A shirt for a 16th century peasant soldier

Sankt Örjens gille is a group recreating the life in 16th century Sweden, and in particularly Dalarna/Dalecarlia, the area were Im from.  But there is not that much information so everything we can find about 16th century Sweden really....

Im making clothes for me, actually a bit untrue, I have not even started yet, I still only have my German clothes. But they are quite the same so it works for now. But I also make clothes for some other people in the group. A couple of month ago I finished a pair of trousers for a friend and now I have an order for another pair and also a shirt. Here you can read about the trousers. 

In these times, with covid, there is difficult to take measurements for the trousers so I started with the shirt. And while making one, I thought I could make another at the same time. So now I have two! Anyone in need of a shirt?

We say that we are doing the first half of the century but most of us, I belive, think early 16th century, and the fighting and life around the future king Gustav Vasa. He was seeking support in Dalecarlia to get rid of the Danes that occupied the country. The people from Dalecarlia were quite old fashion and later during his regime they complained about him using the new German fashion. The only drawings we have of Swedish 16th century soldiers made during that time is Paul Dolsteins drawings. And on these we dont see any shirts. So, with this in mind, and us doing early 16th century I actually decided to make them with squared pieces and gussets, a bit more 15th century. Not as much fabric in them as in the ones I usually do. This style is seen throughout the medieval period in illuminated manuscripts and where later worn by the lower classes of society for a couple of hundred years. We can still see them being used during the 19th century in the countryside.

They are made in white linen. And to get the price down I actually made some of the long seams by sewing-machine. A bit uncommon for me... The seam allowance and the linings are made by hand using white waxed linen thread.  My machine actually died while making the second one so that one is almost entirely made by hand. 

 

I made small differences between the two. I dont want everything to look exactly the same. Small differences makes it look more realistic I think. One has broader arms than the other, and that one also is a bit bigger in the bodice. The arm gusset on this one is also 12 cm and the other is 10. Next one I make might be made in a natural colour. That might actually be more historically accurate. They were soldiers, not all wealthy  and out in the field. A pure white linen shirt would not stay white for long, if they would have afford it from the beginning.

The first one.

The bodice on the first one is 92 cm long and 72 cm wide. Arms are 28 cm wide and 61 cm long.

And the second.

 

 

The bodice on the second one is 89 cm long and 70 cm wide. Arms are 24 cm wide and 62 cm long. The neckline is also a bit different. 

All the seam allowance is folded down and whip stitched by hand. To do this is almost relaxing to me. It makes a garment look so good, so complete.

 

And now some ironing and then C is going to choose which one he likes and the other is going to be sold. Both are probably around Large to extra Large in size.  

Small sprang strip from Lengberg

During a restoration of the Lengberg castle (East Tyrol, Austria) in 2008 a filled vault was detected below the floorboards. More than 2,700 textile fragment were found in there. This part of the Lengberg castle was probably finished by 1485 so the finds is most likely predating this. Among the finds there were a couple of sprang woven fragments, in different conditions. 

One of these pieces was a narrow sprang piece. Its worked with 32 threads and 16 loops. The average thread diameter is 0,6 mm and its a linen s-plied 2-ply thread. The lenght of the preserved piece is 15 cm. 

Pictures of this piece are not as common as pictures of the sprang on the Lengberg headwear. Its also seems that there are not as many people who have made this sprang and put pictures of it online. Maybe people have made this piece but not posted pictures of it...

Pictures of the original sprang can be found in the article Enigmatic Beauty The decorative headwear of Lengberg castle, by Beatrix Nutz, Rachel Case and Carol James. Page 11. 

When making my copy of the sprang I used a linen thread, a 1 mm 4-ply thread. Its 0,4 mm bigger than the original and the finished piece is 2,5 cm wide and 23 cm long. A bit bigger than the extant piece.

The left one in the picture was on top in the frame and therefore there are more thread in the upper part, its where the threads are fastneded after warping. I have a thread through the loops on top/bottom but its not really needed. The sprang does not unravel if this thread is taken out, its just easier to handle like this. 

The pattern is made by Carol James and can also be found in the article. I dont have a printer so I painted mine from the computer screen. 

The pattern consist of the right-edge stitch, the left-edge stitch and a double stitch. One box in the pattern if one thread in the warp. The pattern is a bit different than what I have worked with before just beacuse parts of it are made in plait rows. Its the double holes in the middle of the pattern, seen in this pattern as green/blue/green/blue. The numbers are the amount of threads that are going to be twisted before there is a new stitch. The right-edge stitch and left-edge stitch consists of tree threads each and the double stitch is two threads up/two theads down. 

Its a quite small piece of sprang. It can be used as a decoration attached on top of a fabric or on a headwear, like a Birgitta-cap, or something similar. Its a bit to short so I actually started a new warp right away. Maybe I make a childrens cap out of this too. 

Source: Enigmatic Beauty The decorative headwear of Lengberg castle, by Beatrix Nutz, Rachel Case and Carol James.

The Lengberg headwear

So I made it, the Lengberg headwear. When having the sprang piece the step to the whole headwear was to short not to make it. When though Im not doing 15th century fashion. And I think it turned out good, its really cute. But its to small for me. I can wear it but it feels like its going to slide of at any second. 

The Lengberg headwear consists of four pieces of linen, one on each side of the sprang and two smaller longer pieces to be able to wrap it around the head and knot it. The sprang piece is on top of the head, from the forehead to the neck, a very decorative element. There is also a fingerloop braid along the front edge. The original is 58 cm and mine is 55 cm. The braid is attache to the front edge with needle lace.

I used waxed linen thread and backstitch. The edges is folded and whipstitched. The needle lace is made with the same thread but double. The sprang is whipstitched to the linen. 

The cap is very cute I think. But I kind of lost interest for it when notised the size of it. Rachel Case that was involved in the research of the original garments told me that the origianl cap was also quite small. So I guess I got that right! Now when I know the size I will probably make another one that fits me. I think that this cap might be useful for lower clases 16th century fashion too. 

The fingerloop braid is made out of five strands. And its flat. I have only made squared braids before so that was fun. 

Im sorry for the bad mobilphone-pictures. When I have made another one I will put a greater effort in taking good pictures. I just wanted to show you what I put together after finished the sprang. 

See, a bit to small but quite nice anyway.

A sprang from Lengberg

During a restoration of the Lengberg castle (East Tyrol, Austria) in 2008 a filled vault was detected below the floorboards. More than 2,700 textile fragment were found in there. Its not unusual to find textile fragments, shoes, and rubble under floorboards in old houses. In my regular job, as building conservation officer, I see it and hear about it all the time. This part of the Lengberg castle was probably finished by 1485 so the finds is most likely predating this. Among the finds there were a couple of sprang woven fragments, in different conditions. They are all made of undyed linen z-spun s-plied two-ply thread. 

The largest one is still attached to the garment, a headwear, first thought to be a bra. It consist of four pieces of natural linen. In the middle, from the forehead to the back of the head, is a beautiful piece of sprang. It has a decorative patterns made up by holes. The sprang is 27 cm long.

The sprang in the right down corner. The pictures of the original comes from here.

I normally don´t do 15th century fashion. But I do sprang. And this was to beautiful and intriguing not to try. It would be the most difficult pattern I tried so far. And I can tell you, I almost didn't breathe during the entire time... But I did it!

My sprang frame is a copy of a weavingloom/sprang frame found on the Oseberg ship. Its from the viking age but the frames did´nt change that much. There are paintings with sprang frames from the 16th century looking almost the same. And the look of the frame does not change the look on the sprang possible to make on them. Last time I posted something about sprang I said that the loom/frame was only for weaving. But after that I red the Collingwood book about sprang and he says that the Oseberg ship weaving frame were probably made to do sprang also. And it work just fine for sprang too. 

When reading the articles by Beatrix Nutz on the matter I get a bit confused though. They did a copy of the headwear but seems to have used another pattern for the sprang, the tree of life. I dont understand why. By looking at the picture of the garment it is obvious that the design is another. What am I missing? I found the pattern for that design online though, its not in the articles of the remnants.  

The chart for the sprang is created by Kristen Hughes at The Sojouring Spinner. But I found it here. Its made up by letters though, and I don´t like to use letters while working, its to small and difficult to see. I want different colours for different twists. So I made up my own from it. 

Here is my pattern.

The warp count of the original piece is 120 threads, 60 loops.The pattern is for 108 threads and 54 loops. So not the same exactly. But when looking at the original piece you see that the pattern is wider, a half a repetition is on each side. I don´t know if this is the missing 12 threads. They might be too few to give that much sprang in both ends. I might try that out another time. Its made with a basic interlinking stitch and a white linen thread. I used this thread. It might be a bit thinner than the original one. 

The different stitches needed for this piece is not difficult. It is made up by three different kinds, the right-edge stitch, the left-edge stitch and the double stitch. The edge stitches in my pattern is not included, I just makes them without thinking. The plait row is not in the pattern either. Making this sprang you work with two rows, the plait and overplait row. The holes in the pattern are made during a overplait row and between all the overplait rows there are plaits rows. In this case the words can be replaced with even-numbered rows and odd-numbered rows. An overplait row starts with a right-edge stitch, wich is two thread up and one down. And ends with a left-end stitch that is one thread up and two down. In my pattern the right-edge stitch is blue and the left-edge stitch is green. So when a green box turn up in the pattern I know that I should do a left- edge stitch, one down, two up. So, the stitches in not difficult, very basic. The difficulties lay in knowing where I am in the pattern. But I guess that comes from experience.

I created a 70 cm long warp. My aim was for 27 cm, as the original piece. Or is this the length of the tree of light, that they used instead of the original? I dont know, I aimed for 27 cm anyhow.

Sprang is created in the end of the warp, which results in a mirror image in the end of it. So, if you don´t want to connect your piece in the middle you make two in one!  

When I have been doing sprang before I have had a lot of supporting sticks. If you make a mistake they help you untwisting rows without the whole thing unravels. But as you can see in the picture above I only using one stick. I tried with a couple from the beginning but I needed to restart because with a lot of sticks I could not get the tension right. The holes became to big. So, I started all over and removed all but one. That was a scary part of this for me. I knew that if I made mistakes and didnt see it before I went on to the next row I needed to unravel the whole thing or live with a mistake in the middle of it. I remade some rows a couple of times, just based on the feeling that something in it was wrong... 

And its done! Still in the frame though. And you never know what happens to the tension when taking out of the frame. When taken out of the frame I soaked them in water and left them to dry over night. This is to shape them. If I wanted to make them wider I could have put needles in the corners and it would stay like that when dried.

And this pictures is taken this morning, Dried up and all beautiful. They are 29 cm long and 7,2 wide. If the user wants them in a wider garment that is alright too. They are very flexible. 

This sprang can be used as the original, in a headwear. It can also be used between the cups in a bra-dress. The sprang between the cups of the Lengberg bra-dress is gone. For the reconstruction of it another sprang fragment from Lengberg was used, this one from the headwear. According to Beatrix Nuts the sprang between the cups had two purposes; it helped the cups to lay flat and covered the decolletage. When the sprang was done it was shaped to fit the space between the cups by untwisting parts of it. I would suggest that if used in between cups to attache it on the top by stitches so that it is steady, and then very carefully untwist a little bit at the time. Its very easy to untwist to much and no way to undo it. 

Do I need to make the headwear now, just to be able to show this of? And whats next, the whole 15th century outfit, to go with the headwear?!

Sources

Betrix Nutz - The Lengberg Finds. Remnants of a lost 15th century tailoring revolution

Rachel Case, Beatrix Nutz, Carol James - Enigmatic Beauty  The decorative headwear of Lengberg castle 

Pictures of original headwear - http://www.medievalsilkwork.com/2012/08/15th-century-sprang.html

http://www.exhaliastudios.com/squirrel/

 

Needle lace for 1860's shift

 As decoration on the sleeveends on the shift from 1860´s posted yesterday there is a small needle lace. 

Here is the original one. 

I interpreted it as three rows of "bubbles" and a supporting thread in between ech layer. I will show you what I mean...

I used 2 threads out of a 4-ply linen thread, bought here. 

I started with the first row of bubbles. The needle goes in from the right side and back to the right side through the bubble. The stitches are 5 mm apart. 

When the row of bubbles is finished a supportiv thread is threaded though each bubble.

And then another row of bubbles. The needle goes in from the right side, and up from inside the bubble created. 

And another row of supportiv thread.

And the last row of bubbles.

And a last supportiv thread. The supportiv thread makes it more square-looking instead of round. 

I like how it turned out but its a bit to big, compared with the original. I will keep this one but I might keep practise it, to get even closer to the original. Or I don´t. There are so much fun things to make that I will more likely go on to something new...

Its nice how something quite simple makes such a beautiful decoration. The shift is quite simple but this little detail makes all the differens. 

The recreation of an old garment

I haven't been writing that much lately. I do a lot of sprang, and there is a limit to how much sprang one could show in a row... But I have also started a class, a handsewing-class! Its at Sätergläntan, instituation of handicrafts. Its an amazing place, a place to be creative. Focus is on folk costumes from Sweden, which I´m not that familiar with. We have lessons at Sätergläntan a weekend a month and between weekends we have homework that has to be done before next time. As a homework this first month we are making undergarments. Last time we met we learned how to measure an old garment to make a copy of it. And now we are home making it, seeing how much we forgot to measure...

My garment is a shirt for a woman and its from 1860´s. I feel very familiar with it. It look a lot like the medieval garment I usually work with. It is just a little bit shorter and has a shorter sleeve. Its also made by more pieces than Im use too. It has a bodice with a skirt attached. 

This is the original from 1860´s.

Here you see my pattern from measuring the garment.

The piece at the front waist has no real meaning. Its might be a remnant from the developtment of the garment, when you used the width of the fabric for the bodice and the sleeves. Here is an undergarment made like that. The fabric is folded to cover the sleeves and the upperbodice. And the piece that is left under right arm is folded in at the waist and the one left under the left arm is cut of to be used for gussets. 

There is therefore no seam at the side under the left sleeve. 

My garment had a seam at the side under the left sleeve so in this case its just a remnant. The two garments look otherwise the same, they are just made from different widht of fabric. 

The shirt is made from a fabric with 10 threads/cm and the bodice with 20 threads/cm. The bodice is made to bee seen under a sleeveless dress and therefore made by a fabric that they probably bought. In this case cotton. The fabric in the skirt, that shouldnt be seen, are homemade. Its linen. When making mine I wanted to find fabric that had the same amount of threads/cm as the original. And I did. But my fabric for the skirt had a slight yellow colour. I wasn´t sure that I should use it untill I found this picture. Its a undergarment from the same period as the on Im recreating. Its made by bought cotton in the bodice and homemade linen in the skirt. And has different colours. The picture is from the book Dräkternas Hälsingland by Håkan Liby.

So I decided to use my white cotton and my yellow linen. 

Here is my garment.

The biggest challenge for me was not the sewing. It was NOT doing as I am use to but rather to look at the garment and do the same. What does it actually look like, how is it done. To make the stitches bigger, to use a ticker thread than I usually use. 

So the stitching might not look the same all over. I started sewing, seeing that the seam did not look like the old one and started to change the stitches to get the same look. I needed to use ticker thread than Im use to. And bigger stitches. That was a challenge...

I used waxed linen thread and backstitch all over. But when sewing the seam allowance I needed to make it a bit different from what I normally do. Usually I use whipstitch when sewing down seam allowances, and it was no difference. But the seam allowance was not fold the same way all over. It depended on if the were selvedge or not. When sewing down a seam allowance you can make the hemstitch single or dubble. Folded once or folded twice so that the edge is protected, inside the seam allowance. The single hemstitch on historical garments is use mostly when one or both is selvedges. I havent done that before and now I needed to on some of the seams. Its possible to use the single hemstitch with no selvedges also but then its good to put your stitches very close to the seam. In a way almost go around the seam allowance if you understand what I mean by that. In that way the thread is dragging the allowance, makes it a bulky, and the edge is a bit protected here as well. When using the double hemstich you can chose if you want to use whip stitch or back stitch. But when using the single hemstitch you need to use whip stitch. 

The hem is folded twich and whip stitches, called a hemstitch. On older garment the stitches is visible on both sides, not as small as I want to make them. The stitches is leaning slightly. 

The seam allowance is also much smaller on this garment that Im use to. Maybe not the hem, but the rest...

Here you see the waist and right sleeve.

And the seam between the bodice and the skirt. Its whip stitches. 

And the back. It was a selvedge at the bodice so no need for a hemstitch.

The skirt has two gores. I made mine from a squared piece of linen but after I started sewing I realised that the gores could have come from the piece for the front and back panel of the skirt. The waist is 51 cm. The hem is 76 cm. The gores is 2 cm at the waist and 14 at the hem. So there I waisted a lot of fabric that they wouldnt have. 

The neckband is folded out creating a small dekorativ border. This is the original.

And this is mine. Its sewn with backstitch. 

Around the edges of the sleeve there is a needle lace. This is the original.

And this is mine

I think I got the pattern right but mine does not look exactly the same. I might made mine to big. But I like it so I keep it. Its made with linen thread, maybe I should try with cotton instead. For now I keep this one. 

The fold at the hem at the sleeveend is quite big. Bigger than I usually do. But I made it the way it was on the original. The skirt is also a bit short. It ends at the knee. It should be a 10-15 cm longer to fit me properly. 

Imagine to be able to do this on a garment from the 1600th century! I dont think that would ever happen so I need to be happy about the possibility to look at 19th century garments. Maybe I will end up with a hole outfit from 1860´s when Im done...

During the time it took me to write this they contacted me from Sätergläntan. And due to Corona they wont be able to see us next month. We will instead has our next class in january. So, I might have that whole outfit by then!