Monday, November 8, 2010

Inspiration for children's garb

So, in preparation for the German themed Winter Solstice event on December 11th I need to sew garb for the kids.  Calum and I have garb we can wear for this event (although I would love to make some new items for me as well) but the kids have no garb to wear at all.  Searching the internet I found a few inspirational images...

The painting "The Artist's Family" by Holbein in 1528 shows a toddler in a simple short sleaved hemd and sleaveless gown.  This should be easy enough to duplicate for our 23 month old daughter, "T".  I will use linen or a linen/cotton blend.  The hemd will be white and the dress whatever period color I can find.  I will probally do hook and eye closure on the bodice instead of spiral lacing.


For "M", our 6 year old daughter, I will make a campfrua overdress using the pattern from Reconstructing History #504 as a general guidline.  I have some pieces of linen (deep red and oatmeal) in my stash that I hope will be large enough to use for her dress.  The hemd will be from white linen and drafted from the Reconstructing History #505 pattern..  If I have time I would like to experiment with pleating and smocking the neckline in a honeycomb stitch.


Finally, "E" is our 8 year old son.  He is not so keen on dressing up so I need to make something simple and not to weird looking for him.  The plan is to make a plain white linen shirt, linen or wool T-Tunic in red (his favorite color) and flannel loose pants.  I plan to follow the T-Tunic pattern from "Practical Worksheet for Tunic Construction" by Cynthia Virtue.

For all the kids I would like to make linen 3 piece coifs but not sure any but "M" will actually wear them.  Cynthia Virtue also had great write up on Coif construction at "How to make a coif: 1 and 3 piece patterns".


So, that is my starting plan.  I am sure it will evolve as time goes on.

No comments:

Post a Comment