Wooohooo! My new, embroidered arming coat is finally finished! …and yeah, I have photos to prove it!
But first things first! The last week was really intense. All week long I was working like crazy at a special knighting “scroll” due to a very short deadline. I even worked my nights through to make sure that I am able to finish the “scroll” in time. Though my sweetheart might have missed snuggling with me at night, he was very understanding and supportive – thank you hon! I love you! 😀
And finally all the hard work and back pain paid off as I just finished the last details! And damn, it looks pretty amazing if I may say so…
But unfortunately I can’t show you any pictures of this very special knighting “scroll” until after the event as it is supposed to be a surprise for its recipient. However, I have another finished project which I can show you. My dear sweetheart took several pictures of my new, embroidered arming coat for you. 🙂
Though I was not able to test my new, embroidered arming coat in a fighter practice yet as I am still missing some major armor parts, I am still pretty excited. I’ve never been so close to actually getting a good fitting set of armor for SCA heavy fighting together. And that makes me very happy. Now I only need some more armor and I can start with SCA heavy fighting again… Yeah, sooooo close… *lol*
And now let’s take a look at my new, embroidered arming coat – enjoy! 😀
Above you can see the front of my new arming coat. The sleeves are attached to the main body through lacing at the top border of the armholes. I made several eyelets for the lacing by using the quite simple and rather basic buttonhole stitch.
And here a picture of the embroidery I made in order to embellish the sleeve cuffs:
And here a picture of one of my finished sleeves with the quite special sleeve shape inspired by the “pourpoint of Charles of Blois” from the 14th century:
At the last day of our “100 day Pell Challenge” (100 strikes at the pell for 100 days) I was already able to test my new, embroidered arming coat and the special sleeves for the first time. Though it was quite warm in the padded arming coat, it didn’t restrict my movement in any way or form. I am very glad to say that moving in it felt natural and that I was very comfortable wearing it.
Therefore I would call the sleeves a full success! It actually felt like I wasn’t wearing any padding or sleeves at all. Due to the special sleeve shape the curved elbow part stayed at the same place all the time – regardless of my movement. And this fact was quite important as I am planning to attach my elbow cups directly to the sleeves of my arming coat. This will allow me to keep them rather loose concerning the crook of the arm while at the same time I make sure that they don’t shift and expose my elbow joint. Yeah, I am really fed up with armor bites at this point and this seems to be a good way to avoid them in the future.
And now a picture of the backside of my new, embroidered arming coat:
As you can see at the picture above, I used the same big “fleur-de-lys” pattern along the neckline which I also used for the sleeve cuffs.
Btw. if you take a look at the bottom of my arming coat you can see that the fabric creates some really odd folds. This is based on the fact that I decided not to add some padding to this parts. I thought that the duck canvas and the lining would be sufficient enough on their own but as the picture above proves it – they aren’t!
Though I am not willing to take the arming coat apart again to add some more padding, I definitely learned my lesson! In the future I will make sure that the whole bottom part is padded to avoid this rather odd looking folds. Well, this is unless I decide to make them a part of my design. At least now I know that a continuous padding would stiffen the folds and provide a more rounded look. 🙂
I hope you enjoyed the pictures of my new, embroidered arming coat! I still can’t believe that I actually made one which works so fine… *lol*
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