Purple Bliaut Part 1

Last fall I attended a really cool SCA workshop about constructing a medieval bliaut, so naturally I had to give it a shot. The same day I attended another workshop at the same event on tablet weaving, aka my new hobby.

I'd recently found some absurdly cheap fabric at Walmart and figured that it was the perfect way to experiment. The whole piece of fabric was FOUR yards long, and was only $4. They were practically giving it away, especially to get that much of it in one length. The fabric was a heavy, woven polyester with no stretch but some nice drape. It was also a beautiful deep purple that I absolutely loved.

I had this fabric in the back of my head before I even went to the workshops. When I got to the tablet weaving I had my pick of colors, and I selected purple and teal. Later on in the day people were de-stashing fabrics and I picked up some faux moire silk in teal. Instantly I knew that I wanted a purple bliaut with teal contrast in the sleeve lining and tablet-woven accents and belt in purple and teal. It was just so perfect.

In case you were still wondering, this is not an experiment in historical accuracy. This is an experiment in determining what I do or don't like about bliauts and learning about tablet weaving (or card weaving).

The first few steps of the Bliaut came together rather quickly. Following the instructor's advice I held lengths of fabric up to my body to gauge size, and then tore the fabric to create the main body of the gown. Tearing the fabric was weird because I usually cut, but it was stress-relieving to just pull it apart. Yes, tearing probably warped the edges of the weave a bit, but it's $1/yard polyester - I don't care! However, if I do decide to make another one, I'll be sure to use a tape measure. I definitely could have made my skirt fuller and my sleeves bigger if I'd measured, but I still think that it's going to work out just fine.

Next, I carefully tore the neck hole/slit. Then I cut a small rectangle and created a facing for it. I was working far too quickly on this project, and ended up with really messy lines at the tips of the neck slit. I've sewn points like that before, and you have to be very precise (especially on a sewing machine) or else the fabric just gathers at the point. Oh well, it won't look perfect, but it should tell me how well the garment does or doesn't fit, and that's what this experiment is all about anyways. Under-stitching helped a bit, but it needed to be tacked down at the edges of the facing as well.

Time for gores! I measured to the waist of the gown, the instructor warned us that it's less flattering if you try to insert the gores at the hip, and added the gores to the sides. Then I tore open the center front and back of the gown from the floor to the waist, and started pinning in the gores to the gown. Unfortunately, inserting gores into a solid piece of fabric takes as much finesse as sewing a facing to a slit. It is so much easier to insert gores into seams than single pieces of fabric! I know that fabric widths used to be a lot narrower, and I wonder if there is any historical precedent for joining two widths of fabric at a center front/back seam? A neck slit like this one and the center gores would go a lot easier that way. Assuming a 1/2 inch seam allowance, and an added seam at center front and back you would be losing 2 inches from the overall width of the garment, so if you have an especially narrow fabric or need extra width in the torso this might not work for everyone.

I got very flustered by this seam, and ended up leaving the project for a few months to focus on other things because I was so frustrated. This past weekend, however, I decided that it was worth persevering. Even if the points of the center gores were imperfect, no one should be staring that closely at my bellybutton, and I'll have some sort of belt at the waist to help cover it too. So I continued and imperfectly attached my center gores.

Again, because I estimated the measurements so much, I lost out on width at the bottom of the gores that is just going to get hemmed off at a later date. This isn't the end of the world, but it always makes me sad when a skirt is not as full as it could have been.

Next I could get started with the sleeves. I wasn't sure if I had enough fabric to make the sleeves (especially the shoulder to elbow bit), and would have to use scraps from the hem (that was not yet hemmed) to piece together the upper arms. Fortunately, when I put the gown over my head and held up the piece for the lower sleeve there appeared to be almost enough fabric after all. All other things being equal I might have made that segment a few inches longer, but I think that this is going to work alright. I couldn't remember if I needed under-arm gussets or not, but decided that having arm mobility was generally worth it just in case and incorporated them into my design. I sewed one side of the gussets to the the sleeve uppers, and then the sleeve uppers and gussets to the shoulders of the gown. No side seams or underarm seams have been touched yet, I want to get the sleeves fully attached and the arm trim added first.

Now I'm a bit stuck on the sleeves. I cut four large rectangles each of my purple fabric and teal lining, but I'm struggling on the order of operations to attach them to the rest of the garment. I'm going to have to reach out to some online groups for help.

#TabletWeaving #CardWeaving #Bliaut #SCA #HistoricalFashion #Medieval #12thCentury