Right, so, this post was supposed to go up at the end of January, except that a combination of insufficient natural light to photograph a black garment, other priorities besides blogging that took up most of my creative energy, and some good old-fashioned procrastination got in the way. Better late than never though, right?
This week (i.e. the last week of January), I am very pleased to report about my first finished project of 2015: the black herringbone linen tunic. This was a (relatively) quick project, begun over the Christmas holiday using a remnant of some fabric that I bought for my husband's wedding clothes. (I confess I might have bought a *teeny* bit more than I strictly needed.) My aim was to create something that would work equally well as either modern or Medieval(ish) clothing, and that would be comfortable and go together quickly but still incorporate some decorative details.
The “goes together quickly” requirement meant that drafting a new pattern or making multiple mock-ups was out of the question (not least of all because my pattern drafting paper and muslin didn’t come with me to Scotland and haven’t yet been replaced). By using rectangular construction, not only can I bypass the pattern drafting stage, I can use pulled threads to ensure that I’m always exactly on the correct grain. This is a very good thing, since this particular linen has a very drape that looks fabulous, but makes keeping the grain lines even remotely straight a royal pain in the arse.
The pattern that I used is slightly different from what I think of as the standard T-tunic, which has a straight body and triangular gores that flare widely from the waist down. Instead, my tunic has trapezoidal side pieces that flare gently from the armpits down to the hem (essentially, style 6 here). This is a pattern that I first came across while looking for information about reconstructions of the Eura dress, and have seen used for a traditional Russian shirt, and as a possible interpretation of the Mogelmose tunic.
I've made other tunics and tunic dresses using this pattern, and found them very comfortable, very economical with fabric (I stand 5'11" and managed to squeeze a not-quite-ankle-length tunic dress out of a remnant of just under 3 yards of 54" wide fabric), and less obviously "historical" than tunics that flare from the waist down, so they can pass as slightly eccentric casual wear in a modern setting.
Because the linen is fairly thin and I live in a cold place, I decided to give it a largeish yoke so that I would have an extra layer of fabric over my chest and shoulders for both warmth and modesty. The yoke is used to construct a faced neck opening, which is not (to my knowledge) historically accurate, but has less of a tendency to pucker than a rolled hem, and encloses the raw edges unlike a hem that's folded once. To reinforce the point of the keyhole neck opening, to hide the faced construction, and to spiff it up a little, I used a heavy grey linen thread in a buttonhole/blanket stitch around the entire neckline.
As long as I was doing decorative stitching, I added a feather stitch around the edge of the yoke (which otherwise disappeared, being black-on-black), and a herringbone stitch around the cuffs of the sleeves.
The construction seams were done on my treadle sewing machine (zero carbon footprint!), but all of the seams are felled by hand, so there are no raw edges anywhere on the garment, and I can happily chuck it into a washing machine without fear of fraying. The sleeves and hem were also done by hand, so there is no machine stitching visible from the outside.
As with most of my "finished" projects, I'm already thinking of little details I might like to add in the future, such as a thread-covered button and loop at the neckline or some more decorative seam treatments, but I think I'm going to just bask in the happy "finished project" glow for a while first.
In other crafty news, this little trivet came out of the kiln. Most of the reason I make pots is to cook in them or eat out of them, but I recently bought two jars of crackle glaze, only to realize after the fact that they aren't food-safe. The crackle effect didn't really work out because the glaze all ran down to the underside of the piece, but it does the job of keeping our tables unscorched by hot pans. It's just a bunch of little coils twisted up into spirals, joined on the underside, with three round feet stuck onto the bottom to raise the whole thing up from the table a little bit.
This week (i.e. the last week of January), I am very pleased to report about my first finished project of 2015: the black herringbone linen tunic. This was a (relatively) quick project, begun over the Christmas holiday using a remnant of some fabric that I bought for my husband's wedding clothes. (I confess I might have bought a *teeny* bit more than I strictly needed.) My aim was to create something that would work equally well as either modern or Medieval(ish) clothing, and that would be comfortable and go together quickly but still incorporate some decorative details.
The “goes together quickly” requirement meant that drafting a new pattern or making multiple mock-ups was out of the question (not least of all because my pattern drafting paper and muslin didn’t come with me to Scotland and haven’t yet been replaced). By using rectangular construction, not only can I bypass the pattern drafting stage, I can use pulled threads to ensure that I’m always exactly on the correct grain. This is a very good thing, since this particular linen has a very drape that looks fabulous, but makes keeping the grain lines even remotely straight a royal pain in the arse.
The pattern that I used is slightly different from what I think of as the standard T-tunic, which has a straight body and triangular gores that flare widely from the waist down. Instead, my tunic has trapezoidal side pieces that flare gently from the armpits down to the hem (essentially, style 6 here). This is a pattern that I first came across while looking for information about reconstructions of the Eura dress, and have seen used for a traditional Russian shirt, and as a possible interpretation of the Mogelmose tunic.
I've made other tunics and tunic dresses using this pattern, and found them very comfortable, very economical with fabric (I stand 5'11" and managed to squeeze a not-quite-ankle-length tunic dress out of a remnant of just under 3 yards of 54" wide fabric), and less obviously "historical" than tunics that flare from the waist down, so they can pass as slightly eccentric casual wear in a modern setting.
Because the linen is fairly thin and I live in a cold place, I decided to give it a largeish yoke so that I would have an extra layer of fabric over my chest and shoulders for both warmth and modesty. The yoke is used to construct a faced neck opening, which is not (to my knowledge) historically accurate, but has less of a tendency to pucker than a rolled hem, and encloses the raw edges unlike a hem that's folded once. To reinforce the point of the keyhole neck opening, to hide the faced construction, and to spiff it up a little, I used a heavy grey linen thread in a buttonhole/blanket stitch around the entire neckline.As long as I was doing decorative stitching, I added a feather stitch around the edge of the yoke (which otherwise disappeared, being black-on-black), and a herringbone stitch around the cuffs of the sleeves.The construction seams were done on my treadle sewing machine (zero carbon footprint!), but all of the seams are felled by hand, so there are no raw edges anywhere on the garment, and I can happily chuck it into a washing machine without fear of fraying. The sleeves and hem were also done by hand, so there is no machine stitching visible from the outside.
As with most of my "finished" projects, I'm already thinking of little details I might like to add in the future, such as a thread-covered button and loop at the neckline or some more decorative seam treatments, but I think I'm going to just bask in the happy "finished project" glow for a while first.
In other crafty news, this little trivet came out of the kiln. Most of the reason I make pots is to cook in them or eat out of them, but I recently bought two jars of crackle glaze, only to realize after the fact that they aren't food-safe. The crackle effect didn't really work out because the glaze all ran down to the underside of the piece, but it does the job of keeping our tables unscorched by hot pans. It's just a bunch of little coils twisted up into spirals, joined on the underside, with three round feet stuck onto the bottom to raise the whole thing up from the table a little bit.
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