schilling-kleid

The main difference between the gown I'm about to make and the original one shown in the chronicals is that, mine is meant for a middle class girl following an army in camp. The lady shown in the chronicals represents nobility. I will be making a more dressy gown for special hollidays in a Nuremberg style but for now, I decided to make this one practical. So I'm eliminating the brass buttons and all the flashy broochs, the gold trims, the waistseam, the long train and the sleeve openings.

Swiss & Germans were very strong on the "grande aisette" concept but they didn't make them at all in the way I did for the "Moy gown". That's what I'm curently studying because it puzzles me. It appears that the sleeve and the back piece makes one in most images and, on others like the colored images from the birh of Mary, there's an additional piece that's added to form the lower part. I also believe that there's no waistseam on those two last images. For both images (but it's clearer on the green one) it seems that a narrow band is only there in order to hold the square cloth that serves as an aipron. The only seam I see is the lower part of the armscye.

On male's garments you can hardly ever see such a seam though so, that strucks an obvious question ; "How do they manage to do that and hardly get any creases ???" It sound impossible to me so, I'll go with what apears to be the obvious choice ; A straight sleeve line and a complimentary pieces that completes the armscye.

So here are the differences that I see between the Moy bog's construction and a german kleid. (Note that the red lines are gores that I'm seing on the green gown in "The birth of Mary" above but I don't intend on adding them).

So I've been going through this in my head for the past 24 hours or so and I'm deaply troubled about this ; If I go with the obvious "Back design", how on earth do I make a front to fit with it ??? On basicaly all german images, the front always apear to be constructed normaly even though the back is made in designed in a funky way. But on the pink kleid in the birth of Mary, there's a seam that suggests that the "grande-aisette" design also shows or continues to the front (see image below). So these two drawings are the only possible construction that I can come-up with since I never saw any evidence of a sleeve insert on any german kleids such as there is on the Moy. So what do I do ? Do I simply ignore that seam and go with the majority by making the front apear to be of a plain and commun construction or do I go with something complexe that doesn't make sense to me even though it's there ?

On the other hand, if I totaly forget about the "birth of Mary" mystery, it comes down to something pretty simple. As I said, the sleeve and the back piece makes one. Here's a close-up of the card player's back. The artist even drew the neckline's overstitches so I can't imagine why he would have left out vital seams. So that plainly explains why there are so many creases under the arm of those girls. It must have been pretty uncomfortable to wear too !

I have another theory about some sort of gusset or insert under the arm that could be interesting but, since I can't back it up at the moment, I elaborated this one ; Does this make any sense for a "one piece deal" ?

After all that time, I finaly designed a pattern. I've been retouching it a bit here and there so, I'll only post a diagram once it's final. I've pinned the basic pieces together. There are some modifications to be done ; The bodice was too long so I shortened it of about 1 inche from the shoulders. The neckline pulls a little too much because of the breasts so I made the soulder-straps narrower in order to straighten the neckline line and clear the shoulders a little more. So, with a whole inche higher, the tip of the gores sit better on the hips and the neck opening isn't as low. As for the sleeves, I decided to go with a "one piece deal". I've been working on a few layouts so, we'll see how it goes when I do some fitting tests !

I made the sleeve's pattern by using the gown's armcye opened flat and it fits to perfection. It creases just as I had planned under the arm but to the opposite of what I thought, it's incredibly comfortable. I attached the sleeves to the gown with a backstitch. Here's what it looks like ; The first picture shows a low closing and on the second one, the temporary band has been moved-up to show the difference if closed higher like the lady in Schilling's chronicals (I haven't made-up my mind yet). Up 'til here, I'm done hem-stitching the front & back, all that's missing are the sides, the hem and the wrists. Underneat you'll find a close-upof the backstitches from the inside...