Kirtle glow up

I've got quite a few kirtles which I've had for quite a while. A few of them are not quite up to my current standard and therefore don't get worn very often. For quite a lot of years, good wools were next to impossible to buy in Queensland, so we re-enactors relied on Op shop buys, old, really thin blankets and whatever did make it to the shops. Sometimes, due to the fabric not being quite what I wanted, I've taken some shortcute with finishing touches, and that's exactly what happened here.

The kirtle is made from a really thin blanket which I dyed with commercial dye. the wool is a little worn in places and there's a tiny hole, but as I planned to use this for working class clothing, I figured that if it looked less than pristine, that was completely okay. I have a secret gripe about re-enactment which goes along the lines of "I really wish every single person in every single group wouldn't bleach and iron their gear all the time" because an entire camp of pristine clothing just isn't realistic to actual life. Life today is not filled with every single person you work with wearing brand new clothing every day. it's actually quite normal for work clothes in trades to have some wear and tear, stains, mending, and be a little rumpled at times.

Anyway, so a work dress with a small hole and some worn patches is okay in my book.

I have bought new wool since than, so this kirtle gets passed over for other things. And there was that whole gaining weight and not fitting thing. Having decided to wear it in a few weeks, I did remember that I had always planned to re-open the lower sleeves and insert buttonholes and make buttons. The kirtle is front laced so it sits nicely under surcotes, but buttoned sleeves would be just that bit nicer and a bit more 14th century fashionable.



Happily, a good look through my fabric stash found the offcuts I saved in case I actually did make the buttons. The number of buttons per arm was decided by the amount of wool I had left, and worked out at 11 each arm- total of 22 all up.

It really doesn't take too long to cut them out, but with the thicker wool, it does take about 12 minutes each to sew, plus the needle-threading and fiddling around.

That's roughly 3 in 35 minutes if the thread doesn't break and extra time sewing them on.

It sounds like it really doesn't take that much time to make them, but it really is a good few hours plus the buttonholes which I am rather slow at making. Hopefully, this weekend I can get quite a few of them made.

At the moment, I'm still sewing on the linen reinforcing strip on the inner sleeve which is a technique seen in the Museum of London's textile's book.

Still, I've got 2 weeks, so I should be fine!