We went to Gloucester Cathedral today and I took some time to be inspired by the beautiful medieval architecture and decoration. Now the question is how to integrate these inspirations into the costume?
Tag: Sewing
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Medieval Costume Design for Heretic LRP
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.
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Medieval Body Linens
So these are the under layers for Simon’s Heretic LRP costume. I read about online and found that in this period (early 13th Century) the length of the robes would have been used to denote the status of the wearer. So we have gone – of course – for full length. He’s going to play some kind of clever scholarly type so it makes sense.
In this shot the hem and sleeves were waiting to be measured on him and taken up – which I’m currently in the middle of doing by hand. I’m also hand felling all the inside seams. Yeah, I’m *that* kind of person.
So here’s the pattern and my cutting layout:
I picked up these gorgeous coloured embroidery threads too for doing guarded seam decoration on the outside. It’s a big project. You will barely see it. I don’t care.
And here’s the rest of the ‘making of’ shots:
I’ve not quite worked out how to turn a satisfactory point on bias binding yet.
Just needs a few stitches in that corner by hand and it’ll be fine! Setting squares by machine is *hard*!
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#4: BB8 Embroidered Cable Bag
There’s a flaw in the machine embroidery, but I still thought that BB8 was cute enough to turn into a cable bag. It’s going to get kicked around Adam’s office and shoved in and out of his suitcase anyway, so I’ll make a new one when it inevitably falls apart.
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Simon’s Medieval Costume
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.
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#3: Thames Barge Quilt
And finished! In time to give away as a gift this weekend to my step grandmother. Her and her partner volunteer for a charity that restores Thames Barges, so I thought that the fabric was appropriate!
It was basically a learning experience. I wanted to practice piecing HSTs (half square triangles) before embarking on a much more complicated design. I wanted to get a bit more practice at being accurate with the walking foot. And I wanted to hand sew a binding neatly. The binding took one evening – about six hours in front of the TV. And I am very pleased with it.
Pretty good I reckon, and not bad speed at all – pieced in less than a month (about four/five days total work?). I think it’s just about 43 inches square.
What I’m most pleased about is the cost. Two Moda charm packs – £22 in total. Three meters of Ikea Calico – £6 in total. And Hobbs Heirloom batting – £7. So that’s about £35 for the materials – plus thread. Not bad at all for a practice quilt.
I treated myself to two books over Christmas, and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in using those for some inspiration. It’s Modern Rainbow
and Brave New Quilts
. I also have Patchwork City
on the way from America with a load of fabric I got in the sales.
And I’ve also got five meters of red fabric and five meters of cream ready to go for a red and white heirloom quilt inspired by this exhibition…
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#2: The Union Dress
The second thing I’ve completed this year for the 52 Steps to Crafting challenge is The Union Dress from Merchant & Mills.
I hesitated before buying this pattern. It was quite expensive and I don’t wear dresses. But I wanted to see how the Henley style neck was drafted and how they’d done the pockets. So I ordered it.
Tuesday I sat down to look at the pattern properly and cut it out. ‘Holy Fuck’ I exclaimed as I took it out of the pack and started working out how to cut it out. This was a complicated pattern. I checked the front of the dress pattern envelope again ‘Intermediate’ it said. Hmmm, ok. I can do this. After all, I’ve been sewing for years.
So I cut everything out, then put it away. And I put a batch of £2 per meter Ikea Bomull fabric into a dye bath with some Dylon Antique Grey dye. So far, so good.
Yesterday I started sewing. There’s 72 steps to the instructions – cue another ‘Holy Shit’. But the one thing I learned was that the instructions Merchant & Mills provide with their patterns might be brief, but if you follow them to the letter and trust them then everything will be fine.
This is easily the most complicated thing I’ve ever made. It was hard. It required me to learn new skills as I went along. Edge stitching, insetting pockets with a couture finish, creating a collar, and setting in sleeves. I’ll tell you what – I took it slow and I’m dead impressed with what I managed. I have never made anything quite so neat in my life.
Check out the edge stitching:
It’s come out looking just like the pattern envelope – which is great. Unfortunately it’s a fraction too long in the body to be flattering. And I fucked up the button placement slightly. I’m still figuring what I want to do about the length of the body being too long. I’m unsure if I’ll just keep it as a ‘work’ dress to wear at home when I’m working in the studio and stuff – the four pockets are really useful for that. Or if I’ll sew it up slightly at the waist and lose the bottom button. We’ll see.
I might even redraft the pattern as a sleeveless version – doesn’t this mid-way photo look cute? I quite like the sci-fi look of not having buttons too. I might make a version with snaps instead of buttons. Very Hunger Games.
One disappointing thing did happen though – the blue ‘disappearing’ fabric marker I’ve been using for ages left a stain. It must have reacted somehow with the Dylon dye I had used. Pencil or chalk next time I guess.Oh well, not the end of the world. If I do manage to shorten the length of the bodice then I might dye it a slightly darker colour which should get rid of that slightly bleached mark. I’m sure it’ll be fine.
What making up this pattern has done though is given me massive faith in the high quality way that Merchant & Mills patterns are drafted. I mean seriously, this is the best pattern I’ve ever made. It just fitted together perfectly. The pattern was printed on high quality butchers paper too – none of this flimsy tissue paper crap.
So what I’m going to hopefully do is take the voucher Adam bought me for Christmas to Liberties and buy the Merchant & Mills Workbook
. It contains six patterns to make a basic wardrobe. Apparently their trousers are very very good, and I’ve been looking for a pattern for men’s style slacks for a while.
So I hope in the future that there will be lots more Merchant & Mills makes in my 52 steps to crafting in 2016. I’ve certainly learned alot from making this pattern up, and I’m looking forwards to making adjustments to the pattern and making it up again in a nicer fabric. Perhaps a thick linen or a thin wool.
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#1: Thames Barge Quilt Top
So I’m taking part in a Facebook group this year to improve my crafting skills. The aim is to make 52 things and improve your skills along the way.
This is a finished quilt top that I started working on just before Christmas. It’s made from MODA’s More Hearty Good Wishes fabric range. I picked up two 5″ charm packs and used some cheap Ikea muslin as the cream fabric. This way I didn’t have to think about the design or colour.
Anyway, I focussed on getting the points really nice and accurate. They’re not really nice an accurate, but they’re better than the last quilt I did, so that’s an improvement. I feel like I’m ready now to tackle something more complicated with half square triangles.
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Tentmakers of Cairo
Islamic art has fascinated me for a long time. If I’m right (and I don’t have a reference book here with me now) Islamic art focusses on geometry, colour, pattern, and text due to ideas of non-pictoral representations in local religion. That’s why it’s so different to our art here in the UK – it’s grown up with a different religious tradition and with different restrictions.
At The Festival of Quilts there was a large exhibition of a group of men who use traditional tentmaking techniques to produce beautiful quilts. Several factors have encouraged more contemporary work from these men, including exhibiting abroad and a generational shift where younger artisans have replaced those who have retired. Traveling around the world and showing their quilts has exposed their work to Western influences which can also be seen in the work that was on display. While the works are firmly routed in Islamic and tentmaking traditions, the motifs were clearly fashionable and influenced by Western style (and customer demand, I’d imagine).
The quality of work was incredible. I’ve included a close up of the stitching further down to show the accuracy. And the men were so fast too. Some of them were stitching while sitting and being asked questions by visitors – I’ve never seen someone sew quite so fast. Certainly puts my own hand-stitching to shame. The technique used is needle-turned applique, and I’ve been planning on embarking a project using this technique for a while now.
It was huge inspiration for costuming to see these works. I’d love to make a huge cloak based on this kind of work for the next part of the Mythlore costume. Just need to convince Simon he wants to play another game as a Persian influenced character.
I believe the artists attending were Hosam Al Farouk and Tarek Al Safty. The exhibition was called ‘Tentmakers of Cairo’ and the pieces were made by various artists from Khan El Khayamiya. They’ve had a documentary made about them – you can find out about it here.
And even better – you can buy their beautiful quilts here.
