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.