I encountered a number of challenges along the way; not surprising since this was my first time working with several of the techniques involved. In particular, I badly underestimated the number of hours needed for the pleated undershirt, and it was not ready by the deadline. Fortunately, Robert had another shirt he could wear to the event. I also mis-judged the alterations I made to the shape of the hat pattern - the mockup was mostly good, but the "small tweaks" I made turned out to be in completely the wrong direction, and the final hat will have to be remade. In this case, the mockup had to serve for the event.
Pattern development took a long time, though that wasn't surprising - I'd never made fitted hosen before, and the slash-and-pouf sleeve design was also new to me. Despite that, I'm very happy with the overall look and function of the final outfit. I know it would have been easier to simply make a waffenrock, but I think the wams and hosen looks more like the woodcuts - waffenrock seem like they were generally worn over the armor, not as everyday clothing. Once I had a proven good pattern in hand, the whole outfit took about 27 hours of construction.
The mockup of the wams front in acrylic felt, with chalk markings for the proposed slashing.
The mockup for the wams back, with Ansteorran star cutout.
Testing out the sleeve design in acrylic felt, with my son Andrew's arm standing in as a dress form. The sleeve is made with three layers - the outer black slashed layer, the middle "pouf" layer, and the fitted lining to hold everything in position. The outer and middle layers are attached to the fitted lining at the horizontal bands. This keeps the sleeve from simply sliding down the arm.
The first codpiece I've made, with chalk markings for the slashing design. This one seemed to strike a reasonable balance between modern sensibilities and Landsknecht exuberance.
Hat mockup in acrylic felt, with my existing feather ornament to try out size and proportion.
I tested a sample of the wool flannel to see if it would fray when slashed. It behaved beautifully, so I went ahead with cutting out the whole outfit. I very carefully arranged the various pattern pieces to get the most efficient use of the fabric possible, while still keeping the grain correct.
I marked the wool sleeve in chalk for the slash positioning. Before cutting, I sewed on the stabilizing horizontal strips. Then I used and Exacto blade to cut all the slashing and assembled the three sleeve layers.
The finished sleeve. The slashing lays closed when it's empty, but once an arm is inside it they spread and show the color underneath.
Cutting big holes into perfectly good fabric will always be a little nerve-wracking. Here I'm cutting the star for the back, and the large diagonal slashes for the front. Once the colored canvas was assembled, I secured the long slashes to the canvas so the wool wouldn't catch on anything while being worn.
I can usually safely sew over pins with my machine. Usually. Fortunately, I use very thin silk pins, and the pin will bend when struck by the machine needle rather than breaking the machine.
I learned how to use a Read pleating machine to pleat the undershirt body and sleeves. The machine is modern (patented in 1947), but it serves the same function as pleating the fabric by hand.
The pleats show to the outside of the garment on the woodcuts, so I secured each individual pleat to a backing band rather than simply encasing the edges in a casing. Unfortunately, this technique proved to be massively time consuming, and in the interests of getting the rest of the project finished on time Robert and I decided to drop it from the project. He wore a linen shirt he already had on hand. I did not count the hours I had spent on the shirt in the project total, and I'll finish it and deliver it later, as time allows.
The front and back of the wams, before the addition of the sleeves.
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