Loose threads

This year's most straightforward project, also larp related. My character got engaged and we plotted around a bit before deciding that a player event betrothal was easier and more manageable than an actual marriage. The larp setting is sketchy, and we wanted something that wasn't a blueprint light of an ingame marriage ceremony. So we settled for exchanging gifts, which had the great advantage of also being a craft trade. 

 

Iirc correctly, there is a lot of historical evidence for linen/underwear sewing being a fitting craft for women of all tiers of society AND there is a Swedish tradition (at least in the countryside) of making shirts as betrothal gifts. It also makes a lot of practical sense for me as a player, since fitting sessions are kept to a minimum. So: a shirt it was.

 

"Please don't take the time to hand-sew it" said the other player, but I happen to know that it was quite a lot of hand-sewing going into the gift to my character as well, and besides: there aren't that many ways to make a period shirt without hand-sewing. I did make the joining seams on a machine though, and flat-felled them (rather than hemming the individual pieces and hand-stitching them together afterwards). I also wanted to try a ruff-like finishing of the collar and cuffs, and hemming those was _great_ for long teams meetings and train journeys.

 

Not much more to say: It's a shirt. There are a surprising number of ways to make such a simple garment (just look at Patters of fashion 4 by Janet Arnold, as well as other extant garments surfacing), but in the end I realised that I was severely overthinking it all and went for the basic pattern of the Tudor Tailor, which was close at hand. The only alteration I did was shortening a bit. I didn't think to take a lot of progress pictures.