Easy SCA Garb: Dress

This one is truly trivial! It makes a dress with long hanging sleeves, and a very full skirt. It looks sort of like this:

      _
     (_)
  ____H____
3|  _   _  |E
 | //   \\ |
 |//     \\|
  /_______\
    nH Hn

1. Get one piece of fabric that's as wide as your armspan from wrist to wrist (or as far along your arm as you want it to hang), and as long as twice how far you want it to hang from your shoulders (including all contouring). If you can't do this in one piece, you can sew two together, or even four (great for using multiple colors from both front and sides).

2. Fold the fabric in quarters, by folding in half across each axis. A later step will be easier if you fold the width in half first, even though it's the shorter axis.

3. Divide your chest measurement (plus however much "comfort room" you want) by four. Measure that far along the top, from the corner that got folded twice (henceforth called the centerpoint, since it was the center of the whole piece of fabric).

4. Divide your desired arm hole circumference (generally, your bicep circumference plus an inch or two) by two. Add an inch or so for seam allowance. Measure that far down from the spot along the top, that you found in the previous step.

5. Mark a line from this point to the corner opposite the centerpoint. Cut (all four layers) along that line.

6. Measure the circumference of your head, at its widest point. Divide by four. Cut that far, from the centerpoint towards each shoulder. (This is the part that's easier if you fold the short sides first, because you can make both cuts at once.) Cut twice that far, from the centerpoint towards one "foot" end. Each of these cuts may be longer if desired, but the shoulder cuts should be symmetric (unless of course you aren't). There are many much fancier styles of neck-hole you could use, but I'm trying to keep it simple.

7. Unfold fabric.

8. Sew it together, inside out.

9. Turn it outside out.

You're done! Hem, trim, embroider, etc. as desired.

Variations:

• Instead of a T-shaped neckhole, shift the shoulder fold (after cutting from armpit to corner!) to one end by about 3 inches, and cut out a circle (i.e., a quarter-circle while the fabric is still folded in quarters). Use the fabric you remove for a matching beltpouch, muffin hat, or whatever.

• Make the sleeves not so big (i.e., either less flared, straight, or even tapered down). Use the resulting fabric for accessories, or additional gores for the skirt to make it even fuller.

• Instead of having the skirt start flaring immediately from the armpit, have the outline continue straight down for a while before flaring. You could even make it much closer to formfitting down to the top of the hips, but I'm not going to detail how.

• Instead of cutting directly from armpit to corner, make the sleeve a non-straight shape, such as a curved bell-shape. You can let the skirt also follow the non-straight outline, or not.

• Instead of having the end of the sleeve run straight down the end of the fabric, to meet the skirt at the corner, have it meet earlier.

• Put dags on the ends of the sleeves. The base of the dags should still come out at the wrist. However, the fabric will then fray much more easily, unless you make it of multiple layers (sew them together inside out), tape the edges (even more of a pain than making the dags in the first place), or use some other preventive measure.