here is my Masterpost of all of the things I have written or otherwise brought to life! (still working on hunting down all my fic links, but the jacket posts are up to date)
Sword Jacket posts:
(in which I detail my quest to create a functional swordfighting jacket):
okay so, embroidery done. i will admit that at this point i took a break for a bit, and pursued projects tangential to this one:
and then i got ahead of myself
cos, here's the thing: swording kit is waaaay more than just a jacket
basic kit is a helmet, a helmet overlay, a jacket, gauntlets, forearm guards, elbow guards, chestplate, and a gorget (throat guard)
some of this i am making (forearms and overlay). some of this must be bought (helmet and gauntlets). and some must be found, kinda
and during plague times i had a bit of extra time to internet browse for a gorget (the bit in blue in the above pic).
now a gorget is basically an armoured collar that protects your neck, clavicle, and maybe first few thoracic vertebra from hard impact.
there are suppliers in my area, buuuut their's are either made for super long necked people of which i am not or are one of the modern designs which i do not find as protective. i need a solid, more alterable design. like this, maybe?
i either make one (learn leatherworking and metalworking off the top of my head and acquire all the tools and materials), buy off the rack from the states (the exchange rate sucks and the postage is even worse), or commission a local
in my defence, i was just asking around! i just wanted to know if it was a job he'd be interested in, and what a rough cost would be!
and before i knew it i had booked a date with an armourer
and when you go to get armour fitted you need the clothes the armour will go on over. which is my jacket. that I haven't finished the collar on. the collar where the sodding gorget would go. “fffffffffff-
-udge”
so i scrambled, and in a mad haze of fear and “aaaahh fuckit” finished fitting the collar, bought some gold cord trim for the closure and put enough on the jacket for it to be serviceable at the fitting and forging. ugly as hell and I am def gonna redo it, but it worked at the time. (still no sleeves tho)
this involved lots of hand sewing with tiny tiny stitches (which i did take photos of! but they are all useless because the stitches are physically so small that you can’t see them so). i ended up having to do more in the collar's Red Hell Zone, but I lived (just)
sewed it all down rough as guts, quick terrible photo in the mirror, then off to the armoury!
spent about six hours kicking around a shed admiring various pieces of tailored steel while a bloke hammered flat pieces of metal into the most incredible shapes. like. Literally incredible. moving flat steel into unbelievably intricate three dimensional shapes with just the repeated application of a hammer. this man did things with steel that i can't make happen with the lightest cotton fabric. Was Amazing. Also Loud.
and six hours and A Lot of percussion later, i came home with this:
okay, remember how waaaay back in the planning stage I said I didn't have much of a clue for incorporating Roman's sash and braid into the jacket?
that's entirely true
I knew I couldn't use an actual sash because things sewn onto the outside of jackets made for routine stabbing do not last long, and actually make things more dangerous for me and anyone else (like, you go in for a grapple, the Last Thing you want is big loops hanging off to get tangled in)
but fabric paints exist. and embroidery is A Thing. personally I prefer embroidery (and it'll have to be machine embroidery as hand embroidery is not an option)
but here's the thing:
I don't know if the sewing machine I'm using can do it.
I don't have a design.
I don't know how to embroider.
I go to a dedicated sewing shop to see if the folks there have any advice or pointers.
them: hang on a second *gets one of the displayed sewing pieces, a fabric journal cover with gorgeous intricate machine embroidery across it*
me: oh! Yes! Like that! That's exactly what I want to do! :D
them: this was sewn on a $3000 state-of-the-art machine by a seamstress with over thirty years experience in the industry as their final work for their textiles post-grad degree.
me: ah.
time to break out the fabric paints right?
WRONG
what do we do when we're scared and procrastinating?
we Research. *cracks knuckles* let's get started.
first: make sure the sewing machine can do the embroidery.
okay so all the sewing I've been doing to this point has been on my housemate's sewing machine, a nice new shiny modern thing. unfortunately, it's a bit limited in the amount of tweaking you can do to your stitch settings, but maybe it'll do for the embroidery thing?
hmm. nope. it'll only give me these three options^, and none of them will work.
maybe a different machine.... my machine; an ancient thing, gifted to me by a crone from lands I have not travelled in many seasons.
it predates the internet. when it was built the Berlin Wall was still up. ancient I tell you. being older it's a bit more versatile with stitch options, so I can do this:
embroidery capable machine acquired!!! (also I've decided to use two threads on top, as that will make the stitches more visible)
second: find a design. so I spend May researching embroidery throughout history. there is a lot. and some of it is very old and crazy unbelievably stunning.
like look at this^ that's hundreds of years old and was done by hand using plant dyes and it still looks incredible!
Holy random botany detour Batman!!!
at the same time I make the happy but seemingly unrelated discovery that the acanthus plant has been a feature of decorative motifs since ancient Greece. the Romans adapted this motif from there, aaaand then it keeps on showing up through history. it goes through evolutions in style (Baroque, Ancient, Gothic, …Romanesque) and is used on everything from embroidery to architecture to calligraphy to home decorating.
(acanthus thru the last 2000+ years^) and people still grow it today!
So. a decorative motif stretching back to Ancient Greece and Rome. with a huge application during the Medieval period, an interpretation in almost every Western historical period since then, use in a really diverse range of creative endeavours, and a stylistic variation literally called “Romanesque”.
also, I really like plants. :D
this focusses my searching somewhat. I collect reference pics of acanthus motifs from all over the internet. everything from quilting patterns to photos of extant garments to calligraphy sketches to scans of 19th century sewing manuals. I end up with a folder of roughly 700 embroidery concepts.
then I take my concepts and narrow down to a few of the best options:
a hand embroidery pattern
a medieval manuscript from 1304
some acanthus border sketches
probable designs found!!!
third: practise embroidery. only way I'll learn to do embroidery, is by, y'know, doing embroidery. I do a few of these practice runs on fabric scraps:
and then the Main Test. the full embroidery design. I'll use one of my op-shop denim jackets to try the design on, as it's a similar fabric weight, and manoeuvring a full garment is part of what will make the real thing hard so, may as well get used to that as soon as possible.
first design is a bust. too detailed and intricate. I get the scroll in the blue rectangle sewn down with much swearing and agony, and then give up. I love the design, but it's not worth it.
second? WORKS. (you may remember a brief post from last month in which I was yelling about a major breakthrough? this is That)
I now have an awesome embroidered denim jacket, and a working design for my swording jacket. :D
the design is inspired by the border of a page from a 1304 manuscript of German medieval poetry called the Codex Manesse. look at this page! that's gold leaf!!! and it's in such good nick for a manuscript of that age!!!
I've sketched out a version I can use, resized it, made a stencil of it, and traced it onto the paper I'll use to transfer it to the jacket.
Next up, embroidering the real thing. I’ve got this. >:D
so the cord I sewed on to my jacket in haste is bleeding yellow colour everywhere >:(
so I rip it all off again, attempt to find something else, and put the jacket in the wash and pray that the yellow dye comes out
and finally. Finally! continue on the sleeves! *FEAR*
okay real talk. Sleeves scare me. I have no idea what I'm doing. Apparently there is a rational way to go about sizing your sleeves? But I have not found it. (also there is a very high probability of hilarious failure)
(listen, I don’t know why that^ is so funny. is it the expression? the colour? the posture? the cut is just wrong enough to be in the uncanny valley of lol WHY??? and the longer I look the harder I laugh XD )
anyway, I have been putting off finalising the sleeve design for months, so great is my trepidation of this process. No more.
*Infomercial voice* Do you ever get that sinking feeling? You know the one. The one where your sleeves are too small. Or they're too big in some places, and not big enough in others. Where you're craving for just a little more puff. That feeling.
Well friends, I understand your plight, because that has been me, since February. I made my initial sleeve pattern, and I was happy!
At first.
And then the doubts crept in.
They didn't measure up to the sleeves in the drawing.
Too long, and not wide enough.
Is tha- is that too much bunching? That's too much bunching right?
I was deeply unhappy.
Until one day, in the middle of pandemic isolation, the wifi went down.
And stayed down.
For days.
At first I could handle it. I worked on my fic. I edited some photos. I played computer games. But then, one early morning after gaming for seven hours straight, in a blur of fatigue and iced-tea, I snapped.
I took a spoonful of cement, hardened the fuck up, and did not leave my sewing table until the sleeve pattern was done. I took my old designs, and just added so much volume. Like, so much volume you guys. These are truly enormous sleeves.
And then, still in my biscuit-fuelled haze of productivity and spite, I sat down and wrote this wacky summary of the whole thing.
tl:dr My wimpy sleeves made me sad. I got high on exhaustion and sugar. Now my sleeves are dope af. :D
same process as before to get the design onto the fabric
okay so there’s a zip up the front of the jacket remember, and sewing over it will make it unusable, so I have to unpick and move it out of the way so it doesn't get tangled in the embroidery
start sewing
move zip BEFORE you sew over it genius
continue sewing
everything hurts. hands, shoulders, eyes, head. i definitely push too hard and go for too long today and collapse afterwards
part of what makes this so difficult is just the sheer amount of fabric i’m sewing.
like there^ is so much bulk. it’s HUGE. it’s heavy and dense and stiff and with every curve and every corner I have to turn the whole thing. it doesn’t want to feed through, so i am physically pushing it and doing precision adjustments for hours on end. and every time i turn it i have to feed the entire jacket through that tiny hole in the machine
^see? all of that fabric, ALL OF IT, has to go through that hole every time i turn it. there were points where I literally could not see what i was sewing because there was so much fabric in the way
nearly done. oh wait!
i do get it done, but At What Cost
here’s a rare shot from the inside showing the unattached zip and the difference the double top thread makes. see how sparse and gappy the stitching is versus the good side? yeah, that’s all down to that extra top thread
^is me. I am excite :D
decided to begin sewing on the back, as this is the largest area and slightly less visible than the front. my sewing machine can only unspool one thread at a time, so I'm using the other sewing machine to hold the second spool of thread. I'm also using two slightly different red threads blended together. because it looks cool (and it helps me get around my indecision about what red to use for Roman “Extra as All Get Out” Sanders)
wear the jacket, get the stencil sitting how I want, pin it down, take off jacket
use fabric pen to draw dots where the design goes, remove stencil.
begin sewing. try and very rapidly get good at machine embroidery.
this is so slow. just, fiddly, slow, tedious, detailed work. it takes hours.
this is a detail pic, in which I hope you can see the effect the blended red threads are giving (it’s bigger if you click on it). it’s most visible in the pink circle.
just under halfway done when I call it quits for the night. I love sewing at night and into the early hours of the morning. there’s a wonderful quietness to it, just me alone in my little puddle of warm light and everything else is still and dark (see below, where there’s a patch of light at the machine, and the rest of the world is a soft blue)
and this is where I got to, seen in the cold light of day! :D
(^that’s friggin cool, and I hope to one day be even half that good.)
it has occurred to me that you have no idea what I'm making! (or you know what, but have zero clue of what it's meant to look like.)
so have some of my terrible terrible drawings:
my fabric stab testing results were that it needs to be four layers thick, with the layers quilted together for strength and stability.
the 1st and 4th layer will be with the grain, the 2nd layer will be across the grain, and the 3rd layer will be on the bias. it's a multigrain jacket.
XD (sorry not sorry)
strap across the back for waist adjustment (that’s the wonky bow-tie looking thing to the right of my sketch up top)
crossover front and collar, with the opening on the left as I am a right handed swordsperson. there is a zip under the crossover, and then heavy duty buttons or ties on the outside edge.
collar with blade catcher. this is a fun protective swording thing.
when you get stabbed while sparring, the blade can deflect up your torso, and (if you're very unlucky) under your mask into your neck or the bottom of your jaw. which is VERY BAD. a blade catcher is part of the collar that is folded over to stop this happening. like so!
the black outline is a person in profile
purple line = their snazzy purple jacket
grey line = their shiny metal mask
(face stabbing is fun! throat stabbing? not so much.)
big puffy sleeves, for ease of movement... and to accommodate my HUGE GU- i do not have huge guns. that’s silly. and we are serious swording people. :|
I'm sewing all of the construction seams twice, for strength. once with regular thread, once with extra strong thread, and then a row of topstitching with extra strong thread.
Roman Sanders things:
I can't add a physical sash or gold braid to it, as that will be a hazard during fights. so I'm tossing up hinting at those elements using embroidery? I dunno. design is not my strong suit (neither is my birthday suit, sit down Remus), so if someone out there has any ideas, good or bad, lemme know. cos I've got vague ideas? but I cannot draw for peanuts. still thinking this one over...
