My friends Lucia and Giovanni are having a baby, and of course I intend for it to be the best dressed little Elizabethan baby ever. The baby's almost certainly going to be a girl, according to the ultrasound, and her first event will be when she's just a few weeks old.
We don't have many pictures of what newborn babies were wearing in the Elizabethan period.
This picture of the Cholmondeley sisters, ca. 1600, shows two babies with strangely square heads, wrapped in red blankets with something white underneath.
Textual sources refer to swaddling, but modern parents tend to blanch at the suggestion that they should immobilise their offspring in linen bands. However, babies didn't wear swaddling for long, and soon graduated into more normal clothes, so I decided to simply advance that process a bit and base my clothes for the baby on what would have been worn by a toddler.
We do have quite a few pictures of Elizabethan toddlers and young children. They tended to be dressed more or less as adults were, and boys and girls alike wore skirts until the boys were "breeched".
The above portrait of Antonius Anselmus and his family (click for a larger version) shows two toddler-aged children. Their apparel seems to be little different from adult clothing of the same period.
I chose to start by making a smock and coif for the baby. A smock (or shirt, or chemise) is a linen undergarment universally worn in the Elizabethan period. The coif is a kind of hat worn by women of all social classes in a variety of forms. I figured that a smock and coif would be the minimum that a baby could wear and be decently dressed. I assumed that this baby would wear modern disposable diapers underneath, and would spend most of its time asleep, or in someone's arms.
My choice of materials was fine white linen. I didn't need much, and had some lying around left over from earlier projects, so I just used those scraps. The smock and coif were handsewn using ordinary cotton sewing thread.
My first step in constructing the smock and coif was to take measurements of another friend's baby. Everyone says you shouldn't bother getting clothes smaller than 6 month sized for newborns, so I figured a 6 month old baby would be a good size to measure. I had one friend with a 5 month old baby, and another with 8 month old twins who were premature and hence had an adjusted age of about 6 months. I measured all of them and came up with the following set of measurements, which I hope will be useful to others who would like to do similar projects:
| Head circumference | 42cm |
| Neck circumference | 24cm |
| Shoulder width (across back) | 20cm |
| Arm length (point of shoulder to wrist) | 18cm |
| Wrist circumference | 10cm |
| Upper arm circumference | 15cm |
| Torso length (centre back neck to waist) | 18cm |
| Full body length (centre back neck to feet) | 55cm |
| Jaw to jaw across top of head | 32cm |
The smock was constructed of mostly rectangular pieces. The sleeves, for instance, were about 20cm wide (somewhat larger than the 15cm upper arm circumference) by about 23cm (slightly longer than the measured arm length). The body of the smock was two rectangles about 30cm wide (1.5 x the shoulder width) by 60cm long (just longer than the full body length - I figure the baby won't need its feet for a while, and can continue to grow into it beyond 6 months).
I sewed the two body rectangles together across the shoulders, leaving a gap in the middle for the head. The shoulder seams were only about 5cm long. Then I sewed the sleeves onto the body pieces, forming a sort of cross shape overall. I then added narrow triangular gores down the sides of the body pieces to give the smock more fullness - I had not originally planned this, but I decided that it would work out better that way. Finally I sewed the sides together, under the arms and down the side seams to the bottom. All my seams were flat-felled.
I decided to make a small ruffled collar to go on the smock. First I cut two rectangles the length of the neck circumference, plus seam allowance - about 27cm overall - and about 5cm wide. Then I cut a long rectangle about 3 times the length of the neck circumference, plus seam allowance - about 75cm overall - and about 7 or 8cm wide. I folded the long strip in half, sewed the ends shut, and turned it through. Next I trimmed it with some lace I had which, despite being rayon, doesn't look *too* modern n design compared to period bobbin or needle lace. Then I box-pleated it in between the two short collar strips and sewed it in place.
I was then able to remove all the pins and sew the collar onto the smock itself. First I trimmed the neckhole a little lower in front, just scooping out a few centimetres - I find that this makes the shirt less constrictive around the throat. I cut a slit down the centre front, making sure that it would be big enough for the baby's head. I turned over the edges of the slit and made a narrow hem. Then I gathered the neckline and sewed the collar in place.
I decided not to make ruffs for the cuffs, as I was pretty sure that the baby would just drool all over them and they'd get in the way. I just gathered the wrists and sewed a simple cuff in place.
My final step was to make ties for the collar and cuffs. I used to use bias tape for these, but I've decided I don't like the look of it, so I make little cords by plying two lengths of silk embroidery thread together. I made a yard or so of this cord and for this smock.
Here you can see a few pictures of the finished smock:
Next up was the coif. The basic period coif pattern is known because we have examples of extant embroidered coifs, some of which were never made up from their flat form. Here's an example:
In the picture above, the left and right sides run down the sides of the wearer's cheeks, the lower edge is gathered at the back of the neck, and the upper edge is sewn together and runs along the top of the head. The curves at the sides are what gives a coif its shape, especially when wired.
The following two pictures show the coif I cut out for the baby. It was based on a rectangle about 16cm high (half the distance from jaw to jaw across the top of the baby's head) and twice as wide. What you see here is folded in half - the fold is on the left of the picture. The pen in the second picture shows the size of the coif.
As you can see, the curve I used is a little different to the embroidered coif. That's because i find that a sharp point at the centre front looks weird unless you have a wired coif, and I wasn't intending to wire my one. You can also see that I allowed an inch or so at the bottom edge which would be turned up and gathered.
To construct the coif I first sewed along the upper edge. I finished the seam by turning each seam allowance down and under and stitching it in place with a further row of running stitch.
Next I hemmed the front edge, along the face. Then I turned the bottom edge up, forming a widish hem (about 1cm or a little more), and then threaded a length of cotton bias tape through the resulting channel. This could be pulled to adjust the size of the coif. When I make my own coifs, I don't make them adjustable but instead simply gather them along this edge. However for a baby I thought it would be useful to have it adjustable and also to have the ribbons to tie under the chin and keep the coif on the baby's head.
At the crown of the head, the coif has a point. This looks kind of dorky. Nobody really seems to know exactly what to do with this, and I've seen various solutions, but my preferred method is either to tack it down with a couple of stitches, or gather it a little. In this case I just tacked it down.
The finishing touch was the trim the front edge of the coif with lace. Like the smock, the lace is rayon lace that doesn't look too horribly dissimilar to period bobbin lace. I will note that I know how to make bobbin lace, and could have made period lace for this project, but chose not to because the baby will probably grow out of it so soon, and it will probably also get very soiled and damaged.
Anyway, here are a couple of pics of the finished coif:
I'm intending to make the baby a loose gown to go over this. When it's all done and the baby's born and we take her to an event, I'll be sure to get some pictures and post them here.
November 2003: Finally some photos of the linens.
