Curling up with a Good Book

I really wanted a copy of the Tudor Tailor. It's pretty much a 16th century costume making bible. 

It's on amazon, and the Book Depository, and of course available from the website, but all my money is going on fabric!

In a flash of genius, I thought I would check the local library. I seriously couldn't believe it when they had a copy!

Look at me, all excited and everything!

The Coif

I've moved on to making my coif, as I have spare white linen, but no funds to purchase the linen for my petticoat bodice or kirtle lining at the moment!!
Linen caps, or coifs, were worn by women of all social classes - and I am certainly no exception! They are actually very comfortable to wear, and stay on well, although I plan to make a hat to pop on too. If I was one of the gentry, I would perhaps embellish it with embroidery, but obviously mine will be plain and simple.

It's fairly easy to make - plain white linen fabric, and a bit of measuring sprinkled with a helping of guesswork!
I'm using the pattern from Clothing the Rose, which is based on this lovely Holbein sketch of none other than Anne Boleyn.
My large head piece is 16.5" (round top of head from bottom of one ear to the other) x 12" (nape to about 1" back from hairline) - and then with a bit added all round for seam allowance.

**I would rather have made it even longer than this as I don't feel it tucks in neat enough. Perhaps an extra inch and a half**.

I then guestimated when drawing on the 'ear flap' pieces by looking at the sketch, but made them a little smaller as Anne's coif is wired and mine is not. Mine are about 2" wide and 3.5" long, but this includes seam allowance.

**I later had to shorten these as they were too long and flappy. I tucked the material in further and whip stitched it closed. Not the ideal job I know, but it makes them nice and firm. They are now 1.5" long, excluding seam allowance.**

The forehead piece is, again, 16.5" long and I have made it 2" wide - but added seam allowance to these measurements. 

The straps to tie it together are 29.5" long, which is the measurement from bottom of ear 1 round the nape of my neck to ear 2, then right round the top of my head back to the nape again, plus another 8cm (I know I'm switching units here!). I've made them 4" wide as they are folded in half and sewn. Again, I added some seam allowance to all this! At first I only cut one, then couldn't for the life of me figure out how it worked...took about five minutes for it to finally click in I needed to make two! Duh...

I hemmed the two body pieces, and backstitched then turned the straps. Then I sandwiched it together, remembering to tuck the straps inside so that they will be on the outside. I sewed the bottom and sides, then turned and closed the top with a French seam.

Voila!

Making the Petticoat - Skirt

When making the next layer I am splitting it into two (very logical!) parts - the skirt, and the bodice/bodies. The skirt is easy enough to do by myself but for the bodice I need an extra pair of hands to help shape the toile.

Kentwell have recently overhauled and updated standards of dress, and now the petticoat needs to have a linen or wool bodice. We used to have a skirt on a band, which is what is described on the Tudor Costume page.

Mine is a woollen skirt and linen bodice. The skirt wool should be fairly lightweight, but for lack of options mine is a little thicker. There is lots of evidence that red was a very popular skirt colour, but mine is the orange wool I dyed - red would have been nice, but I couldn't find any! 

The skirt consists of two panels - one tapered front panel, and a large back one. For the front panel, the top should be the same width as your waist circumference, and the bottom hem 1.5x this measurement. The back panel is a square piece 1.5x the waist at both top and bottom. For the drop, or length, measure from your waist to about a handspan above your foot.

Instead of hemming the bottom, I will add a 'guard', a strip of black wool. This means that when the bottom of the skirts get mucky/scrappy, I can simply replace the guards. 

Also keep in mind that wool will 'drop' and before attaching the bodice you need to hang the skirt for a day or two to let it settle and drop a bit. 

This sounds rather complicated but if you put it on paper it starts to make more sense. I started making my front panel by cutting a square 45"x32"(drop). I then measured 7.5" in each side on one long side - distance between these points being my waist circumference, 31". Going from these points I cut to the bottom corner on the opposite side to make a trapezoid shape. Back panel was easy - I just cut another square 45x32". 

I was going to whipstitch the pieces together next to create a tube, but I read on the 'Stitch in Time' blog that pleating and attaching a skirt to a bodice was far easier when they were both flat. So with this in mind, I've just whipstitched one side.

Next step is to hem the top before pleating to bodice, but I think I will risk leaving it...I could wholeheartedly regret this, but I think the wool will become too thick to pleat with a hem. Also, from the two washes it's pretty tight so I'm fairly confident it will survive! Time will tell...!