ewing nitting  mbroidery

Here we see an early attempt (on my part) to create a historic costume, in this case copied from a 16th century German painting. Although I had adequately researched the look of the thing, I had little idea how to construct it, which caused me to run into problems. Still, it turned out perfectly serviceable for costume purposes.

Materials and Supplies

Construction

I came up with the pattern for the bodice using a pillowcase--I started pinning the pillowcase on myself and cutting away to arrive at the shape I desired (this was before I owned a dressform). I was trying to avoid using darts, which are not a construction technique appropriate to this era. I would say that this worked reasonably well, except that I later discovered that it fit better backwards from the way I intended (laced up the front rather than the back), which probably gives a sense of how haphazard it was.

The skirt was more simple, because I simply gathered in as much fabric as I could. I intended to sew the skirt to the bodice, but quickly discovered that the fabric was far too heavy to be supported in this way. Had I researched construction methods better, I would have known that this plan was unviable--the 16th century Germans having discovered it long before I did. Instead, I used some seam binding I had on hand to create a sort of suspenders-like arrangement, with the straps invisible under the bodice.

The headdress consists of two near-ovals of fabric with one flat side each. The elastic band goes around the head, with the flat side of the off-white fabric tucked into it. Then the dark-blue velvet oval is carefully pinned to the off-white fabric.

Results

This get-up definitely has the feel that it's held together with paper-clips (and it practically is) but it is just fine for costume purposes, and I invariably get my picture taken by lots of tourists while wearing it.

Interestingly (to me), many people mistakenly assume it is a nun costume. Somehow the look of the headdress, which was once ubiquitous but now is only seen on nuns, overpowers the less monastic look of the rest of the costume.