RH Sideless Surcote Pattern Strangeness

Months ago I bought the Reconstructing History 14th C Women's costume package, plus the Bath House Babe pattern. As I have said in the past, although I feel kinda guilty as an old costume laurel for buying patterns for stuff I could figure out for myself, Time Is Money, and I'm all about not reinventing the wheel. And, hey, if I can support small patterners that are putting out a good product than that's a good thing, right? :-)

The cotehardie pattern was pretty darn close to fitting and gave me a great starting point. The smock from the accessories pattern and the Bath House Babe shift were kinda big, but that was no big deal and I'd still recommend them. And the hood from the accessories package came out quite well. So far so good.

But something was quite wrong with the sideless surcote. Maybe I didn't get a full pattern. The pattern package came with 2 pattern pieces. The front and back was the same piece with different necklines, which is of course fine. The other piece was a triangular side gore. There were no instructions, other than a sheet on handsewing techniques. No biggie, I thought, this is a very straightforeward pattern/garment and most people could figure it out.

When I measured the pattern piece for my size at the hip point I would have to be 28" at the hip point for the pattern to fit. Clearly this is incorrect. (The gore doesn't add anything at that point, of course.)

So I thought, hey, maybe you're supposed to play with it and make a trapazoid. Even so, I'd have to chop A Lot off the top of the triangle to make it work, so the pattern can't be that. Furthermore, one of the options on the cover clearly shows a straight-sided-at-the-hip-point option, so there'd have to be a trapazoidal side skirt piece.

Now, maybe I'm misreading the pattern. Months ago I had cut out a cotehardie from muslin and determined that I could cut real fabric for a final fit (which I did -- it's been aging until now). I was so confident about how these patterns were fitting I went ahead and cut some wool I had in the stash for 2 sideless surcotes. I pin based one last night/this morning and saw the obvious problem. Luckily I had a lot of this wool and it was free anyway (a donation from nightbocce ;-) ) so I just cut some trapazoidal side pieces and I'm good to go. Maybe I'm not reading the lines right on the Front/Back pattern? I will double check tonight.

I did write a note on the RH history site asking about this.

Morning Excitement

This morning the chandalier in the dining/sewing room was on. Note this light fixture dates from the '70s. I accidently hit it, and it shorted in a Spectacular Fashion. There were flames. Quickly turned the wall switch off and J/S ran and grabbed the fire extinguisher. All was OK; it went out by itself.

We have the original chandalier from the 1920s, that matched the one in the living room. J/S now has the task of making that work and installing it (after taking the destroyed one down, of course.)

Certainly woke me up this morning. :-0