male 13th century tunic for the “12th century wedding clothing project” .1

And today I have some new progress pictures for you of the 13th century tunic for my sweethearts 12th century wedding clothing project. 😀

I am very glad to say that I already finished the major part of the hand-sewing for the 13th century tunic. There is still some hand-sewing left but the sleeves and the side gores are attached to the main body part now. All the main seams are properly finished and show no raw edges anymore. Woohooo! 🙂

Though my fingertips hurt from all the hand-sewing, it is a great pleasure for me to look at the already finished seams and to plan the next hand-sewing steps. But before I tell you more of the next steps, let’s take a look at the promised progress picture of the 13th century tunic – enjoy! 😀

Yeah, I know, this tunic would look much better on my sweetheart than lying flat on the ground but this way I can show you the very basic pattern of the tunic. However, I promise to post a picture of my husband wearing this tunic as soon as the remaining raw hemlines are finished. 🙂

Btw., the side gores of the extant 13th century tunic on which I based this tunic are actually much smaller than the ones I made – the side gores of the original tunic were nearly not noticeable. Due to the wishes of my husband, who isn’t used to wearing tightly fitted clothes and was worried that small gores would restrict his movement a lot, I enlarged the side gores of his tunic quite a lot to give him some extra move.  

As you can see on the picture above, the 13th century tunic looks very nice so far but there is still some work left. During the next step I will finish the bottom hemline as well as the hemline of the neckline and at the sleeve end. As you can see on the picture underneath I already started working at the bottom hemline of the tunic. 🙂

While I was working at the seams for the body part I considered several finishing methods for the neckline and the sleeves end like the “Trapunto” method which I already used for some of my under-dresses. But the sleeves are already very tight and adding some “Trapunto” lines (you can imagine it as a technique with which you can create “padded patterns”) would just make them even more narrow.

My sweetheart already finds it quite difficult to get in and out of the rather tight fitted tunic and sleeves. Therefore I am very concerned that if I add some “Trapunto” lines to the sleeves, he wouldn’t be able to get in and out of the tunic again.

Well, I haven’t made a definite decision about it yet but I think I might go with just a simple seam finishing for the sleeves and the neckline and add some nice surface couching for embellishment instead. And surface couching not only looks great, it would also give me a great opportunity to show you this simple but beautiful technique which I love so much. 😀

And last but not least I would like to introduce you to my new cute little helper – or “Fluffy”, as I call her:

She is so warm and fluffy and loves to sleep in my lap or next to me while I am hand-sewing or embroidering. And well, sometimes I can’t avoid to cover her with fabric or thread bits. But the most funny fact about “Fluffy” is that she is cross-eyed – she looks so cute, doesn’t she… 😉

But enough about my new furry and very fluffy assistant. I have to get back and finish the last hand-sewing for the 13th century tunic project. There is still a rather long hemline as well as some short hemlines waiting for me… 🙂