Plains Leggings Help

[DarbyFett]

I bought two braintan hides from Micanopy(great hides btw) and plan on turning them into a pair of plains leggings but I have a few questions.

Sewing or lacing? And if sewing...how? Let me explain better with the aid of a horrible MSpaint drawing :grin:

Also how do you attach it to the belt? With a lace tie?

Thanks in advance.

 

[necchi]

This might be better placed someware else, but I've seen both, the one in the lower right is easier to adjust after the leather fatiuges to you body after use, simple re punch the inner side to fit.
They are held up with a loop for the belt on the outside of the leg. Can be the same material or not, perhaps a fancy wool/blanket scrap

 

[DarbyFett]

This is the best place I could think of.

I guess my question is, how are the loops for the belt attached to the leggings?

 

[buffcreekforge]

On mine, I have 2 12" or so strips sewn on the outside seam of the leggings and wrap/tie them over the belt. With that style, rather than a loop, you can adjust the leggings as the leather strap stretches.

 

[Black Hand]

I bought two braintan hides from Micanopy(great hides btw) and plan on turning them into a pair of plains leggings but I have a few questions.

Sewing or lacing? And if sewing...how? Let me explain better with the aid of a horrible MSpaint drawing :grin:

Also how do you attach it to the belt? With a lace tie?

Thanks in advance.

The drawing in the upper left is the proper way to assemble the leggings. The belt loop can either be an extension of the legging top (i.e. integral loop) or sewed on as a separate piece.

I would suggest wetting and stretching the hides and stapleing them to a board until dry. This will take some of the stretch out. Then place them around your leg and staple them in place to get the proper fit. Make sure to squat down a couple of times to see if they get too tight across the knee or thigh. Once the fit is good, sew them with heavy waxed thread or they can also be tied at intervals with thongs (NOT the running stitch with leather thong that so many think is appropriate) placed through pairs of holes. Look at the drawing in "Mystic Warriors of the Plains" by Thomas Mails or in books by Ben Hunt for examples.

 

[DarbyFett]

So I sew the ties in like a welt?

I guess I should have mentioned if I do a running stitch it would be with linen thread. Is a running stitch is strong enough? About 1/8"?

 

[Black Hand]

The top of my leggings are tailored to fit the upper leg and buttock (think long, triangle) and then folded over to make a loop for the belt. You could also sew a loop to the top. See http://www.native-languages.org/breechcloth.htm for a drawing that describes this (however I would ignore the text that goes with it for the most part).

Waxed linen should be plenty (if it isn't too thin) and 1/8" should be fine. My latest leggings are sewn with that size stitch.

The ties are not sewn in as a welt. The two edges are brought together, a couple of holes punched (~1/8-1/4" apart) through both thicknesses of leather (front and back), the tie ends pushed through the holes and tied in front. Each tie is a separate thong

 

[DarbyFett]

Ok so one thong on each side of the seam with the knot on the outside of the leggings?

 

[Black Hand]

Ok so one thong on each side of the seam with the knot on the outside of the leggings?

Think "loop". Poke the holes through both the back and front edge, insert the ends of a thong from the back and tie the two ends together on the front in a knot. A tie about every 1" or so seem to be about right.

 

[DarbyFett]

Oh Im sorry, I thought we were talking about thongs for tying to a belt. :redface:

 

[John Wasmuth]

Darby, thanks for the kind words about the hides.
Actually you dont real want to sew them. If you have them mapped out to your legs you can fold them over as they would be on your leg, length wise. You can make a light mark on the braintan with your thumb nail or even a popsicle stick that goes from your top thigh to the ankle, adding at least 2 inches to the measurement all the way down. It would be something like 29"+ 2" around the thigh, tapering down to 10" + 2" at the ankle.

Now, about every inch, as was said, or even 2" along the line take a filet knive, great for the thin point, (lay the leggings on a cardboard) and carefully make a small slit going cross grain in the leather, then make one about 1/4 inch or so just underneith the first slit. Using some trim off the hide you will cut some ties that are refered to as "Thonging" to run thru the two holes from the back and then tie them off in the front. Do this the entire length of the leggings.
On the top thong of each leg you can run a length of skin about 10"'s by 2"'s and use that for your belt tie.

Once you have the thonging done you can either trim the edges or fringe them being careful not to cut too deeply into your edges. Or you can leave them Kiowa style with the edges natural.

This is real braintan so its best to avoid getting them wet, even though they have been smoked they will need to be reworked to soften them back up. Hope that is useful.