I finished the chemise. Yay! Technically, it’s taken from a pattern Kohler gives for a coat (A History of Costume, pg 136). His text claims that a chemise would be cut in the same way, but with shorter sleeves. I went a little embroidery-happy on this, so maybe it is more like a cote. I might make a plain one for underneath and dye this one a festive color. I haven’t decided yet…
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This goes together quite easily, since it’s really just a series of straight lines. Shirts and smocks with the same general layout (small variations in neckline) continue to be used into the sixteenth century, at least, and I can see why: it’s easy. There’s no need for a gusset, because of the angle the sleeves are placed on. That is so cool. (If you don’t know why that’s cool, it’s because you’ve never sewn an underarm gusset by machine. They’re all sorts of annoying.)
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What? Why would you ever possibly want to do that, missa? This is a good question, and the answer is basically, “Because you can.” That, in an of itself, is cool enough for me. I can take the pattern of my little dolly body, or the pattern I cloned off a dolly, or even a fitted princess line sloper of a human, and make a chemise. (Also, I have drafted approximately 55,237,648,119 smocks and chemises and shirts in my life, and I’m just lookin’ for ways to keep it exciting…) This isn’t unlike draping on a stand, because we’re going to make a pattern by eyeballing fit against a human form. It’s just that my human form, in this case, is in the form of flat pieces instead of a three-dimensional stand. But those pieces convey all the same critical information the stand does, and they don’t cost near as much as a decent dress form.
6 CommentsI made some adjustments to the back of the chemise so that I could get Tyler into it. (Mostly, this involved lengthening the slit in the back.) I finally got it on her a little bit ago, and it looks about like I expected.
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I’ve been doing a crazy amount of research on armscyes, lately, particularly in terms of when they started being curved. I was expecting that to be after 1515 or so, based on the piecing in Gerard David‘s Deposition. But no, much to my complete annoyance, there are a lot of examples of curved sleeveheads and armscyes going back into the late medieval era. This annoys me greatly, because it means that if I want to show try out a fashion that does not use a curved sleeve head/armscye, I’m stuck back in like, 1000 AD. This is not my happy place. But I’m gonna make a ding-dang, major-olde-timey, at-least-it’s-not-a-T-tunic dress, and I’m gonna like it, gosh darn it.
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Really, who doesn’t dress their dolls for a day at the ren faire? It can’t just be me… Well, ok, maybe it was just me, but it doesn’t have to be anymore – you too can have a copy of the pattern I used to make this little bit of cuteness!
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So, you’ve got a basic ren wench bodice pattern. Yay! Now it’s time to pick some fabrics and sew it all up.
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Remember a while back, I posted directions for a Basic Conic Block draft? Everyone was sort of like, wow, missa, that’s great, it explains so much, but what do I do with it? Well, a basic block is used to develop other patterns in a big bad hurry, without all that annoying measuring and math. Today, we’re going to make an ultra-generic-wenchy-ren-faire-been-there-drank-the-ale-SEEN-IT type bodice pattern. You know the the one I’m talking about…. It won’t win you points for originality or authenticity, but it’s a fun little piece to wear.
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A lot of people seem to really like circle skirts. They look all cute and romantic on tiny elf-looking girls, and multi-circle skirts are popular with some dance troups. To me, for historical work, they always scream “sock hop!” and I avoid them even though circular hems are demonstrably correct for sixteenth century surcoats and capes. (They also eat fabric like you wouldn’t believe.) This is about the second easiest skirt pattern I can think of, though, and it’s a good trick to know.
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Sewing a chemise can be as simple, or as difficult, as you want it to be. This is one of the simplest versions. Combined with your Simple Chemise Pattern, these sewing directions are all you need to produce a chemise. Well, I mean, you’ll need some fabric, too, and some thread and a sewing machine would be awfully handy, but you get the idea. Shall we?
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