Wool Kirtle
Dyed with Cocheneal & Madder

Persona Pentathlon Item 1: Clothing/Garb

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A sleeveless cloth kirtle of red wool, inspired primarily by the drawing “Three London citizens and a Farmer” by Lucas de Heere as well as numerous other images of English and European women in late 16th century clothing.

The pattern, construction techniques, and materials in this garment are all historically accurate,or at least as plausible as we can manage today:

• - The pattern was drafted using the Bara technique and patterns from Alcega’s pattern manual , as translated in The Modern Maker Vol. 2 , with refinement based on other portraits and images from the era.
• - The outer fabric is a midweight red wool dyed with a combination of cochineal and madder using historically accurate dying techniques. The interlining and lining are varying weights of undyed linen. The guards are of silk velvet, a period choice.
• - It is sewn entirely by hand with period-appropriate silk thread, using historical seams and finishing techniques.

I was lucky enough to participate in a ‘Renaissance Red’ dyeing day at the home of Mistress Drea Leed in the summer of 2018 - relatively early in my SCA career. I’ve held approximately 3 1/2 yards of it in my stash for the past 5 years. I chose to finally cut the last of that precious, accurately-dyed fabric and use it for this garment.

Note: I will be adding a timelapse video of the kirtle construction to this page after KASF. The video proved too large to upload on hotel wifi