"Mediaeval" costume

 

 

My daughter made the overdress, head dress, surcoat and shoes for her costume, worn to a Mediaeval Day at school as part of this semester's history unit. The dress started as a size 6 tracing of McCalls 5177, no sleeves. The size 6 is the smallest size on the pattern sheet, and my daughter is actually a size4, but as the fabric used is a thick, possibly home dec fabric with some relation to plush cordory, and the dress is worn over a full length, volumious chemise, we thought a size 6 would fit better than the size 4, and did not bother scaling down (The fabric was donated to my mother's quilting group, and passed on to me as it is unsuitable for quilting, and none of the members fancied it). I made the SBA fitting adjustment suitable for a 13year old, and helped with final fitting tweaking, but all the sewing other than the zipper insertion (highly non authentic!)was done by my daughter without further assistance. I am very pleased, as now she can make all next summer's dresses for herself. This pattern has princess seams and a separate bodice and skirt, so I think it is a step up for her sewing.
The surcoat is rectangles of fabric, trimmed with faux fur. The sleeves were cut to shape whilst draped on my daughter. Again the sewing was all my daughter's work. The fabric is tracksuit fleece. This was purchased by mistake. A visitor was stopping at Spotlight on the way up from Brisbane, and asked if I needed anything. I asked for 5m of polar fleece in black or blue to make dressing gowns for my husband and son, and this is what she bought. I am glad to find a use for it! The fur is left over from a once off teddy bear making project which a friend talked me into. Teddy bear making is not my thing. In fact, I did not start the project!
The headpiece is made from scraps from the surcoat, some left over braid from cushion making, and a scrap of polyester chiffon that was purchased for children's Christmas craft projects. My daughter invented this after looking at 13th century engravings on the internet. The shoes are made from vinyl that was lurking at the bottom of the bag from my mother's quilting group, we found a costume making book in the library that showed us how to make shoes from different periods, and my daughter made these as well.
My daughter was kept very busy for several weekends working on this costume. Unfortunately it does not count towards her history grade, but she had a lot of fun, and has learnt some more about sewing.