My gloveing journey: A pair of armored gauntlets

 When I started loking at women's armor for inspiration, the first thing that I was really attracted to was a set of thigh guards and vambraces made from soft leather with sewn channels for metal strapping. I looked and said: "That looks like boning channels, I can do this!" So I designed these gloves with attached vambraces, based on a pair of Wisby style gauntlets I'd seen on pinterest. Essentially the pattern is like any other cuffed glove, although the cuff is longand fitted. Articulated finger backs for full gauntlets are far beyond my current skill and budget, but it should be theoretically possible to remove the vambraces, attach armor to the gloves, and then reattach the vambraces. Maybe I'll even figure out how to make the articulated fingers myself at some point (or more likely my husband will)

I decided that I'd use up my giant pile of good quality leather scraps on these gloves to save the limited funds for other armoring projects, and because I kind of liked the patchwork look of it (this is one of those "I saw a thing once upon a time and it stuck in my brains" ideas). It certainly makes my style very personalized, if not really Historically accurate. But the historical accuracy of a set of gauntlets for a viking persona is debatable at best, so I decided to go with making something fun for myself.

I started by making a cardboard pattern for the vambrace, and taping it onto my arm until I got a good shape with coverage up to the elbow but the ability to flex my arm. I really like cardboard for patterning things that will be stiff, because you can tape it on and see if it needs to be trimmed because it's bidning/jabbing/etc. Then I traced that onto a piece of butchers paper, and started laying out scraps to fit, and sewing them together. It's a bit tricky, because you don't want to cut a seam, so you can't just sew it all together into a big square then cut your patterns in the traditional way, but I managed to piece the outsides of a pair of vambraces in an evening.


I had a lot of "help" from Kitten. Who wants to be involved with everything.

I drafted a basic glove pattern, and fit it with a
felt mockup. I must finally be getting better at this, because this time around I only had to do one mockup, and only two small changes. I'm still having trouble getting the amount of ease in the fingers right: the thumb was snug and the two middle fingers were about a quarter inch loose, I slimmed down the fouchettes to correct that problem, and traced out a final pattern. I'd also forgotten to center the thumb on the palm side of the first finger again, but that was easily set right. I then proceeded to trace a clean copy, and cut it apart into bits so that I could piece it from scraps without having to either a) cut the seams or b) ending up with a continuous line of stitching across the knuckles, which I thought would be awkward looking. I taped the fouchettes to some of the fingers to give my one piece to cut out instead of two, carefully overlapping the seam allowances so that the pieces would be the right size.

When I was done putting all the pieces together I was left basically with a standard glove that had the

fouchettes put in already. Remaining was the thumb and the final finger seam. Typically I do that final finger seam on the treadle machine to expedite things, but because of the way the fingers were pieced together I decided to just bite the bullet and do it by hand.

with the hands and vambraces all together I was ready to splint the vambraces 

I used metal intended for welding sourced from the hardware store for my splints. My husband cut it and rounded the edges, and then I painted it with 3 layers of rustoleum. Why would I do that? because I'm going to sweat all over these things regularly, and they may not dry out as quickly as I'd like. Rust will ruin these from the inside out in very short order. I wish I could have found aluminum from my splints, as it would have been lighter, and rust proof, but this was what I could easily source locally, and compared to the arms I'm currently wearing, it's light as a feather.
  

With the metal ready, I sewed boning channels into my canvas and lining, and inserted the splints. Awesome lining fabric is leftover from a quilting project. I decided NOT to pad the lining, as I'd originally considered, but rather to pad my gambeson underneath, with the idea that separate layers will dry more quickly. The padding will protect my arm from the splints. If this seems like an aggressive amount of protection, it probably is, but I watched someone get their forearm broken a few years ago, and I'd rather wear something a little heavy than have that happen. Melee is a hot mess, and sticks fly everywhere. With my smaller frame, a misplaced or mistimed chop from a great weapon would be all it would take. Maybe eventually for tourney I will decide on something lighter.  I put the leather on top of the splints, and bound them with suede using my trusty treadle machine. Then I sewed on buckles and straps.

about this time I decided to try and incorporate hardened demi gauntlets into my design to save me from wearing a pair over the gloves. I had already made a cardboard pattern and mockup for these, and I decided to get rid of the cuff, and rivet the hand direct to the glove itself before attaching the vambrace. I felt this would streamline the dressing process and save me from the dread demi gauntlets. I'd been through 3 or 4 different loaned pairs (in varying shades of "doesn't fit") and didn't much care for any of them.

I cut the gauntlet pieces, sewed them together, and water hardened them. To shape them over my hands I put on the gloves with a pair of surgical gloves over top of them, to protect them from the water. Then I slapped the hot wet leather right onto my hand, covered it with a piece of plastic wrap, and taped it to my hand with athletic tape. I left it taped to my hand until it was thoroughly cooled, then took it off very gently, and tied it gently around so that it wouldn't fall out of shape as it dried. Once it was dry, I quick riveted it to the back of the hand. Then I sewed the cuff onto the hand with a stitching awl. This seam can be undone easily should i manage to get articulated hands for these gauntlets.

The bottom of the wrist seam is left un sewn. This allows for better mobility in the joint.  The leather strap across the palm keeps the hardened plate from flapping.

The gentle curve down over the knuckles gives me better coverage without limiting my mobility. You don't want any squishy bits sticking out of your shield boss or hilt basket, and i prefer a smaller hilt basket. so thumb and hand coverage is key. 

With the basic gauntlet done, I needed make a floating piece to cover the space between hand back and splints,  that would help protect my wrist and make sure I passed inspection. I needed to do this without limiting my mobility. which is a pretty tall order. One of the more senior fighters that I was complaining to had the excellent idea of attaching a small wrist plate with elastic to the sides of the glove. I went back to the cardboard for a trial run and found that a blobby crescent sort of shape, if given a little stretch, covered the questionable chink in my armor, and didn't bind up on my wrist. I cut it from leather, wet shaped it, and attached it with elastic tabs. 

the finished right glove. complete with wrist guard. 

elastic tabs mounted on rivets through the hand plate give the wrist guard some flex. the curved up shape keeps it away from my wrist and allows a pretty full range of wrist motion. 

from the top you can see that the floating plate gives complete coverage of the gap between the splinted vambrace and the hand plate. I wore the gloves for several weeks without the wrist plate, and got hit in the wrist a couple times without issue, but this way they will consistently pass inspection. The extra protection for the wrist is no bad thing either I need my wrists for sewing. 

For the record, this is the stupidest way to make a glove EVER, and I could have made 3 pairs of regular gloves, maybe more, in the time it took me to make these. But I love them so much I totally don't care. Sometimes, since I have to be aggressively practical in most of my mundane life, it's just nice to break out in impracticality in some way!

The start of my glove making journey, with some resources for aspiring glovers.

This is a project from last summer when Husbeast and Ladybug started fencing, and it was just easier and less expensive to learn to make gloves for them than it was to try and find them gloves that actually fit. Children's fencing gauntlets are scarce as hens teeth, and gloves that actually fit the husbeasts shovel shaped hands are a laugh. So I looked up some resources, looked at some period gloves, and said, I can do this. I didn't have time, or even think to write it up at the time, because it was a pretty utilitarian project, but I've kept going and am now starting on fancier gloving projects, so I thought I'd write up the beginning of the whole journey here, as well as gather some of the resources I used in one place so folks don't have to do the amount of googling I did. (scroll to the bottom for the resource list)

I started by practicing on a pair of very basic single piece gauntlets for Ladybug, starting with drafting a pattern and making mockups in felt. Lots of mockups in felt. I discovered that pattern drafting for gloves is not as intuitive as some other kinds of pattern drafting. Then I stretched a piece of gilded kidskin I had hanging about (bought in a scrap bin at a sale 10+ years ago.) traced and cut the gloves. And then found out that leather, even kidskin, is very, very different to work than fabric. On the plus, Ladybug loves them because they're shiny. An important lesson on this pair was how much easier it is if you use cardboard for your final patterns (from a file folder or cereal box), it's so much easier to trace around precisely than even stiff paper. Also, metallic sharpie marker shows up nicely on dark leathers (the back side of this leather is too dark for pencil or marker to show well.)

With one pair under my belt, I looked at as many pictures of italian gloves from the second half of the 16th century as I could find, and proceeded to draft a pattern for a two piece gauntlet for the husbeast, and make mockups. Lots of mockups. Good thing felt is cheap. The italian glove lacks the extended fingertips and exagerated fouchettes (the piece between the fingers) seen on English gloves of the same period, and typically features a cuff that is folded back over the hand. Since that's illegal for fencing, I kept the shape, but borrowed the gauntlet from a slightly later glove (also seen on earlier hawking gloves, so it was known) This pair is made from medium weight deerskin, and has a lovely feel. You can see the fouchettes are slightly pointed, and come onto the back of the hand more than modern gloves, but don't extend past the knuckles like many English examples.


I lined the cuff in linen, as seen on surviving gauntlets, and stitched the leather down over it, stitching partway through the outside of the glove to keep the edge from rolling out. the split side is the period style, but the split makes the glove illegal for fencing, so I added a small gusset of the lining material inside the opening to keep the look but still comply with regulations.

Sewing these gloves taught me the absolute importance of having the right needles. I needed to get them done, so started the task with a regular sharps needle. That required the use of a jury rigged leather palm pad, a thimble, and a pair of pliers to do the stitching. It was slow, and my fingers cramped after less than an hour of stitching. I switched to a glovers needle as soon as they came in the mail, and the difference was astounding. You still need a good quality thimble (I like this one) and it's not fast work, but my fingers didn't cramp. The sharp glovers needle also enabled me to do the stitching around the edge, which I never could have done with a standard needle.

For scale, my hand, spread out as far as possible, on the Husbeast's glove. Women's large gloves are about a half an inch too short in the fingers for me. He can't stop exclaiming over how wonderful it is to have gloves that actually fit him, and has started angling for a pair of work gloves for outside chores.

 This week I made a pair for Crash, who just turned 6 and started fencing. Here's a quick photo run down of the process, for really good detailed instructions I recommend the resources listed at the end of the post!

Pattern, and felt mockp There's a pin in the pinky showing me how much to shorten it.

After tracing and cutting everything but between the fingers, the first step is putting in the thumbs using an overcast stitch (seen on extant gloves in the collection of the  worshipful order of glovers.)

With the thumbs in I switch to the treadle machine for sewing the rest in the interest of speed.

Sew in the points on the back of the hand, then finish off each point with a few overcast stitches. All threads knotted off, dotted with fraycheck, and clipped short. You can see the nice finish the overcast gives on the inside of the thumb. 

I've folded the thumb partway inside out to keep it out of the way while I sew (don't ask how I know to do this....) then folded the glove in half and sewed the remaining seam. At the end I knot the threads and run the tail back up the seam, keeping them from dangling from the cuff of the glove.

One down, one to go! I have the fouchette patterns out so I can be sure to put them with the right fingers. 

Crash is very well pleased and would wear them everywhere if he could! He wore one to nap while I was finishing the second off! 

A good fit, excepting the slight twist on the middle finger of his left hand. I think this was caused by a little easing I did of the finger into the fouchette. I will be more careful about this next time. The seams will flatten down with wear.  

At the beginning of this post I said that I was going to start some more fancy gloving project. That is completely the fault of researching on the internet, because while I was looking up gloves for the Husbeast's fencing gauntlets, I saw these:

Pair of English or Dutch gloves, ca 1620, in the collection of the MET

And the seed of an idea was born..... 

Resources for gloving: 

• How to make gloves: This is a vintage rather than historical find, but it walks you through the techniques and terms better than any other resource I've found. Good pictures too. 
• Gloves from pattern to hand: A good walkthrough with lots of great pictures.
• The Glove website: How to make gloves: Light on pictures, but a series of really useful articles, particularly on patterning. Do read the article linked on the first page "how to make elizabethan gloves. 
• A Journey Into Italian Gloves: a comprehensive list of what seems like every picture of an 16th century italian glove in a portrait there is. Close up's with high enough resolution to see the stitching. an invaluable resource
• The Worshipful Order of Glovers: They have one of the largest most beautiful collections of historical gloves in the world I think. And it's all beautifully cataloged. 
• The Victoria and Albert museum: they also have a large collection of gloves, many with beautiful photographs. Also the MET has several nice pairs, although you've got to do a bit of digging to find them.