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 Sewing
tutorial:
Sideless surcote with side gores
for a noble lady.
Re-enactors and festival-goers can use this pattern.
This is an overdress
and always has something with long, fitted sleeves underneath.
Make it from linen or wool
for day wear. Made it from silk for fancy formal events. It can
be trimmed with fur around the armholes and hem if you like.
Manuscripts and paintings often
show it lined with fur or in a contrasting colour,
but not aleways. If you are making a contrasting colour, I highly
recommend using the same type of fabric and cutting them
out together, so everything lines up well.
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Step
1
You need: your fabric, pins, scissors and a cotton shirt
for sizing.
Don't use a stretchy one as it can give a false sense of
how it will fit you.
If you don't have a cotton shirt you are happy to cut up, get thee
to an Op Shop and spend a couple of dollars and get one.
Lie your fabric flat on the floor unfolded. |
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Step
2
Fold your shirt and your fabric in half lengthways with the
fold on the left hand side. The good side of the fabric is
on the inside.
If your fabric is skinny and you are a buxom lass, you will need
to fold your fabric double (two runs of fabric instead of a folded
over piece) before you begin. This will give you a seam down the
front, though, so just think whether you want that or not.
Your folded shirt matches the side with the folded fabric.
Fabric fold check! Your fold is on the left side. Your loose
sides are on right. Your shirt is sitting right in that corner at
the top ready to mark out your surcote. |
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Step 3
Marking out your pattern. This is not quite so terrifying as it
sounds.
Always ALWAYS cut the seams a bit bigger than you think
you need. You can always take clothing in but it's really hard
to add pieces in once it's cut. Not impossibly, but hard.
You mark your seam from the
edge of your shoulder straight down to your belly button
and then curve out to your hip where the HIP WIDTH is marked
on the pic. Add a very big seam allowance. Remember this
is going over your chemise and kirtle and you want it to be roomy.
When you know where your hip width is, you are at the yellow A.
To get the size of your skirt,
draw a line from the yellow A all the way to the side of
the fabric to the yellow B. The wider your fabric, the
more skirt you'll have.
The triangle offcuts
will be your side and back gores!
You will need to repeat the whole marking out underneath,
so you will have a back and a front. You can cheat by cutting
out one and simply tracing around it to make the other one if
you like, or cut one, then do another. The bottom one will be
longer at the bottom if you want a train, and you're a
fancy lady, so you definitely do!.
Your centre seam is as long as you are to the from the shoulders
to the ground plus a hem.
Okay, start pinning!
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Step 4
Just double check again that the fabric is folded the right way
before you cut anything..
.. . it should look like this...
Yes? Great!
Cut your new surcote out.
Unpin everything now that your dress is cut.
It looks like this.
You have two pieces of surcote,
one longer (which is your back. You have two lots of triangles
for gores to make your surcote extra swooshy.
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Step 5
Swing your triangle gores
around so the top of the triangles are pointing upwards
towards the waist and the bottom of the triangle is down at the
hem end.
Don't pin anything
yet.
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Step 6
Unfold the surcote
main pieces so you can clearly see your pieces.
It looks like this.
One piece is longer at the bottom. This is your back
where your train is.
You have 4 triangle gores which at the sides.
Pin pin pin them onto the sides of your surcote pieces!
Remember, the GOOD side of the fabric faces the good side of the
fabric. You are pinning on the underside, so the seam is inside
when you're finished.
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Step 7
Don't touch the top piece
of surcote or the top set of gores just yet. We will get back
to them in a minute.
Looking at the bottom of
your surcote, move the triangle gores so there is one on each
side of the surcote back, and pin them on.
Start at the bottom and
sew upwards. I cannot stress this enough.
Gores made from the side
fabric offcuts can be weird sizes. If your triangle gores are
longer on one side than the other, pins the longer side
to the surcote.
Do both sides.
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Step 8
Move the gores from the top
part of the surcote to the bottom.
We are going to sew them
together to make one gore and put it in the middle of the
back of the surcote. You can see were they go in the picture.
When you move your gores,
you will notice that one side is a bit longer and one side is
a bit shorter, so sew the shorter sides together.
If you are a beginner
sewer, or don't want extra gores at the back because you have
to cut into your surcote in a straight line, just skip straight
to Step 10 and don't worry about the bit where we cut into the
back of the surcote and add the back gore.
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Step 9
If you are adding the back
gore, cut carefully in a straight line up the back of your surcote.
Your cut will be however
long the side of your gore is.
Pin one side starting
from the bottom going up, then pin the other side
going from the top down. Otherwise, if you pin both from
the bottom upwards, the fabric stretch may give you a wonky gap
at the top.
When you are happy with how
it's sitting, sew the seams up, and I suggest sewing them
the same way you pinned them.
Now your back gore is in
place!
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Step 10
Swing your top piece around
180 degrees so the shoulder pieces are touching.
Make sure your fabric is the same way out so you have the two
good sides together.
When it's spread out of the floor, it looks like this (except
your back gore is all sewn in.)
The side you want to be the front is the one without the
train. Cut the neckline a little lower on the front.
Just a little. Remember, you can take more off, but it's really
hard to put it back on.
You will want to adjust the front of your surcote across your
chest so it is not as wide as the back. Do that at the very
end. Remember you need to allow for a hem around the opening and
that takes up fabric!
Pin the shoulders together, remember to check the good
side of the fabric is facing the good side of the fabric. You
want your sewing on the wrong side, so the good sides face inwards.
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Step 11
Okay, now fold your surcote
so it looks like a surcote. It looks like the pic.
Turn it inside out
and pin, pin, pin those side seams all the way from the
hem to the hip.
ALWAYS pin and try on before you sew. It beats the heck out
of unpicking later on.
Once you're happy with the fit and you've adjusted your neckline,
sew your two side seams and you're finished!
Now is the time to trim the front of the surcote a little if you
want a really cutaway garment. Remember, you need to allow enough
fabric to do a rolled hem around the side openings.
Hem the sides and hem and you're finished!
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The finished
product
 Shown
here, I've made the surcote in gold silk for a friend. The bottom
hem can be made long like this or shorter to the ground for day
work, but usually those ones have higher armholes.
Happy sewing!
Notes:
You can also line this surcote
with a contrasting colour. All you need to do is cut two
of these together and then sew them together.
If you are doing this, just
be aware that sewing the armholes can be a bit perilous. Do them
one at a time. Do the neck seperately. Do the hem last of
all and you must check after each step.
It's very easy to sew everything
into a loop and not be able to turn it right side out again.
Copyright
© Rosalie Gilbert
All text & photographs within this site are the property of Rosalie
Gilbert unless stated.
Art & artifact images remain the property of the owner.
Images and text may not be copied and used without permission.
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