The Completed Cotehardie!

My completed cotehardie! You can read about the construction here, about the veil here and here, and about the hose here.

I'm wearing two dresses--known as cotehardies in costuming circles. The blue dress is a supportive layer that laces up, and could be worn on its own or with an overdress. The pink overdress is cut to the same pattern (except I should've raised the neckline a bit) and closes with buttons. I'm wearing both dresses over my Regency short sleeved shift. The blue sleeves are a little too tight to be comfortable over my 18c shifts. With a little wear they would be fine. I considered making a sleeveless shift (there are extant examples), but in the end, my Regency shift worked fine.

Medieval Hose--Construction!

For my cotehardie, I made a pair of bias cut wool hose from the Medieval Tailor's Assistant. They're made of lightweight worsted wool from Burnley and Trowbridge, and I'm using their wool tape as garters. My shoes are the Juliet Garden Shoes from Revival Leather Goods.

I had initially planned on making a full tutorial for these, but quickly found that would be impossible as I hopped around with muslin pinned to my calf, hoping I wasn't going to impale myself too badly, and making somewhat random cuts into that muslin in the hopes that they would somehow make sense. The short version is, take a large piece of muslin, mark the bias by drawing a line along the length, pin it tightly to your leg--the bias line on the front, the pins on the back, cut slits around the ankles for the gussets, pin in fabric to fit the gussets, and trace your foot for the sole. This method is described in the book. I do, however, have construction information!