Adventures In Historical Garb

A Tutorial on Making Surcoats

Part 1: The Buying and Dyeing

By a Newbie

First thing you have to understand: I am not a professional at anything except for learning. Not to be mistaken with being a professional at ANY topic I’m trying my hand at. What I am getting really good at is knowing I can try my hand at anything and not be at much of a loss. So, what follows is just, and only just, a step by step explanation of what somebody (me) did, mistakes and all, in creating her first surcoat. Use it if you can. It will be a work in progress.

What I think I know coming into this project:

I am NOT a seamstress! Though I have sewn together pages for binding a book (as in, the way Gutenburg might have done it); I have sewn hems in my children’s clothing; I try to sew squares together for baby quilts but I’m not very good at cutting straight lines or even all the same rough size; I have crafted together a few halloween costumes (remind me to tell you about the peacock); I have sewn 15’ ribbons for a Maypole and a long period skirt (and let me tell you how challenging it is to sew a long straight line!) and my own chemise from a pattern online (http://www.reddawn.net/costume/chemise.htm ), though I had to add gussets to make the sleeves fit right in my daughter’s chemise; and I have sewn leather gourd type bottles together, stretched them, burnt a design onto the front and sealed them with pitch and beeswax (that was fun!). None of these things has been perfect, and there are more than likely historical inadequacies. Please always check with someone who’s been around for a while and is in charge of such aspects of the faire production if you are under time or money constraints, as you may just end up doing it again.
 

I think, from what I can tell, type of material you get is of utmost importance both to keep you comfortable in whatever weather you will be in and for accuracy’s sake. Natural is the key word… cotton, wool (  http://www.fabrics.net/natural.asp ).  Some are hotter than others and some, like silk, would be very particular to an upperclass person, I think. You want to avoid material with a shine to it (manmade material) and think about what weather you will be wearing this piece in and whether it will be used with layers at colder times of the year. 

Another good thing to keep in mind, but something you have a little more control over, is the color. Again, natural colors are good. Yes, you can use reds and oranges and blues and greens… but NO flashy colors (hot pink and neon orange are out) and purples are for nobility. Check out this link for a lot of information on an easy level:http://www.learner.org/interactives/middleages/clothing.htmlNot a lot for clothing, persay… but you can get a great picture from it. Keep in mind that the setting of our faire is the 1300’s in Scotland.The pattern I’m using is McCalls M5499. The yardage given for the size I need didn’t match up with the width of the material I bought… which was 57″. What’s given is 54″ and 60″, so I just bought according to the smaller width and will have a little extra material to make it slightly larger if I want. Well, I will, because I’m a rather large gal. Oh well.

The material I ended up purchasing was a bottomweight twill… a light brownish khaki color. Bottomweight means basically that it will hang nicely. Twill is a reference to the diagonal weave of the material. I am understanding that twill can be made out of many different fabrics. So, I looked for 100% cotton. It didn’t have a shine and when I breathed through the material my air came out the other side, leaving the material I was holding a little warmer, but not hot. I didn’t want my surcote to be khaki though… so I dyed it. I chose RIT dye and looked on their website for more information about mixing colors (http://www.ritdye.com/Create+Custom+Color.9.lasso).  You can also find the basic colors under their product list. Working with a material that is not white to begin with changes things a bit, though. Basically, just keep your primary color blends in mind… red and yellow make orange and the base color of my fabric was beige-ish… so I already had some yellowish color going for me. Since I was shooting for a burnt orange or rust color, this was good. If I had wanted something in the blues or greens, a better choice of base color in my fabric would have been a gray. If you get to start with a white color, I think your finished color will be a bit brighter… just depends on what you mix up. I have not found an easy or quick way to get a perfect color. Even with fairly flexible goals, I still end up sending my fabric through the dye process several times or bleaching it a bit. Keep in mind that any dark dye that you start with will likely be required less if you are mixing it with a lighter color for a lighter finished product. Silly me, I started with a whole bottle of “wine” plus 2 boxes of “sunshine orange” and ended up with wine. I was shooting for burnt orange, remember. I ended up bleaching it a couple of times in hot water (no cold water rinse, cause I figured that would set the color) and then adding two more boxes of the orange. I didn’t end up with burnt orange, but more of a pumpkin color. I think that’s nice and I’ll stick with it.  I have a seamstress friend who’s going to guide me along the way, cause I have never even in my wildest dreams worked with a store bought pattern. That will be the next installment. Until then…

 

 

Sely (aka Tammy )

original khaki

became pumpkin

 

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Part 2:

Cutting, Piecing and Sewing

Now I feel I must confess something… while total time devoted to this portion of the project was about 4 hours or so, I missed 2 deadlines I had set for myself.  The first installment, the dyeing, was put up before Halloween in hopes that I could complete the surcote and wear it for an event for Halloween.  When I didn’t manage that deadline, I decided it would be fine if I just managed to get it completed for my 12th Night party on January 3rd.  Well, let me just say in my defense that I wanted to get it done properly which translates into not rushing.  Sooooo…. cutting was done before the party but sewing didn’t take place until afterwards.  Oh well.  *shrug*

Total time project took all together = app. 6 hours for this beginner seamstress.  The cutting was by far the most time consuming because you need to be so dang sure about yourself when placing the pattern pieces on and with the actual cut.

 

 

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The pattern called for 4 5/8 yards of material for my size… I can’t remember if I rounded it up to a full 5 yards or not. At any rate, I really don’t know if I would have had enough for a larger size or not. My seamstress friend tells me 1: those patterns are pretty true to size (so I shouldn’t need to try to make it bigger) and 2: it doesn’t really work that way because of the way you position pieces on material to make the most of your yardage. Still, LOTS of material! And you’ll notice the raveling that occurred at the cut edge… in the end that caused one bottom hem area to be short by about an inch or 2, but there is plenty of length in the skirt and I will have to hem it up to my ankles to avoid tripping anyway.
You’re pinning the selvage so that you don’t end up with a “warped” piece to your cutout dress. you are aiming for a flat surface here… no big wrinkles that will translate into apiece that is bigger/smaller in so places than it should be, which would equal a wonky cut.
As far as placement of the pattern pieces goes… I placed and cut according to the 54″ for the first three pattern pieces. For the last piece, what turned out to be the back face of the full dress, I was left to work with the last little bit of material I had AND the raveled/frayed part. So I folded for the best placement fo the piece, to avoid loosing as much final length to the fray as possible. Does that make sense?
In slide 7 you see a piece that I didn’t position correctly. That arrow is supposed to match up with some technical term for the way the material is woven. Warp maybe? I don’t know. At any rate, don’t ignore it, but being a little off (like, say, 1/2 an inch or so) shouldn’t make a difference for a piece this loosley fitting.
On the last slide you might also look at those little triangles printed on the pattern paper. You want to cut a little notch in your fabric wherever these are. Those little notches in your fabric will help you line up your cute pieces and put the correct edges of pieces together to sew. The only other thing I can suggest is cutting your pieces out on the floor or other hard surface if you can. My soft, comfy bed, though excellent to sleep on, is not ideal for cutting material out on.

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Now, when it comes to pinning it together to sew, you really need to start picturing what the finished product will look like. Especially important when thinking about where the wrong edge… that inside 5/8 of an inch seam, will be. You just want to avoid sewing a piece together that will end up with that seam on the outside when placed in its final position.
I will also say that I only pinned the side panels to the longer front and back panels to sew… I did not pin that middle seam joining each of the two side panels together… I just felt confident enough that I didn’t need to. After I tried it on I thought it might fit better if it was brought up a tad at the top of the shoulders… that will pull that bottom of the arm hole area up on me a little… higher than my pesky wide hips… and be a little more comfortable to move in.
Sewing took about 45 minutes, tops. Even with the long lines, by far the easiest portion of the project. Now, I do have some finish work to be done… hemming … and my seamstress extrordinaire friend tells me we’ll sew some bias tape made out of material scraps around the holes to finish them off instead of needing a lining. Lining is a must for flimsier material, but this material hangs pretty good without needing bulked up.

Please feel free to ask questions or comment on this process…
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Making a Leather Gourd Bottle

I had such a good time making these bottles!  At times it got to be a little tedious, especially during the sewing.  And it took FOREVER to complete… bu I cahlk that up to this different clock we go by… homeschooler time, when one hour can alternately seem like just a couple of minutes or weeks, depending on how under the gun you are!  That’s a joke… time is relative… well, anyway…

This project started forming in my brain back in the winter of 2008 while I was teaching a homeschool renaissance history class.  During my web wanderings I found Lady Sveva.  Absolutely wonderful site,… I can not sing her praises loud enough!  And she still responds to e-mails and questions.  That’s cool!  She’s SCA, which accounts for her interest in the historical and the desire to share her knowledge, I think.  Anyway, go hang out on her front porch a little and you might find some interesting things peeking out from behind the potted plants!  I found leather gourd bottles!

Her directions for making the bottles are pretty detailed.  What I have to add are just process notes.  Again, there are probably some historical inadequecies here and I’m not a pro.  So please, go with your gut on stuff and be very careful!  Whenever you start working with the hot pitch/beeswax, it is VERY hot and will hurt if it gets on your skin (raising my slightly blistered left thumb in agreement).  It would be proactive to have a large bowl of cold water or a cold water faucet close to hand, just in case.  Quick action will prevent more serious blistering.

The pattern we used was the simpler of the two she offered.  I believe that I must have right clicked on the image, saved it to my computer and then enlarged it to print it out for student use.  I can’t seem to navigate to an enlarged version on her site.  Once upon a time I thought I might try the harder one, but gave that up after sewing the first.  The leather is not hard to work with, but it is more challenging than material and takes longer.  I now don’t know if I’ll ever venture to try the harder one.  Let me know if you do and I’ll link to you! 

There’s two ways that I can think of to transfer the image onto your leather: 

1. you could lay the pattern on top of your leather, keeping it in place with clips, and trace with a very firm hand on top.  This will leave the impression on the leather and you would then draw directly on the leather with a pencil to prevent loosing your lines.
2. I traced over the lines of the pattern with a #2 pencil, turned the pattern to face my leather and rubbed the pencil lead on. 

Whichever way you choose, the finished, or slick side of the leather should be the outside face… the “furry” side will be inside the bottle.

In slide 5 we are starting to punch holes into the leather to make the sewing easier.  You do NOT want to use a big tipped nail for this… the smaller tipped the better.  Like a finishing nail size.  You want to create a small hole in the leather.  Something that your needle will find when you’re sewing but that will still offer some resistance, not pass through like a truck barreling through a tunnel.  The bigger your holes are, the more likely you will be to have leaks in the finished product.

 

 

 

 

 

In slide 10 you can see what the leather looks like after the holes are puinched and before you start sewing.  Notice that the two lines of holes are about “1 or 1.25 cm from the edge, and the second .5 cm in from that”.  The inside line is what will provide the watertightness, to a large extent, and as such, needs to receive more attention and be sewn FIRST.  The outer line shores everything up and provides the tabs at the top of the bottle to attach a chord for an arm strap.

The sewing part is pretty intense and tedious and why I say that it is probably not for anyone under 10 years or so.  It’s just a very methodical thing.  We poked all of our holes first, instead of 5 at a time.  I don’t know if it really makes a difference either way.  And I just knotted my ends off instead of backstitching… I kind of liked the look.  No, it may not be a prettier, finished look, but I liked it.  Plus it was easier for the children, I think.  If you want to teach “proper” sewing technique, though, I guess you would want to go for the backstitching.

Now, when it comes to the sewing you will want to make sure you can purchase the leather needles, also called glovers needles.  Mine came in a pack of 3 and I found it easiest to get the waxed chord through the largest of the eyes.  Even then I had to flatten the chord with my thumbnail.  These bad boys are sharp!  Instead of a rounded pointy end, they are shaped more like an arrow – sharp, flat tip with a bevel.  They will slice through your thumb quicker than a knife through hot butter!  Be forewarned!  You will also need a pair of needle nose pliers or something like it to pull the needle through the leather.  Remember, your holes should not be big enough that the needle comes through that easily.

When you start to sew, you are going to have two needles going, one from each side of the bottle.  Take your first needle through from the top (the side of the bottle that you pounded the nail through… this hole should be the easiest of the two to get through).  Going through this side first means that you increase the size of that second hole just enough to get your needle through and to know exactly where the hole is and where your second needle will enter the leather.   If that doesn’t make sense, make a practice piece… you’ll understand it then.    Sew down the line… you are NOT sewing thr two lines together.  DO NOT sew from one line to the other.  The lines are two seperate lines of stitches.

Once your sewing is done you will soak your bottle in water to get the leather as flexible as possible and then begin stuffing with sand to give it shape.  The harder you pack your sand, the more round your finished product will be.

After you have it stuffed, the waiting begins.  You want the leather as dry as possible… during a Kentucky summer, in an un-air conditioned house, mine took about 4 days to dry completely.  Your drying time may differ due to humidity levels.  Once your leather is dry, you can either burn on an image with a wood burner (I followed the same procedure to get my image onto the bottle as I did for getting the bottle pattern onto the leather), or dye it or just continbue on to the sealing.  If you’re going to burn an image on, you will need to do this before you seal it, or else I believe the burning would undo the sealing.  A steady hand is the name of the game with the burning.  Also, you’ll probably loose some detail when you seal the bottle, so a more basic image is fine.  Ours were more detailed and we were disappointed to loose that.  Oh well.  We know it’s there!

Total time for preparing your leather, about 1 1/2 hours.  Total time to sew, about 2 hours.  Total time to burn image on will depend on your image.  Mine (the rounded celtic knot image), took about an hour and a very steady hand.

 

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For sealing, we used my cook stove (you might want to lay down some aluminum foil to make clean up easier) and empty mushroom can to dip and pour and a funnel.  If you can find a metal funnel, probably even better!  Now, we had two seperate sealing sessions.  The first time we sealed we kept the pitch/beeswax mixture at a lower temperature.  I believe we ended up with a thicker coating inside the bottle and used a lot of the mixture.  The outside of the bottle remained that nice, light leather color and the designs we had burned on were still very distinct.  My bottle was done first and it did not leak.  All of the others did to some extent, probably because we were trying to stretch the sealing mixture to do as many bottles as possible.

Since the others had some leaking, we knew we were going to have to reseal.  By the time we were ready to reseal, I had mistakenly left my bottle in a hot car and developed a leak myself.  Note:  Do Not Leave Your Bottle In a Hot Space At Any Time!!  Lesson learned! 

My friend suggested we try to get the sealing mixture hotter to better permeate the leather.  In effect, sealing it through and through instead of just on the surface of the inside of the bottle.  So, that’s what we did the second go around.  I don’t know which way is more acurate.  But I will say that I lost most of my detail with the hotter mixture because it darkens the leather substantially.  It does appear to be the way Lady Sveva sealed hers though, just going by the student pictures.  The hotter the mixture, the less you end up using, though.   In going back to reaeal leaks in those we had already sealed, we found we actually melted a bunch of the older mixture from inside those bottles and ended up with as much mixture as we started with.  Even after sealing additional bottles.  I did develope a leak in my bottle that was not there with the first sealing.  Apparently the thinner layer of sealant makes these things more likely.  The bottles that were receiving their first sealing, though, sealed perfectly.  The only problems we found we could chalk up to loose stitching or big, gapeing stitches. 

Total time to seal each bottle is about 15 minutes after you get the mixture melted.  It will take about 24 hours to harden completely before you add water and check for a complete seal.  It won’t take but a few minutes to note any leaks, if that!

I think one of the few suggestions I might make would be in the sewing.  When you make those impresisons for the outside line of stitches, maybe if you staggered the holes so that the stitches in the two lines wouldn’t match up, but would be staggered.  That might help compensate for a looser stitch… don’t count on it, but any little bit is probably a good thing!

I hope you try this and enjoy it!  Take your time if you do and really give some thought to just how much effort went into everyday things made before the industrial revolution.  It is truly humbling!

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