how to make shoulder straps



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intro

for a little more intro to my patterns, see section 0 of the einheitsfeldmütze howto. this will show you how to make straps for enlisted men. i'm not familiar with the proper manner of stitching tresse on, so i can't tell you how to make straps for NCOs. straps for officers are also a different matter, using different materials which are much harder to get. this tutorial assumes a minimal knowledge of sewing and sewing machines, the kind of knowledge you should be able to get by thumbing through a sewing machine manual. just about everything else should be explained in the text and photos.

patterns

i drew up my own patterns, based on visual inspection of a Harriet's uniform pattern (which i found kinda had the wrong shape) and straps from a Sturm uniform. i scanned them in, and they can be found here: shoulderstrap-pattern.zip i'm a little hazy on the ins and outs of precise printing, so i scanned it in with a ruler on it and left the jpg huge, and you may need to know that (i think) it's at 200 pixels per inch.

things you'll need

to start off with, you'll need basic sewing supplies, like: scissors little pins with plastic or metal heads on them hand sewing needles ruler iron (for ironing, not just a big slab of metal) and of course a sewing machine. it doesn't have to be anything fancy. i did all this on what was damn near the cheapest model at sears from about a year ago.

other supplies you'll need, which will actually be part of the strap, will be: wool flannel fabric for the piping. nice soft warm stuff. should be found in any fabric store, as seen on the top right of the pic below. the color of this stuff denotes the branch of service to whom the uniform wearer belongs. pink for tank crews, white for infantry, yellow for cavalry, etc. we're going to do infantry white in this tutorial, but you'll see in the pic two other colors, a light pink panzer color and a deep red artillery color. full list of colors with more info here: http://www.deutschesoldaten.com/uniforms/waffenfarbe.htm some ropey kinda stuff, also for the piping, as seen tangled up in the bottom of the pic. the stuff i've got here is kind of a shiny polyester, and that's probably not strictly appropriate for ww2 made things, but it'll be concealed inside the wool flannel, and i don't really know what it ought to be made out of. it's about 3/32" or 1/8" thick. cotton twill in a tan color, as seen in the inset pic below. cotton thread, also easy to find anywhere. more or less the same color as the above cotton. that book on the right isn't needed, but it's an awesome book, you should get it.

the one thing you'll need which is an unusual item unique to german reproduction items, so you'll have to buy it from reenactor supply places: feldgrau (grayish green) wool. seen on the left of the above pic. you may find wools of similar texture and weight at regular fabric stores, but you won't find ones of the right color hardly anywhere. the only place i found online that sold the stuff in a quasi-retail fashion was this place: http://www.historicreproductions.com/cat_clothes1.htm (waaay down at the bottom)     it's also not cheap, as you'll see. i highly recommend you try to find some "wool coating" or other thick coarse wool stuff which is tight and does not stretch much at your local fabric store for your first couple sewing attempts, to save money. (your first tries will invariably come out wrong. it's just unavoidable)     i've also found that by asking around various reenactor web boards, you can find some people who get their own supplies of this wool and can help you out. such as, http://ww2reenactors.proboards35.com/index.cgi two other options here which may be easier to get: dark green wool flannel, as in the kind which is used in m36 tunic collars. see the last page of this howto for a pic of a sturm m36 tunic with that collar. also called badge cloth. pre- and early-war shoulder straps were made of this. black wool if you're making panzer uniform straps. i found some online that seems pretty good: http://www.fabrics.net/outlet/Detail.asp?ProductID=3131. it's pretty expensive too, though, as you see. if you're making this kind of strap, then the colors of wool piping you'll need are different. pink is the standard one, although there is also yellow for reconnaissance and white for SS-panzer and a couple other more rare ones. some more info and examples here: http://www.deutschesoldaten.com/uniforms/shoulderstraps2.htm

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