doublets

I couldn't help but notice but it's been a while since I've posted to this. This does not mean that I haven't been busily sewing on new garb. Having accomplished one set of court garb for both David and myself, and realizing the upcoming event was going to require some clothes for us to be able to participate in rapier with, I set to work.

While I had made these particular vests previously, I had not made two of them at the same time. I set to work on my vest first, and had it mostly assembled in good short order. I had opted to do a blue exterior with a yellow lining utilizing the reverse on the shoulder wings and tabs along the bottom of the vest. This puts this vest completely opposite and color coordination as the yellow Italian Renaissance dress that makes up my court garb. At first, Dafydd didn't seem to like showing both colors in this manner on the same vest, however after some friends of ours took a look they convinced him that when I did his vest I should opt for him wearing his yellow as the primary color with the blue as the accent.

From 2009-0504 SCA Rent A Don

As my best was done except for buttons and buttonholes and all small bit of hand sewing to close the lining, I set to work on cutting out and making his vest. In no time at all, I had to vests that needed buttons and buttonholes. Now herein we found the slowest part of making these vests as my sewing machine that does automatic button holes has decided to stop working effectively. That meant I was going to have to make a judgment call on what size to make the button holes and to do them all by hand so the linen would not continue to fray. Of course this means that I need to cut the buttonholes first and hope that they end up being the right size and in the right location - I do miss my buttonhole machine.

From 2009-0504 SCA Rent A Don

I must say that these are not the best buttonholes I've ever seen, I wouldn't even rate them as average, but they do do the job and the vests for ready-to-wear this past weekend. Surprisingly enough even though the vests did not have the layers that they should have they held up rather well and looked rather decent. Everyone thought it was cute that Dafydd and I were a matched pair. These vests will get their due, as they will be utilized again this upcoming weekend for a demonstration of rapier.