Child's medieval dress--do I put in gores?

My kids have been studying the medieval era all year for school (which I'm thrilled about, because I love that era), and I thought it might be spiffy to go to a medieval reenactment site as sort of a celebration and culmination of all of our year's study. I already have a medieval gown from high school, and I just finished a tunic for my 7 year old son....now all that's left is my 4 year old daughter.

I went to a thrift store and found cotton curtains and table cloths to use for material (SO MUCH CHEAPER!), which means I don't really need to put in gores to get a full skirt. But, do those seems help make it swish? Is there any advantages to the extra handsewing work?

In medieval garments, they would insert gores into the center of the dress, like this:



But I know a large reason they did this was to use the yards of woven fabric without any waste. Here's a great picture of how the fabric would be cut to get all the pieces.



But, my daughter is small, and the table cloth is large....do I really need to do all that extra cutting and sewing and hemming of edges? I want the gown to look medievally. But, I managed to give my son's a nice medieval shape, without any gores.



My son, though, doesn't need swishing action. My daughter LOVES her dresses to twirl and spin and flare out. Do I need the gores to get that effect, or will it happen without the gores?

Here's what I have thus far:



Here's what it looked like before I cut--should I just those triangles out, or just call it good like it is?



Thanks!

My vote is leave it as is. She's 4. I doubt she cares if it's perfect, she just wants swish.
What you have is about a half circle, that's a lot of swish.

I agree with Pearl. What you have cut out will look wonderful.

Since the experts have spoken up, I don't really want to vote against them, but if I'd been doing this, I admit, I would have made a seam at the waist, and then made 4 "quarters" for the skirt, with the straight of grain down the center of each quarter. I'm thinking the grain matters, but as Pearl said, "she's a 4 year old" - that means that the skirt is relatively short in length of inches, so it will certainly look fairly full even if the fullness is mostly at the sides. That would have increased your stitching a little, but not nearly as much as the original pattern requires.

Jay Angler wrote:Since the experts have spoken up, I don't really want to vote against them, but if I'd been doing this, I admit, I would have made a seam at the waist, and then made 4 "quarters" for the skirt, with the straight of grain down the center of each quarter. I'm thinking the grain matters, but as Pearl said, "she's a 4 year old" - that means that the skirt is relatively short in length of inches, so it will certainly look fairly full even if the fullness is mostly at the sides. That would have increased your stitching a little, but not nearly as much as the original pattern requires.

That's a good point! The gown I'd made in high school for our school medieval fair, had all the gussets at the side, and it's hard to get that thing to twirl. It kind of flaps initially until you really get spinning.

Would it help to trim a gusset off each side, and stick them in the middle? Would it twirl better then? I'll loose some skirt circumferance in the process, because of more hems, but if it twirls better, I think it's worth it.

I like a flat front skirt for my medieval attire.  Putting the triangles at the front makes it flair out more there... and get in the mess/work/fire.  

is it possible to try one way first, then alter if it's horrible?  

I think it'd totally be possible to try it this way, and then just cut off the side triangles if it doesn't work off. Since they'd already be sewn together on one seam, I'd just need to put one sewed set in the front middle, and the other in the back middle.

I like the idea of it not getting in her way. I hadn't considered it from that perspective!

r ranson wrote:I like a flat front skirt for my medieval attire.  Putting the triangles at the front makes it flair out more there... and get in the mess/work/fire.  
is it possible to try one way first, then alter if it's horrible?  

As an adult I agree, as a 4 yr old who wants a "twirly" skirt and a mother who might not want her going "splat" in an effort to accomplish that, I like the idea of sewing it as cut in the first post, and altering it as per the later idea if the little lady is struggling to get the effect she wants. By sewing as cut first, it allows you to choose how big to make the front triangles after seeing how it's fitting.

Dress is sewn! Once we put the belt was put on, it spun even better. And then I hemmed it, and it does a really nice spin! She's happy with it, and I think it turned out quite nice!

I'm rather amazed at the difference that the full skirt and length makes in the tunic/kirtle/dress. I made both of my kids garb the same way, but my daughter's fuller/longer skirt really changed the appearance dramatically.  

While I didn't live back in medieval times there may have been a reason for those gores in the center.

Some possible reasons: to make it easier to ride a horse or simply to make the aristocrats stand out from the lower class who had no gores. Who knows?

Either way, I like how your daughter's dress turned out.

I think you were wise not to put the gores in.  We did historical reenacting for a while (mid-late 1700's in NH), and I had to shorten my daughter's dress because she was tripping on her skirts if we walked up stairs or up a steep slope.  She was an adult, but she's mentally handicapped and I couldn't get across to her that she needed to hold her skirt up sometimes!  There's a reason why childrens' clothing has generally been shorter than adult versions.