First I measured him up. When he was at work, I cut out the pieces. Wrong! Shouldn't do that! Stupid idea! It wasn't long enough so I had to cut out pieces to add to the bottom.
Then we messed around with tea dyes and then decided to dye everything blue so I made a big bucket of blue dye (from a packet - I'm not a magician!) and we dumped everything in. It didn't really all fit in there so it dyed a bit unevenly (which I think looks fantastic but everyone has their own opinion). Then we dried it and ironed it and all the pieces had shrunk! This is when I cracked the shits the first time.
Anyway, being the stubborn turd that I am, I decided that I would make the damned gambeson anyway and if it didn't fit Roy then I would wear it as a vest or something crazy. So I started sewing it in a diamond pattern. On the back I decided to sew a cross shape because the era that Roy does sword-fighting in is 600AD - 1200AD (I think!?!?!) Anyway, whatever era it is there were lots of crosses around because Christianity was just taking off and they'd found lots of things with crosses on them in archaeological digs. AND I can't find any gambesons online that have crosses sewn on them so I want to be a cross-shaped pioneer (or a pioneer of cross-shapes).
So that's what the front looked like (the sleeves are sewn in)
And here's my lovely cross on the back. I decided that I would sew the bottom (the bits that I added to make it longer) in stripes, so I left them till last.
Because there's two layers of batting in between the calico, the seams are ridiculously fat and this worried me so I after I sewed the seams up, I sewed them open.
So that's what the seams on the front look like.
And this is what it looks like on the back. I could have cut the excess back a bit but I didn't because I wanted room to adjust everything.
Of course the arms were too small for me to sew the seams open so that's when I cracked the shits for the second time.
Because all the pieces had shrunk, the front of the gambeson was a lot smaller than I wanted. What we wanted to do was have it so the gambeson did up at the centre front with ties but that wasn't going to happen. So I cut out more bloody calico for the front so that it could cross over. Of course, we then had to buy new blue dye. And then I realised that I would like some bias-binding, so I made bias binding (9 bloody metres of the stuff!) and then dyed that and the front bit. We didn't have enough batting to do a double layer, so the front cross-over bit is only a single layer.
If I had to do this again (which I am never ever, ever, ever in a million years ever going to do again) I would sew all the seams down with bias-binding over the top. Of course, then I would have to make a gazillion metres of bias-binding.
Anyway, I sewed stripey bits on the sleeves (because they were too short as well) and on the bottom and made some ties and sewed them on the front and now it's finished! And it fits Roy so he gets to wear the dodgy vest and I don't have to!
If it's tied up tightly, the left neck bit goes under the cross-over. I hate that bit. I want to cut it off but Roy won't let me because he likes how it sticks up like that.
Apparently it's very comfortable so that's good. Roy's been wearing it around the house because he likes it so much. That is also a plus. He wore it to training the other day but he didn't really get to test it out much. As soon as it gets cut with a sword, all hell will break loose. You have been warned.
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