Gambeson And Cuisses DiaryThe decision to use leather on the outside of the arming jacket was the clients decision. While he might be hotter in the gambeson than if linen was used for the exterior, it is certain to hold up well and the leather will offer further protection. Since this is a garment whose primary function is to protect a fighter, functionality is of the utmost consideration It was also decided to use batting as opposed to the sew channels and stuff method. There are many good reasons for using batting, the most important is it leaves no area unprotected. Since the purpose of this gambeson is to protect the wearer from blows and further to keep his amour from chafing this seemed to be the preferable technique. However it is worth making note that some members of the SCA will argue the choice. After consulting with numerous people and researching on my own it was decided to use three layers of the batting for the gambeson. Extra batting may be used on the shoulders, and I will use at least four layers on the cuisses. There is some back ground on how we decided to use cotton over wool or silk batting. Silk is great but expensive, so we nixed that. (There is synthetic batting but we did not want to use that for many obvious reasons, though it is quite inexpensive) I called Hobb's Batting and spoke to them on the advice of King's Men Batting who sells Hobb's batting. King's Men was extreemly good about shipping and I highly recomend them. I had questions, some of which could be answered and some which could not be. To be fair I was asking some pretty odd questions. So Hobbs kindly sent me some samples which I experimented with. We were very much leaning towards the wool because while it is warm, it breathes very nicely, and is fluffy which seemed very good and it does not need to be pre-shrunk. And while I am allergic to wool I found the sample to not bother me very much. However I decided to test it against the properties of the cotton batting. I had samples of wool, organic cotton and scrimed organic cotton. One of the qualities of the gambeson is that we wanted it to dry quickly after it had become sweat soaked. After all any good fighter is going to pretty much sweat like a pig, so we need a garment that was going to dry quickly so that it wasn't going to be nasty to wear on a second day. So I checked the cotton versus the wool for absorption. What I did was wet a piece of each of the battings with water. What I found was surprising. The wool sucked up the water very quickly where as the cotton has to be almost forced to absorb water. I had presumed that the natural characteristics of wool would make water roll off it, instead I found that it soaked water like a sponge and then became a very thin piece of nasty looking stuff that seemed to have no protection qualities. The cottons on the other hand hardly absorbed water and styled pretty much the same thickness. So it was decided to use the cotton as it would both keep it's density and stay drier. Special thanks for all their help goes to Oleg... Daria Montferrante... The Folks at SCA Armor Craft yahoo group... And HL Isabeau de Sevingy who offered invaluable information. |
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July 14th, 2004I gave the linen a pre-wash last evening, and dried the heck out of it. The linen made the hugest lint ball I have ever seen! This morning first thing I put it into the wash for one more go at shrinking anything that might have been left unshrunk. This time I pulled it out of the drier slightly damp to make ironing easier. Pre-washing the cotton batting so far has not been fun. I cut the batting into three yard lenghts, all of which should be washed individually. (BTW Hobb's has wonderful customer assistance!)The directions from Hobb's says to wash in tepid water with no agitation. One is supposed to soak the cotton batting for five or ten minutes, rise, and then let it go through the spin cycle. This means that I had to figure out what stages my washing machine uses the agitator as one is not supposed to agitate. Naturally this made me agitated. It's hot today, and my machines are outdoors where it is already about 90 degrees, and standing in front of the machine timing everything is really not fun. However so far everything seems successful with the batting. I did deviate from the directions in so far as I let the rinse setting agitate some, because I didn't know how else to rinse it. And then put the first piece into the drier on delicate. (Oddly enough the linen lint ball is much bigger, who would have thunk such a thing?) So far so good and the second piece is spinning dry as I write this. Well so far today I managed to finish all of the pre-washing, ironed up the linen and did some test runs on a scrap of the leather to get the tension correct for the many layers of fabrics. |
July 15th, 2004I then settled on 3 layers of the cotton batting for most of the garment with an extra layer at the shoulders and extending down to the chest, just below the where the arm would begin to avoid armour pinches. There were plenty of details to work out and somehow the entire day passed by with nothing much accomplished. |
July 16th, 2004 |
July 17th, 2004 |
July 19th, 2004 |
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Then came the big bold move of cutting the actual final shapes out of the quilted leather. I wanted to be very careful other wise all would be lost. So I checked and rechecked any possibilities I could think of and then recut. So far it appears it will. The next step was to tie off all the threads to sewn down to hold the quilting lines, much as one would tie off the threads for button holes. After that I realized that I should start picking away some of the batting from between the layers of leather and wool so that the seams would not have a large bulk to them, and also to make sure the various layers would go through the machine. This process took quite a bit of time, and made my hands very sore. Getting the scissors up through the channels and clipping was hard work. So far I have done the back piece and one of the front panels all of which took about 3 1/2 hours. By 12:30 AM I decided I had better stop because I'm tired and my hands are cramped so I will finish this part off tomorrow morning. Still I am very pleased with how I imagine the gambeson will look. |
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So with almost everything ready for assembly I decided to recheck my leather and be certain I had enough for all the rest of my ideas. Acckk! That took about an hour and a half! I found out what I could and could not do. I had wanted to put a binding strip across the bottom of the arming jacket and the sleeves. I also would have liked them for the tops cuisses. Well that's not going to happen. And I realized I needed leather for the buckles. After considering all my options I decide I would call Thurman the next day and ask what he thought. |
So I now have the gambeson laying on the floor with the leather curled a bit under at the edges and am using books as weights to encourage the leather to take the shape I want. It may be that tomorrow I will sew a horizontal seam right through the entire garment just above the hem line to keep this shape in place . I pretty much knocked off early today at 6:00 to go for a swim. Glad I did. I'm feeling much more relaxed. |
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OK the rest of making the gambeson was a blur and more than anything else my fingers were too sore to type at night. This how I think the rest went... July 23rd Spent about 2.5 hours each sleeves sewing them on by hand. The reason for this was because I did not have enough physical room to use the clip method and the sleeves needed to be basted in order to sew through the machine. I suppose the sleeves could have stayed sewn only by hand but since this is a fighter's outfit and will probably take some considerable stress, using a machine stitch as the final one seems like a good idea. Yikes! I wound up having to use my Leather Man tool for actual leather! I needed a hard metal surface to push the needle through all the layers. The nice thing about the Leather Man tool is that it has some notches on it that I could use to keep the eye of the needle from slipping when I pushed it through. Once the needle was pushed through I pulled it out with some needle nose pliers. Perhaps not the most fun I've ever had, but there are also less fun things to do. The next step was to sew the linen lining to the quilted linen so that the lining and the jacket would move together. This was done by hand about every four inches. On the sleeves I chose about 1.5 inch tufting and also some straight out quilting. July 24 2004 I was thinking about seeing the parachute riggers to use their machines to sew on the sleeves. Too many layers of fabric and leather to really want to put through my machine. But the riggers are too busy on the weekends so I scratched that idea. I decided to go somewhere else on Monday to complete the sleeves. But I still needed another shopping trip anyway to get more linen to complete the cuisses, and pick up more thread that had to be special ordered. Apparently I had already bought out all the brown button hole twist available in Miami. So I went fabric shopping instead. I was pretty tired so the only sewing I did after the shopping trip was to finish up the hand sewing from the previous day. July 26 2004 Took Sunday off.....Truthfully I'm not certain what I did that day but I'm pretty certain I started quilting the cuisses and got both done. The quilting was done in a diamond pattern, with the idea that it would offer more flexibility. July 27 2004 Cut the final shape of the cuisses. Hand sewed the along the interior edges just like the gambeson. More ouch ouch ouch on the finger tips. Also tufted the linen lining just like the interior of the gambeson. Also had to once again, pick out all the quilting from the edges in order to sew up the edges, perhaps my least favorite part of the job. |
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July 28 2004 Woke up sick as a dog. From this point on everything is a bit of a blur and I'm not certain what was done on what day. My stomach had grumbled the night before and I was developing a cough, but I woke up with some kind of nasty flu. I wound up trying to work but went back to bed. Got up about 1 PM feeling halfway better. I still needed to get the batting out of the area from behind the knees so the cuisses would have a nice flexible unrestricted movement. Oh boy more picking at batting! However I was so sick it was just nice to sit in a chair, and it was almost relaxing.
After picking out the batting from between the edges of the diamond quilting, I decided to just take out the entire area. I didn't like that the batting was still somewhat attached to the bit of quilting stitches and felt like that would annoy the heck out of me if I were wearing them. I also felt like the threads would wear with time and become loose which would eventually cause the diamond quilting to come out. So I removed all the quilting including the stitches, then tacked the edges of the stitches and resewed the diamond quilting pattern into the cuisses. This made me satisfied. I can't remember what was done on Thursday exactly..... Friday So now back to the gambeson...Some how I think this was Friday the 29.....The sleeves were still not attached by machine. So I went to see Dora. Dora has a shop nearby and has done alterations and shoe repair all her adult life. A perfect combination of skills for putting on the sleeves. Also Dora has a leather sewing machine that is intended for shoes. This particular machine has all sorts of room to maneuver the leather. Here's a link for illustration. So I left the gambeson with Dora went back and worked on a design for the leather straps for the buckles. The buckles chosen are 5/8" bronze eared buckles hand made from Gaukler . They are nice and flat and a period metal. And Gaulker was a wonderful place to deal with! Perfect workmanship and customer support. I came up with a design and then went to go buy some flowers for Dora. I figured she could use them because I knew she was about to hate my guts when she tried to attach the sleeves. Good thing I had found a dozen purple roses! When I got back to Dora's a big surprise was ins tore for me. She had taken out all of my hand stitching! I was stunned to say the least! 5 hours of hard work down the drain! But what Dora did was glue the pieces back together. She said it way easier to get the leather through the machine. I was still freaking out, but I didn't want to upset her. The next step was to sit with Dora for about two hours while she sewed and I held the gambeson. The sleeves came out great! The lessen here is this...glue is good! Basting is bad! Dora also gave me some cotton tape to glue between the layers of leather for the buckles. The purpose of this it to keep the leather form stretching. Really works nicely! So I made all the belts for the buckles that would close the gambeson. Saturday The next step was to address the arming points. I decided I would cut squares of leather, punch holes in the center of the squares, and sew two squares together just on the outside of the circles. Then insert the squares into the corresponding holes punched into the cuisses. Then I would sew around the outer edges of the squares. This worked on the first one so I went ahead and made up another dozen of them. But as I sat inserting the shapes I decided they looked too much like orifices, somehow in my delirium, the arming points were looking like butt holes. I just couldn't send Thurman to the fields of Pennsic with such arming points. So instead I bound each hole by hand using button hole twist. Now that all the details for the cuisses were finished I could sew up the side seams. I was pretty happy they were done! |
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Sunday Now that the sleeves were on the one thing that seemed to really irritate me was that the raw seams were showing. I was grossed out by them. I never have raw seams. So I decided to cut strips of left over linen and sew them down each side of the flattened seams. Oh I thought this won't take to long! I sat in my chair from 10:30 am till 11:30 pm. I ate lunch and dinner in the chair, only leaving for a 15 minute trip to the pet store to by a fish.
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DignitasEquestris Gewandungen Stefan's Florilegium Charles Flemming Andy Goddard Die Liebaart Inga The Unfettered
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