Women's Hose

My first attempt at cloth hose were a last minute addition to my Fates outfit for Atlantian Twelfth Night 2020. I had an undyed wool twill in my stash and decided I would make and dye the hose. With dye on order, I made the ill-advised (but ultimately fine) decision to construct the hose and dye the final garment when it arrived. Luckily, my hose didn't shrink too badly and I was able to wear them!

I decided to pattern my hose with a simple 14th Century pattern found in image 3 below from Morgan Donner's website. In several instructional videos, this pattern was described as one of the easiest for first time hose makers, so I ran with it.

I found a fantastic video of Mistress Isobel Mowbray teaching a hose patterning class here. I highly recommend following along and using her draping method as it allowed me to get a very close fit. I used bias cut muslin for my pattern because if I could get that tight and get it off my foot, I could definitely do it with stretchy wool.

I highly recommend you do this patterning with a friend. My hamstrings protested for 3 days after bending over in pursuit of this pattern.

One neat patterning quirk I learned with these hose are you have to cut the U over the foot up surprisingly high. Each time I cut more fabric away, I was able to pull out more wrinkles in the ankle and get a better fit. In the photo below, you can see how cutting away more fabric pulled down the leg pattern, changing the shape. The pen lines are where the first pattern was, the pins are where it ended up.

After creating a pattern I was satisfied with, and checking I could get it off my leg, I moved on to my wool. I almost cut it all out without seam allowances (whoops!), but corrected that mistake and cut my pattern out on the bias.

Working with red silk thread, I started sewing my hose, beginning with the back seam. I used running backstitches for strength (and because my pure backstitches are terrible and slow). After checking the fit of the leg again, I sewed the top of the foot piece to the leg and finally sewed the foot pad on. Before moving to flat felling the seams, I did one final fit test.

I was pretty satisfied with the fit, although I couldn't quite figure out why the back of the leg seam curved (I blame all the bending over and self patterning). Overall, it was comfortable and stayed up well on its own. A definite success! Next, to sew the second leg and fell all the seams. I chose to fold them to one side and whip the edges. This is less bulky than trimming and encapsulating the edge like a traditional felled seam. Unfortunately, the dye had arrived and I was rushing to get these finished so didn't any pictures of this step. I did get one of the tiny little running back stitch I used.

With the hose complete, and the dye here, I carefully followed the instructions and tried not to shrink my hose too much in the process. I learned a lot about dyeing with this experiment and am looking forward to future dyeing projects.

The wet hose color was a little dark, but when dry, the hose were almost exactly the bright red color I was going for!

After a test run around the house and an extra wash to keep the hose from turning my feet red, they were done! I'm please with the way they fit and the color they came out to. I'm definitely going to use this pattern again!