15 August 2012

As We Don the Sleeves of Gold

Sir John's 11thC Norman
Bad Sting reference, no no!  Sorry.  I didn't get much sleep last night.  I spent several hours finishing the secret surprise A&S project that I can't tell you about, and did a bit of sewing - but mostly it's because after that I stayed up too late de-compressing with video games, lol.  I can never get to bed after working on something creative without some brainless downtime in between, otherwise my head spins and I can't sleep.  So staying up past two racing little radio-controlled cars on the Playstation is better, right?  Glad you're coming with me on that one.







Takuan's 14thC Samurai
ANYWAY.  I made a pair of pin-on sleeves last night:  yellow-gold trimmed with black.  Why?  If you guessed "kingdom colors" you're close, but no cigar.  I joined up with Caerleon (fighting company/household) earlier this year - just as event season was drawing to a close, so I never got to wear a company uniform.  Each member creates a unique uniform for him/herself based on their own persona guidelines, but in Caerleon colors and with the Caerleon insignia on it.  It looks pretty cool when we're all together. :)







standard cote + sleeves + veil
Being your standard, run-of-the-mill mid-15thC Englishwoman, my options are pretty wide open.  I have several ideas about my uniform, but I'm in the process of putting together a sort of "starter uniform" first.  While anyone in the company may display the company motto on their clothing (bottom hem of Sir John's picture, above), you actually have to earn your lions, by fighting with or supporting the company through three or more melee-based events.  Since I joined at the end of event season, I haven't had the chance yet, so, no lions for me.  Which gives me time to decide what I want to wear. :)













LBD = little black dress
For the time being, I made a pair of gold sleeves to wear with my "LBD" cotehardie.    I was thinking of making a matching gold cloth belt with the motto painted or stitched along the length of it, until I remembered that yellow belts are for Pelicans.  D'oh!  I think I might paint the motto around the black band at the top of the sleeves instead.





I've also ordered myself a pretty yellow-gold crocheted snood from Etsy, to wear with the outfit.  



All this babbling is to say that I'm SUPER excited about getting to wear my very own Caerleon colors for the first time in a couple of weeks.  Yay!






The beginning of my first Caerleon uniform.  <3 

2 comments:

  1. How do you attach the separate sleeves?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I started out using straight pins; but later I made myself some little decorative pins to hold them in place on my dress, out of buttons with pinbacks glued to the back. :)

    ReplyDelete

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