Emperor Maximillian in Hunting Kit

Nov. 18, 2005, 10:18am.

Well, I'm at it again. This time for a friend. It will be the first time I've made clothes for anyone else. One of my cooking buddies who started out as a heavy weapons fighter (in SCA terms it's hitting your friends with rattan clubs) is being seduced over to the rapier side of things. And he asked me to make his first armor.

A while back he came over and we discussed time periods, styles, colors, fabrics, etc. He decided on the picture of Emperor Maximillian in Hunting Kit from Norris (p41 of the Dover edition) seen here:

The weekend before Coronation he came over to discuss and then get fabrics for the lining and interlining. We also got him draped, I need to do more of those before I feel comfortable with the process. He had some linen in a really pretty blue for the fashion fabric that he may or may not use. Now that Coronation is over and my projects, (costume, hair pins, and mustard) are done it's time to get working. I've got the first of the fabric in the wash and I need to transfer his drape to a pattern. Since I have today, tomorrow and Monday off I should be able to get the toile ready for him to try on by the time he passes by the house on the way home from work on Monday.

Nov. 19, 2005 8:39am

Yesterday I finished washing and ironing all the pieces. Onto making the pattern and the toile. That's today's project.

Nov. 21, 2005 10:53am

The body toile is made up. I'm also going to make up a couple punch test samples for Lorenz to take to practice to make sure that it's fencing legal.

Nov. 21, 2005 7:39pm

Well it fits. A little too tight for rapier fighting. But then we made the draper to fit like a regular doublet. I just need to put a bit of extra in. The sleeves worked and now I'm going to make a paper pattern with the mock up.

Jan. 24, 2006 3:01pm

After suffering a busy schedule through December and a work injury that had me in a sling for a month, progress has resumed. So much for the time buffer that I had, since I need to have it done in time for Estrella which is Feb. 14-20 this year.

The body pieces have been cut out and I'm getting ready to pin the trim on the arm pieces. Darren should be coming over on Thursday evening to make sure that the adjustments I made for him to fight in it are correct. I did over correct since I don't want strips of fabric patched in.

Jan. 24, 2006 9:36pm

The trim has been added to the fashion fabric for the sleeves. In order to leave the trim unfolded and maintain the poofiness I box pleated the upper sleeves when I attached them to the lower.

	Sleeve with attached trim.
	Close up of pleats.

Jan. 25, 2006 8:08pm

The lining and interling have been flatlined, then assembled. The fashion fabric has been assembled. Seams have been pressed. The two sections have been joined at the front and those seams pressed. The last thing I'm planning on for tonite is to box pleat the sleeve tops to the bottoms of the lining.

Tomorrow before Darren comes over I'm going to baste the sleeves onto the body. After a final fit check, I'll do any necessary adjustments, attach the sleeves, make and attach the collar, and do the buttons. Then onto the skirt.

Feb. 5, 2006 10:43pm

Of all the stupid mistakes. Darren came over last week to do another fitting after adjustments. The lower sleeves were remade after the first fitting to give him more room. The collar was attached, but is a bit loose. The sleeves were assembled and re-attached. And therein lies the mistake. While assembling the sleeve, I somehow twisted the fabric of the lining and interlining so that he could still get his arm through but barely. I've now removed the sleeve and will re-attach it tomorrow before work.

Feb. 9, 2006 6:20pm

The sleeve has been detached, straightened, and re-attached. Thanks to my Darling Wife the skirts were assembled. I pleated them on today. I went back to my miniscule stitches since this is on the outside of a set of fencing armor. I attached the skirts to the inner layers with the machine since that way the weight would be taken by two layers of cotton twill, not one of linen.

Pictures will be taken tomorrow when Darren comes over to do a last fitting before Estrella.

Feb. 10, 2006 7:50pm

AARRRGGGHHH!!! Ok, now that I've gotten that out of my system. Mary helped with the fitting tonite and, well I get to redo quite a bit. I'm really not looking forward to all the handwork required on attaching the skirts.

Feb. 15, 2006 8:04pm

All the alterations are done, the garment has been picked up and he is taking it off to Estrella tomorrow. He wants a hat like in the picture and we'll probably make a couple of the hoods, one to go over his mask and one to wear with the hat. It fits a bit loose in the back but he needs the extra to fight in.

This is Lord Lorenz Wieland in a fuzzy picture. He'll try to get some action shots at Estrella.

It looks like my camera decided not to focus well tonight.

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