his green wool tweed dress is based upon the
pattern of the Gown of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia dated to c.1230 and images from the Maciejowski bible
dated to c.1250.
Here you can
find the whole Maciejowski Bible on-line.
his green wool tweed dress is based upon the
pattern of the Gown of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia dated to c.1230 and images from the Maciejowski bible
dated to c.1250.
Here you can
find the whole Maciejowski Bible on-line.
The Gown of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia
The description of the original dress as it was found on Marc Carlson's site: This garment is dated to before about 1230, and is made from course wool, and lined with brown linen. The neck hole is very small, and there may be a small opening on the left shoulder, bound with linen.
Source of pattern and images from the Maciejowski Bible:
http://www.familia-ministerialis.de/kottefrau.html
another version is available at
Marc Carlson's site Some Clothing of the Middle Ages.
Like in the original I have keept the neck hole as small as possible, and lined it with linen. I choose not to make
the small opening on the left shoulder, as I have only found that type of neck opening in the male tunics of that time.
After using the pattern available at the Some Clothing of the Middle ages website to make a mock-up version in
cheap fabric, I found out that it works surprisingly well, but decided to make some small alterations to the pattern to
make the sides of the dress drape better.
(left) Detail of sleeve construction
close-up of sleeve with buttons
The sleeves will be buttoned from the wrist to half way the underarm, like in the detail from the Maciejowski Bible.
As you can see from the pattern drawing of the original only the upper part of the sleeve remained, so it is unsure
if this gown had butonned sleeves or not. The construction of the sleeves makes butonning possible as the sleeves seam
end up on exactly the right place,the ulna. The sleeves are tight on the underarm but wider and slightly "bat"like
in appearance on the upperarm, this is a typical feature of type of 13th century tunic.
The buttons are made of the same green tweed wool as the dress and in the manner described in Textiles and
Clothing (Museum of London), page 171, fig 147.
