| Period Clothing Construction Page 3 |
| Sewing the seams, hemming the hems |
| Do you remember the nursery rhyme that says “I’ll sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, and feed upon strawberries, sugar and cream?” Well, sewing clothing by hand for a multitude of uses and occasions was a little harder than that. The analysis of seams and hems in Textiles and Clothing : Medieval Finds from Excavations in London, c.1150-c.1450, by Elisabeth Crowfoot, Frances Pritchard, Kay Staniland is invaluable. Archeological clothing finds have been studied and the seams and hems carefully described and pictured. Sewing techniques varied little remarkably little over time, and the sewing and hemming “vocabulary” was fairly small: |
| Plain seam. Garment pieces are right-side to right-side (or wrong-side to wrong-side). A running stitch, double running stitch or backstitch, secures the two pieces together Then, as now, the plain seam was the most commonly used method of joining two pieces of fabric together. |
| Run-and-fell seam. After sewing a plain seam, the edges are opened flat and stitched flat aginst the body of the garment with running stitches. |
| Lapped seam Garment pieces are placed right-side to wrong-side, with the seam allowance lapping over one the other side. The seam is sewn with a running stitch near the edge of one piece and the other edge is held in place with fine hem-stitches.. This seam was often used on the foot section of hose where the lap provided a more comfortable surface on which to walk. In 14th century examples, the overlap is quite small 4 to 7 mm (1/8 to ¼ of an inch) and sewn with running stitches about 3 mm long, spaced 3 – 4 mm apart. To reduce fraying, the edge of one piece is often turned under slightly before it is caught with hemstitch. |
| Flat felled seam. After a plain seam has been sewn, one edge of the seam is trimmed. The other edge is turned under, then folded flat over the trimmed side of the seam and stitched to the garment. (The “felled” stitching will show on both sides of the garment) This seam was more rarely done in the Middle Ages than it is today, probably because the heavy fulling of the cloth made raveling less of a problem. Note: it is important to distinguish between felled seams and fulled fabric. When I use both words in one sentence, my tongue gets mixed up (or maybe my brain?) |
| French seam. I have been unable to find evidence for this kind of seam before 1650. If anyone has evidence for it, please e-mail, publish, shout or skywrite it so we will know. Thanks! Most Hems found in the various archeological digs had only a single turned hem that was stitched with running stitch or hem stitch. A smaller number of hems were double turned and stitched the same way. |
| Sewing Notions |
| The needles used in the Middle Ages were usually made of iron and were so expensive that few sempsteresses could afford more than one. It has been pointed out that the early 16th century play, Grammer Gurton’s Needle, revolves around the hunt for the only needle owned by a woman prosperous enough to employ a number of servants. Needles were usually kept in needlecases. (Another of the Museum of London books, Dress Accessories covers needles, needlecases, pins, thimbles and so forth, as well as all sorts of buttons, buckles and other metalwork. ) |
| Before the 15th century, cloth was cut with shears that appear identical in shape, though smaller than those used to shear sheep. They were made in one piece and worked the same way as a pair of tweezers. Small thread snips are sometimes made this way today. By the mid-16th century, two piece scissors and shears were made in the same way as our modern ones, albeit with heavier, wider blades. In the National Gallery, London is a portrait called “The Tailor” by Giambattista Moroni, clearly depicts a pair of shears. |
| I have not found any evidence for the existence of measuring tapes or yard sticks, that we find so vital today. In his explanations on the ways of cutting the various garments, Juan de Alcega, in the Tailor’s pattern book, 1589, often tells the reader how many baras (ells) or dedos (inches) long or wide to cut a particular pattern piece. He even inserted a printed line into the text to show the proper length of a standard dedo should be made. However it is clear from the body of his text that geometric ratios were the basis of cutting a pattern. In the explanation for cutting a Mantle of silk for a woman (figure 74) he instructs the tailor to ‘throw the fabric over the head of the lady for whom it is intended and mark the desired length with a piece of soap.” |
| On to the next Page |
| According to the archeological record and to the wardrobe and household accounts that have been studied, the most common thread was linen, which must be well waxed when you sew it because, though extremely strong, linen frays easily. Silk thread was used for the finest fabrics, whether of silk or linen, and by the 14th century seems to have become the preferred thread for those that could afford it. Wool thread was most probably used to sew the woolen garments of the poor long after Wool thread had been abandoned by the well-to-do in favor of linen and silk thread |
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| Back stitch |
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| Running Stitich |
| Double Running Stitch |
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| This page last updated 06/22/02 |