wool/linen wide enough for long sleeves

[TFLAVIUSAMBIORIX]

Hello,
I've been having trouble finding wool and linen wide enough for a long sleeved tunic without having to sew on separate arms. Is there a place that sells such wide fabric?

thank you for any help.

TFA

[M. Demetrius]

Try turning the fabric 90 degrees, so the selvage is at the shoulder and/or hem. You should be able to get very long sleeves that way. You'll probably have a seam on the top of the sleeve, though, which isn't always desirable.

Do you think the ancients used the technique you describe, or did they sew the sleeves on as separate pieces? You'll lose a lot of material by cutting a big "T" shape panel.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I am sure someone said they also sewed sleeves on.
At least I am sure I took someones advice on that...... :?

[Magnus]

I've had to sew the sleeves on mine as well...

[TFLAVIUSAMBIORIX]

In the over a dozen examples of complete tunics ive examined (4th-7th c.) only one has had sleeves sewn on. In the Roman era most tunicae were purpose woven. That said, nobody purpose weaves tunicae anymore, so I was trying to replicate it the best way I could think of.

Certainly I think a poorer man may have had a tunic that was not purpose woven, there are certainly records of raw bolts of cloth being purchased. Sooo.... on the advice that it will simply be a waste of fabric to cut out huge Ts and that ill end up with a top seam I guess ill just sew on arms like a normal person and not get myself all contorted over this. I think maybe im being a bit overzealous here.
on that note though, the surviving intact tunicae we have are mostly from burials like those in the bagawat cemetary. Most of these are not "poor" folks and a burial would probably want to be in one's best clothing. I am just trying to copy a specific surviving example and by no means am I implying that general construction on tunicae was incredibly rare or anything of the sort. (nor am i implying anything as to how common it may have been)

does somebody have the actual text of a record of raw cloth being ordered? id like to see what kind and color it was.

[Matthew Amt]

Huh, I don't think poorer people would be able to buy cloth woven by someone else. They'd more likely do their own weaving. And weaving a tunic in one piece assures that there is no wasted fabric, BUT it requires warping a VERY wide loom and essentially wasting a lot of warp yarn for the sections above and below the sleeves. So my guess would be that they'd weave a narrower piece, wide enough for the whole body, with the sleeves separate below that. Medieval tunics were certainly woven that way, typically 22 inches wide.

http://www.larp.com/midgard/tunic.htm

Isn't the Thorsbjerg tunic made with sewn-on sleeves? Dates for that run from first to 4th century AD.

Mind you, if the fashion of the time required a tunic woven in one piece, that's what they'd make! Regardless of what future generations might think of as "logical".

Matthew

[TFLAVIUSAMBIORIX]

That is true, ive got to find a stopgap method for reproducing a longsleeved tunic woven in one piece without a seam on the top. Im actually willing to shell out quite a bit of money but it seems that nobody can help even then.

To specify im looking really at the late 5th c.
Im relatively bothered by this as I feel I cant take the field with an improper tunic. It would be great if I could find a decent linen or wool over 60" wide

[Antonia Auriga]

I often wondered about tunic construction as well. From my research in scholarly publications it seems that tunics were purposely woven for the individual from sleeve to body to sleeve. I would imagine that it would give the garment a lot more strength and durability than one that was cut.

But what about the ones in my legion? Some of the guys brought me their wounded tunicae and I noticed that they seemed to have been chewed up by the armor because they were cut on the weaker grain (crosswise grain perpendicular to the selvage or 'cross grain' with more stretch). I needed a tunic for my mile impression, so I made a test one with the strongest grain (lengthwise running parallel to the selvage) running neck to hem. The body was a rectangle that was folded in half. I cut out the neck hole and made a facing for that, which greatly helped to heep the tunic from fraying or rolling over itself. The sleeves were pure rectangles, although I ended up having to taper them so that they would stay up on my arms. I serged the seams for added strength, but hand finished everything. I was happy with the tunic and it survived Lafe. I want to try one out on a man to see if it will be more durable, though since they have heavier equipment and different armor than I do. I will try to make a pattern of what I did in the near future, although my scanning capabilites are off right now... arg.

I think in today's world the best way to get sleeves on is to fold your sleeve in half and match the halfway point to the middle of the tunic so you only get the side seam that goes over your shoulder. BUT I am also a quilter and I have seen some great 'whole cloth' quilts which are made out of huge pieces of singular cotton and then quilted. These things are usually at least queen sized, so I am sure that you could get a tunic out of one. They are usually cotton and can be dyed. Sorry I can't find any links at the moment. But quilting stores in your area may help.

[M. Demetrius]

Apparently, there were some 1st century tunics with sleeves sewn on, but much more common would be two simple rectangles, in which the "sleeves" are derived by the belted middle, rather than being separate pieces. Sewing is greatly reduced, always an advantage (for strength and the seamster) for the hand sewn garment.

If you were weaving one of these in one piece, it would not be a big problem to pull up some of the warp at the neck hole, and tie the neckhole open on both sides. Then it's just woven in, not cut and faced. You'd have to plan for that, though, or your warp in the middle might come up short at the bottom hem.

I'm not sure the Romans used facings...more likely turned and hand hemmed finishing techniques. I have a picture of that edge treatment on some other topic thread.

[Antonia Auriga]

No, I'm sure the Romans didn't use facings, but I tried it for looks and as part of my experiment.
You have a great knowledge of weaving. That subject really interests me. Thanks for sharing. : )

[M. Demetrius]

Well, actually, my wife was the better weaver. She doesn't weave much any more.

I'll bet you are the better high speed driver, though. :lol:

Here's that edge treatment again (getting a lot of mileage out of that one, heh) The inside seam "whipstitching" takes the place of serging (gotta love a 5 cone serger, though, for speed and strength) and looks more or less like a hem on the outside. Hardly visible, and lies flat on the shoulder.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

My tunics are either of the one piece reectangle, or with the sleeves sewn on.
But I have seen patterns depicting the tunics both with the sleeves as part of the woven whole, or as seperate
pieces, so they presumably did both.

[TFLAVIUSAMBIORIX]

There is a 7th c. tunic in the vatican museum collections I had the pleasure of seeing once, the sleeves are sewn on. Also, theres a few others out there I know, im sure its not farby to have sewn on sleeves, especially on a simple long sleeved work tunic or for under one's armour.
It is possible that there were bolts of cloth one could buy in the ancient world quite frequently from textile centers (Akhmim etc.) to make basic clothing, and then many of the better dressier tunicae were purpose woven. This is pure supposition based on a couple of orders for fabric I have seen found recorded, but seems possibly plausible. Its all quite hard to decipher exactly what the situation was, from a mosaic or manuscript it is nearly impossible to tell what construction techniques are used, and our surviving examples of clothing are nearly all from graves (mostly upper class) or other similar conditional situations.

[tDub248]

thats some really nice looking natural fabric, Demetrius. Do you mind sharing where to get that? I'm currently looking for some place that I might find some nice natural looking fabric...

[Martin Moser]

Since I've been reading up a bit on clothing over the last few months: from 1st cent BC to 5th cent. AD you find evidence of all kinds of ways to make tunics. With and without sleeves of course, with sleeves sewn on, with sleeves woven in one piece, IIRC even one where the 2nd and 3rd quarter of the tunic (i.e. breast to shoulder and shoulder to back) are woven in one piece with sleeves and the lower, narrower front and back - 1st and 4th quarter of the tunic - are sewn on. Sleeveless tunics come with side seems only or with side and shoulder seems (i.e. made from two rectangles). Surviving evidence from Egypt from the 3rd cent. and later mostly shows tunics with sleeves that are woven to shape in one piece (as was stated above already). The neck opneing on thode tunics was also typically created when the tunic was woven. The Thorsberg tunic (nowadays dated most commonly to the 3rd cent. AD) on the other hand has long, narrow sleeves that are sewn on.
IMHO, the thing we are mostly doing "wrong" is that too often we are wearing tunics of too good quality - we'd need more patched and recycled stuff! :-) )