SCA: A 15th-Century Velvet Houppelande

At my very first Gulf Wars, someone lent me a giant flannel houppelande on a cold night, which I threw on over my cotehardie, and I have wanted one ever since.  So comfy!  So voluminous!  It's like wearing blankets!  This year I finally made one for myself, since War of the Rams (BAM) in November is likely to be pretty cold in the evenings.  

This houpelande is made of the same cotton velveteen Ikea curtain panels that I used for my Regency pelisse, back in June.  Last year I acquired a huge box of these curtain panels from my local neighborhood swap group for free, and I still had 4 of them left (about 10 yards of fabric) - they were perfect for this project.  

I didn't have enough of the velveteen to make a full circle houppelande, so I used a simple A-line cut for the body of the dress, (adapted from a vintage 80s dress pattern) with side gores for as much fullness as I could pack into this thing.  The sleeves are D-shaped, and come to a short cuff at the wrist.  

The houppelande is unlined - I didn't have any fabric to use as lining, and I figured this velveteen would likely be heavy enough to keep me warm when worn over my other clothes. After it was put together I dyed the entire piece with teal and charcoal Rit dye, which gave the aqua-blue fabric a lovely medium blue-ish-gray color: 

After dyeing the whole thing, I added a collar and cuffs of white faux fur from my stash: 

 

The belt is one I made for a Burgundian gown that I made several years ago and never got around to wearing (oops). I had to move the hooks out several inches from where they were to get it to fit, but thankfully, the belt was long enough that I had plenty of space to work with.  The hooks themselves are gold-colored plastic highlighted with green nail polish to mimic an enamel look; I forget where I bought them originally, I've had them for aeons. 

The padded roll hat in the first picture is one I made many years ago.  It's nothing fancy, just a stuffed roll of damask upholstery fabric with pearl beads sewn on, worn with a netted/beaded snood and a couple of lightweight veils pinned onto it.  

So there's a big, new, warm outfit for BAM that I can wear on cold nights.  I also have my linen coat to wear over my Viking outfits, which won't be terribly warm on its own, but which I can wear with layers of hoods and caps, and my wool shoulder cloak.  

Edit:  It turns out the weather at BAM wasn't cold at all - mid-70s during the day, and only into the 60s at night, so I didn't get a chance to wear this at the event at all.  Maybe next year.  

Trimming My Viking Coat

Back in October 2015 I made this coat out of some remnants I had - burnt orange and royal blue linen, and a pair of gray cotton curtain panels from Ikea:

It's a great coat, and I love to wear it.  The only problem is, I made the arms a little bit too short. I don't have any of these fabrics anymore, either, so I can't just pull off the blue cuffs and make new longer ones to match.

Instead I added a second cuff made of white faux fur, to extend the length of the sleeves overall.  The cuffs are interlined with some scrap linen and an iron-on interfacing to help them keep their shape. So that the cuffs wouldn't look like add-ons, I also ran a 3" band of faux fur all the way around the neck and front, and the lower hem of the coat.

(sorry for the terrible picture)

I have to admit, I tried to dye this fur brown at first, because I hated the white - it's just so bright and glowy!  It kept coming out purple, though, no matter what dye I used.  Can't walk around an SCA event with purple muppet fur trim!  So the white is growing on me, I guess.  I suppose I can pretend it's polar bear or something.  What white fur would have been available to eastern Scanindavia in the 10th century?  Fox? Rabbit? Weasel of some kind?  I don't know.  Certainly not purple muppet.

I'll be honest, I'm not happy with the way the sleeves look. The fur cuffs look overly bulky and unbalanced, and the width of the blue section on the sleeves now looks completely stupid alongside the equal width of the fur cuffs.  But overall, I like the way the trim on the whole coat came out - it's warmer, it covers me better, and it's a bit longer on the hem. It's quite a bit heavier, too - I'd forgotten how much weight faux fur adds to a garment.

I would say something cheeky like "I'm ready, bring it on, weather!" but I know better than to tempt Mother Nature like that.  It's shaping up to be pretty cold at the event, and it might be rainy, too.  I've got a coat I can actually wear, now, and a couple of good hoods to cover my head, and I've got lots of Secret Mundane Underthings (leggings, tall socks, long underwear) that I can wear under my clothes, so I should be okay in the cold.

Preparing for this event I always laugh at the crazy weather BAM gets.  This time the highs should be in the 40s-50s.  The last time I went, four years ago, it was 90º during the day.  The year before that it stormed the entire time and flooded out half the site.  You just never know with this event.

What's next? 

I have a pair of new blue dresses to show you, and a "new" apron dress pattern. More on that soon.