Dress Diary: Moselund-Inspired Under-dress, Gore Pleating
My various gods, some days I am really obtuse with this spatial reasoning thing. I'm really glad my copy of Ancient Danish Textiles showed up through ILL, as it's finally allowed me to figure out the gores on the Moselund kirtle.
First off, you have to divide the gore in four, which is easy. Fold it in half along the long axis, and pin it quite close to that centre fold. Then go to the midpoint of each of those halves, and pull that midpoint back to match up with the centre midpoint you've already marked. You'll end up with four pleats toward one side of the gore (which is the front) and three to the other (which is the back) with the edges of the gore pointing toward the back. Even up the widths so they all match, and pin the three pleats toward the back.
For each of the three pleats toward the back, sew from the top front corner of the pleat down and toward the back of the gore at about a 60º angle. Measure off your seam allowance on the edge toward the top, and snip off the triangle that results.
Fell your seam, or otherwise secure it from fraying, if you're working in linen.
Once you have all three pleats secured, with their corners snipped, snip off each top outer corner of the gore at about the same angle at which you were sewing the pleats. This will give you a gore of the same shape as in the original.
You can insert it basically like any other gore because of how closely the pleats bring it all together. There is rather a lot of poufiness to the front with this style, but this is something you see in 11th cen illustrations from farther to the south: the tunics worn by the men in the battle scenes in Giselbertus Autissiodorensis' Glosa in Threnos Jeremiae, which I've already mentioned, show exactly this kind of poufiness!
Should be finished felling the seams on the inserted gore tonight, and then I'll have a new dress to wear to Spring War Practice!
First off, you have to divide the gore in four, which is easy. Fold it in half along the long axis, and pin it quite close to that centre fold. Then go to the midpoint of each of those halves, and pull that midpoint back to match up with the centre midpoint you've already marked. You'll end up with four pleats toward one side of the gore (which is the front) and three to the other (which is the back) with the edges of the gore pointing toward the back. Even up the widths so they all match, and pin the three pleats toward the back.
For each of the three pleats toward the back, sew from the top front corner of the pleat down and toward the back of the gore at about a 60º angle. Measure off your seam allowance on the edge toward the top, and snip off the triangle that results.
Fell your seam, or otherwise secure it from fraying, if you're working in linen.
Once you have all three pleats secured, with their corners snipped, snip off each top outer corner of the gore at about the same angle at which you were sewing the pleats. This will give you a gore of the same shape as in the original.
You can insert it basically like any other gore because of how closely the pleats bring it all together. There is rather a lot of poufiness to the front with this style, but this is something you see in 11th cen illustrations from farther to the south: the tunics worn by the men in the battle scenes in Giselbertus Autissiodorensis' Glosa in Threnos Jeremiae, which I've already mentioned, show exactly this kind of poufiness!
Should be finished felling the seams on the inserted gore tonight, and then I'll have a new dress to wear to Spring War Practice!