A Wench takes a Mouse for a Walk

The under dress for recreating a German Renaissance Illumination, or a Wench takes a Mouse for a Walk.

I have loved this dress for a long time and it’s been on my to-do list. When the perfect wool went on sale this fall, I scooped it up. But, there are lots of things that need to happen before I get to the construction of the purple gown. Because of course, she requires under things to hold her up.

I chose to construct a supportive Kirtle that I hope would be versatile and work as an under dress for many a gown from the renaissance period.

To add to the versatility, I plan to make sleeves to tie onto this dress which match this wild illustration by Urs Graf called “Dirne fuhrt eine Maus spaziern” from 1529 which translates to Wench takes a mouse for a walk.

The main body will be in a blue linen and accented with golden yellow and include red ribbon ties. I can remove these as well as the tied on sleeves to use it for an under gown.

The first step is always to draft a pattern. I used the purple trossfrau dress I made last summer as a starting point. Then, I cut out a mock up of waste fabric and checked the fit. Which was a bit off, so I made some changes and eventually came to a pattern that I liked.

I chose to line the bodice with a light weight linen and a hair canvas as these would both be breathable in the summer heat. These pieces only required seam allowances on the seams where they would be sewn to each other (back seam, side seam and shoulders), whereas the top layer of linen requires an extra half inch of allowance to fold over and stitch down.

Once the pieces were cut out, I basted the three layers together. First I used small permanent basting stitches in blue silk thread, but I found that this caused the fabric to pucker slightly as linen has a tendency to stretch. So on the other pieces I stitched using a regular basting stitch in a contrasting thread which was removed after sewing the pieces together.

Next I sewed the bodice pieces together at the side, back and shoulder seams, and did a little fit test. Since all fit well, I took to finishing the interior seams. This was done by trimming the lining and canvas layers, then felling down the blue layer. I took care to stitch through the linen and the canvas layers when stitching down for extra strength.

Next came stitching down the edges. I pressed down the linen fabric toward the body and then folded it under. Then I sewed down this layer using more tiny felling stitches. I made the allowance on the center front of the bodice an inch rather than half inch to allow for additional room for the eyelets.

Which were next. I measured out the eyelet placement for spiral lacing at one inch apart. The eyelets took about two and a half hours to stitch. And then I finally it was ready to try on!

I am so happy with how the bodice turned out. The canvas interlining is thin but provides great body. One change I would make if I was doing this again is I would cut the bodice in two separate pieces, to allow for cutting the shoulder straps on the grain line and thus provide better stability for the should strap.

Next it was time for the skirt! The fabric for this project (linen from Fabric-store.com) was 60″ wide so I measured two 41 inch pieces and sewed them together at the selvage (leaving a 3 inch opening along one end of one of the seams for the center front opening). This has the added bonus of not needing to finish those long interior seams!

Then I pressed under a half inch along the top edge twice and felled this down. This will be the waist seam. After this, it was time to gather the skirt into cartridge pleats! Rather than fussily measure 120″ of pleats, I chose to use my eyeballs to gather quarter inch pleats along the edge with a sturdy upholstery weight thread. Once it was gathered I pinned the gathers to the bodice and began hand sewing them to the top edge (careful to sew right sides together (I pinned it incorrectly more than once)).

Once that was done, she was ready to try on! And imagine my horror, when me, Scolastica, of the excessive, found her skirt to be an inch too short. All was not lost, as I planned to add a gold colored band to the skirt hem and therefore was able to add a little length.

My gold fabric is a cotton linen blend (GASP), not period but very pretty. Because it is cotton, I found it uncooperative when it came to pulling threads which is how I usually keep my linen fabric square. Therefore I used my quilting ruler to measure out three 12 inch bands which I marked with a two inch line on one end and a half inch line on the other using my water soluble marker.

I sewed the three pieces together in a long strip, and then pressed the fabric at the marked lines. Next, I sewed the gold band to the hem of the blue gown along the raw edge near the 2 inch fold with wrong sides together.

Then I folded the gold band upward and pinned it flat to the blue skirt along the half inch fold. I also gave it a good press at this time to make sure there were no serious wrinkles getting in the way of everything. Finally it was time to fell down the top of the gold band to the skirt!

And she was ready for wear.

But sleeveless.

The sleeves are truly fanciful.

Based on my drawings, I drafted a pattern for a sleeve that was not entirely gigantic.

I also cut out a slightly curved stripe of my yellow fabric. I turned under the edges of both the yellow and blue by half an inch. Then I turned under the blue again to give it a nice hem. The blue hem was stitched down using a felling stitch as was the yellow band.

Then I slashed the gold pieces with “X” shapes.

The last step was the eyelets. I put eyelets in each corner and one at the mid point of each side.

And finally, she was done!

And so, I needed to take my mouse for a walk.

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