, so that there were no large holes in the middle.

This is the finished piece after blocking it. There are holes in it, especially the large on in the middle of the first rows, before I had understood how the threads were supposed to move. There are also holes close to the middle, and that is where I dropped threads when it got too fiddly, the next time I can probably finish even earlier and the weave will still even out. I did close the large hole by just tying it together with more of the same yarn. I then treaded the bottom edge with a piece of yarn to gather it together, and used the same yarn piece to whipstitch the sides together, but not quite to the end of the side.

The finished net cap, sitting on my very small styrofoam head. I have threaded a fingerloop braid through the corners of the front edge so that I can close it. The length is probably good enough that I would be able to use it with a wulst under it, but it is too narrow for that. I can get it around my head, but I would not be able to have anything under it. Now when wearing it it feels a bit like a net gnome cap, since I don't have enough hair to fill out the bag part.

So the next thing I need to do is come up with a way of making a wider piece.

Sprang - learning a new craft

 I have forced myself to a hiaturs in sewing projects, since I need to finish a non-sewing related thing. So what did I do instead, well I've been trying out different kind of yarn and string crafts instead. So yes the deadline for that other thing is approaching and I haven't worked as much as I should on it. After a Sunday with a lot of wasted yarn trying to come to terms with braiding garters, weaving ribbons and making string I decided to pick up this book that I have had in my shelf for many, many years.

I had read through it, but without really understanding the instructions. The last 5 years språngning, or sprang in English, has really picked up steam within the crafting and historical recreating community, so nowadays there are also a lot of tutorials out there. My biggest help was this tutorial by Sally Pointer - "Make a sprang bag with handles"

The book and tutorials made me confident to set up a test piece on an embroidery frame and with some acrylic yarn. And this was the result

Yes it is totally uneven, but I could see that I had figured out the principles, and compared to the string making and braiding I could see a result forming fairly quickly.

The next thing was to get hold of a loom that was a bit sturdier than the the wobbly embroidery fram. And for that I went to the second hand store across the street.

A large picture frame, some knitting needles and chop sticks and I was ready to set up my first bigger sprang project.

Ha, or so I thought. In my overconfidence I spent two days warping 72 pairs of string, that turned into a total twisted and knotted mess. The problem was the tension. On my first text piece I had had a tight tension and it had become impossible to continue the sprang quite far off from the end, so this time I thought it might work to have a looser tension, but it was too loose for my skills obviously. I gave up and removed it. I then found this tutorial on how to warp on a board. And that made it so much easier. The clear plastic that had been in the frame worked perfectly, and was of course in a good size for the frame. Or so I thought.

When I put the warp on the frame it was once again too loose. I removed it (again) and made a new warp, but this time on the short side of the plastic, and finally I had a good tension on the frame. The short side was also exactly the length that I had planned from the start. This time I also cut back on the number of threads, making 60 loops instead of 72, so that it would be easier to keep track of them, but still getting a width on the finished piece that could hopefully be used for something.

So I started spranging, and soon I once again had a bit of a mess. I totally understand that I would miss some threads, but I thought it was fixable. Reading up on this tutorial on "sprang errors and how to fix them" I understood that dropping threads must be corrected by unraveling. So I unraveled everything and took really good care to make sure that I would have the correct number of threads and twists on each row,  and not thinking that was something that could be fixed in the next row.

Here is my current status. It is working. The first rows were definitely tricky so I had to undo several and go back, making sure that I had not dropped a thread. After a while and with good tension on the warp it has started to become easier. The blue knitting needles that are holding the warp are not just tied on to the frame, they are winded up, so I can keep a good tension and when it gets too tight I can just unwind them a bit to make it easier to handle the threads. I haven't seen this solution so there might be some downfall to it that I discover when I'm done, but it works fine for me so far.

I actually got in quite a nice flow and felt that I got a nice net structure going - and then two things happened. I felt that the sticks were in the way for my hands, not between the warp threads but rather where I kept the palms of the hands while the fingers were working, and my mother called. Somewhere here I totally lost track of where I was. I tried to repair it, I tried to switch to lifelines rather than sticks and felt that it might work. But then the bottom of the warp fell of the whole knitting needle. With the mess that it was in I decided to stop.

This is what I could salvage, what is basically the top part. Yu can see that I had some net structure, but then I started to make really big holes. Well instead of getting something usefull I have to consider this another practice piece.

I'm not giving up yet though. For my next piece I want to try with a thicker yarn, I probably have to go to the expensive traditional craft store and get suggestions on what to use, and I want to see if I feel that it works with lifelines rather than sticks, once I have gotten the starting rows correct. I also need to work some with how I position myself so that I don't get such a stiff neck after a while. Well, well, maybe I can get a usable net out of the next piece.

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