Making of a Leather Jerkin - Part 1

For those that don't know me, when I participate in fencing at SCA events, I typically wear a leather jerkin.  Over time, they get a bit gross, brittle, etc. and need to be replaced.  It's well past time for my current one to go, so I started down the path to a new leather jerkin a while ago.  It's been a long, winding process, though, which I'll actually go into here.

First things first, I wanted to be a bit more historically accurate this time around, so I started some research back in Nov. 2016 looking at extant leather garments (after already purchasing the base leather, of course - a white doeskin).  I originally started looking for how they were decorated, but that bloomed into so much more.  Look for a separate blog post on the research itself.  Suffice it to say that for the most part, leather garments when not for military use were treated exactly like any other fabric with regards to decorations.


Then, we needed to make sure we had a current pattern.  We go through sewing phases in our house, which means my most recent pattern was from 2012 and let's just say I've become more prosperous since then.  My wife has typically been the tailor/seamstress in the house, and she'd been interested in the Modern Maker method that had become all the rage, but I said I wanted to be involved, which is a rarity when it comes to sewing.  You can read more about that here, but the short form is that the prototype out of cloth is mostly finished, which means I can move into production of a new jerkin, finally.

Figure 1 - decoration ideas

Last night, we took the first steps on this new journey.  The nice thing is because we've already done a cloth one, the patterning phase is done.  I had decided even prior to the cloth production to use a trim design based off of one from Mistress Isobel (second one down), and drew it out with a little color (Figure 1).  Yes, I have orange trim 😁.  Because this is a fencing jerkin and has to meet SCA protective requirements, I can't slash down the belly like it probably should have.  After doing the cloth doublet with the same trim pattern, there's a consensus between Kate & I that the belly area needs some extra fill, so I need to figure that out.

Figure 2 - Proposed layout on the leather

And now the layout and some decisions.  I've chosen to use the flesh side of the leather as the good side based on the extant garment research, which made layout more challenging (Figure 2) because I had to deal with nap directions.  Normally on leather I would have put things that require extra flexibility near the belly of the skin as there's more stretch there, but with the nap there wasn't a lot of options.

Another decision was around the fact that I am looking at slashing the skirting.  Often on the leather garments the skirting is self lined, so I went looking for a different color leather to back the white.  I settled on the cinnamon colored leather, which are the remnants from the existing jerkin; it's light enough in color to present through the white, and I think it will go ok with the trim.  There were better color options to go with the trim (bright blue - not exactly a historically accurate color), but both other options just were too dark when put behind a small hole in the white.

All told, I think I'm ready to draw and cut out in the next few days, so stay tuned for progress.  I'm also looking to track how long this actually takes, just for my own education.  Oh, and Kate's only allowed to consult - no work from her on this one, so that should be interesting.

Time tonight: 2.5 hours
Total time: 2.5 hours

Doublet Materials

I wanted to write a post about the materials used in our Modern Maker doublet, partly for my benefit to remember what all we used, but also for others so they might know what's out there.  So on to the cloth we go.

The fabrics were all purchased from www.fabrics-store.com.  The outside is their IL019 Blue Bonnet (5.3 oz.).  This is a pretty common weight of linen in our house; it breathes well, and holds up to the abuses I tend to put on my clothes (mostly fencing).  For interlining we used their IL095 Natural canvas weight (10.2 oz.).  This is the heaviest weight linen fabrics-store sells, but I think it's the first time we've used it.  The fabric really, really wrinkles and doesn't want to go flat again, no matter how much it's ironed.  I'm not sure we would choose this fabric again because of that.  We might try one of their 8 oz. canvas weight linens instead of the 10 oz. or source from another supplier.  Lastly for the lining we used their IL020 Bleached Linen (3.5 oz.).  This is a lighter weight than a lot of linens we use, and for me it was a little frustrating to deal with it, but I think that was more my inexperience and indelicateness more than the fault of the fabric.  There's also a smattering of black silk for facings & edgings as well as some wool used for shaping that was from leftover stock in the house.

That's all the fabrics, but what about everything else?  We used a Dark Azure (7330) Gutermann 50 weight all cotton thread bought at a local big name fabric store for anything requiring a match to the outer fabric, and we used pretty much an entire 110 yard spool.  For basting and any other uses of white we used whatever generic white we had around the house - I suspect it was Coates poly.  It was the same for applying the black trim, whatever we had in the house.  The buttonholes were done in a black silk buttonhole twist that we had around, but we had to buy a second package.  Eyelets on the sleeves were done in a lighter blue silk buttonhole twist that was also laying around the house.  Eyelets on the doublet around the waist and sleeves we used a crocheting cotton thread that was also around the house.

Lastly we have the trim & buttons.  We utilized a 9mm wide black cotton herringbone twill.  I think it turned out well for the pattern we chose.  For buttons, we used a lovely cast pewter button from the Tudor Tailor's Etsy shop.  The one we used doesn't seem to be appearing in their shop right now, so I don't know if it's just out of stock or they're not producing anymore (which would be a shame).  They do still have their other buttons though, so there is hope.  There are a total of 22 buttons sewn on right now, but room for 2-3 more.

That wraps up the list of materials we used on the doublet.  I'd love to hear what favorite sources other people use.

New Doublet

Kate posted a general post about the new doublet/jerkin we've been working on for quite some time, but I'd like to add my own thoughts here.  This doublet constitutes the most amount of non-leather based sewing I've ever done.  I was guided by my ever loving wife through all of it, and she still did a large chunk of the work, but I think we both learned a lot.

This doublet is intended as a prototype, actually.  The goal is for a new leather doublet that I can use for fencing.  More on that will come later.