About time for another post

I had 4 weeks holiday from university; I spent 3 of those weeks sick with two different infections one of which developed into a lung infections! So I haven't really been doing a lot of work on garb and I haven't trained in combat in over a month.

This is what I have been doing however:

I started constructing this hat/bennie early last semester when I rediscovered my knitting spool. The hat was constructed by knitting meters and meters of spool knitting; with a four nailed wooden spool then stitching those lengths together. Although it's not garb I love it and thought it worthy of mention. I had a man on the train today ask me what I would swap it for (nothing it took too long to make).

A few weeks ago (before I got sick) I constructed a Apron dress and a under tunic. The only issue I had with the under tunic was that the blue chalk didn't completely wash out of the white fabric :( I'll have to attack it with wonder soap and hope for the best. The Apron dress however is not yet complete. Last night I went to a friends place who showed me some stitches to use on the seams of my dress to finish it off. I haven't done a lot of it yet but I thought it worth mentioning that I am up to something a part from University work.


Well that's all from me for now.

The garb I've made so far

My first piece of garb was a fighting unit's jacket. This is my marines jacket. For a long time it was the only piece of garb I owned. When I was starting out in the SCA I was very much just into fighting. A little while later though I discovered that I wanted a pretty dress to wear to feasts and courts. So with A LOT of help from a local Laurel I created this lovely split skirt Spanish. This dress took months and months because I didn't have a sewing machine so all the machine sewing was done at the Laurels house which is just over an hours drive north.



















Such a pretty dress wouldn't be complete without some accessories. So I made this lovely velvet chocker from ribbon left over from the bodice, a pendent I have had forever and some necklace clasps I bought from the local spotlight.
Here are two sashes; the black one goes with the split skirt Spanish and the red one goes with my other Spanish dress, but more about that later. These were both made from off cuts of my under skirts.

Being a poor student I didn't think I could afford to go to Rowany festival over Easter, however a great guy who is now our King as of Saturday offered to pay my site fees in exchange from me doing his camp duties. So I didn't have long before festival. So I made quick and easy camping garb: two 10th C tunics that went over a pair of track pants. They were cheap, quick and I don't care if I get them covered in liquids as part of games or other silliness.




















This here is my real achievement. It is a Spanish dress without a split skirt with a light under skirt. This dress is an achievement because I did every bit of sewing myself. I did get assistance from my local Laurel again; just for the measurements of the skirts. The lesson I learnt from this dress is that you cant cheat with the skirt; I thought making the pleats bigger would be quicker. Bigger pleats were quicker however the skirt was too heavy for the spaced out stitched; this meant the skirt detached from the dress the first time I wore it.

The First post

My first blog post, it is kind of scary. I have considered creating a blog before, this time however I've been given a little push. I am man at arms to Baron ysambart Courtain who thought a blog would be a good way for himself to see what I'm up to as well as a chance for me to allow people to learn from what I've done right or wrong and to get advice from people who might have done similar projects themselves. The first thing I intend to do is take some photos of my garb, which I've made, to show what I've done already then to post some of my ideas. Well until next time I'm off.