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:
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.
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:
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:
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:
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:
Finally, she made her dolly peasant some simple shoes from leather (a shammy cloth) and more twine:
And here is the dolly in all her peasant glory:
And a last photo of C11 very proudly holding her newly dressed dolly:
Well done, sweetie pie! Knight’s lady next!
Wow, that’s really well done! I like that T12 helped her carve the wooden pin. It’s great when siblings work well together. Fantastic work on C11’s part!
Thanks Hwee. And I agree, it is always lovely watching them work together.
Wow it’s fabulous!
Thanks Debbie!
Beautiful! All her hard work paid off!
Thank you. It really was hard work for her, but she is ever so pleased with the result.
C11 did a beautiful job! She should be really proud of herself – that’s a lot of work represented on one doll.
It really is and she found it really hard. I think she did a sterling job! Thanks Erin.
This is so good! In fact I was going to say it is fabulous but Debbie already beat me to it! Making clothes is HARD and C11 has done a great job 🙂 I’m looking forward to seeing the next outfit.
Thanks May. It was hard, but I’m so proud she didn’t give up and got it finished.
So, would it help if I sent a pattern over for making the clothes? I’ve got tons of patterns for the doll size I think she’s using.
She did a great job, especially for designing the patterns from scratch with no prior knowledge.
I showed C your comment and she was very excited about the possibility of a real pattern for her lady’s costume, until I pointed out it would be coming from America and probably wouldn’t arrive until after the presentation!
Thanks for the offer though!
The final result is perfect! I love it! You did a wonderful job, C11!
Thank you Phyllis. I showed C your comment. She was very pleased.
I am VERY impressed – all that hard work paid off, the results look incredible! That doll cannot be mistaken for anything but a medieval peasant – and with all the layers involved, with no prior experience, this was quite the undertaking! Well done C11!
Thank you Marie. C said to say thank you too. She is feeling all the love from all these lovely comments!
L-O-V-E! She did a fantastic job! I bet she will never forget that project or what Medieval peasant girls wore. Great job!
Thank Kris! You know what else she won’t forget? The art of unpicking. Yup, we both did a lot of that in the last few weeks!
bravo bravo bravo!!!well done beautiful!!!
Thank you lovely Myriam!
How amazing and clever that is, the peasant looks really good, well done C. xxxx
C says thank you Carolyn!
Wow! C did an absolutely wonderful job in making her peasant girl’s clothing. I am so impressed that she did it without a pattern. Please congratulate her on a job well done. I can’t wait to see the Knight’s lady.
FANTASTIC!
It was a bit hit and miss without a pattern, but we got there in the end. It was a huge learning curve for both of us!