Embroidered shirt - silk on linen

A lot of the post lately has started with me saying that I havent been writing in a long time, and so will this one. I have been working on orders for others, a lot of sprang actually, and that is always fun. But I have already posted a lot of info on the Lengberg sprang here, and doing the same pattern again and again does not make a good post... But while doing orders I have been working on something new for myself on the side. A shirt with embroideries, something that takes a long time to make and therefore is suitable for a project to do meanwhile. 

Embroideries nowadays is something I do to relaxe, that has changed during the years sense I made the big cap with embroideries, able to see here. Something that I found difficult is now something I almost dont want to finish because its so relaxing while going on. 

 

 

I chose to make a shirt with a separate embroidered worked collar. The fabric is gathered into the collar after the embroidery was finished. I also made a little ruffle. The cuffs are made the same way. The bodies consists of the whole wide of the fabric, 150 cm, folded and with shoulderseams. That is one way of making a shirt if you dont want to gather the entire amount of fabric into the collar. The cuffs and collar are closed with a string and worked bars. They are made with a white silk thread. The fabric is bought from Medeltidsmode and found here. The shirt is handsewn with waxed linen thread.

 

The pattern has a quite gotic feel to it, very symmetrical but were printed in both Schönsperger and Quentel´s patternbooks, 1529 and 1532/1544. It might be older than that and reused in the patternbooks. The pattern is available with and without pointy edges. I used the one with straight edges. And I worked with cross stitch in silk directly on the fabric of the shirt. I used the same colour as for the embroidered cap which is three different colours of silk put together. Why make things simple?!

 

 

 

 

 

The patternbooks is now at The Metropolitan museum of Art in New York. This page here is from Quentels book and show the pattern as I used it, without the pointy edges. Its the second pattern from the top. Here you can look at it yourself. 

 

 

 

There is a lot of inspiration out there and here are some of mine used for this project. All from the same period of time as the printed pattern. 

Working class...or?

When I posted about my kirtle for the working class outfit I talked about the gown for that same outfit, a garment I was still working on. Read about that here. And it was finished in time for medieval week. But...

I realized its to fancy when it comes to colour. The blue colour of the fabric is to bright, to strong, to be low class. I used this painting as referens for working people in an earlier post but I realized I was lazy doing so. I did not look closely enough. She has embroideries on her apron and on her collar, so, not low class. They where not allowed to wear silk embroideries by law. During the 16^th century silk gradually became available to other social classes than the nobility, first as small items, like sleeves and caps. In the period the towns were prospering through new fortunes and that made the German middle class able to dress more richly. So, she could be middle class. The silk embroideries are quite small. But not working class. 

So, what to do? I know I could wear it the way it is, but it does not feel right. Its too short for anything else than working class. So, Im going to remake my so called working class gown. I could add black trim to the bodice and remove the guards in the skirt and make it longer by adding a wider guard, also in black. Its quite short the way it is now.

And it would turn into something like this. Painted in the first part of the 16th century by Barthel Bemham "Portrait of a young noblewoman".

It might not need to be patrician, but a few steps up the social ladder, maybe something for a townsperson? If I chose any other colour than black. In this, rater bad picture, I could be dressed in everyday townspeople clothing. Simple but well dressed. 

Does this make sense? To re-do a dress that was just finished? I dont know, but I do know that when I got the thought of the little bit to bright blue colour in my head I cant overlook it. If you dont have anything to do you make yourself something to do...

Smocked linen gollar - Sebald Beham 1547

In portraits gollars can be found during the first third of the 16th century. Most people think about the round type of gollars that you wear on top of you clothing when they hear the term. But there are another type that is common too, the undergollar, made of linen, I have been writing about it before. Often you might dont even understand that its what you are seeing in a portrait, it might look like her shirt. But to few pleats might be a sign, or in this case, to many...or something like that... 

In a woodcut made by Sebald Beham in 1547 we see farmers dancing. They dressed up and went to a dance. She is wearing a hemd (shirt), maybe an unterrock (kirtle), a rock (gown) with borders in a different colour at the bodies and a lacing partly visible, an apron with smock, a headcloth and a linen gollar with smock. If she would have wore it underneath her dress we would not have know it was gollar, we would have thought it was a shirt, a smocked shirt. If I would have seen this garment I would have said that it were used underneath the dress, and it might have been wore that way too, but she is wearing it on top, showing it of.

Was this a fancy garment? For everyone today wearing smocked shirts it might seem like a everyday thing back then, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was what this women wore when she was going to be pretty, when she was going to look nice, when she was going to the dance. Maybe we have to rethink the meaning of the smocked shirt. Maybe it was not for everybody. Most farmers or workingpeople in woodcuts and painting dont seem to wear them. And when it look like they do, what says its not just a gollar? I dont know, Im just thinking out loud here.

Anyhow...

 

I made the smocked gollar!

Its perfect to make things like this if you have small pieces of fabric left. You cant really see if you dont know it but its made of pieces in different kinds of white even. I took what I had and didnt want to cut into larger pieces. I have not had a chance to take proper pictures of me wearing it yet. But it will come, later. 

I thought when I looked at the woodcut that it had a slight curve over the shoulder and that it covered her from the neck to below the bust. So that is what I did too, when it comes to sizing. I didnt see any closing, so I chose to use strings underneath the arm to close it with. I also thought it was closed at the front, no opening or seam there, so you put it over your head to get it on. 

The smock is made before I sewed everything else together. I smocked all the pieces, one frontpiece, one backpiece and two shoulderpieces, separate. All the pieces are squared pieces, the shoulderpieces are only slightly smaller.

 

 

And I added a strip of linen to the backside of the smock to get the right size for my neck. If you dont have this backpiece the smock will loose its shape over time.

 

I thought I could see bindings around the arms and waist in the woodcut and while working on it that became clear, its a must. Otherwise the piece of fabric on the shoulders wont lay flat, its to many pleats from the collar. The seams are backstitched and the seam allowance folded and whip stitched. In this picture one of the shoulderseams are visible. 

 

 

 

 

 

I love smock, especially on linen, its so crisp and beautiful.

In the woodcut I could not see how she closed it in the front, just that the smock has no gap. So I made worked bars and will close it with a string, that I have not made yet. Hopefully I will remember that before my next event...

 

Next time I see a farmer or working woman with a smock I will look twice, maybe she is wearing a gollar, and not a complete shirt? To see and understand what we are looking at is crucial to be able to recreate fashion in a proper way. And we all learn and develop all the time, and by this garment I certainly did. And that is the most fun thing with this hobby according to me.

Thoughts about German headwear.

Little has been found when it comes to German headwear. There are some hairnets, and also a wulst or two, but no complete wulsthaube. We dont know how they are made. Little do we know also absout what they would have called the different headwears and layers in headwear back in the 16th century German countries. 

This spring I got this amazing gift. A copy of Textiler Hausrat - Kleidung und haustextilien In Nurnberg von 1500-1650 by Jutta Zander-Seidel. And while turning its pages I started reading the little text beneath the pictures in the book. They are most of the time short and very informative about what we see in each picture. A despriction about what the person in it are wearing. And I got stuck on the headwear. 

Most of the time we talk about the Steuchlein as the complete headwear for 16th century Germany. But that might be to simplify it a bit. So I thought I was going to make a simple picture/description-thing here...I dont know the answeres...I just thought that it would be interesting to look at the terminology in Jutta Zandler-Seidel´s book when it comes to headwear.

Lets start..

This is a painting by Albrecht Durer showing a Patrician woman from Nurnberg dressed for church. On her head she is wearing what is called a Sturz. Its a wire and linen headwear in different layers that women wore to church, mostly older women. In Textiler Hausrat its also called a Kirchenhaube. 

This is also Durer and she is dressed for a dance. She is wearng what is, in the book, called a Haube, or just Schleier (veil). I think that what we are looking at here are a wulsthaube and one or two different linen veils. Th folded part over her forehead might be a part of the rest of the veil or it might be a loose seperat piece. 

Both of these two paintings are early, from 1500-1501 so the wulst is really big still, as it was in the beginning of the century. It changed later. 

This one, also Durer, show a lady in her housedress, her home-clothing. According to Zandler-Sediel she is the first one of these ladies wearing a Steuchlein. It looks like a wulsthaube and a veil that is hanging down in the back. The haube is also decorated with some kind of stripes. 

This painting is made by Hans Burgkmair 1505 and the lady in the painting is Barbara Schellenberger. She is wearing a goldhaube. It semse like a goldhaube is the same as a haarhaube but in a finer material. If I understand the writing proparly it semse like she is referering to hairnets, and it certainly look like it in this painting, but I do know that many have interpreted the term goldhaube as a headwear made of goldcloth. It might had been both, I dont know. 

A fun thing with this painting is that it has been x-rayed and from the beginning she was actually wearing a linencap on top of her wulsthaube. The goldhaube must have been much fancier and how she wanted to be seen in her painting. 

This portrait is made by Wolf Traut 1510. This headwear is also a steuchlein according to Zandler-Seidel. A wulsthaube with a veil that is hanging down, just like the last time the term were used. The dark part is not hair, its a decoraton, most likely an embroidery. 

This is also Durer, and it is a bit earlier, its from 1499. And she is also wearing what Zandler-Seidel is calling a steuchlein. A wulsthaube and a loose veil, hanging down. 

This is made by Hans von Kulmbach in 1518. The wulst is slowly getting smaller. She is wearing a haube. Probably a wulsthaube underneath and a haube on top, a haube that is not a veil, probably more of a cap sewn to this shape and attached with a drawstring or pins. She is also covering her very expensive embroidery with a thin fabric, a very common way of protecting something as valuable as this. 

This one is interesting. Its made by Durer 1503 and is called Frau mit Wulsthaube. She is actually just wearing her wulsthaube, with nothing on top of it. I think this is in a homelike enviroment and nothing she walked out it, but that is just a guess. 

Here we see the sturz again, on the older woman. The younger one is wearing what is called a Bundlein. Its a haube with what I think is a loose piece of linen that she puts on when she is going to church. This woodcut is made by Georg Pencz 1531.

This is Barbara Schedel in her haarhaube with a berett on top. Its from 1532 and we do no longer see any trace of the big wulst from the beginning if the century. The painter of this is not known. Is this a hairnet or a haube made by cloth? There is a string visibly in the painting, in the middle of her head, so Im guessing its some kind of drawstring that is knotted around her head. The fabric looks rater solid so if this is a net it must be with tiny holes. It could be an embroidered net. There are nets like that found, that has almost no space left without embrodery on, beautiful. 

Does a steuchlein need to consist of a wulsthaube and a veil that is hanging down to be a steuchlein? I dont know but it is easy to belive so after going through the descriptions in the book and look at all the pictures. I do think it is to easy to with certainty call German female headwear steuchlein just because it has a wulsthaube and some kind of covering. What do you think?

The book is possible to read online if you want to look for yourself. You find it here: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/3451/1/Zander_Seidel_Textiler_Hausrat_1990_Teil1.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2GgiwW_2dyq_fKIQXuKrMG8neSqbRKsFWLd33NH6z_vUp2HyPin6BOhPU

German workingclass outfit

This week has been spent in Finland, at a lovely event called Cudjel wars. I brought to much clothing as usual and ended up only using my new dress for one day. But I will be using it a lot. I have come to really like the working clothes of southern Germany, the farmer outfit. I could go out in the fields like this any day! Most of this outfit is old garments, you have seen me in this before, only the kirtle is new and you could hardly tell. I made a new kirtle for the farmer-clothing because the one I have is a bit to warm. Now I have a summer version of it. 

 

I thought we should look at what Im wearing.

Here you see the whole outfit together. As I was saying in the last post, these dresses should be short. Especially the kirtle, but the gown could be too. All the garments are handmade by me, I dont use a sewing-machine, even for the long seams. And I use undyed linen thread and bees wax. The colour, shape, length, the amoutn of layers and details of dress would tell the social status of the wearer. Here is a worker of the land, a farmers wife, wearing undyed garments, produced in the area of which she lived, according to the sumptuary law, so "that it will allow for recognition of differentiation anytime". The text from the sumptuary law comes from the book Town and Country by Marion McNealy and Max Geisberg. The whole law from 1530 is written in that book.

 

The jacket is made of brown wool in two layers, the top one and the lining. That would have made this garment a bit more expensive, that even the lining where in a nice wool. 

The belt might be the only thing in this outfit that does not belong. I need to get a brown belt for this. In my belt hangs a grey cloth, good for covering the neck in the sun or wipe the hands.

I finally figured out how to get this headwear to work. It always fell of my head and I could not get it to stay. But now I put a loose braid on my head, the one I use together with my hairnets and pin it with as many hairpins as possible. And then I can wrap the cloth around the braid and it stays on. Maybe I should try to get even more hair visible. The unmarried girls where allowed a silk headband according to the law and Im guessing that its the headband you see in many of the woodcuts of dancing farmers. When they married they keept the headband but covered the rest of their hair.

 

The apron, my wrap around the waist apron. Very good cover for the skirt as it cover the entire thing. It almost look like the skirt is made by linen. And in this picture is possible to see the bow on the gollar, under my arm. A bow in each side and a pin in the front. 

Most people thinking about shoes in 16th century Germany think about the oxmule-shoe, that the landsknechts are wearing. But most people dont wear that type of shoe, they wear a more closed up version like the ones Im wearing in this picture. A everyday type of shoe made in leather. The hose are also made of undyed wool, and has a pair of garters tied under the knee. Its acutally the only garment Im wearing here that are in colour, they are red.

 

And the new kirtle with the apron of. Its an undyed woolen dress, with a waistline, a tight bodies and a short pleated skirt. The typical 16th century shape. It closes by eyelet-holes and a string I made out of linen fabric. The gollar is in white linen and is pinned on. The hemd has quite a high neckline so I dont really need it but I think it looks good together with the white apron.

 

Here is a closeup of the closing of the dress and the waistline. I have most of the pleats placed in the back and the front straight. Its much easier to work in a dress like that, less fabric in the front. The waistline is still a bit stiff but will softener by using it.

 And here is the kirtle with nothing on top. It has almost the same grey colour as the hemd, and its difficult to see that the dress does not have any sleeves. Its a sleeveless kirtle.  As I called it in the previous post, the porridge-outfit. Grey upon grey upon grey...and some white. My goal with my recreations are always to be as accurate as I can, but its only fun if there are room for improvement. Im working on the gown, the bodice are done, the hooks and eyes are there and the skirt is attached. But It went a bit to short, even for a farmers outfit, so Im attaching a border on the skirt. And after that the only thing left are the sleeves.

A dream now would be more people doing this type of outfits and to get together and take photos.  

German working women

Im working on a new outfit, an outfit for a 16th century working woman of southern Germany. There are a lot of woodcuts of 16th century working woman. But they are almost never in colour. So I also have too look elsewere. There are both biblical and allegorical scenes painted in contemporaneous settings and therefore its safe to belive that the working class garments shown in them are accurate. The women in these paintings wear gowns with a smooth bodies, fitted sleeves and a skirt pleated to the bodies. The neckline is most often squared-shaped, but the can also be a bit more round. The most common way to close the bodies is with hooks and eyes in the front, but there are also a few that are closed at the side. Undergarments can be closed with eyelets. Colours tend to be yellow, red, green and blue. Dresses without sleeves can be seen but are most likely kirtles. 

They almost always wear a apron, mostly white linen, but there are some red ones too. And yes, I know there are other colours too, but I have not seen any on workers. The contemporary designations Schurz, Schurzrock, Schurz fur, Schurzhemd and Schurzfleck from 16th century German inventories refer to differences in apperence. According to Jutta Zanders-Seidel (Textilier Hausrat) the apron surrounding the whole skirt is called a Schurz. The Schurz, also called a doppelschurze, a dubbleapron, had during the 15th century and early 16th century also a part over the shoulders, covering the upper body. We see both versions on the working women of the first half of the 16th century. Like this lady here. She is from a painting by Albrecht Altdorfer from 1526. She is wearing a schurz, a  wrap-around apron, in white linen. And she is also wearing a white linen gollar on top of her blue gown. A gollar, most commonly in linen, could be worn both underneath the gowns and on top of them. This is because they could actually be fined if the neckline where to low. It was solved by wearing gollars of different shapes and sizes. There are plain ones in white linen but they could also be wearing a bit more fancy ones. I really love her outfit. It reminds me of my own clothing. And therefore I used it as inspiration for the working class outfit Im working on right now. I have the apron and the gollar, I need to remake this painting as a picture when Im done. 

 

Many of them does not cover their hair. Its common in paintings showing workers and farmers to see women wearing straw hats and braided hair. Or even with their hair hanging loose. In Durers woodcuts many of them have a hairdo that look like a mix, like in this picture, they cover half the head with a headcloth, wrapped around the back parts of the head, together with a ribbon around their forehead. It might be some kind of newly-wed thing. Unmarried women in the lower classes where allowed a silk headband acording to sumptuary law. And when they wed they might use this half-covering wit the headband visible. This headwear is quite common in Durers woodscuts. But we see a lot of ordinary stechleins too, wulsthaubes covers with a veil or cap.

This is a hairdo that is seen in the same serie of woodcuts. Maybe they just wrap a cloth around the braid when they got married to get the look seen in the picture above. It would explain how they got the cloth to stay on their heads, it never work on me, it just falls off. Sebald Behman made this one in 1537.

Here we see working people taking a break. Straw hats, wrapp-around aprons and gowns and kirtle in light purple, red and green. From Augsburg 1516. 

In the woodcuts many of them also wears different kind of jackets. They can have the same length as the bodies or a bit longer, some even down to half the thigh. This one is one of the longer versions. Many of them are closed with a few eyelets. Even the dresses is sometimes closed with a few eyelets, like the one in the picture above. Her bodies is closed entirely in the lower half and open at the top except for a string at the very top. As is the jacket in the picture above, with the people dancing.

My plan was not to use woodcuts just because they are in black and white, but I obviously did that anyway... because they are beautiful....and common. 

We can talk about this instead. The women are wearing gowns in different kind of yellow. The one in the front has black borders on hers. It has also many pleats a the waist, also in the front. Its not unusual to have less pleats in the front, to get some of the fabric away to be able to work. But it does not look like she has any problems with that. The woman in the back actually look like she is wearing some kind of hairnet, with some hair visibly at the temples. That was actually high fashion in the first half of the 16th century and the first time women could allow some hair to be visibly. I would have though that the working women this early would not wore them though. It could also be some kind of cap. 

 

The dresses are plain. They could have borders but if they do its most common on the bodies or on the skirt, not both. Like the one above, she has black borders on the bodies, but non on the skirt. And we dont see any slashing. And many of them are quite short, like in this woodcut, made by Sebald Beham 1500-1550. The length of the skirts varies between footlengh to half the calf. She is wearing a jacket with a squared neckline closed with two eyelets. And a gown or kirtle with a border on the skirt. Her headwear is something you see on older women during the period, not something that are in fashion. It also look like she is wearing a highnecked gollar in linen.   

This farmer is wearing a undyed wool kirtle, a hemd and a straw hat. Im a bit confused about her hemd. It looks like she has something black around her neck but this social class where not allowed to wear blackwork according to the sumptuary laws. So its probably something else. It could be just a painted shadow to show that the hemd is smocked. It has similarities with how the smock on the apron in the first painting in this post is made. 

I could not resist to put in a picture of myself in my farmer´s kirtle. My hemd is not as white as hers but otherwise I think I could fit right in! Im also wearing a apron like in the first picture in this blogpost. I need to remake this painting with a stick, a straw hat and a belt. In that angle I might even be able to have my hair loos without showing my bangs. 

The farmer folks

I have clothing representing all the different social classes of renaissance Germany. Its important to me to be wearing clothing that are as accurate as I can make them. Yes, embroideries are beautiful, but farmers where not allowed to wear it, nor was the most women of the tross. So I dont wear it when I represent any other social class then the ones there where allowed to according to the law of the time. To me, that makes a more credible picture. When Im planing a new outfit I start with the social class. Who am I going to be this time? I might upset someone by this, but its only apply to me, everyone else can do as they please, this is just they way I want to play out my hobby.

But maybe I went a bit to far this time...

Im working on a new outfit, a farmers outfit, or Bauren in German, low class clothing.This is me in farmers clothing. A simple hemd in undyed linen, a unterrock in undyed wool, apron in linen, a gollar in linen and a stechlein, the headwear. Simple, grey.

 

 

 

The dresses, both the unterrock and the rock, kirtle and gown, are shorter, possible to work in. In some woodcuts they are so short that they barely covers the knees, at least the unterrocks. The unterrock in the picture above is short enough, but when I made the rock I wasnt brave enough to cut it, it works but I wanted it shorter. Just because there are se few that know to use this types of dresses.

Here you see it, to long, I know! I wont do that mistake with the new one. But I really do like this outfit. A part of me want to cut it...but I made it with a hem facing so its about tree seams of 300 cm each to redo... A hem facing is a seperate pattern piece used to finish the hem of a garment rather then just turning up the hem and whip stitch it. And why do I do that? Well, its common on historical clothing. All the dresses in Janet Arnolds 16th century book have it. If the farmers clothing had it might be impossible to say, there are no garments preserved. But it looks good and it make the hems a little bit more firm, presses the fabric out a bit and creates a good looking skirt. I will show pictures of it further down in this post. 

It is also made with very few pleats around the waist. According to the sumptuary law of the time  the men were only allowed six foldes around the waist. I have more, but not that many more...

But Im getting a bit of topic here...

I have made a new unterrock. I bought the fabric during last years medievalweek in Visby just because I thought it looked a bit home made, like it had not been in the fulling mills that long...and its grey. I thought it was perfect and I cut it in camp that afternoon. A new medievalweek is soon upon us and the unterrock is finally done. But when I was working on it, it hit me, its grey... And my hemd is grey, and my new headcloth is grey, and my socks are yellowich grey... Im going to look like porridge!

Well, here it is, my porridge-dress...

 

 

Its an unterrock so I made it with eyelets, inspired by the unterrock in the woodcut - The domestic quarrel made by Sebald Beham 1535. 

 

But I made some more, I wanted a little bit more support in the bodice. 

Its handsewn with waxed linen thread and the seam allowance is folded down and whip stitched. The skirt is supported by a extra pattern piece to secure the weight of the skirt. It makes it last longer. Its still a bit stiff but it will go down when I starting using it. And the lining is undyed linen. I know, I forgot about the part with not having that many pleats...but I placed most of them in the back, as in the woodcut above. Its easier to work in it when the fabric is mostly gathered in the back.

And this is what a hem facing looks like. Its a separate piece sewn in at the right side of the skirt and folded back and sewn again.

I might just put the whole dress in a colour-bath if I could find one...just a little colour would be nice. Hopefully I can get some pictures of me in it next weekend. It is a medieval market in a town close to mine so we might go there for a day. Then we will see if its porridge or not!