Remaking the Green Jerkin

This morning I finished replacing the sleeves of David's Tudor jerkin with wings.  When I made this three years ago, I didn't think to put in some extra ease to accommodate the shirt sleeves, which are rather voluminous -- so the jerkin was always snug in the arms, which was not only a little less than comfortable in itself, but a little warmer in Southern-California-Elizabethan climes than David quite liked.  He didn't complain, as it happens, but when I offered to remake the jerkin, he said, "Yes, please!"

First, I carefully picked out all of the stitching and removed the sleeves.

Since I needed just the one pattern piece and I am still not very good at drawing curves freehand, I scanned the pattern from the Tudor Tailor book, cropped it to the surrounding gridlines, then resized the image so that each square was more-or-less one inch, and printed it out.  Luckily, I had scraps of the same fabric exactly the right size!

I folded and pressed the new wings, pinned them into place -- made sure they were symmetrical -- and sewed them to the armholes.

I graded the seam allowances this time, which I hadn't before as it was only the one turning of the outer fabric and lining each, but now it's three layers of the outer.  Since I'd clipped the lining quite a lot around the armhole curves, I had to press all of the little resulting tabs, because they were more than a little wonky after three Faires and laundering, but I wanted to understitch the lining, and so it needed to be fairly smooth.

That was the easy part -- then I pinned the lining and outer fabric back together at the original fold lines, with a lot of pins, and sewed it all up by hand.

The wings look a bit newer than the rest of the jerkin, but I'm sure this won't last long!

Understitching was a must, since despite a thorough pre-washing, the unbleached muslin I used as a lining fabric shrank more after sewing, and some of the hems are pooching rather unattractively.

I couldn't seem to find any information about historical methods of understitching, so I just worked a line in a zig-zag, so that what is visible are the zags, as it were -- thought it might hold down all of the little clips in the lining seam allowance better than just a straight line, but also I rather like the little slants!

There will be some more fiddling with this jerkin, as the Venetian hose (sort of ur-trousers) stay up not with a belt but with "points" or ties to the inside waist of the jerkin -- I'm not sure yet if I'm going to just tack on this eyelet-infused lacing strip or take the waist apart altogether to sew it in, and take the opportunity to fix that saggy hem at the same time.

What is the difference between a doublet and a jerkin?  Not much, to be honest, but the Tudor Tailor calls this a jerkin, in both of its forms, viz. with sleeves or without.  The Renaissance Tailor says that a jerkin is much less fitted than a doublet, which makes sense in light both of the Tudor Tailor's pattern's shape and in the jerkin's frequent appearance in period clothing as a garment worn over a doublet.

Comments

[Toffeeapple]

That looks like it was a fiddly job but you managed it very well and your stitching is beautifully neat. Well done. I utterly hate re-making anything so you have my admiration.

[Fiona]

May I say I really love your blog. I am impressed with your accuracy and enthusiasm. I make costume too, but the museum I work for in York, UK, pays me for both that and dressing up! My dream job. Your stitching is really good, and remaking anything is always tedious, so well done there.