Embroidery for Bart

A blast from the past a new piece just like the old:

Bart is getting knighted at Rowany festival this Easter. Due to a trip overseas I cannot afford to go this year. So I asked if there is anything he would like. He chose another piece of embroidery of his heraldry. Here's a photo of it near the beginning and at completion.

Fixing and completing things

Fixing my Spanish dresses

As you can see from the profile picture for this blog my pretty yellow Spanish dress never sat right. I found the issue was that the plastic boning available at spotlight is very bendy and as such does a shit job of holding everything where it needs to be. I replaced the plastic boning in my yellow dress a while ago with aluminium pieces which Daddy so kindly provided for me and cut to size. Today I finally removed the plastic from my blue and red Spanish so I can wear it comfortably again. The first photo is me wearing the yellow dress showing how much better it sits. The second is the other dress which I fixed today.

Pilgrim Bag and Tokens:

I decided to day trip to Great Northern War last year so I very quickly knocked together a pilgrims bag to carry my stuff in. It's just some blue drill lined in black drill. All the outside edges were handsewn. Today I finally got around to attaching my event tokens to the front flap. It seems the tokens are too shiny for my camera on the phone but you get the gist of it. See the below photo. I can't seem to rotate it the correct way, it displays correctly on my pc but wont play nicely when I upload it.

Coat of Plates

Hello Blog, Long time no see :)

So I had a fair break from the SCA. I'm starting to get back in. The first step was to complete my long held dream of having a Coat of Plates to replace my plastic chest armour that no longer worked for me and hadn't for a long time. The inspiration came from the coat of plates that Sir Rufus wore. I did a lot of researching for images and how toos but I didn't have much luck. Sir Rufus gave me some ideas. I sewed the coat itself with an inside layer of black drill, two inner layers of canvas and an outer layer of velveteen that I got on sale a few years ago.

The coat then hung complete for a while as I tried to work out how to do the plates. My good friend Will came to the rescue and helped me draft the shapes for the plates. We then sketched them out onto galvanised steel and set out cutting them out.

Below are some images of Will and I having some fun cutting out the plates. I am suitably dressed in a Rowany festival shirt.

The next fun step was drilling four holes on average through every single plate. Some of the larger plates had extra holes. After the holes were drilled I cleaned the sharp edges off all the plates on a bench grinder. Then used a steel file for the final touches. See the image below of all the plates with the holes drilled.

The next step was to punch a hole through the four layers of fabric and rivet the plates onto the coat. Brass washers were also used in a hope that the rivets wont pull through easily. See the image below for the layout of the plates inside the coat.

See the two images below which show the final product front and back:

I am very happy with how it turned out. I can't wait to use it :) I owe Will many thanks as if would not have been possible without him :)

Unfortunately when I pulled my armour bag out of the shed after a very wet summer it seems the damp has invaded my bag. Everything was mouldy. I spent most of Sunday firstly washing all my kit down with a water and vinegar mixture, then all the metal which instantly started to rust had to be cleaned with WD40 then coated in a fresh coat of lanolin. All the fabric gear such as knee pads, gloves, aketon, chauses etc were thrown into the washing machine with vinegar added. Hopefully that will keep the mould at bay for a while. It still has not stopped raining.