Pattern-drafting is not my strong suit, but I don’t live near enough to, well, anyone it seems for me to easily beg/barter that service on a regular basis. Thus, I had to start on my own for to make this 16th-century doublet. *sigh.*
I was inspired by what I could suss out of the seam lines in Janet Arnold’s female doublet for a young girl c. 1585. It’s not entirely clear what’s going on in the front — there is a curved front closure but also trim angled along the middle front, and they loved to trim along seams in this era.
More importantly, when I laid muslin over my corseted dressform, I needed to add some kind of seam in the middle front to get any kind of flatness. That’s just the way the fabric and the body went. (FYI: I’m using effigy-style stays here (made by the fantastic Sarah.)
I ended up with essentially a princess seam from shoulder to garment hem. Seven pattern pieces total. Fit ok on the dressform and on me after, oh, a wastebin full of muslins to tweak the side and back pieces in particular.
At this point, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do with the neckline — either a 1610s-style low neck or an earlier high neck, perhaps even a sexy 1570s Italian-esque folded-back look. Also, the waistline is entirely unfinished, not sketched in at all. I left all the pieces super-long so I could draw in where I wanted it to go later.
