Red Leather gloves

I started a pair of red leather gloves to go with my red and black leather and silk outfit.  This project has been in my to do bag for a while.  We were selling stuff as part of a multiple family garage sale this past weekend which gave me plenty of time to simply sit and sew.  I finished one of the gloves and now I suppose I'll wait another 6 months before the other is completed.

The following was added on 1/28/2014.  I finally got around to completing my gloves.  These have been in a small bag which I tend to carry around with me to events in the event that I have no other projects to keep my hands busy.  At an event this past weekend I finally got around to finishing the left hand.  Unfortunately the outfit that they were designed to go with no longer fits.

Gloves are complete

Well, as in most things my first attempt at something didn't come out quite like I imagined, but it will have to do for now. In hind sight I wish I would have ordered some linen thread which was closer in color to that of the leather I used. The black thread really shows through. They fit rather nicely. I am pleased that if nothing else, I have confirmed the pattern. I intend to keep it and use it again for other gloves in the future (after the IRCC is done).

Here is my first pair of hand stitched leather gloves.

One last touch.  I sniped the cuffs of the gloves similar to the style I've seen on a few differant portraits from 1520~1550.

The following are samples of various portraits which served as inspiration for this project.

Title: Portrait of Charles de Solier, Lord of Morette 1534-35

Painted by: Hans, the Younger Holbein
Location: Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, Germany

Source: http://www.hans-holbein.org/Portrait-of-Charles-de-Solier,-Lord-of-Morette-1534-35.html

Description: Man with a Glove 2

English: "Man with a Glove 2" oil on Canvas.
Date: 1520-22
Artist: Tiziano Vecellio (Titian)
Source: http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_300736/Tiziano-Vecellio-(Titian)/Man-with-a-Glove-2

Artist Name: Flemish Unknown Masters

Painting Title: Portrait of a Young Man 1530-40
Museum: Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, Belgium 
Source: http://www.artchive.com/web_gallery/F/Flemish-Unknown-Masters/Portrait-of-a-Young-Man-1530-40.html

Poncho Leather gloves are a failure

Well, I had to throw in the towel on the leather gloves being made from the poncho leather.  Turns out there were some sections of the leather that were rather dried out and weak.  I got the thumb and a couple fingers done and then realized the stitching was pulling through on the knuckles. After making a fist only a couple times I realized that the gloves were not going to hold up. 

Broke down and went to Tandy leather and found a really nice light weight leather.  I finished one of the gloves, but I'm not sure I really like it.  I sewed the glove insid out and then turned it.  I pulled every stitch as tight as I could and yet the stichting still shows quite a bit.  I may trie a saddle stitch or some other option.  I think I'll finish the right glove so that at least the two will match, but I know that I'll come back to glove making again in the future.

Here is the new and only slightly improved version of the glove.
(By the way I think this glove took about 4hours to cut and sew.  I hope to be quicker on the future ones as I have worked out the kinks in my pattern now.)

Glove failure

Well, after some work on the "poncho gloves" I'm throwing in the towel.  The leather is very nice looking, but as it turns out, it is not very durable.  I started stitching the thumb and 1 1/2 fingers and then found a weekness in the suede.  The linen thread holds nicely, but the suede pulls apart too easily.  I think that some of the sections of the suede have weakend with age.  I am going to make a trip to Tandy later today and see if I can find a more approprate solution.  So much for Salvaton Army leather.

Glove in progress.  Pattern works, leather doesn't

The suede is dry and pulls apart easily when worn.

IRCC Entries begin

I have a goal of competing in the Pentathlon for next year's regional A&S competition. As part of this goal I plan on approaching my research and documentation much differently. At this past competition I found myself scrambling and stressing over the creation of my documentation. While I started researching a new outfit to work on I came across a website sponsoring a costume challenge. I now plan on doing a complete skin out Italian suit of clothes. This project was inspired by the costume challenge sponsored by The Realm of Venus website. The challenge was called "The Italian Renaissance Costuming Challenge". The challenge was to create a complete late Italian Renaissance outfit of any social class and based on the period 1480 - 1610 from the skin out, including an accessory, in four months (or less).

http://renaissanceitaly.net/TempFiles/ItalRenCostumingChallenge.htm

One of the many portions of this outfit will involve hand stitched leather gloves.  I'll post more about the research (maybe) later.  I have a handful of portraits that I've found and I plan on making a pair of gloves which are appropriate for an Italian gentleman who lived between 1520-1540.

 



Glove pattern drafted




Mockup made of scrap felt.
(Left over from my daughters poodle skirt)



Here is some of the stash of leather I collected from Salvation Army.  Still not sure I like any of the options.  Although the source of leather is really cheap, I don't really know if any of the options will fit my design.  I tried mocking up a thumb out of each of the leather options.  I like the weight and feel for the rust brown leather, but I don't much care for the color.  I like the color of the light brown leather which came from a leather fringed poncho.  I don't much care for the weight of the leather.  It is much thicker and is a split leather.  It is a soft suede on both side, but due to the thickness it doesn't really match the look of the gloves that I've been seeing in portraits.  I like the look and feel of the black leather, but unfortunately none of the portraits from the time period I've been looking at have black gloves.  I think I'm destined to take a trip to Tandy and buy some new leather. 



Leather Poncho



Salvation Army Coats

I continued making the gloves from the poncho leather.  I think I still like the gloves, just not for this overall outfit.  They would not likely be dress gloves, but would be appropriate as riding gloves or work gloves.  I think I'll make the glove up completely just to make sure the pattern will work.  That way when I buy new leather from Tandy I won't have any doubts about the pattern.     


Here are some of the mockups I started testing with.

Here is the poncho leather glove in progress.

Hand Stitched Split Finger Wool Mittens

While digging around in my basement looking for some wool for a Friar's outfit, I came across a bin of scrap material I had kept. Some years ago I created a hand stitched wool tunic. I washed the tunic one too many times while eating one too many dinners and I soon found the tunic no longer fit. I cut it apart and reused some of the wool for a mantle. The rest of the scrap sat in a bin in my basement. I decided to make a pair of three fingered mittens based on a pattern from the book Medieval Taylors Assistant. Each mitten was made from three pieces of wool and completely hand stitched using a combination of stab stitches and back stitching with 100% linen thread.