Dress Diary: Kragelund Kirtle - Second Reworking Planning
Now that I've updated my black apron dress, I'm moving on to attempt fixes for other items in my Viking wardrobe, and it's pretty safe to say that I was not particularly satisfied with even the improvements I made to my Kragelund kirtle. I did wear it a couple days this past Pennsic, with shorter-sleeved dresses over it (like my 14th cen green de Ingham surcote), but wasn't comfortable wearing it with the apron dresses. Let's revisit why:
Ugh. No. Total sack. This is the hazard of adapting men's clothing for a woman's frame.
First, the upper arms are still too bulky on me, even with about 20 cm removed from the sleeve of my first attempt. Second, the hang of the neckline means that the armscye starts probably 10-12 cm lower down my upper arm than I would really like it to. I've partly disassembled one sleeve so that I could experiment with how I might recut the pieces, and I think that if I correct both these issues the kirtle will look better on me.
Revisiting the illustrations in Østergård's Woven into the Earth, it's hard to tell the precise intention of the original tailor as to the sleeve shaping, as the sleeves are slightly asymmetrical. On the right arm (as worn) it looks like the design involved a sleeve that made a truncated right triangle with the torso (the underarm seam being the hypotenuse and the pivot of the shoulder being the 90º angle). On the left, though, the upper arm is definitely poochy, being blousier than purely in a line with the tailoring of the lower arm. I suppose I could go either way with my interpretation of the kirtle, but I definitely know the poochiness doesn't work on my body type. The way I've repinned the seams of the disassembled sleeve means I would take out even more of the fabric for the upper arm, but I may need to remove some of the right triangle gusset of the lower arm to get all the pieces to line up in a way that makes sense visually.
It also looks as though I got the placement of the armscye right, even if I don't like it. The kirtle has been photographed with the neck slit mostly closed, such that it's not open enough for a human neck, and if one opened it to accommodate said neck the line of the shoulder-to-sleeve seam would probably hang past the pivot of the shoulder the same way mine does. There's definitely no cut-in to the original shoulder in order to create a set-in sleeve, but I think I want to add one to get rid of all that width in the top of the shoulder. I probably want to remove a triangle, as most the piecing of the Kragelund kirtle seems geometric rather than tailored like the Moselund kirtle.
Ultimately, I'm probably going to have to make at least one significant departure from the original in order to feel comfortable wearing this garment. This isn't something I'm particularly used to doing.
Which is probably the best reason I'm thinking aloud about it on the internets, rather than holding the scissors in my hand.
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comments currently posted.
Ugh. No. Total sack. This is the hazard of adapting men's clothing for a woman's frame.
First, the upper arms are still too bulky on me, even with about 20 cm removed from the sleeve of my first attempt. Second, the hang of the neckline means that the armscye starts probably 10-12 cm lower down my upper arm than I would really like it to. I've partly disassembled one sleeve so that I could experiment with how I might recut the pieces, and I think that if I correct both these issues the kirtle will look better on me.
Revisiting the illustrations in Østergård's Woven into the Earth, it's hard to tell the precise intention of the original tailor as to the sleeve shaping, as the sleeves are slightly asymmetrical. On the right arm (as worn) it looks like the design involved a sleeve that made a truncated right triangle with the torso (the underarm seam being the hypotenuse and the pivot of the shoulder being the 90º angle). On the left, though, the upper arm is definitely poochy, being blousier than purely in a line with the tailoring of the lower arm. I suppose I could go either way with my interpretation of the kirtle, but I definitely know the poochiness doesn't work on my body type. The way I've repinned the seams of the disassembled sleeve means I would take out even more of the fabric for the upper arm, but I may need to remove some of the right triangle gusset of the lower arm to get all the pieces to line up in a way that makes sense visually.
It also looks as though I got the placement of the armscye right, even if I don't like it. The kirtle has been photographed with the neck slit mostly closed, such that it's not open enough for a human neck, and if one opened it to accommodate said neck the line of the shoulder-to-sleeve seam would probably hang past the pivot of the shoulder the same way mine does. There's definitely no cut-in to the original shoulder in order to create a set-in sleeve, but I think I want to add one to get rid of all that width in the top of the shoulder. I probably want to remove a triangle, as most the piecing of the Kragelund kirtle seems geometric rather than tailored like the Moselund kirtle.
Ultimately, I'm probably going to have to make at least one significant departure from the original in order to feel comfortable wearing this garment. This isn't something I'm particularly used to doing.
Which is probably the best reason I'm thinking aloud about it on the internets, rather than holding the scissors in my hand.
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. Please comment there using OpenID.
comments currently posted.