Making a Medieval Peasant Fit

[judejuggs]

Okay so I spent an entire week coding this forum, and I needed a break from computer work. Obviously the best way to get away from the screen was to go craft mode. I didn't make a monk's habit because I cannot afford the amount of wool that would require. Instead I made some undergarments which could be useful when I DO make a monk's habit. For now they are suitable for wandering around the house pretending to be a serf.

Here's what I made, and how you can make it too:

Coif

I actually made this a while ago, but thought it was worth mentioning because I wear it nearly every day. You can tie it around your neck to make it tighter when its cold or tie the strings up on your head  in what I call "sport mode." I often see coifs paired with hats so I imagine the soft linen would be a nice, washable protector from a itchy, difficult to wash, wool cap.

Most coifs are one color, as they are an undergarment but I made the lining brown because I thought it was cute. I also embroidered little crosses on the strings to protect me from devils.

This is the tutorial I used. There are many coif sewing tutorials out there but this one has a lot of detail on stitch work which I appreciated.

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Braes

The coif guy also had a braes pattern but either it was complicated or was being lazy because I just did not understand it. I instead went with this nefarious pattern which is like. A tube with a butt hole in it?

My braes are made from a scrap of bedsheet that was leftover from another project. I did not really have a choice about size. That was the entire scrap. In the future I would make the tube part have a larger radius because it kind of pulls the waistband down at the hips when wearing it.

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Hose

I freestyled the hose based on the image of a pattern on this article. Most patterns I found included the socks which I know is more historically accurate but I don't want to have to wash these all the time just because my feet get sweaty.

If you wanted to copy me, there are basically 3 measurements. A. The height from your hip to the top of your foot. B. The widest part of your thigh. (i'm now realizing you also need the distance from the hip to the widest part of the thigh. oops) C. The width from the top of your foot to your heel. This one is important because if you measure based on the width of your ankle, you wont be able to get your foot through.

The little rectangle at the bottom of the kite thing is meant to be foot straps but I cut them on the final draft because they didn't work well and felt dumb.

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It looks like hose are generally attached to braes with leather straps. The cheap plasticy mystery fabric I was using would not hold up to that kind of of treatment. To attach the hose to the braes, I actually took a trick from "The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages" by Sara J. Charles. When parchment makers stretched hides they would wad leather scraps into a sort of button and then tie cord around it. I used this to make weird knobs in my pants which I could then tie to the belt of the braes. #myknob

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I also made shoes which will be in the second part of this post due to image upload limits.

[judejuggs]

Turnshoes

For the turnshoes I used this awesome PDF which actually has patterns for 3 styles of shoes in a wide range of sizes! The instructions recommend making the shoes 1 size bigger than where your foot fits on the size guide, but I would suggest going up at least two sizes. My toenail is already wearing into the tip of the shoes lol.

Historical reenactors will tell you you need vegtan (naturally tanned with plant materials) leather for these projects, and the instructions say you should have nice thick leather for the soles. Well leather is expensive!! I got the shittiest chrometan (tanned with chemicals) goatskin I could find. These shoes are thin and soft like ballet slippers, but that's okay as I only plan to wear them around the house. Maybe real turnshoes will be in my budget someday.

In the first picture you can see one finished shoe and the cut out pieces of shoe #2. In the second image I have the two finished shoes side by side, with one inside out. They are called turnshoes because you sew them from the inside, and then turn them out!

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That's it for my sewing right now! Let me know if you have any questions, or if you have made your own ye old garments!

[themediaevalmonk]

Looks great! For my braes, I did button holes and used hemp rope because I had extra from my cincture for my habit. Thank you for sharing all the links to the tutorials too. I ended up buying a lot of my stuff for my monastic kit when I did reenacting because I knew I wouldn't have the time/patience to learn how to do all of the creating, so now I really want to learn. I need an activity that gets me away from a screen! (That isn't reading or painting.)