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My Euro-Dress from Grave 56, Luistari Finland Marion le Red
The dress that I made is now called the Euro Dress. It is based off of grave finds from Grave 56 at Luistari. The woman in this grave died at about age 45 in the late 11 century. She was tall for her time. The grave had small remaining fiber pieces from her clothing and some jewelry. On the clothing pieces, a few seams were found. There are several patterns that have pieced together the dress based on the finds. These patters do not have a shoulder seam, but instead a neck seam and a seam across the chest.
After trying to lay out the patterns I have found for this dress, I realized this pattern would not fit a modern tall woman using 60 inch fabric modern fabric. Laying this dress out at written the gores would have been to narrow causing the dress to be tight in the legs and restrict movement. So I decided to alter it slightly to fit me.
The following is the most common way to cut out this dress as found on the internet
For my measurements the bust to sleeve line on the pattern looked way too big and then the final hem circumference looked way too small to be practical. With the help of Dame Margret Wosley I came up with the following lay out which still conserves fabric and is still only straight line construction so the pieces could have been woven individually and pieced together.
This is how I cut out the fabric:
The height of the triangle A is the extra height needed to make the hem wide enough for a tall stride. The bottom of A is the wrist measurement. The bottom of C is the combination of the point to point measurement and the over the shoulder measurement. Since the C line on the sleeve section makes a neck hole and also is where the broach line is on the apron dress, it can be raised or lowered to take into account the bust size versus the arm pit size. The height of C needs to be the wrist to the center bust with arm bent. (NOTE: The sleeves in the grave finds were longer than normal and held up with bracelets and arm bands.) The gores run from the hem to the wrist. The height of the body is from the center chest to the hem.
When sewn together the pieces fit like so:
There are small patches at the hem where the fabric is cut.
To sew the pieces together, I used a running stitch that was then rolled over and whip stitched down to form the seams. In period the woven material would have been woven to the correct size with edges that would not fray, so I am not sure if they would have folded over the seam to finish it. I used the seam treatments that were presented in Woven Into the Earth even though that book presents 13th century garments because my dress was from that a similar place.
One side gore is made out of 2 pieces and the other side gore has a fake seam to keep it symmetrical but not to hurt the strength of the fabric by cutting it.
I knew I wanted to hand sew the dress so that it would be more accurate.
Construction Process
I started my sewing by attaching the sleeves to the body.
Then I sewed the small patches to the hem.
Then I added the gores to the body of the dress.
I sewed the neckline last right before hemming. I did this because the hem depended on how the back of the neck was sewn together and how the front was left open.
This project took me about 2 months of hand sewing when and where I could to complete.
References
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