Tuesday, November 21, 2017

In Search of Armor: Kidney belt

With my gambeson done, I could start on the rigid layers of my kit, which needed to be fitted over the padded garment to avoid accidentally ending up with something that didn't fit at all.  I decided to start with my kidney belt, which will go under my tunic. I had some dilemma over how to design this item. Most of the guys who use a kidney belt sort of protection just use a straight belt. For someone with as much hip as I have, that didn't sound like a comfortable option, especially with the weight of my leg gear hanging off of it. It seemed like the best solution would be to have it extend slightly over my hips, not far enough to limit motion, but far enough to solidly seat the weight there and keep it from digging in. I immediately thought of the shape of a "waspie" corset. It seemed to me to be the ideal amount of coverage, so long as it was adapted to be snug, but not create a reduction in waist measurement.

I set about making a pattern. Drafting from my block, I made a basic short, 8 panel corset pattern, fastening on either side of a center front panel to allow adjustments in waist size. I cut it out in some canvas, and fitted it, taking tucks where it needed to be reduced. Once the fit was comfortable, I transferred the alterations to the patterns, and then double checked the final waist measurement of the mockup against my own. It was exactly the same, so I reduced the front panel a little further to allow room for lacing.

you will note that I have both the number and
an arrow on every one of these patterns. Corset
patterns can be ambiguous as to which way is
up. Using an arrow means you won't put
them together wrong. it's worth the time
I had originally planned to just cut the panels directly out of heavy leather, then lace them together. After further thought I decide that this was inadvisable. People who make corsets become aware, quickly, that leather, although beautifully stiff, and not needing extensive boning, stretches and distorts under pressure. Particularly if it has moisture and heat. Strapped to the body of a hot sweaty fighter seems like the perfect situation for leather to stretch totally out of shape, particularly given mumblety mumblety pounds of leg harness hanging from it. So I decided that a better option would be to rivet the leather plates directly to a fabric base, a fabric base made of something not terribly stretchy, but still comfortable and breathable. The corsetierre in me immediately suggested coutil as the best option. Although this belt wouldn't experience the pressure exerted on my corsets, it does share some of same attributes. As a bonus, I still had some good quality german coutil lying around, so I fished it out and traced the pattern.

How to manage the seams was the next question. When I make corsets I prefer to use an elaborate folded seam system that eliminates bulk and creates a boning channel. This wasn't going to NEED boning channels, and the origami element of that seemed tedious and unnecessary. I could likewise just put the seams to the outside, and hope the riveted leather plates would cover them. That seemed like leaving too much to chance though. if the seams worked free and poked out between the plates it would be unsightly and it wouldn't wear well.  I finally decided on a partial lining to cover the seams as being easy, attractive, and practical. Seam binding would have worked too, but I still had some of the skull fabric from my gauntlets lying around and wanted to use it, and it wouldn't have shown to advantage cut into small strips for seam binding.

Once I got it all together I wrapped it around me and bent back and forth a couple times. This set a wrinkle at the waist, which marks the spot for me to sew in a waist tape, a further precaution against stretching out of shape. Probably overkill, but a 10 minute investment now guards against a total re-do six months down the road.






Waist tape on, I bound all the edges with bias tape. Bright red and black are the colors of  the household I fight with, so it seemed like a good choice. Plus I like the red with the silver skulls. The belt was now ready to have the armory bits riveted to the outside of it.







To do this I first folded back the seam allowance on all my pattern pieces, and traced them onto leather with the tip of my awl. I cut them out carefully with an exacto knife, and rounded off any sharp corners a bit. Then I punched even holes along the vertical edges for rivets. Now  I had to decide whether I was going to water shape them or not. I didn't want the belt to be rigid, like my gauntlet backs, or even as hard as my hot water hardened rerebraces, but it was instantly obvious that the pieces over my hips and the center back would HAVE to be shaped. I decided in the end to wear it for a while and see if heat and sweat would be enough to shape it, or if it needed to be sprayed with water and cinched down to take a better shape.


The remainder of the construction was annoying and time consuming, but not difficult. I lined up the leather panels with the corresponding fabric panels, making a hole with my tailors awl, I inserted a small pop rivet, and riveted on the leather onto the fabric. Then I mounted d-rings and straps to the front. I also punched holes for laces to point my current set of legs on. I'd like to eventually buckle the legs rather than tie them, but these aren't' my final legs (and I'm not even sure what I"m going to do for final legs yet) so  I decided pointing them on was the easiest method for now.




Shakedown cruise proved that the concept is GREAT. Very comfortable, good protection. My leg armor stayed put beautifully, and the weight was much more comfortably supported than by belt or pourpoint. The heat and sweat did adequately shape the panels, so I don't think further shaping will be necessary. On the down side, the sythentic strapping I used in the d-rings is slippery when it's sweaty, and so the belt doesn't stay cinched. Also evidently my pop rivets can't get enough purchase through the strapping to be secure long  term, and I did lose a strap. I also found I didn't really need d-rings for adjustment on both sides, since really it was most comfortable completely closed. I ended up attaching one edge permenantly, and using cotton strappping and D-rings on the other side. If it continues to slip out while I fight,  I can always go to buckles.

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Dress Houpelande for a Companion to the House

Although my persona is 10th century viking, my Household that I am in the process of trying to join, is 15th century german. So if we show us as a household in dress, it's ALL the Houpelande's and Dags and shiny boots (If you're a guy). As a female fighting household member (when and if I make it that far) the uniform is less clear, but it's still very much 15th century. As a companion to the house (I have expressed interest in joining, but the house hasn't expressed interest in me yet. a sort of pre probationary period lasting at least 6 months) I wear a black tabard when I fight. For full dress, it's a bit complicated. If I was a guy, I would make myself a nicer black tabard and still wear the tabard. As a female, it looks dumb, and it's not appropriate for any period to wear a tabard belted over my clothes. With Fall crown tourney coming up, and several of the guys in the house throwing their hats in the ring (two of them with a good chance of winning) All of us coming to cheer have been requested to show up in full house formal dress. I decided that me in my viking undergown with my tabard belted over it and my bare feet LIKELY wasn't what they had in mind, although it's the strictest interpretation of the rules. But the rules were designed for male garb, not female. I decided, after consultation with the other fighting female household member, to wear a female houpeland in unrelieved black (like my tabard) this provides a nice continuity of look between the male house members and the female, while still maintaining distinct gender for those who wish to.

both figures here wear houplandes
Boccaccio "Livre des cleres et Noble Femmes"
ca 1404 
It's really a very simple garment; almost exactly the same as the male version. Other than a few deviations in collar style, the only obvious difference between the two garments is that,  while the men's came in numerous lengths (from just past the crotch to floor length), Women's Houpelande were limited to floor length (or super exorbitantly long so you had to carry it.) It's one of the few times in history that I can think of where male and female clothing were almost exactly the same, which is interesting (excepting the way back when when people basically wore tunics and long tunics.)

As previously mentioned, there are several variations of the neckline for the women's Houpelande, Since the idea is a uniform look (pardon the pun), we chose the high neck to match the style that the men wear. Likewise you can do almost anything with the dags: we chose the crenelated style used by the men's current dress garment.

There is, as usual, argument about the best way to create this garment. A lot of the plausible research suggests for the very opulent style: essentially a full circle of fabric with a neck hole and slits cut for setting the sleeves. This produces an incredible garment, but is also a LOT of fabric. It also doesn't entirely provide for the very fitted drop shoulder look seen in a number of the illustrations I perused. I didn't fall too far down that rabbit hole.  I wanted a garment that would look and hang like the period garment, not necessarily an exact reproduction. In some cases, the two are the same thing: you can't get the period look and hang without the proper construction. in my case I thought i could probably manage by drafting off a block.

church of santa maria, piano italy.
Another source of debate is the lining of the gown. While it seems obvious from even a quick perusal of period images that the gowns were lined fully (every turned back hem shows a different color) I have seen it asserted that they were exclusively lined in fur. While there are certainly a large number of them lined in fur, probably even the majority, there are plenty of illustrations that show a non furry lining. I will not be lining with fur, because many times when I will have occasion to wear this it may be 90 degrees outside, and i do not wish to melt.

Life of the virgin, the birth of Mary, detail
ca 1470
Houpelande's were an over gown. they were worn over the fitted kirtle of the 14th century (indeed they were fashionable over the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th.) Frequently the undergown was made of some sort of fabulously opulent material, which would then show at cuffs and hem. It's also possible that it could have been fitted with a wide trim around the hem of the fabulous material and pin on sleeves. Certainly a short sleeved kirtle with pin on sleeves was known. Later images, particularly several by van der weyden show this short sleeved gown appearing next to a woman in a houpeland, possibly as it's own sort of overgown,  while some other images seem to show it as a sort of undress. My own kirtle has pinned sleeves and may later be outfitted with a contrast hem. this is easy and practical for me, providing more combinations of outfits with less effort. Although I cannot assert that it is absolutely correct without much more research, I feel like I can call it plausible.
 (If you wish to go further down this rabbit hole than I did, a quick google search for "women's 15th century houpelande illumination" will yield many hours of fun.)


For my own recreation, I started from my recently drafted body block, dropped the shoulder, and slashed and spread it from just above the bust point.

The first fitting was promising, but needed a few further alterations. There was more fullness than I wanted under the arm, so I re-adjusted some of my spreading. Also there was a problem with the sleeve. I had placed the seams at the center top and bottom of the seam, rather than at the front as in my husband's hanging sleeve. and made the shortest part of the sleeve also parallel with the shoulder point. That turned out to not work out as well in practice. The short part of the sleeve ended up being at the back of the wrist, and an awkward fold over the hand. I moved the seam to the front of the arm, as in my husband's hanging sleeve, and moved the short part of the sleeve to match. This solved that particular problem.

The obviously problem with this patterning method is that it makes a pattern piece wider than the fabric. This is only a problem to the modern sensibility though. In period, many fabrics were woven on much narrower looms than our modern machine looms, so fabric was frequently seamed together before being cut out. I just did the same here. Laid it out, added a piece where it was needed, then cut. Then I laid the cut piece out on the lining, and cut that out.




I made the sleeves as a unit first, since they had the dags and I wanted to get them out of the way. I used my patented cheater dag technique to save fabric and make sturdier joins. Which meant first making a whole pile of dags....








and then catching them in the seam between sleeve and lining, turning, pressing, and top stitching. Oh my sleeves!

Although it seems most likely that the original garments (particularly the fur lined ones) were sack lined, I ended up flat lining my gown, because the outer fabric was too drapey for the pattern. The flat lining gave it some support. I pad stitched the collar to a piece of felt, and sewed that in, and then attached the sleeves. The final step was to have my long suffering mother pin the hem (and it was a vast amount of pinning) and help me get it cut straight. Which was a challenge with the slithery fabric. I would like to take this moment to state that this is why I'm becoming a natural and period fibers snob. linen or light weight wool would have been SO much easier to work with (I didn't have a bolt of either of them lying around though.) Finally I installed a very wide hem facing of a nondescript grey "faux wool" I had lying about, to protect the white lining from dirt.

I had a little fabric left over and a lot of curiosity about the full circle method of construction, so I made Kitten a tiny black houpelande with fur lined sleeves using that method. It turned out well, but, as I suspected, it doesn't have the snugness across the back and in the shoulders that you see in some of the illuminations. I suspect that were I working with a full fur lining, I would prefer this method. Kitten's has a fur lined sleeve, and the upper chest is lined with medium weight wool for warmth.



Over all, I count it a success. I ended up using one of my viking under gowns with pinned on sleeves. Hopefully I will be able to upgrade that to a proper undergown with a contrast hem before I wear the Houpelande again. I ended up having to adjust the sleeve cap after I had already made the sleeves, so the sleeves are JUST long enough with the dags. I will lengthen them a little in the next iteration of the gown. It was comfortable, classic, and I was able to layer enough to be warm (and think I can layer down enough to be moderately cool as well)

With the hat and veil added to it, I Really felt like I looked like I had stepped out of an illumination, which was fun.