Kids' Garb - Briaca's Demesne

Briaca's children These are my children in their first garb.

My daughter is wearing a muslin chemise with a ribbon gathered neckline, linen t-tunic (ankle length), and a linen surcoat.

My son is wearing a muslin chemise/shirt with a ribbon gathered neckline, a linen t-tunic (knee length), and a wool hood with liripipe.

They are proudly holding their brand new boffers.

I made the t-tunics from the instructions (Practical Worksheet for Tunic Construction at Cynthia Virtue's (aka Cynthia du Pré Argent) web site, but I made some alterations to make them work better for children.

These are my recommendations:

Use 1 to 2 inches MORE ease in the body than the worksheet suggests. Not only does this add room for growth, it gives more room for all those things kids do (climbing, etc.)
Do not use a sleeve width of less than 15 inches, regardless of your child's arm measurement. This leaves plenty of room for sweaters underneath. Also, if you get too small, the sleeve won't fit around your machine.
Use the full hand circumference for the gusset width. Otherwise you wind up with ridiculously tiny gussets; the larger ones give kids more wiggle room. You will have to shorten the side gores to accomodate the larger arm gussets.

I did not know about this neck finishing technique when I made these tunics, but I'd recommend giving it a try. Reverse Facings

The pattern I used for the chemises is no longer available.

The hood was made based on these instructions: How to be a HOOD-lum: Medieval hoods at Cynthia Virtue's site. I don't have a close up picture of the child's hood, but it is very similar to the 14th Century Hood with Liripipe.

In addition to the clothing, I made vinyl spats for the kids, but these soon got wet and muddy and fell off.