October 20, 2016

• Looking at a Debtor

  Son #2 has always had big ideas and had difficulty in following through with them. About 5 years ago he was going to make a costume for a Comicon or Gencon (I can't remember which one). It was a reproduction of the body armor from Gears of War. He bought power tools, foam, special floor padding, PVC pipe, spray paint, and the list goes on. He started making it and when he ran into difficulty he gave up. We still have bits of it in the basement, the parts we forgot to box up when he moved out.

  Now he is making a Viking costume. He came over a couple of weeks ago and had Sparky help him use the circular saw to cut out a shield. He had several wood planks that once cut and stained have sat in the garage. He ordered some sort of metal piece for the front of the shield (a boss) and is waiting for that to arrive. He is still looking for some fur to wrap around his legs. He figures that a fur coat will show up at Goodwill sooner or later. In the meantime he asked me to make him a gambeson. What is a gambeson I asked. Son #2 then educated me via Wikipedia:
  "It is a padded defensive jacket, worn as armour separately, or combined with mail or plate armor. Gambesons were produced with a sewing technique called quilting. In medieval Norse, the garment was known as vápntreyja, literally "weapon shirt,"("Vapn" means Våpen-weapon+"trøye" means "shirt" in Norwegian)."

  I countered that I'd make one if he provided the pattern and the fabric. I had one provision - He needed to get everything to me before 11:00 AM on Saturday October 15th as Sunday would really be the only day that I'd have to work on it. I figured that this would be another project that wouldn't get off the ground. I was wrong. He asked me to go with him on Saturday morning to buy the fabric. He arrived to pick me up at 8:30 AM and he had the pattern in hand. We picked out fabric and were home in record time.

  Here is a photo record of my progress:
  
  This is the pattern - he wanted the jacket the guy with the hat is wearing only shorter and without the sleeves and no buttons.

  
  This is the fabric he picked out. I had suggested some cheaper stuff but he wanted it to be brown or black or even forest green and the cheap stuff only came in white, tan, and pastel yellow, pink and blue. The pattern called for 3+ yards of 60" fabric and this was 45" width. I wanted to get 2 yards but the sales clerk suggested that it might not be enough. He bought 3+ yards at $10/yd. Ouch.
  
  There are a couple things that I dislike about sewing. The first is cutting out individual pattern pieces from the giant sheets of tissue paper they are printed on. Then there is the pinning of said tissue paper pieces to the fabric. Because my sewing room doesn't have a large table suitable to work on big projects, I end up using the dining room table.
  
  Finally they are all cut out. This is when the fun can begin!
  
  I got so excited I forgot to take some of the intermediate steps. I've got the front, back and the little caps over the sleeves sewn together and I'm putting the peplum on the bottom.
  
  Here it is assembled but the edges still need to be hemmed. I had to have Sparky try it on at this point to check the length and to double check the amount of room at the waist. He requested that I not take a photo...
  
  It took a bit of time to sew the neck and sleeve edges. I had to hand baste them and then machine stitch a second turn to hide all the raw edges. The front and bottom edges were easier since they were straight.
  
  Here is a close up of the leather strips I sewed on as closures. I had an old belt that had been braided that I had salvaged to use in a ceramics craft (to tie around the neck of a vase). I think this was a better use since it looks pretty rugged in a medieval Viking way.

  I wasn't feeling particularly perky on Sunday and had a terrible sinus headache. I still managed to get this finished. I didn't want to be blamed for the costume not getting off the ground. So son #2 owes me. Big time debt. The kind of debt that will cost him dearly at some point. The possibilities for payback are endless.

  • 6:25 am
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