Mid April: Surcoat Neck Facing

Before I begin my description of how I have done the neck facing for the red surcoat I will review the choices of materials used.

As I had said in the beginning, I believe the outfit would have been made from wool, but since I could not find colours or weights of wool that would be suitable for the outfit I decided to go with 100% linen, which is a fabric found in period. For the neck facing on the surcoat I am using the same 100% gold silk as I used for the cuffs on the sleeves of the kirtle. As for the thread used, for the surcoat I have done the same as I did for the kirtle...I am using 100% cotton, both for availability and financial reasons.

For the construction of the neck facing I began by running a loose basting stitch on the area of the neck I wanted to gather on both the front and back of the surcoat.


I also used a basting stitch on the edge of the neck facing to ease in the curve for turning under.

I then laid the neck facing on the bodice, right sides up for both the bodice and the facing. I pulled up the basting stitch on the bodice and adjusted the gathers before pinning and then basting into place.

The facing was then sewn into place with a tight and even running stitch.

In the Codex Manesse image of the surcoat I believe I see a narrow red trim edging the neck facing, so I have constructed a small band with some of the leftover red linen to create that. It was folded in half leaving one raw edge and one folded edge.

The raw edge of the facing was laid down along the raw edge of the neck facing and basted into place.

Finally another neck facing piece was laid on top of the first neck facing piece, right sides together and pinned into place. A tight and even running stitch was used to sew the facing pieces together along the pinned edge.

The same steps were done on the back bodice piece.

The facing was turned right sides out and pressed into place, revealing the red edging. A running stitch was then used to stitch the edge of the turned in piece to the inside of the bodice neck.

With both back and front neck facings in place, the back and front surcoat bodices were then sewn together at the shoulders using a whip stitch.

Here is a view of the seam inside:

To finish the edges of the inside seam, the raw edges were then turned under and whip stitched to the garment, continuing around the outside neck edge to create a nice finish.

Here is a view of the final product, pressed and finished!

I'm feeling rather accomplished after this!