Another Friend Outfit, Another Blue Outfit

A  short men's houppelande with embattled/dagged sleeves, for Sir John to wear to a 14th century pas d'armes tournament:

The lion (and embattled chief) on the front are 16" across.  If you've ever appliquéd anything, you know that's quite a lot of appliqué!   And all the twists and turns, yikes!  It was HARD.  I love hard.  I've been sewing since I was 9..."hard" is FUN.  :)

The lion was traced from a blown-up computer printout, and then inked
with india ink from my calligraphy set:  it's permanent, dark, and waterproof.
Creating this thing, from start to finish, took me four hours. 

I dyed the tongue red using a mixture of acrylic paint and fabric medium.
Before cutting out the lion, I put a heavy adhesive interfacing backing on
it so that it would be stiff enough to prevent all the little claws and hairs
from curling and shifting as it was sewn down. 

figuring out placement

satin-stitching around the chief...before I remembered that
I needed to do this in black!  Whoops.

This was my solution, rather than removing ALL that blue thread.
Came out pretty dang spiffy, too.  

Back view, during the tournament.



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