Kitta Refr

I used a tutorial from Sylvie la Chardonniere to create a supportive kirtle. It took me about 5 mockups, with between 5-15 adjustments each to get it to fit how I wanted. After about the first three, I was almost ready to throw in the towel, but I kept at it and finally got something that looked good and was pretty dang supportive.

Once I put it together, I used this pattern from the Compleatly Dressed Anachronist to draft my sleeve cap... however, I didn't do the best job measuring for my lower arm and ended up having to turn my lovely long sleeves into short sleeves because they were too tight. Such a disappointment, too, since I'd spent the entire day finishing them.

The kirtle is made of red, medium weight linen, with teal, light weight linen facings, red silk thread for all seams, and black corset lacing.

It's also super twirly. Which, of course, is the most important thing.

You can't see much of it, but my shift is based on my own pattern, which you can find here from my tutorial on rectangular construction. It's a lightweight linen/cotton blend, completely handsewn with silk thread.

In fact, it's the only item in this project that is 100% hand sewn. I made it back when I was young and naive about how long it would take me to hand sew this entire project, about 28 days ago.

The cotehardie is made using the same pattern as the kirtle, I just added about 6" of ease and reshaped the front center seam to be flat rather than curved, since I didn't need it to provide any support. It also has less material in the skirt, because I was terrified I'd mess up the beautiful wool somehow and have to start all over, so I wanted to leave as much fabric uncut as possible, just in case.

Obviously, it turned out fine. And now I have like 5 more yards of teal wool to make... something... with. So that's a win, right?

The wool is a flannel weight wool/ nylon blend, and the facings are a heavy black linen, all sewn with teal silk thread.

For the hood, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find just the right shade of red wool, which for some strange reason seems to be sold out everywhere in the Known World. Luckily for me, my lovely friend Tellina has the extremely useful superpower of always finding fantastic cuts of fabric at thrift stores, and happened to have two yards of the perfect color and weight and gave it to me. I used this tutorial from Morgan Donner. I'm not 100% happy with the way the flaps hang, but I have been assured that it looks just fine.

The lining is the same linen as the kirtle, and is sewn with red silk thread.

I'm also wearing a St. Birgitta's cap that I made using this tutorial from Katafalk. I actually made it approximately 563 years ago for the last Yule feast I attended in the Before Times. It's made out of a light linen/cotton blend with regular old Gutermann thread.

The hose are yellow wool twill, sewn with yellow silk thread.

The garters are crochet cotton, with brass buckles from etsy. It was my first ever inkle project.

The pouch is from a kit, using reproduction red and teal arabesque brocade, teal linen, black satin ribbon, and a reproduction purse frame and bead, sewn with red silk thread. I got the kit here after watching a tutorial on it from Morgan Donner. I used tassels from etsy, though, as the ones it came with were sort of sad, tiny, and floppy and didn't have the kind of tassel-y sass I wanted. It's attached to my belt with a bit of lucet woven cord.

The shoes and belt were purchased from Armstreet.