Pourpoint

From the Encyclopedia of Fashion

As knights came to wear increasingly heavy metal armor in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, they needed some form of comfortable undergarment to provide padding for their body. The pourpoint was that garment.

I'm making armor, so I need to look the part!

I purchased a Pourpoint pattern and the corresponding linen cloth. It's been sitting in my closet for years! Mostly because I'm not a seamstress, and it looks complicated! But the other day, I decided that someday was today. So I got out the patterns and sat there reading it and playing with the cut-out pattern pieces until I felt I understood what was going on. Then, I got out the sewing machine. FYI: Lynn was not home.

Generically, you make the Body, then you make the two Arms, then you attach the Arms to the Body. The Body part actually was not too tough.

The pourpoint was designed to make the wearer comfortable beneath his armor, but it was when the knight took off his armor that the pourpoint made a fashion statement.The hose that knights wore on their legs had ties that secured directly to anchors on the pourpoint, called points.

First, attempt the Draft Version:

Body

What I did:

1- Pin the waist part of the lower back panel to the waist part of the upper back panel.

Easy to say, and easy to do, once you've studied the pattern and the parts for a hour!

Then you sew it with long stitches (called basting), so you can easily remove the stitches if you need to modify the pattern.

2- Pin this long narrow Gore thing to the Front panel. Baste it.

3- Pin the Front panel to the Back panels.

This was hard, because you had to pin the combined Lower+Upper back to the Gore attached to the Front, which eventually merges to the Front panel.

You also had to make sure you have the Good sides facing each other.

Do both sides.

Baste it. Baste it Good!

4- Here's the almost finished basted Body. I have to baste the shoulder pieces together.

The Gore being placed for pinning (left) and the basting on the other (right)

(Closeup)

Here's what the finished Body Draft looks like. Draft because this is made out of an old bedsheet. Apparently you do the project in some throwaway material to figure out how to do it, and then you do it with 'the good stuff'. It's supposed to fit well, be smooth in the back, but still baggy in the front. I got the baggy part right!

Arms

1- There is a small triangle gore that needs to be pinned to a slit in the upper arm.

But before you do that, you have to bend the slit and steam iron it.

Then, baste it.

2- Next, there are two pieces that get basted to the sides of the upper arm

3- The Lower Arm is attached to the Upper Arm assembly.

Pin.

Baste.

4- Turn the assembly inside out. Sew the arm along the outside seam until just before the elbow

Once that's done, do the second arm.

Here's what it looks like. You have to get the seam positioned over the elbow.

The next step involves sewing the draft Arms to the draft Body.

1- Sew the Arms to the Body. I didn't take any pictures of the finished sew.

Pin arms to body in preparation for sewing

Closeup of pinning

Buttons!

The arm buttons are round and smaller than the front buttons. The Front bottoms buttons are flat. The Front top buttons are round have have a solid core. I had to make a bunch of buttons

1- I thought I'd make the arm buttons with a small leather disk, to help give it some body. So I cut little circles out of an old leather belt.

2- Next, I cut out a strip of linen from my 'good stuff', and drew circles. I cut the circles out.

Baste thread around the circle. Place the leather disk in the center. Draw the thread tight so it starts to make a little bag. Tuck the tops of the circle inside the bag.

Stitch the bag closed.

3- You have one finished button.

Do that 59 more times.

The Front buttons used a larger core. I got these diamond crystal gems (made of plastic) from Jo-Annes.

I used solid normal buttons as the core for the flat front buttons

4- Sew buttons to the arm. Sew buttonholes.

5- Sew buttons to the front.

It's starting to look good!