The Rest of the Gardecorps Story

My previous post recounted the making of a 14th century inspired traveling garment called a gardecorps, which I swore would be the only one I would ever make. In the venerable tradition of “never say never”, I have now made a second one, and have two others lined up, which I will endeavor to cover in future posts.

But now, we complete this original traveling ensemble…

It is my understanding that gardecorps had attached hoods. I deviated from the historical concept as my goal was to try my hand at dagging – the decorative and often leaf-shaped bottom edge that decorated hoods and other garments from this period.

Hoods are a new thing for me, and I am still refining my patterns. This is the first one I made after trying to replicate one of Jacob’s hoods. Crafted from black linen, it came out ‘gargantuan’. As a side note, I also made the rest of what he was wearing from wools I pieced together on the auspices of “reducing my fabric stash”.

My next attempt was in green linen, which fit better but was still not quite right. The third one, cut from a simpler pattern, turned out – like that line from Goldilocks – “just right”.

Jacob tried to convince me that he didn’t need a dagged hood, but I would have none of it. I had a cunning plan… oak leaves, in leather, for a black hood made from wool that Lois had donated, with acorn bells that Marie donated. In a move away from historical accuracy and more towards practicability, the dags would be detachable.

I spent the next several nights making cording on the lucet fork that Jacob carved for me from a piece of oak from his old spice cabinet. At first I was disappointed that my black leather was a color mismatch to the wool, but then realized that the leather would stabilize the wool front, and provide a friction-free backing. Wool leaves were also easier to embroider. I altered the veining from leaf to leaf to honor Jacob’s preference for asymmetrical design.

The only new material that I used for this hood were the snaps, which I ordered from WAWAK. Two sets per leaf which were time intensive to apply but would give Jacob the option of removing them for laundering the hood, or whenever he wanted to dress down a bit. As usual, the braid near the hem of the hood hides the stitching from the top row of snaps.

The under tunic had an equally interesting story. While we were designing the gardecorps, Jacob had chosen a beautiful piece of blackk and rust herringbone from my collection, but there wasn’t enough of it to make the full tunic. He tried to dye a black and white herringbone to make up the difference, but in spite of the test dye sample working perfectly, his dye job came out grey. So that project was shelved.

And then, I woke up one morning and realized that since we had shortened the gardecorps, perhaps we now had enough yardage to make the tunic. Voila! Jacob’s rule allowed me to complete the tunic with asymmetrical sleeves, leaving mere inches of scrap to spare…

The ensemble is now complete, crafted in deepest respect and worn with great love for a lifelong wish finally fulfilled. My work doesn’t get better than that.