Three Recent Steampunk Costumes

Capt. Arbuckle "Buck" Rogers, Aeronaut
Translating classic sci fi into the steampunk milieu is a time-honored tradition.  The happy meeting between my love of steampunk and my love of fifties sci fi.  So when an chance to go to Seattle's Steamcon II rolled around, I brought out a steampunk iteration of everyone's favorite time-displaced individual, Captain Buck Rogers.

Throckmorton Q. Calabash, Aeroship Gambler
I grew up in Missouri, land of river boats and Mark Twain.  I envision a steampunk milieu of 19th century St Louis, port for paddlewheeler airships and haven of riverboat gamblers and hair-brained inventors of Throckmorton's sort.

James Quartermaine, "Gentleman Adventurer" (read: Feckless Ne'erdowell)
A man of means fallen on hard times and gone on the lam, James Quartermaine is a persona I've adopted off and on for years.  Of James, little is known and less is understood, but his gadgetry is as ingenious as those he stole if from and often used to relieve lonely matrons of their jewels.

Corsetry: Just How Common Was Whalebone In the 16th Century Anyway?

Corsetry generally falls outside of my realm of costuming, but I've been meaning to post this tidbit of research I did on the prevalence and availability of "Whalebone" in the 16th century after the question came up on the Elizabethan Costuming Tribe over at Tribe.com.  Yes, Tribe still exists, and is still limping along as it always has.  I encourage you to click that link if you've any interest in Elizabethan constuming in general or this topic in particular.  A wealth of information -- an embarassment of riches to be certain.

So, on the topic of whalebone.  What was called "Whalebone" was really Baleen, the fine vents of keratin that some whales use to filter krill and other organisms out of sea water as they swim.  Keratin, as I believe I mention below is the same thing your fingernails are made of.  (I've handled the stuff and yes, it basically feels like a giant splintering fingernail.)

The Muscovy Company held the monopoly for North Sea and Channel whaling for most of the 16th Century. The practice was regulated out the yinyang even then to control (and thus tax) the enormous amounts of revenue it generated.

Incidentally, I hear a lot in historical costuming circles that the Queen had automatic claim to any whale beached in England or Scotland.  This apparently only sort of true.  According to this article written by TIME Magazine at the time the law was overturned by Parliament, the Queen's royal monopoly on whales was specifically for the tails.  The King (if there was one) got the head, which is where the baleen is found.  Maybe the king gave it over, or had it made into corsets as a gift to his queen (or his mistresses for that matter). 

I know TIME is hardly authoritative on this matter, but I found it amusing.

My favorite reference librarian Racheal dredged up an intriguing article called "A Genetic Analysis of 16th Century whalebones Prompts a Revision of the Impact of Basque Whaling on Right & Bowhead Whales In the Western North Atlantic" (Phew, these titles, I swear...). It's rather long and involved and postulates results for the entire North Atlantic from the analysis of one small sampling of whalebones recovered from a wreck off the Labrador Peninsula that cetacean depopulation predates the onset of large-scale human whaling by the Basques (the first large-scale whalers). Which is interesting enough, and certainly controversial, if only for the broadness of the authors' intent to refute what is largely considered settled history... but not really germane.

As is often the case, though, some really interesting bits are to be found in the extraordinary dissent.

A refutation of that piece, published by Aldemaro Romero and Shelly Kennada (which I, sadly, can no longer find on the open internet) pretty much tears apart their analysis and assumptions. But genetic analysis isn't really why we're here... what's germane to our discussion is the numbers they put up for pre-1611 whaling (when the Muscovy Company received the aforementioned monopoly of the Svalbard whaling grounds... The Basque whaling fleets ranged the whole of the North Atlantic, depopulating an area and moving on like seaborne locusts, killing between the generally-accepted minimum of 25,000 and what he and other historians of the topic I’ve read feel is the more realistic total of 40,000 whales.

Baleen yields for the two most prevalent kinds of whales taken are as follows (according to the delightful site for kids called www.enchantedlearning.com) Bowhead: 350 pairs and Right Whale: 200-270 pairs. Accepting the 40,000 number and assuming an average 310 pairs of baleen yield per whale captured, that’s approximately 24 million individual pieces of whalebone put on the European market put there by the Basque whalers alone. Remember that to make stays, a whole piece of baleen would be split into (at a guess) ten – twenty stays each.

CAVEAT: Corsetry wasn’t the only destination of a piece of ‘whalebone’ (baleen) but with a conservative estimate of 24 million whole individual pieces of baleen on the market in Europe from the Basque whalers alone… do the math.

Rebecca asked about processing the stuff. Baleen is made from a fibrous protein called keratin of a hardness very similar to our fingernails (hard but flexible). It was fibrous so it could be split almost infinitely, and steamed and then cooled to retain a shape. The Tudor Group - as I think I might've mentioned - gets baleen from the British Goverment and you can see some pictures of their tailors working with it on their site: www.tudorgroup.co.uk/index.html

So let’s do some math and play with the numbers a little, because math is fun, right? (crickets chirruping...)

www.Tacitius.nu estimates the 1600 combined populations of France, Spain, Portugal and England (countries where corsetry was ascendant pre-1600) was approximately 34.8 million people, over half of whom were women. So assume 34.8 million women. Even assuming a booming middle class, I would feel comfortable saying that barely half of those 34.8 million women were in the market for a corset, probably more like a quarter of that number, but that’s a guess (all population estimates pre 1800 are guesses anyway, so why not?). Take that and the fact that those 24 million pieces of baleen would be split and split again… you have quite a voluminous commodity, arguing strongly (IMO) that it was moderately expensive but hardly scarce.

http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/population/british.htm

Addendum: A link and some amazing and quite all-inclusive information provided by my dear friend and fellow costumer Noel Gieleghem: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2279/is_n159/ai_21029550/



As always, if anyone has any additional information of links, I'm happy to post them. The Tribe discussion ran the gamut and is well worth a read as well.

A message to my readers

Oh dear!  I have been gone a long time, haven't I?

The last time I posted was over a year ago.  In part this is owing to some health issues that are finally beginning to (sort of) resolve themselves, but mainly it's because I fell down the clockwork rabbit hole into steampunk.  I's still doing renaissance costuming, but I just haven't made much new stuff in the past year.

Rather than continue to allow this blog stand idle for long stretches while I'm working on things unrelated to the renaissance, or creating a whole new blog and let that one stand idle while I come back here to do renaissance or other stuff, I'll be broadening the focus of this blog to include all of my costuming and garb making. 

I hope you don't mind. Never fear, my dabbling in the renaissance is not over by a long shot.  As you can see below, I'm in the 2011 promotional video for the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire  (Guy with a big nose bouncing around like a maniac)

 

Anyway, rest assured, the quality renaissance costuming content is not nearly at an end. I have a leather doublet on the drawing board that I'm gathering bits for and will begin as soon as I find the right buttons or closures to complete it!  So my rennie and SCA readers can look forward to that.

Incidentally, in case you don't like pawing through the steampunk or sci fi stuff to find the renaissance stuff (or vice-versa), never fear; each period or genre will have its own tag that will be applied to all posts of that milieu.Renaissance, Steampunk, Science Fiction, Prop Making, Leatherwork, etcetera.  Some of them might have more than one category, but I'll try to keep overlap to a minimum.

My standards for costuming in any period remain the same:

1. Good garb feels natural when you’re wearing it.
2. Good garb won’t kill you to wear in the August heat (or the halls of a convention center).
3. Good garb is clothing you won’t hate putting on in the morning.
4. Good garb is just as durable as the other clothes in your closet (or better).
5. Good garb weighs style against wearability and strikes a healthy balance.

DeMedici Doublet...

So I want to make a 'sampler doublet' to practice and test techniques prior to making the final outfit based on the historical example of the DeMedici grave goods. A wearable prototype of the final so I can fully test the outfit beyond merely making a mockup or muslin which shall henceforth be known as "Medici Mark I".

According to Janet Arnold, the original garment was probably of crimson stuff that has since faded to russet. That being said, russet is a better color on me, and I like it better, so I'm going with it. The final will be made from russet silk and velvet but otherwise I shall stick perilously close to the original... I hope.

A Whiter Shade of Pale...
It's time to choose the fabric for the prototype. Since all of my prototypes have to result in wearable garments, fabric selection is as important as for the final. It's also a grand opportunity to reduce the bulk on the shelves of fabric in our sewing room. Yes, prototyping masquerading as Stash-Reduction!

I begin the choosing by tallying what I want from the final...

1. It must be white.
2. It must have good texture from a distance but the texture cannot overwhelm the final embroidery.
3. The design-if it has one-must be acceptably period so I can wear the final garment to faire.
   
4. It must not be so friable that I cannot pause mid-stitch to take pictures for this blog without coming back to a mess. (ahem)
5. It must be from the shelf in the sewing room and not the fabric store. I want this project to reduce the stash, not add to it.
   

I was reading through a book called "5,000 Years of Textiles" and marveling at the breadth and depth of the weaver's art in the 16th century and especially their ability to get textured effects using cut and uncut velvets. One of these was an imitation of strapwork with alternating velvet areas and smooth areas.

This upholstery fabric from my stash bears a striking resemblance and at the moment it is the frontrunner...


Because I want to do a white-on-white embroidery to the final garment, my wife asked why I don't simply use a plain white canvas (which she then handed to me). I might, but the reason I've been mentally steering away from the idea is that I didn't want to do that much embroidery. I was looking to do accents and patterns and generally practice my stitches as you do on a sampler.

So... I think I may have found my fabric! I'll keep digging and let you know how it goes.

NEXT: Construction Stitches, why they're important and how to use them...

Buttoning Up - Part Two

Part II of an ongoing series of making your own buttons in a period fashion...


Sorry it took so long. On my first try at this, the pictures didn't turn out so well. Getting my little camera to focus on thread is a no-go. SO... for this post I used a larger bead (3/4 inch) and some cheap yarn I had lying around to improve the picture quality.

As previously noted here and elsewhere, the easiest way to 'button up' is to go to your friendly neighborhood cloth retailer and peruse the button aisle. A multitude of perfectly-acceptable metal and wood buttons are available for the purchasing.

The problem lies in that this embarrassment of riches open to the modern costumer is not necessarily reflective of what the period tailor had to work with. Portraits indicate that even among the hoity and the toity metal buttons weren't the most common application. Only the most notorious clothes horses like Leicester seemed to go for the jems and fine metals. Metal buttons are found by metal detectors in Europe all the time, so they weren't rare, but many of them have been cast to resemble the threadworked variety, which I find noteworthy. Also, threadwork or cloth buttons make up the bulk of the buttons I see in the paintings and on the extent period garments examined by Janet Arnold and others in the available texts.

There are three basic styles of threaded bead-buttons I can find readily-available documentation for and I'll focus on those. There are hundreds of possible permutations of this style of button and they're in use through the victorian era. Today I will work a 'corded' design, a 'faceted' design, and a 'basketweave' design here and leave the rest to your imaginations...

Historical Notes:
In Janet Arnold's "Patterns of Fashion 1560-1620" are several images of buttons worked in thread (usually silk) over a wooden core. Based solely on her documentation it appears that the basketweave seems to be the most popular into the early 1600's, often done at an angle to give the weave a more diamond look rather than squares. Following that, I'd say the faceted design is next, and I've only found a couple of examples of the 'corded' look.

The core-shape of course dictates the final shape of the button, and they seem to have been primarily spherical with a couple of flat ones here and there. A quick survey of period paintings will confirm this.

Getting Started...
Each button we'll be talking about begins the same way. Select a bead of appropriate size and thread that will match or contrast with your garment as suits the effect you're trying to achieve. On period garments, the sizes seem to run the gamut from 1" on down.


Take your bead and run your thread through the center hole several times, laying nice flat cords longitudinally around the circumference of your sphere as shown below...


Each design is determined by how you then weave the chord through this base layer. The more wraps, the smoother the final product will be and the longer the design will take to complete. If you wrap it enough and weave carefully it is possible to have your final results be - essentially - as fine as the cloth your will be sewing them to. I never do this, as I believe that the texture of the button adds to the final garment. If I wanted cloth buttons I'd use cloth to cover the bead and save myself some time and handcramps.

The Corded Design
I'm not sure if there's a better term out there for this style, "ridged" perhaps? I call it the 'corded' design because the final button looks like it has corded ridges radiating longitudinally around it.

Start by determining how many ridges you want on your button and lay that many longitudinal cords. Too many and the button will look solid. Too few and it will look unfinished. I find 6-7 to be optimal, but do however many suits you.

Lay each stitch underneath the longitudinal cords...


And comeback around and loop back so you can pass under the same cord, laying the stitch 'south' of the previous one to keep them laying flat without gaps...


Repeat over and over again until the bead is covered and finish...






The 'Faceted' Design...
I call this the faceted design because the finished buttons (when you're using finer threads than the yarn I'm using here anyway) look like they're faceted due to the cords laid underneath drawing the overlaid threads taut to break up the spherical symmetry of the button.

Begin just as noted above. The more cords you lay, the smoother and less faceted the finished product, so keep in mind just how smooth an appearance you want to achieve ere you begin...

Instead of going under each longitudinal cord, go over it and pass your needle back under as shown...

Over...


And pull it tight...
Draw tight so that the loop is hidden from view as you move on to the next cord, hiding the 'cording' I mentioned in the previous button under the layers of thread.


Finish as shown below.

The Basketweave Design...
This is the button that takes the longest of all of them in my experience, simply because you're laying more stitches. Janet Arnold documents these with any number of strands from one to six in each course of the weave so you can do as you see fit.

When you start you want to almost completely cover the button with the longitudinal threads (see left).

I also find that this design goes faster and more smoothly if I'm working with a doubled thread, but you need to be careful not to twist the strands as you're weaving them. Simply hold them flat in place with your thumbnail as you pull each stitch tight and that will help immensely in the quality of the final product.

NOTE: you will want to make an odd-number of longitudinal cords for your weaving or you won't get an even weave when you get to the next part. Just trust me on this one...

The rest is simple, if tedious. Weave the doubled-thread through the longitudinal threads, forming a basketweave pattern as you go. Each weave will be two threads wide if you're working with doubled thread as I am here, and I find you can go as high as six before you start to lose the pattern altogether.

Weave...Weave...

And finish as noted below.

Repeat as often as you desire or for as long as your hands hold out. Twenty-thirty is average, especially for English attire, which is notoriously button-happy.

Take medicinal herb or alchemic concoction of choice to deal with the hand cramps this inevitably produces.

To Finish the Buttons (all)...
Once each button is completely covered with your thread, you're going to find that the hole at the center of the bead is still visible unless you've pulled your stitches tight enough to force the hole closed. As far as I can tell from looking at Janet Arnold, this was usually attended to by tying a big knot and pulling it down tight to fill or cover the hole...

Start by passing the needle back through the hold from bottom to top. There are several fancy knots you can use and at this point I'll refer you to every embroidery and knot book in the world so you can boggle at the sheer number of options available to you.

For the simplest solution, simply wrap your thread around the needle three or four times as shown...


Then pull tight, keeping the knot where you want it by using your thumbnail to hold it in place as you tighten...


Pass the needle back through the hole and snug down so that your knot is either in the hole, flush with the surface, or (if big enough) sitting atop the surface like you see in some buttons pictured in Janet Arnold.


And another finished example...


For the basketweave design, I like the look better if you just pull the weave snug enough to cover the hole, but the knot looks fine too.

Sometimes people use another bead to finish the button. Passing the thread through the bead and pulling it tight instead of making a knot. Aside from the fact that I've not seen any period examples of this yet, I simply prefer the knotted finish anyway. I have tried the beaded solution and played around with it quite a bit out of curiosity and simply don't find any of my results compelling. I've also toyed with the idea of schwanking these up a bit using metal jewelry findings and such, but nothing yet has really looked right to me. If you use a bead of a contrasting color, however, it gives you a really neat effect so I leave it to your own aesthetics...


Worked in finer threads, the final is more impressive than the yarn-covered ones in the tutorial. It's even enough to impress my notoriously finicky marionette...

Hold the Mustard!

Changing course now, just a little bit. My apologies for the lengthy delay in getting back on course. I you are still with me after all this time, I give you thanks. If you are new, having found me by way of my presence on Tribe.net or elsewhere, then welcome and well met! You come at the turning of the tide.

Note the divot I carved into the tip of my wooden thimble in the picture above.
It's especially useful when sewing through canvas or leather. Since I
made that adjustment, I've reduced considerably the number of
slipped-needle injuries I sustain in a project like this.

Since we began this journey, the book Tudor Tailor was released. For those who have not yet read it, the book goes a long way toward pulling back the curtain on certain salient aspects of all we strive for, sort of a user's guide to Patterns of Fashion in a very real way. But I came here not to sell you books, I came hence to tell you that the book changed my mind in a couple of ways on the final outcome I hope to achieve with this garment and certain long-held beliefs on the construction of period-seeming garments for the reenactment set.


And so I resolve to complete the journey, a journey now refined by the passage of time and the introspection brought on by long hours wreathed in plaster dust as we continue to remodel our home, by the rumination over illness and injury, and by the letter R.

I have long thought that handsewing was just a pain in the @$ and little more good could be said of it. I was wrong. My wife tried to tell me that it had its place, and I thought she meant in areas were a machine could not go. What she really meant was that there were marked differences in the results achieved by the slow & steady approach versus sticking layers of fabric under the frantic needle of the Hotrod. I stand corrected.

As such have just completed the garment I began here this long while ago. When last we met, I was using plum-coloured canvas to draft a new pattern for a mustard-colored middle class doublet. A close-fitting affair with set-in sleeves and a grown-in collar.

Changes:

1. I set aside the grown-in collar after the difficulties I experienced with the rust-colored jerkin. I never completely resolved the pucker at the back and muslin after muslin repeated the problem, so for now I have set aside the notion entirely.
2. I came into a stash of 100% linen in natural and a pale green. I have traded in the mustard-coloured brushed cotton for the natural linen as an outer material and the pale green as lining.
3. I have - for this project as an experiment - set aside my usual Pellon fusible interfacing that I have hitherto used in lieu of canvas interlining and subsituted it with canvas 'Duck' since I couldn't find anyone selling proper fustian (a heavy cotton/linen blend).
4. I will be making cloth buttons out of scrap linen instead of using the wooden bead buttons I used on the rust-colored jerkin and was intending to use again on the doublet.

The pattern piecing was very similar to what I have shown before. Using a combination of the machine and hand-stitching, I laid out the pattern I drafted and cut interlining, lining and outer fabric. Making a sandwich of the three, I sewed and turned them so that the interlining is caught between, providing structure to the doublet.

(Note: I will be making a new jerkin of green wool soon using this same method and will go in-depth on that, perhaps sometime this fall)

The more seams you have, the small pieces you piece from,
the more points of adjustment you have to work with, and the
better fit you can manage in your clothing.

The piecing of doublets is a subject I have been thinking on a great deal this past year. I have studied every painting from the period I could get my hands on, perused a borrowed copy of Alcega, read Tudor Tailor and internally worked the seams in my head during the quiet moments of the morning when the novel wasn't singing to me and sleep was elusive.

Doublets of our period seem to have been made from many small pieces, some smaller than others. Leather doublets seemed to be even more prone to this almost quilt-like piecing strategy. It's all about making as many clothes from one ell of cloth as possible, you see, The smaller the pieces, the more you can fit them on the cloth ere you cut, like the pieces of a puzzle. The period tailor books were full of illustrations of how best to eke the most out of a single length of fabric. And so shall it be with me...

Note the unaligned seams where the sleeve meets the doublet body.
These became rarer as more and more machines replaced tailors.

During the industrial revolution, patterning of clothing changed to accomodate the machines being used to manufacture them. Seams such as these would slow production, so they were aligned so as to be sewn in a single pass, or as few passes as possible. So it is that machine sewing of Renaissance clothing seems so awkward, the machines constrained.

When easing curved seams I use as few pins as possible, giving me
as much play as I can to stretch and turn the fabric as I sew. This
allows better alignment of layers, I think, and a nicer finished look
to the final garment.

I am not so reduced that I will set aside my hotrod entirely, but it will definitely be utilized in the main for sewing long straight seams, or pieces that will be turned and the machine sewing hidden. As I went along in this project, I was surprised to find that I did more and more by hand as I developed a feel for it, and acquired a rhythm for the movement of the needle, thread, and beeswax.

I must cogitate some more, and I've buttons to make and buttonholes to sew as well. I'll be back soon with more pictures and more in-depth maundering of the like you're used to on the myriad subjects that spring to mind as I stitch...

Next: Making Buttons!!

Doublet Deux

Getting back on track...

When last we left our intrepid seamstre… um, tailor, he was endeavoring to draft a new pattern (ignoring for the moment all of the side projects like the marrionette…) which took into account the shortcomings of the old, and create a new doublet to his liking that can go on to form the moderating and contrasting base for a more flamboyant jerkin which shall overlay. Are you with me now?

NOTE: Plum color for mockup purposes only.
See previous post for tips on mocking-up...

As you may recall, the color scheme here is autumnal in nature, drawing from my favorite earthtones of rust and mustard (thankfully I’m making garb and not sandwiches, but I digress). The colors were inspired by my favorite set of juggling balls, I kid you not. There’s a picture back in an earlier post if you want to take a look. We find inspiration where'er it hides. Unlike the earlier jerkin project, which incorporated a number of techniques and ideas that were new to me, I have a good deal more experience making doublets and even my past noble projects have followed simpler lines, as I generally believe in letting carefully-chosen textured fabrics speak for themselves. I think that this lends a certain nuance to costuming that helps in bringing me down on my preferred side of the dividing line between my character’s everyday clothing and a costume worn for a weekend and meant to last only that long.

TODAY'S TIP... Draw inspiration from what you've done. This includes acknowledging and mending past errors, and distilling the best bits from the last few projects to make the newest project a culmination of all you've learnt so far.

Above is a photo of me looking pompous in an early noble costume of mine. If you’ve read some of my older posts, you’ve likely seen it before in the parrot picture. I like the quilted fabric and the simple lines of the doublet. I need to dig it out and take some more detailed shots ere we discuss shoulder and waist treatments, because I was particularly fond of this one. Small ½ inch loops of match-dyed cotton are sewn into the seams of the waist and shoulders as well as around the collar with the intent of eventually forming a supportasse for a ruff I never quite got around to making.

PRO: Good use of texture, simple lines
CON: Button placket, never made ruff so the collar just came off as a little silly

Below are some shots of another doublet o’ mine that I am particularly fond of. The cotton canvas is a sage green (much faded by the suns of a dozen faires) of very much the same weight as the rust-colored stuff I used for the jerkin project. I like the heavy open-weave texture of it and the way it turns supple with time and wear. I even like the way it fades, though this doublet started out solidly middle class and has degraded somewhat with wear to a lower middle class garment. But that’s part of its charm, methinks.

PRO: Simple lines, very workmanlike and utilitarian, love the pewter buttons (difficult to see in the picture), Best fitting of all my doublets so far.
CON: Fit might belie the doublet's class somewhat, has a button placket

A SIDENOTE ON THE SUBJECT OF FITTING… I am a slender fellow. The name “Ichabod Crane” leaps to mind when I flounder about for a literary reference to describe myself. As such, I oft-times find it difficult to draft all the wrinkly bits and pudgy bits out of my doublets. This used to drive me to destraction until I started to look, and I mean really LOOK at the renaissance portraiture, especially that of senor Moroni. I have been especially inspired (as are many male costumers) by the cut of the Tailor’s doublet and the places in which Moroni recorded the folds and buckling of the fabric in the man’s pinked and slashed white doublet. Many of these ‘faults’ are the very same ones I’ve been tearing my hair out trying to correct for years. And that guy was a tailor, for heaven’s sake! Many of his other paintings bear this out, as do many other painters of the period. Many of the perfect flat front garments in Northern Renaissance paintings were clearly boned or starched when they weren’t stuffed into unrealistically taut potbellies by adding sewn-in bags of cornmeal or the like.

The doublet in the inspiration picture (derived from a painting by mannerist master Moroni) doesn’t lend us much of a clue as to the cut of the man’s doublet other than that spiffy sleeve which is either cutte or tightly paned (I've seen it duplicated both ways with some success) which I am not currently planning to replicate… at least not right away. Other than the color, it is difficult to deduce much at all about the inner garments. The hang of the outer garment suggest that the doublet would be close-cut rather than stuffed with bombast in the peas cod style, more akin to a soldier’s arming jerkin meant to be worn beneath cuirasses. The body of the doublet might not have matched the fancy sleeves and I would be remiss if I failed to point out that I can by no means be certain that there even was an inner garment between the visible Jerkin with sleeves and his shirt. So I am - by necessity - going to operate under certain assumptions.

1. The inner garment is a separate piece from the outer jerkin.
2. The inner garment is a close-fitted doublet of a lighter fabric than the outer and is all of a piece.

I’m not even going to dwell on whether that’s really the collar of his shirt that we see or a renaissance dickie like many of the ladies of the courts wore and called a partlet. Partlet, dickie, you say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to…yada yada yada…

We have already drafted a new pattern for the proposed inner doublet and revisited the previous projects of pertinence to the current endeavor and recapped for those just joining in. Welcome and welcome back all of you…


For the inner doublet I have chosen a lightweight brushed cotton, almost a light flannel in a wonderfully understated mustard color. The buttons will be wooden beads and the shoulder, neck and waist shall be decorated only with a pinked strip of folded bias binding in a matching color as shown in the previous jerkin around the neck and in numerous garments featured in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion. With the help of my dear ladywife, I have (hopefully) drafted away the annoying wrinkle at the back of the neck and I will once again be using an overlap instead of a button placket for the closure.

Next... assembly.