I spent several hours looking at the various patterns and photos of the extant example before I started working on the feet. Even with all that time I am still no where close to having wearable footies in my Thorsberg pants.
The original pants were made on a very slim cut where as my pants are cut to fit me while using the same shape and number of pieces as the original. My recreation allows for my large calves which makes the ankle opening 22 inches around. My ankles, where they meet my feet, are only 10 inches around. My first efforts, last night, ended up in me cutting the fabric to narrow to fit around the ankle opening of the pants.
The original pattern drawn out by Margrethe Hald: Olddanske tekstiler p 341 simply shows a fat horseshoe shape that is connected to a band and then sewn on to the pants leg. The second pattern drawn by Karl Schlabow: Textilfunde der Eisenzeit in Norddeutschland, figure 165 shows the same fat horseshoe pieces but includes a small gore that goes from the ankle, wraps under the heel, and finishes very close to centre underside of the foot itself. Looking at the two patterns I decided I would try to fix the issue with gores at the heel.
I cut the top piece, the fat horseshoe, just long enough that it would touch the ground on either side of my foot. I cut the gore wide enough to make up for the short fall on the ankle and long enough to go from my ankle, under my foot, to attach to the toe of the top piece. I did a quick running baste just to check the fit. It is a good thing, too. While the opening matches my pants leg, the foot itself was a huge bag on my foot. If you look at the photo on the page linked above you will notice the foot does not look like a bag, so back to the drawing board.
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