All cloaked up

A half finished Penular cloak made of heavy wool, its certainly warm. Just doing its embroidery stitch to finish it off, all 14.25 metres of it!

Happy Organising

We've an unusually large amount of items to make at once at the moment:

13 celtic style tunics,

4 viking style tunics,

1 pair of trousers,

1 hooded cloak,

And finally 1 pair of leg bindings.

Thats lots to co-ordinate, especially with all the tunics involving two different fabrics and various embroideries. So I set up a system with labels and charts, which so far appears to be working. Everything is cut and we're ready to start the next stage.

The Wanderer Returns

It’s fair to say, I’ve been an absolutely awful blogger of late. Everything happened at once, leaving uni, moving house, two new jobs, off on holiday, and now another new job for the next few weeks. It’s been all go. But I’ve finally sat down with a sprinkling or energy which for once is simultaneous with a (mostly) working internet. There is so much to catch up on. We finished the dagged hoods (previous post) and moved on the the main part of the outfits; the gambesons. A sort of historical puffer jacket worn under armour.

Just for a bit of fun, we made the mock-up (above) out of this completely inappropriate floral fabric, very many we thought. The sides don’t match because we tried different patterns of quilting. I prefer the side with less diagonal in it personally.

Aside from the quilting, the actual pattern was very simple. Just a standard straight jacket. But for each pattern piece, there was a long process to go through to get it ready. It was made of four layers, a beautifully soft brushed cotton lay next to the skin, a wadding, and then two layers of linen. The wadding was an authentic cotton, it was so much nicer to use than the normal man-made stuff. As the gambesons were going to be broken down, we used two upper fabrics so that we could really work into the top one, and where holes were formed you just saw a slightly differently coloured linen; rather than straight to the wadding (below).

When all the layers were so completely pinned we almost faced the catastrophe of empty pin pots, it was time to quilt. First with a standard straight stitch to hold everything in place, and then with a decorative one over the top. The second layer of stitching is what can be seen above in grey, large stitches which the machine goes back over 3 times. It took a long time going backwards and forwards like that, but it was definitely worth it, the quilting was much more visible (see difference between the two sleeve panels below). We also added strips of leather between every other row of stitching, for an extra dimension.

After all the panels were ready it was assembled together. So that the panels flowed together nicely, we waited until this point to add the leather pieces which would cross seam lines, which especially across the back gave it better continuity. I hand stitched cotton twill tape over the top of every single seam on the inside, grading down and enclosing all the seam allowance.  It took hours, but was completely worth it, it really finished off the inside. Unfortunately I completely forgot to take a picture.

After I had done that, Denise bound the edges in leather, and our work was complete. 

Pink, pink and …. yep, more pink

A very quick, very pink, very ruffle covered costume we knocked up in a couple of days for a dance show. Denise added trim to an eBay corset, while I made the skirt. Four layers of ruffle on the outside, and another three on the inside. It’s a circle skirt with the waist off centre so it’s longer at the back.

I made the blouse as well, believe it or not, this is the sleeve pattern. It’s this funny shape because it has a slit a the top.

This project involved a very large amount of trim. The dance was to Candyman, so we were going with the sweets and candy, pink and white vibe.

Tunics Again

Photo by Martin Gill

Forming a Something

The scale mail really is coming along, this is the product of a days linking. The rings are really quite solid, and using the pliers all day means me thumbs feel like they’ve dropped off.

After trying both, blunt nosed pliers definitely make life easier then needle nose ones.

This is going to be part of a fairy costume, scale mail top and skirt with under-bust corset.

A Coat of Fields

 

We made a red one of these a while ago at work, and Denise has still been steadily collecting jumpers. So here is the newest recycled jumper coat. I did this one almost entirely by myself. I altered the hood pattern from the last time, this one is even longer.

It’s not made for me, that’s why is so long. I think it looks like fields in the countryside when you see them from the sky.

Tunics – Not quite one size fits all…

One of the tunics we made today, (knee length, short sleeved) in case you can’t tell, its not made for me.

Oh La La Tea Party

It’s been speedy speedy working on this costume, a pretty short deadline. Not quite finished here, still work to do on the skirt.

I didn’t do much on the finishing off of this, mainly making very very long tubes for very long ruffles.

But I had to post the finished result all the same.

Slicing and Icing

Even though she never actually said it, Marie Antoinette's most well known saying is without a doubt “Let them eat cake”, so what else could we make into a hat other than a cupcake.

We used plastazote, Denise carved the top and I sorted out the case and the plate. We started off with a pattern for a miniature top hat and built it out from there.

After a couple of coats of latex its starting to take shape. It needs a few more coats, some shimmery paint and some airbrushing, but it should look pretty cute.

Let them eat cake…kind of

Denise recently wrote an article on being inspired by history to create a dress, but not actually making it historically accurate. So to go along with it we are making a dress inspired by Marie Antoinette.

Its quite a quick little project, and starts out with netting. Lots and lots of layers of netting.

The sewing machine kind of got buried in it all.

Denise found two silk wedding dresses for £5 each in a jumble sale, and we are up-cycling them in this costume. Here is the skirt from one drawn into a new waistband as part of the underskirt.

The top of the skirt involves a pink and purple silk swag, we are just playing around draping and pinning until something looks right. I really like it pinned up with the flower.

Sword Making Part 2

Trace round the 9mm rectangle onto 6mm, and glue onto one side.

Draw out the shape of the sword (a template and ruler help), then cut out (vertical cut, don’t angle yet).

Stick another sheet of 6mm onto the other side of the 9mm.

Using the already cut out area as a template, cut round the newly stuck on plastazote.

Using a ruler and a craft knife carefully shape the plastazote at an angle to look like a blade.

Trim the sword at the end so there is 4.5inches of pole poking out the end. Cut out a 4.5” x 4” piece of soft lead. This is what makes the sword a sufficient weight.

Glue and wrap the lead round the pole at the end of the sword. A hammer helps to get the last bit right.

Glue some 6mm round over the top of the lead, leaving the leather covered bit of pole poking out the end.

This is the point to design what kind of handle and detail to do. Which is what I’m off to do.