Medieval Fashion: Peasant girl

C11 has chosen to study medieval fashions for her project.  Her intention was to make clothes for a medieval peasant, lady and princess.  However, it has been much harder than she anticipated, and it has taken her almost eight weeks to do the peasant doll.  We have decreased her wortk, therefore, to a peasant doll and a Knight’s lady.  This post is all about her journey to dressing her peasant dolly.

In Feb I posted about C11 having made the chemise.  This was a simple under dress that most women in the medieval times wore, usually made of a thin linen:
Not bad for a first attempt at pattern making and then sewing! Well done C11!
She designed the pattern, drew it, cut out the material and hand sewed it.  Not being very experienced in these things, it took time.  The over dress took even longer, because this time she had to figure how to add arms, as it was a long sleeved dress we were making.  This time she chose to use the sewing machine for the seams.

Here is her dolly with the chemise showing underneath, with the brown mantle over the top
Here is her dolly with the chemise showing underneath, with the brown over-dress over the top

She used simple twine as a belt, and ties at the back as fastenings.  The fastening options were wooden pins or ties for a peasant woman:

Here is the back of the mantle showing the belt and the ties
Here is the back of the dress showing the belt and the ties
And here is a close up of the ties
And here is a close up of the ties

Next she made the apron, they were made of hessian or linen.  We had some hessian peanut sacks given to us from a pet shop.  She used one of those to make a simple apron, again using the twine as apron ties:

Here is the dolly in her mantle and apron
Here is the dolly in her mantle and apron
A detail of the hand stitched seam of the apron
A detail of the hand stitched seam of the apron
Detail of the apron ties
Detail of the apron ties

Next was the mantle, traditionally made from wool, it was a shawl to keep the peasants warm over winter.  C11 made that by cutting out a triangle from some sheep wool material we had in our dressing up:

First she cut a triangle.  The wooden pin you can see was carved by her brother
First she cut a triangle. The wooden pin you can see was carved by her brother
Here the dolly is dressed with her mantle held in place using the wooden pin
Here the dolly is dressed with her mantle held in place using the wooden pin
A close up of the pin in place
A close up of the pin in place

In order to make a simple head-dress, she used a strip of our old bed linen, leaving it unhemmed for a more ‘peasant’ look:

The doll from the front
The doll from the front
And from the side
And from the side

Finally, she made her dolly peasant some simple shoes from leather (a shammy cloth) and more twine:

A close up of the peasants shoes
A close up of the peasants shoes

And here is the dolly in all her peasant glory:

The front
The front
The back
The back

And a last photo of C11 very proudly holding her newly dressed dolly:

DSC_0479

Well done, sweetie pie!  Knight’s lady next!