The Grey Kirtle
Being
a working class dress for a day in the shop.
This is a stand-alone wool kirtle,
suitable for Tudor or Elizabethan
lower class personas. It is worn over a linen smock, a linen
petticoat, and red linen stockings with tablet woven garters (which
don't show, of course!). I always wear an apron and a linen head
covering. I should be wearing sleeves, pinned or tied on to the
shoulders, but I was dressed way down on the day this photo
was taken.
(Photo courtesy of Master Richard Wymarc)
Time to get dressed: approximately 25 minutes. No assistance
needed (hurray!)
The smock
The smock is white linen, and made following Mistress Grace Gamble's
Elizabethan
shirt pattern. I have been using this pattern for 10+
years and it really can't be beat. The first few times you make
it, you will need to adjust the measurements for your neck, body, and
arms, but once you're happy with it you can churn these out in rapid
fashion. To adjust it to a smock instead of a shirt,
add triangular side gores to each side of the body, starting just above
the hip and going to your desired hem length. I strongly
recommend keeping your smock hems several inches above the ground to
minimize wear, tear, and mud attractiveness. The cuffs at the
wrist are closed with hooks and eyes (ties are more historically
appropriate, but they drive me crazy). The collar is left open
and stands up purely due to spray starch and ironing. I throw
this in the washing machine and dryer all the time. It just
requires ironing afterwards.
The blackwork pattern at the cuffs (sorry, I don't have a closeup
photo!) is from Mistress Ianthe d'Averoigne's New Carolingian Modelbook,
a tremendous resource for the embroiderer. I think it's out of
print, so if you can find one, get it.
The stockings
The stockings are red linen, with the seams machine sewn and then hand
flat-fell finished. They fit like a glove and get thrown in the
washer with the smock. I drafted this pattern by hand (standing
on one leg!). Technically, there's no evidence that 16th century
linen stockings were any color other than white, but I had just enough
scrap red linen to make a pair. See the Chalice
Stockings page
for more information and links on stockings.
The garters are very crude mismatched tablet woven garters (sorry, no
photo, but you don't want to see them anyway). My first two
pieces of tablet weaving were definitely poor quality but I have an
emotional attachment to them, so I wear them at just about every
event. One is linen and one is crochet cotton. They're
different colors. I told you you don't want to see them. To
see much better tablet woven silk garters, check out the Chalice Stockings page.
The petticoat
The petticoat is a simple white linen cartridge-pleated
skirt that
fastenens with ties put through eyelets on both sides of the waistband
opening. It is hemmed several inches above the ground to decrease
the amount of dirt I end up carrying on my skirts. In period,
petticoats would have been a variety of colors, but I have a lot of
cheap white linen and didn't want to spend extra money on a colored
petticoat no one will ever see.
The apron
The apron is linen, handsewn and self- lined with long ties. My
new aprons aren't lined, and there's no evidence they ever lined
aprons. I have no idea why I lined this one in the first
place. It also gets washed, dried, and ironed with everything
else. See Mistress
Karen Larsdatter's aprons page for more info
about aprons.
The headcovering
In this photo, it is hard to see but I am wearing a coif and forehead
cloth of plain handsewn white linen. You can learn more about
making coifs at Mistress
Drea's page, and Mistress Isobel Bedingfield
has an
excellent article on how
to wear the coif at her website. I cheat
and coil my hair up with a plastic spring-loaded clip under my coif
because I have never been able to make my hair stay up in a bun.
The kirtle
The kirtle is made of grey wool flannel, fully lined with white
linen. The bodice is made from a pattern I drafted by hand and
have modified over the years. You can try drafting
your own pattern from the instructions on Drea Leed's excellent
site; I think I actually started with this about ten years ago but I've
made an enormous number of changes since then. The method I used to
construct the bodice
is well described at this website,
but briefly, there is are 2 inner
layers of linen sewn together leaving boning channels. After the
boning (1/4" half flat reeds across the center front) is inserted in
the channels, the outer wool fabric is laid over this and the edges
are folded over and basted down. Finally the linen lining is laid
in with the edges folded down and whipstitched to the wool. Then
the basting stitches holding the wool in place are removed. The
skirt is cartridge
pleated and whipstitched to the bodice edge. I sewed
the black wool guard in place along the lower edge by hand. The
kirtle is fastened with a black cord (a fingerloop braid of individual
strands of DMC cotton embroidery floss) through handworked eyelets in a
spiral lacing pattern. The Zen of
Spiral Lacing is a great site that explains the concept of spiral
lacing.
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Last updated 3/21/2008.
