15th Century Working Women's Outfit 

For the 2024 Revenge of the Stitch competition, a 15th century working women's outfit was made for Julie. Being relatively new to the SCA we chose pieces that she could use regularly in the SCA. The outfit comprised of a fitted short sleeved dress with eyelets up the front, knee high hose, a chemise, an embroidered cloak, belt, and fake sleeves. I lead a team this year of Marta de Lyon, Fiore al-Rumi, Blaze Frostell, Aylisia De Oliveri, and Julie. We had two goals, get more sleep than last year and make Julie her chosen SCA outfit . 

In total we made 5 garments and 2 accessories in 24 hours. 

All linen garments were serged and construction seems were sewn with a sewing machine. Hems, eyelets, and visible stitching was hand sewn by various team members. We made this decision based on Julies comfort level caring for finished garments. Prior to the competition we patterned the Chemise, hose, and main blue dress, and washed/dried all fabric.

White Linen Chemise - Patterned of an old Chemise of mine by Fiore. They also cut out the garment and directed construction. I serged the edges and Marta completed construction on a sewing machine. Julie did all the hems by hand. 

Blue Linen Short Sleeves Dress or Kirtle - I patterned this dress, cut it out,  and serged the edges. Blaze jumped in for construction. Marta added the Linen ribbon backing to the neck opening and gown the front. She then sat in eyelet jail for 3 hours making all 31 eyelets. We timed her,  she has a 6 minute eyelet.  I hemmed the dress and Julie hemmed the sleeve openings. Fiore reminded me how to fingerloop braid and I made the lace. 

Black Silk Velvet Over Sleeves - I believe Aylisia cut these out along with the Linen lining. She then constructed and finished the velvet by hand. Fiore pearled both sleeves with glass pearls. Blaze constructed and finished the lining. And Marta having been released from  eyelet jail finished sleeves by attaching the liner. 

Silk Belt - Originally we intend to have a leather belt with pewter hardware. When we went to put the belt together,  we noticed the belt was to thick for the fittings. Some problem solving later and Julie was cutting belt sized strips from the velvet and Linen. Marta sewed the two sized together and attached them onto the belt. 

Silk Pouch - Fiore was the brains behind operation pouch. They competed the documentation and supplied materials. Fiore sewed the pouch entirely by hand with silk thread. They made their first eyelets and finger loop braided the draw strings and hanger. 

Footed Hose - I made the hose pattern and handed off to Blaze. They cut out the wool flannel on the bias and hand sewed both hose. They used the method described in London textile finds where the wool was over lapping and sewing together with two running stitches. 

Wool Cloak with Linen Liner. Fiore cut out the wool cloak and helped Aylisia cut the Linen. We decided we were moving along all quickly that we had time to embroider the cloak. Fiore drafted a pattern from a 15-16thc source I found on my phone onto the cloak with water soluble pens. Aylisia spent 8hrs embroidering in silk. We hemmed the Linen by hand and attached the two together by machine. At this point we noticed that the bias parts of the Linen (one piece was cut in a half circle) was stretching so much we needed to re-hem significant portions with only an hour left in the competition. We finished with 20min left to spare.

Documentation

Blue Linen Short Sleeves Dress or Kirtle, Chemise, and Over Sleeves - by Marguerite de Lyon

Footed Hose - by Marguerite de Lyon

Wool Cloak - by Marguerite de Lyon

Pouch - by Fiore al-Rumi