For Highguard at Empire LRP!
That’s 17 machine embroidered compass designs in total, the design around the hem goes all the way around to the back.
Unfortunately Ikea LENDA fabric doesn’t seem to allow stain removal, so it’s rather grubby and brown in places despite multiple washes.
I actually sat down and sketched out Simon’s costume.
The purple tunic is mid-calf length for a reason – it’s a traveling cote. It’s split in the front and back so that it could be used for riding. Obviously you’d wear it with hose under rather than a robe if you wanted to ride, so I might make them too if I have enough time.
This is the set of bodylinens I’ve already made – you can read about them in their own post.
And these are the other colours of green I’ve got for the costume – I’ve not dyed the purple yet.
Also, Sid came to visit.
And because I cut the neck wrong (too big) on the body linens, I’m working on a fancy undershirt.
So, Simon is hoping to play Heretic LRP late this year. And I went OMG YES I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE U COSTUME PLS THANK U. So I’m making costume.
This is the first post in what I suspect will be a series of many. There is already a Pinterest ideas board.
Follow Charlotte’s board Costume : Simon’s Medieval on Pinterest.
This is where we’ve got to so far.
A colour scheme:
Which coincides with this years Pantone colours of 2016 (not planed – just pleased it happened!):
Some fabric got dyed:
And we went to the reenactors market and I bought wool and belts:
And that’s basically the material stash as it is for the moment.
St. Birgitta was a Swedish Saint from the fourteenth century. One of the surviving relics that we have from her is a cap or coif (shown here ->). This style of cap comes up reasonably often in artwork of medieval peasants from Europe and having now made one, I’m not surprised that it does! It was so simple to put together and if I’d not been chatting online would have only taken about two hours in total. It also uses hardly any material and so wouldn’t have been prohibitively expensive (although, if you had fine tastes…).
I’m quickly learning, with my dreadlocks, that covering your hair is practical. I don’t really know why we don’t do it so much anymore, I guess because we have nice modern bathing facilities in our houses that mean we can wash more readily. But since having long dreadlocks in my hair I seem to spend the vast majority of the time with them covered up. Hats are awesome, more people should wear hats. They look great.
So here it is, the St. Birgitta Cap. It’s dead simple, just a square of fabric rounded off with a dinner plate. Then you can either sew the two pieces together normally or insert a decorative seam like I did here. I actually did the entire thing by hand because I wanted to see how good my hand sewing was.
The answer was that my hand sewing is bloody good for someone that’s not done it since they were about ten. There’s no evidence – inside or out – of the stitches unless you look really, really closely. The herringbone stitch I used for the decorative seam is simple but effective. I might go back and add in more work to make an interlaced herringbone, but right now it’s got structural integrity and seems to look simple but nice.
The entire thing cost me nothing, I took it all from my stash. But it’s made from Ikea muslin, herringbone twill tape and some cheap embroidery floss, which would come to less than £3 if you went out and bought them all. Not bad at all.
Sitting in front of CSI I stitched it up while chatting to friends. It took me an evenings work, but if I was concentrating and not chatting to friends it most likely would have only taken about two hours.
Now just to make a few more. One in a dark brown for my Minoan at Odyssey LARP. One in black for wearing day to day. And one that is knackered and distressed to wear to Shadow Wars. Nothing like bringing medieval clothes, kicking and screaming, into the modern age.
Also – cute photos, huh? Taken in the new studio space. I love my new studio.
So last night I made the first successful iteration of the coif for my empire costume! Well, semi successful – it still needs some adjustments.
It went through a few iterations, beginning with me pinning fabric on my head I front of the tv.
And the final pattern:
Leading to the final work up of the cap:
The only problem is that this is now the state of my front room as I try to determine exactly what fabric I own…
