I decided that I’m never going to wear the old black linen doublet again, so I’m making it an organ donor. I took the lacing strip off it, refurbshed it some, and installed it on the new doublet. There’s a bit of a gap in the back, but that should be fine; I can always make an extra bit to fill in that spot if I really need a point in the back. The old doublet also had a perfectly good set of thread wrapped buttons that deserve to see the light of day again.

I haven’t yet decided whether or not to put shoulder wings on the doublet. Most of the Moroni portraits feature jerkins that cover up the shoulders of the doublet, so it’s hard to say what would be most appropriate. There’s certainly room for them under the puffed cap sleeves on the jerkins, though. This doublet has fairly substantial wings, while this one seems to have none (though it is a bit of a weird case in many ways). This portrait shows small wings, but it’s also a good bit later, so who knows how it compares. My grey suit and blue suit both lack wings, while the red suit has them, so I may go ahead and add some small wings just for kicks. I can always get rid of them later if I change my mind, I suppose.

The doublet has the skirt and collar attached, but still not finished. The trunk hose foundation is put together (white linen lining and medium weight navy cotton(?) interlining). I built the foundation based on my tweaked pattern, then whip stitched it to the bottom edge of the doublet. I had to cut back the center front opening a couple inches on each side and hack 3.5″ off all the way around the waistline, but better too big than too small! If it fits the same in real life as it does with a few stitches and pins, I may actually be able to sit down comfortably in this suit…

It’s a terrible iPad picture, but I’ve got the doublet body put together and lined. When I put the mockup on, my wise wife said I needed more room, so I added width accordingly. After putting it on at the current stage, I finally had the realization that perhaps the doublet should fit more like a modern suit coat (structured, yet loose) rather than a sausage casing. I’m curious to see how this plays out as the project progresses…

Starting from my new body block and the trunk hose foundation pattern from the Bronzino suit, I made some alterations and seem to have a viable candidate. I cut the white linen lining, black wool shell, and heavy wool interlining for the doublet body and have begun putting the pieces together…

The plan for this suit is to make something nice and simple that fits comfortably. The style will be from 1550ish, based largely on the Moroni portrait of Count Alborghetti and his son:

Clearly, there’s not much to see on the father’s clothes, so the person of interest here is the son. A basic doublet, unpaned trunk hose with canions, falling band on the shirt collar. After going through my stash today, I think I’ll try to squeeze this out of the last 4 yards of my B. Black & Sons black tropical wool, trimmed with black velveteen. Black-on-black is a very common color scheme in the contemporary portraits (for example, the elder Alborghetti here), but it’s sorely under-represented in the SCA. Black doublet, black hose, black netherstockings (of yet undetermined fabric), black black black. I made one black suit about a million years ago, but I think I can do better than that now.

So the first step is to get out the junk fabric and work out my pattern, and then see if I actually have enough wool left to manage it…