Saturday, August 11, 2007

Can you tell what it is yet?

Having braved the sun to run a few necessary errands, I'm now hiding indoors and psyching myself up to do a spot of sewing. I'm currently very proud of myself as I've displayed an unusual amount of self control and walked away from both fabric and yarn!

Yes, I was in Coventry and stuck my head into Busy Fingers, for no particular reason other than I was walking past. There I saw several interesting offcuts in upholstery weight fabrics which would have made very nice waistcoats - and if Dave had been there no doubt frock coats would have been mentioned - or cushion covers if you prefer tamer sewing pursuits.

I also checked out their bargain buckets/baskets and saw some very nice rich wool mixes of the fussy variety. By that I mean, they had either bits stuck onto the yarn or were variegated and multi-threaded (i.e. two or more threads of a different type wrapped around each other). Very nice, ranging from 50% to 79% wool and just 99p per 50g! Believe me, it took a lot of will power to put the yarn down and walk away.

Now some pictures of Dave wearing the robe I finished on Tuesday.






















This is a robe of my own design, with input from Dave as to the features he wanted to see. It's meant to be clerical in appearance, with a deep collar, lots of swish but minimal hampering of movement.

The fabric is a brushed, heavy weight cotton which is both considerably lighter and cheaper than an equivalent amount of wool. I've split it front and back to make sure he can fight in this one (although officially, the split would be there so he could ride) and added gores to the sides to increase the fullness of the hem. The gores run from under the arm to the hem, but I've sewn the side seams closed again at the top to waist level, so that the gores fold in on themselves when Dave is standing still.

The collar is a simple folded over affair with the neck hole big enough for him to pull the whole caboodle over his head. The sleeves are straight and only slightly tapered to the wrist, again intended to give him plenty of movement.

As always, click on the images to see bigger versions.

Special thanks for help with the photoshoot must go to the director, one Missy Cat who closely supervised the wardrobe and the positioning of the model in each shot.

2 comments:

RichT said...

Dave's combat cleric gear looks good, I like the collar detail.

You should have bought that wool you know it will be gone next time, resistance is usless as the Vogons says.

Julie Spriddle said...

I was a bit doubtful about the collar until it was done - it's just one of those things which doesn't look right until its sewn. But once finished, the collar certainly does say 'clerical'...