Help with making soft kit/costume
Oct 9, 2009 23:59:30 GMT
Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2009 23:59:30 GMT
So I've been considering at least starting to put a kit together and with Halloween coming up I figure it's a pretty good excuse to start on at least the cheap clothing parts of it. I'm figuring on putting together an early 13th Century Hospitaller costume, and I'm on a pretty tight budget so I want to make as much of it as I can. I was thinking of starting with some sort of long-sleeved tunic, trousers, a surcoat, and a cloak, but I have to admit that I'm really not certain on quite a few points.
Trousers - I think that separate hose tended to be the style during this period, but I think I'll let the accuracy slide on this part of it, as I'd much prefer having some actual pants on. Not that it will be easy to tell under the surcoat anyway.
Tunic - I found this site which has a pattern for a tunic, which doesn't look too hard.
Cloak - I've lost the link to it, but somewhere I've seen that the pattern for this would just be a big half circle with a bit cut out for the neck and a rectangular piece sewn in for the hood. My main question about this though is if it should be one layer of fabric or two.
Surcoat - This is the part I'm most unsure of. I think I could probably figure out how to make a surcoat but I haven't been able to find a pattern for it so it would have an awful lot of guesswork. As with the cloak, should this be one layer or two to be accurate?
Also, for all of these I'm not really sure what materials I should use. I'd kinda like to be accurate about that if I can, but it isn't horribly vital. I mean, I'm probably going to be sewing this all with a machine and such so I'm not going for absolute 100% historical accuracy. I was thinking about using linen for the trousers and tunic and cotton for the surcoat and cloak, but would wool for those two be more accurate? I can't recall ever having heard about cotton being used in medieval Europe, but I know wool was.
For shoes I think I'm just going to have to go with modern black dress shoes for Halloween, unless someone can point me in a direction where I can buy or make something more fitting for only around $20, which I bet isn't terribly likely.
Anyway, does anyone have any pointers they could give me? I hope this isn't really an overload of questions, but I'm pretty lost on this.
Trousers - I think that separate hose tended to be the style during this period, but I think I'll let the accuracy slide on this part of it, as I'd much prefer having some actual pants on. Not that it will be easy to tell under the surcoat anyway.
Tunic - I found this site which has a pattern for a tunic, which doesn't look too hard.
Cloak - I've lost the link to it, but somewhere I've seen that the pattern for this would just be a big half circle with a bit cut out for the neck and a rectangular piece sewn in for the hood. My main question about this though is if it should be one layer of fabric or two.
Surcoat - This is the part I'm most unsure of. I think I could probably figure out how to make a surcoat but I haven't been able to find a pattern for it so it would have an awful lot of guesswork. As with the cloak, should this be one layer or two to be accurate?
Also, for all of these I'm not really sure what materials I should use. I'd kinda like to be accurate about that if I can, but it isn't horribly vital. I mean, I'm probably going to be sewing this all with a machine and such so I'm not going for absolute 100% historical accuracy. I was thinking about using linen for the trousers and tunic and cotton for the surcoat and cloak, but would wool for those two be more accurate? I can't recall ever having heard about cotton being used in medieval Europe, but I know wool was.
For shoes I think I'm just going to have to go with modern black dress shoes for Halloween, unless someone can point me in a direction where I can buy or make something more fitting for only around $20, which I bet isn't terribly likely.
Anyway, does anyone have any pointers they could give me? I hope this isn't really an overload of questions, but I'm pretty lost on this.