“Make, Sew and Mend: Traditional Techniques to Sustainably Maintain and Refashion Your Clothes”
Forthcoming publication from Page Street Publishing, now available for pre-order via Amazon, Book Depository, and most large book retailers.
“As people learn the environmental and economic toll of fast fashion, they are turning toward more sustainable fashion practices like mending. From running and herringbone stitches to basting, pleats and buttonholes, Bernadette breaks down techniques with step-by-step photos to show people with any level of sewing skill how to achieve the most lasting results for every stitch.
Whether readers are looking to build and maintain a vintage wardrobe or merely want to phase out fast fashion in favor of more sustainable practices, Bernadette has the basics covered for every kind of seamster.”
I’m a big boob person and for me bras have always been very uncomfortable. They never support enough even with the metallic wire support as the elastic strap is not secure enough and that wire curve is also just uncomfortable. My shoulders are also always aching because of the pressure put on shoulders. But no bras is even more uncomfortable especially if I have to do anything else than sitting. Which is why I have been considering testing out historical options ever since I got into historical sewing.
When it comes to historical sewing (and to some extent sewing in general) I’m still a noob and so I have been quite intimidated by stays and corsets and I’ve figured I’ll start with medieval supportive garments, like kirtle, as they are much simpler. Then I saw the videowhere Morgan Donner made a bathhouse dress and I immediately wanted to test it out too.
Some history
Bathhouse dress is a garment that appears around 14th to 16th century in central Europe, mostly around Bohemia, Austria and German states and their vicinity. Perhaps the most famous finding of this garment is the Lengberg Castle Bra found in Austria.
It’s often called medieval bra because it has cups like bra. I think that’s somewhat misleading as it was a full dress and this is just fragments of the dress. There’s theory that there’s only this left because the larger continuous pieces of linen were cut off and used for some other garment. The dress was quite different from shift, the usual loose undergarment that would be used under supportive kirtle around most of Europe at the time. It was sleeveless and tailored with lacing, usually on the side. The reason it’s often called bathhouse dress is that there’s a lot of depictions of it in bathhouse use, especially in Bohemia, and these depictions are sometimes referred as Bohemian bathhouse babes.
All of these types of garments didn’t have cups like this example from 1389 Bohemia, and there were a lot of different designs. There’s different shaped bodices, some had waist seem, some didn’t. In German the garment with cups was called breastbag at the time. In the literary mentions there was often degrading tone when talking about it, and it seemed that the writers at least thought women who used breastbag were “showing off”. When have men not complained about women’s fashion in a patriarchal society? Perhaps with the other designs there wasn’t similar derision. The writings and some other depictions of the garment suggest that it was used more generally as an undergarment and not just for bathhouse. Which would make sense as it would seen uncharacteristic for Middle Ages to tailor a supporting garment (not cheep) just to use in bathhouses.
Here’s a potter wearing similar garment with different design from late 15th century Austria.
Another one from mid 15th century Austria of a woman putting clothes on and obviously wearing the dress as undergarment.
Here’s a German example from late 15th century of a woman wearing it as a nightgown, which shift was also used for.
The sewing part
If you want a tutorial, go and watch that Morgan Donner video linked in the beginning, I’m not a good source on sewing, especially historical.
I wanted to make my version of the dress fairly historical, but I wasn’t too concerned with making in exactly right as it’s purpose is for daily use and not historical costuming. I hand-sewed it with historical techniques though, but the patterning part was quite chaotic and I basically came up with it as I went so there ended up being some weirdness in finishings as I didn’t plan far enough.
So here’s how it turned out. I very intentionally made it much shorter than it should be. Most depictions have it reach half calf. I was making it for daily use and not historical costuming and I have a lot of knee length skirts, so I wanted it short enough for that. I actually made the bodice and skirt into separate pieces that are just loosely whipstitched together so I can use them both alone too, especially the bodice with trousers.
The shape of the bodice isn’t historical. The cleavage goes fairly high and is fairly straight in most of the historical examples (especially with the cups). Even the Lengberg bra originally had crochet covering the chest area. But again that wouldn’t have fitted so well with a lot of my modern clothing, and my purpose wasn’t historical recreation.
As I was talking about the pretty weird finishings, here you can see them. The result isn’t very neat, but it’s fine.
I have been wearing this now a couple of months and I’m in love with it. It’s much more supportive while being also so much more comfortable. The lacing on the side distributes the force around the waist, so it doesn’t put nearly as much pressure on my shoulders. It’s made entirely out of linen and is very nice against skin and as it doesn’t have any metallic wires it also doesn’t press anywhere. It also is just much more flattering than bras at least for me. It doesn’t work that well without the skirt, the waist starts wrinkling and moving up, but the skirt keeps it pretty straight. The bodice is also slightly too long and it doesn’t sit exactly on my waist, so it adds to the problem. It’s not a huge problem though, it’s just a bit annoying.
I’m planning to test out a version where I’ll reinforce the eyelets with synthetic baleen instead of cord and put baleen in the other side too and maybe in the center front so I could use it as a separate undergarment without the annoying wrinkling. I’m also planning on doing 16th century kirtle bodice or the full kirtle (or both maybe as separate but attachable pieces, like with the bathhouse dress) with either stiff interlining or boning and Regency short stays. I want to test out different types of supportive undergarments in my quest for better bra options. Maybe after I’ve done them I’m ready to try Victorian corset too.
Yo waddup, my peasants? It’s ur gurl hunkered down and hoping for the best for the remainder of 2020.
Me awaiting to hear when things get back to normal and I can perform again
So to distract herself from the dumpster fire that is 2020, ya gurl has been busy making pretty things for herself in addition to men’s uniforms because, frankly, sewing linen over and over again gets OLD. I’ve…
Yo waddup, my peasants? It’s ur gurl another year older!
I hit the big 28 this year… And now I’m the same age as Theda when she was first discovered by Fox Studios, so who knows? Maybe this year will be lucky for me too! She claimed she was 24 but come on, she was 28! ANYWAAAAAYYY, so ya gurl had to work on her birthday but it’s okay because I was performing for one of my favorite sites,…
One of my past projects from 2018 for the actress who used to play the Queen at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire. All of these textiles were custom embroidered by me in my studio.
El siguiente paso es el peto del delantal, como tenia muy poca tela sobrante he tenido que hacer una costura central haciendo casar la cenefa de ambos laterales de las piezas sobrantes. Uní ambas piezas haciendo una costura abierta evitando que quedara mucha tela en la zona y posteriormente cosiendo todos los laterales.
Con la parte de la falda terminada, le hice una cinturilla muy fina de 0′3mm de ancho cortando un biés de la misma tela. Por lo que solo queda unir ambas piezas (peto y la falda), siguiendo las recomendaciones del propio libro; con una puntada invisible.
El mes pasado compre este vestido de niña en un mercadillo de segunda mano en Barcelona pero en realidad se trata de una antigua enagua transformada que le cosieron un cuerpo de niña. Si te fijas el propio ‘faldón’ tiene varios pliegues para reducir su longitud.
Tras descoser todos estos pliegues y el cuerpo, tocaba reducir la cantidad de tela en la cinturilla, así que cosí unas pequeñas lorzas en la parte anterior y fruncí el resto de la tela para la parte posterior.
Por último, saque el patrón de cinturilla haciendo una pequeña curva en la parte delantera para que visualmente enfatice más la cintura.
¡Términada! me ha costado demasiado tiempo (la vida se ha comido mi tiempo de costura) pero esta ya terminada con las varias modificaciones necesarias. Esta vez no puedo contabilizar el tiempo real para su confección.
9º Fase: cotilla (stays) de principios del siglo 18.
Tengo que comentar, que han surgido problemas a la hora de terminar esta cotilla. Después de tenerla montada, no terminaba de acoplarme bien la pieza delantera por lo que me toco reducir como 1cm de anchura de ambas piezas laterales. Así que después de varios días peleándome con ello, la forma de la cotilla queda como toca.
Y por último solo queda acoplar las dos piezas envaradas al cuerpo. Como me gusta que todo quede visualmente limpio he utilizado la misma técnica de costura del siglo 18 para unir las piezas.
8º Fase: cotilla (stays) de principios del siglo 18.
Con los canales hechos solo falta ir colocando las varillas, esta vez he comprado un rollo (20 metros) de mimbre para envarar la dos piezas delanteras y este es el resultado, ¡voilà!
El mayor problema ha venido de que las varillas estaban muy redondeadas así que me he atrevido a plancharas y la verdad es que ha funcionado perfectamente, se han quedado totalmente rectas!
Con ambas piezas delanteras terminadas, solo faltaba ir haciendo los ojales con el mismo hilo de torzal que he usado para hacer los canales.
7º Fase: cotilla (stays) de principios del siglo 18.
Ya casi esta terminado, solo queda el envarado interno. En el caso de esta cotilla, por lo que yo he podido ver parece que únicamente esta envarada la pieza central delantera como ocurre en el justillo que publico ‘Indumentaria tradicional’ en una de sus entradas (foto inferior).
Así que planteamos solo la dirección de las varas de la pieza delantera con una forma oblicua que vayan hacia el exterior y ascendente desde el centro de la cotilla. He comenzado a envarar desde la parte central colocando 3 varillas en posición vertical y el resto con la inclinación establecida.
6º Fase: cotilla (stays) de principios del siglo 18.
La cotilla del Museo del Teixit de Barcelona lleva un refuerzo en la pieza delantera, la sisa y en los tirantes (2nd)con la misma seda que la cotilla, muy diferente a como hemos rematado el resto de la cotilla (1st).
Tras cortar varias cintas de tela de 1′5 cm de ancho y al bies, las he marcado con la plancha dejando en la parte interna ambos laterales para ir cosiéndolas al borde de la pieza delantera.
¡! Hilo del mismo color que el dibujo de la tela; he deshilado la tela sacando solo los hilos amarillos y usándolos para dar las puntadas que se ven ¡!
3º Fase: cotilla (stays) de principios del siglo 18.
Teniendo claro el patrón y las partes que voy a envarar, comienzo a pasar el patrón a la tela. Después de mucho buscar en varias tiendas de telas de Valencia y Barcelona, encontré esta que es la que ‘mas se parece’ al modelo original. Es un algodón un poco grueso en color azul intenso y con los motivos geométricos en amarillo/dorado. La verdad es que me encanto en cuanto lo vi es el tipo de azul que me vuelve loca!
Para hacer el forro he vuelto a usar un retal de sabana vieja que me sobro después de hacer la camisa de principios del 18.
15th century joined hose! They weren’t the easiest thing to make, but they were worth it. They are for my new character, “Geraldine”, for my new Swordcraft warband, “The Hounds”. They are made from 100% boiled wool and navy in color.
To state the obvious, I am not the same size as the average man, so I had to create my own pattern for these. It took a fair amount of time, a lot of calico, and a lot of mistakes. I am very happy with the result, though!
Joined hose are basically 15th-century pants - they’ve come a bit further than 14th-century braies and hose, and actually cover your bum, which is nice (I was getting pretty sick of having a cold backside at Quest!).
