Introduction

Assuming you've followed the instructions on the previous page you should now have three pieces of carefully marked card. This page explains how to use those to actually make your doublet. The construction process is similar to making a bodice without any boning, so if anything's unclear then take a look at the bodice construction notes and see if they help. If you're still floundering, then please email me - the address is at the bottom of stuff about me.

What you'll need

• Your three card pattern pieces.
• one metre of heavy cloth in a breathable fabric. Cotton calico is ideal. This won't be seen, so the colour doesn't matter, as long as it isn't so dark or patterned that it'll show through the wool or linen lining. This fabric will form the interlining. In this guide, it's the white fabric.
• One metre of wool cloth, in a colour of your choice. You may be able to get away with half a metre, particularly if you're slim or short, but it's best to have a bit of slack in case things go wrong. This fabric will form the shell. In this guide, it's the red fabric.
• One metre of linen (or at a pinch, lightweight cotton *spit*) in a colour of your choice to line the doublet. Again, half a metre may serve. This fabric will form the lining. In this guide, it's the black fabric. It is important, whatever fabrics you end up using, that all three layers are non-elastic.
• A pen which will write on your fabric.
• scissors.
• Pins.
• Needle and thread. If your lining and shell fabric are very different colours, and it's important to you that your stitches don't show, you'll need some thread in each colour. I use 80/3 Londonderry Linen from Threadneedle Street, but anything strong will serve.
• Buttons, or the equipment to make buttons. I'll cover this in more detail in the section on finishing touches.
• A sewing machine can be used briefly early in the construction, but is by no means neccessary.

Getting Started

Start by washing both your interlining fabric and your linen lining fabric. Dry the fabric (either in the tumble drier or on the line) and then iron them flat. This last is a right pain, particularly if you hate ironing as much as I do, but it's impossible to cut out badly wrinkled fabric accurately. This does two things. Firstly, it shrinks the fabric so it won't shrink should you wash it later. Secondly, it removes the 'loom finish' - a layer of starch paint that lets the fabric lie stiff and neat and shiney in the shop. If you leave this in, it'll stop the doublet from breathing, and you'll be more hot and uncomfortable than neccessary.

If you wish your doublet to be washable, you'll also need to wash the wool. However, wool fabric behaves unpredictably in the wash. It can shrink a great deal; it can felt up, becomining thick and stiff; or it can change in surface texture. I'd recommend cutting out a 10cm square of the wool and bunging it in the wash. Eyeball it, compare it to the unwashed fabric and see how it's changed. Then decide for yourself if you wish to wash it all.

Next, eyeball your fabric. You're looking to see if the two sides are different or not. If they are, decide which you like better and would like visible in the finished garment. This is the right side.

If the fabric is textured at all, then it may look different when viewed from different angles. If this is the case, you'll need to cut out your pattern pieces with the grain running in the same direction on all the panels. It's worth realising that before you put scissors to fabric!

Once your fabric is prepared, you're ready to start on cutting it out.

The interlining

The interlining is a layer (or, in this case, two layers) of fabric that sit inside the doublet. It's not visible, but it gives the doublet body, which helps in making it look real. If you leave out the interlining your doublet will be a floppy, flimsy thing that'll tend to wrinkle and look awful.

First, take your pattern pieces. For now, set the small collar piece to one side - we'll come to that later. Lay your interlining fabric flat on the floor and place your pattern pieces on it. Draw around them, then cut out the pieces. Eventually, you're going to need two doublet backs and four doublet fronts, but for now cut out just one back and two front pieces.

This stage serves as a test run for the pattern. Remember how, back on the previous page, I suggested you fudge left and right sides of the pattern, in order to produce something in between the two? What you're testing now is how well you've done that. Take the three pieces of calico and pin them together at the side seams and the shoulder seams. Make the overlap between the pieces as small as possible - this overlap won't be there in the final garment. Slip it on and check the fit, being careful not to stab yourself on the pins. This is your final chance to make any adjustments easily. Use it well.

If all is looking good and the thing fits, cut out one more back panel and two more fronts. If it's not quite right then, I'm afraid, it's a process of trial and error. Either adapt the pieces you have or, making note of where they need changing, cut out new. When you're happy, cut out the remaining pieces and move onto the next stage.

Take two doublet fronts and lay them on top of each other. Once the pieces are lined up run a couple of lines of stitches across them to sandwich them firmly together. This can be done either by hand or by machine. The image to the right shows this - the St Andrew's Cross shape is the lines of stitching joining the two pieces together.

Repeat for the other pair of front pieces, and then for the pair of back pieces. In effect, what you're doing is joining each pair of pieces together to make one, thicker, piece of fabric.

The Shell

Lay the wool fabric you're using for the shell out on the floor, with the wrong side up and visible. Take your three interlining sandwiches and place them on the wool. Remember, at this point, that you need one left doublet front and one right doublet front. So, as in the picture to the left, align your interlining pieces to allow that. Pin the pieces firmly into place.

Cut out the wool, making sure it's a good inch bigger than the interlining on all sides.

Next, fold that inch excess over the interlining, pinning it into place. That's easy on the straight edges. However, where the edge of the doublet curves, you'll struggle to fold the wool around the curve. To make it easier, cut the wool at right-angles to the edge. The cuts will open out, allowing the wool to follow the shape of the curve smoothly.

The picture to the left shows the wool pinned into place, and the picture to the right is a closeup of the cuts allowing the fabric to bend around a curve. It looks as if triangular pieces of wool have been removed. That isn't the case - it's simply where the cut lines have opened up. This picture was taken when the panel had already been sewn; if you look closely, you may be able to see a few of the stitches holding the wool in place.

Once the wool is pinned smoothly, sew those raw edges to the interlining. The needle should never pass right through the package of fabric to the right side - you don't want your stitches to be visible when the doublet is worn. If it's done right, these stitches will never be seen, so it doesn't matter if they're messy. They just have to be strong.

Once all three pieces have been sewn, you're ready to move on to the next stage.

The Lining

Take your three panels and lie them on the floor so the interlining is visible. Spread your lining fabric (right side visible) out over them so it is smooth and pin it to the doublet pieces. Cut around the pieces, leaving a good inch excess of lining all the way round. Flip the pieces over and check that everything is lying smoothly. The picture to the left shows this: the red is the wool that will form the outer layer of the doublet; the black margin around it is the lining; the green is my horrid carpet.

Turn the thing over again so the lining side is uppermost. The next stage is rather similar to what you've just done with the wool. This time, turn the raw edges of the linen under itself, so they're hidden between the linen lining and the interlining layers. Again, this is easy on straight edges but you'll need to cut the fabric at right-angles to its edge to allow it to go around curves.

The photos of this I took at the time weren't desperately clear, so I've taken some of the same process in another garment. Hopefully they'll be helpful. In this sequence of pictures, the mustard yellow/orange is the shell fabric (equivalent of the red) and the blah cream/beige/flesh colour is the lining (the black layer in the doublet). The even more bleuch green is my carpet.

The lining is pinned to the wrong side of the doublet wool/interlining sandwich. The thing is flipped over so the wool is uppermost and the lining trimmed until it is an inch or so bigger than the doublet bits.

On curved edges, small cuts are made in the lining at right-angles to the edge of the doublet piece.

Once the lining is tucked under and pinned down all the way around the panel, it's then sewn into place.

This next bit is a pernickety detail, so feel free to ignore. If you look at the picture to the right, which shows a front panel, lining side up, with the lining sewn in, you should be able to see a red border on some of the edges. That border is there because I fold the lining so it stops a few millimetres short of the doublet edge. That means, when the thing is worn, the lining cannot slip out and become visible at the edge of the garment. If you look even closer, you may be able to see that some sides lack that red border. Those are the edges which will be joined to another panel. There, there's no risk of the lining slipping out and becoming visible, so I've extended it right up to the edge of the wool. If trying to figure out on which side you should take the lining right to the edge of the panel, and on which side you shouldn't, is doing your head in, then don't worry. Simply finish the lining a few mm short of the wool edge all the way round.

Assembly

By now, you should have three fairly thick panels assembled - one doublet back and two doublet fronts. The latter two should be mirror images of each other - one left and one right. Each should be fairly sturdy feeling, and made up of the wool shell, the interlining, and the lining. All the edges should be sewn down neatly with no raw edges of fabric visible. Looking at each package from the wool side, no lining should be visible. If you flip them over and look at the lining side there should be a thin border of wool visible at most of the edges.

You've actually done most of the sewing. The only thing that remains is to put the pieces together. I'll talk you through this but, for now, this section will only be sparcely photographed. I'll illustrate it with more photos as I get them.

Pick up the doublet back and one of the side-front pieces. It doesn't matter which. Eyeball them and identify which edges form the side seams. Those are the edges marked in red in the diagram to the left. Place the two panels together with their wool surfaces in contact, so the side seams are lined up.

If you've done the previous stages neatly and accurately then those side seams should be the same length but, in practice, that tends not to happen. It's easier to hide any error at the armpit, so make sure that things are lined up correctly at the waist edge.

Next, identify the edges that will form the shoulder seams. These are shown in red in the diagram to the right. Line the two panels up in exactly the same way as before. The edge on the back panel will be longer than that on the front. That space will be filled in by the collar, so don't worry about it. Make sure, though, that the two panels line up neatly at the shoulder edge of the doublet. Sew them together, again using whip stitch.

Pick up the other doublet front piece and sew it to the doublet back in exactly the same way. At this stage, the garment will look rather like the pictures below.

Looking down on the left shoulder of the doublet. The space where the front collar piece will sit is clearly visible.

The doublet front, again showing space where the collar will be.

The doublet back, showing the integral collar.

The collar

This is the point where, alas, my poor unfortunate model had to return home after a weekend of hard sewing. So right now I have no more photos, but I will get them after the doublet has been completed.

In essence, the collar is pretty similar to what's been done already. Make up a packet of interlining/wool/lining and sew it into place. It's just the same technique as assembling and joining the front and back panels.

In theory, at least, you should already have a pattern piece for the collar. However I would recommend that it would be wise to test it and double check it's okay before sewing the collar up in your good fabric.

Using the pattern piece as a template cut out a rather too big piece of scrap fabric. Pin this into the collar space, attatching it to the inside of the doublet. Then put the doublet on. The collar can be trimmed until it's the right shape and size. Then, draw onto the scrap fabric the line at which it meets the rest of the doublet. This is the pattern. Flip it over and check it fits on the other side of the doublet - if things are a bit wonky left and right might need slightly different shape collars.

Once you're happy you've got the shape correct then assemble the collar just as you assembled the other doublet pieces, and sew it into place.

All that remains is to add a closure to the doublet, to finish it off.