New Fight Gear

So as if spending hours and hours making a nice Roman banner for Spurius wasn't enough I decided he also needed some new SCA fight gear. Actually, he really does need a new fighting tunic since his old one is literally disintigrating off his body. But did I simply make him a new tunic? NO! I had to make an entire new ensemble! And not only did I make him one ensemble, I made him two. It looked good on paper, but next year, please PLEASE remind me NOT to be so damn ambitious with making Christmas presents! And for ONE man!

Okay, so this is what I decided to make: With a set of fight gear ensemble consisting of a tunic, a cap and a cape I decided to make one set with Spurius' heraldry and one set with our house heraldry...that being "Golden Oak Inn". They would both be made of 100% linen for coolness...though the linen I chose was a little heavier than the regular linen I buy for regular clothes. I would have liked to spend a little less and even find some cotton but nothing in the fabric store was in the weight I wanted and if it was it contained polyester...not great to keep you cool while fighting! So I bought the linen online.

The tunics, I decided, would be plain, since they are covered with armour anyway, so any heraldry would not be seen: Here is the cap and cape using Spurius' heraldry. I did not go into quite the detail I had on his banner because A) This is being used for fighting and will therefore get wrecked anyway and B) Being two weeks before Christmas I am running out of time! Also with the excuse of dwindling time, there is no hand finishing of any of the pieces. The hems are all machine sewn.

I did add some detail on the ass but only with the yellow thread...no black...and no main.

A closeup of the daggars on the cap reveal less detail but enough to get the thought across:

Here is the heradlry I had to work with for the "Golden Oak Inn".

And these are the results of the GOI heraldry on the cap and cape:

On the cap I decided to simply applique one of the leaves and an acorn in gold.

Here is the result on the cape. I actually REALLY like it.

All in all I think the results are great and I think Spurius is going to have a happy Christmas morning opening all his goodies. He has no idea how much thread has gone into all these pieces. Including the Roman banner I believe I must have gone through a good 8 spools of thread in varying sizes, and I kept running out. The funniest part is, I actually had Spurius run out to the fabric store for me yesterday to pick up one last spool of yellow thread for me. I had to give him the end of the spool so he could show it to the sales person so he could be directed to the correct thread. I guess he wasn't the first man to be given this job!

So, hopefully later on after Christmas I will post some photos of the gifts being used in real life. But for now, I'm tired of sewing! No more until after the holidays thank you very much!

The Romans are Coming! The Romans are Coming!

***Techno-Dud alert: For whatever reason I keep getting LOTS of space between my photos and such in this post. I've edited as much as possible but it doesn't seem to want to work for me. So, for those of you who think this post looks a bit off, it is.

Christmas is coming so I thought I would make some gifts for my wonderful husband, Spurius, even though I told him that it's all about me right now so don't expect anything. I can't help myself though. I love hand made Christmas presents! So, first on Mrs. Claus's workshop list is a Roman style banner. Spurius had mentioned that he would like to have two...one for peace time and one for war time. His designs are as follows...

Peace Time: Translation: "You may break me but you shall never bend me." (Basically, he's a stubborn ass...ergo the ass. The 3 daggars represent his family: Me, Spurius, and our daughter, Nerina of Sparta)

War Time: Translation: "Kiss my shiny golden ass."

Nice sentiment don't you think?

And so, these are my results: A reversible banner...peace on one side with war on the other.

Made with leftover red canvas that Spurius used to cover his shield I thought it would be durable material to be brought onto the "battlefield". The yellow appliqued designs are also canvas. Now, when I say applique, I realize the more "period" way to do this would be to hand applique, but since I wanted to have this ready for Spuris for THIS Christmas and not next year, it is all done on the machine. Believe me, there was plenty of time put into this...the lettering was the most tedious machine applique job I have ever done. And I've done a LOT of machine applique in my sewing lifetime!

Here is a view of it from farther away, showing how it would hang with the gold cord and "gold" dowel (yes, ladies and gentlmen, it's a cafe rod!) The gold fringe gives it a nice touch too.

Here is a closeup of the applique job done on the device itself. The black areas on the daggars are actually filled in using "free motion" machine sewing. I also outlined all the yellow applique with a black line to emphasize it.

See?

And a closeup of the lettering.

My favourite part is the detail on the ass. His main looks great with the black. And I think I managed to make his face look good and mean...on both sides!

Overall I think it looks fabulous. Would I do it again? Well, after machine appliquing all those letters I must say the idea of fabric paint looks really appealing!