12th century tunic for the “12th century wedding clothing project”

During the last days I was very busy working at the 12th century tunic for my husbands 12th century wedding clothing.

And today I have great news for you – all the hand-sewing is done! The 12th century tunic is finished and the blue and yellow silk I used for it looks awesome! *happydance* 😀

Though there is not much time left until our 12th century wedding ceremony Gulf Wars and I am working like a maniac to finish all the 12th century wedding clothing I have on my list, I really couldn’t resist to add at least a little bit of embroidery to his 12th century tunic. Well, you know, when you have the overwhelming feeling that something is missing, you really have to add it to ease your mind. 😉

And not only that, I also already started hand-sewing my very own 12th century wedding dress and made good progress today. Unfortunately my current shortage of time doesn’t really leave me much time to post about my current projects. But, as you can see, I try to keep you updated as good as possible and hope to make up for it with several in-depth postings after our 12th century wedding at Gulf Wars.

Something you can already look forward to is a nice long posting with step-by-step photos of how I made the keyhole neckline for the 12th century tunic and its embellishment with gold thread. I know, this kind of neckline can be very tricky. Especially if you want to make a “perfect” one and haven’t made one yet. Therefore I made sure to take photos of all important steps so that you can make your own “perfect” keyhole neckline.

However, let’s take a look at my most recent 12th century tunic project I just hand-sewed and embroidered. Made from beautiful blue and yellow silk and even hand-sewed with black and yellow silk – enjoy! 😀

At the picture underneath you can see the whole tunic worn by my husband without a belt:

…and a picture of how the side looks like:

The cut of this 12th century over-tunic is based on the 13th century under-tunic underneath to assure a perfect fit. Unfortunately I made the decision to use rather big side gores/gussets for the over-tunic. As I know now and as you can see at the 13th century under-tunic, the pattern works and looks much better with small side gores.

Though I am not completely happy with the side gores – they hang down too low for my personal taste – my sweetheart still loves his new over-tunic and can’t wait to wear it at our wedding at Gulf Wars and at future events. But well, we learn with every project, don’t we?

At least I have now two really nice examples of how the pattern looks with small and with bigger gores. Both examples will come in very handy as soon as I post the details of the pattern I used and all details I found about the extant 13th century tunic I based it on.

…and now some pictures of the tunic worn with a belt:

My husband assured me that this is not the belt he will wear for the wedding but we needed a belt to show you how the tunic looks like when it is worn with a belt. Though the side gores still hang rather low, I think the tunic looks much better worn with the belt then without.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures of my husbands new 12th century tunic. Now I have to go back to my own wedding dress project and cut some very long gores for the sides. More pictures of this new project will follow soon… 😀