Waisted Kirtle

Super Secret Projects for Cynaguan Coronet

Ok. So here’s the post-mortem details on my Super Secret Projects for Cynaguan Coronet.

A while ago Their Highnesses expressed Their wish that the theme for Cynaguan Fall Coronet (which occurs near Halloween) was to be “Medieval Superheroes and Villians”. After considering it for a while I came up with a cunning and diabolical plan for our costumes. I dress as Captain America and my love dressed as Captain Hammer (from Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog). I had -a lot- of fun putting these together.

Captain America Cotehardie Photo by Patsy Reece
Captain (Thor’s) Hammer Photo by Patsy Reece



Captain America Cotehardie

I chatted about this with a few of my friends and happened to mention that I had no easy way as a medieval girl wearing this costume to deal with Captain America’s shield. Flidais came up with the brilliant idea of painting a parasol.

I found the stripes on the bodice very striking. I mean I know it’s patriotic and all.. but the strips are just gorgeous. I may have to see about working something like this into future outfits. Add to that, I’d forgotten how easy it is to do applique without surface stitching showing. This is something else I’ll have to remember in the future.

Details:

Bodice – The top of this is a single layer of linen bodice which I wear OVER my Cobalt Waisted kirtle. It’s based on my bodice pattern and has no sleeves. The blue used for the upper part is remains from when I made my Cobalt kirtle so it blends in beautifully. The stripes are each ~3″ wide sewn together with a flat-felled seam. I used matching thread on each seam, so that wherever thread shows the -right- color of thread shows. As best I could I ended the side, center-front and center-back seams on a red section so that only red thread was used to connect the bodice pieces. I did a 1/4″ machine-hem all the way around the blue parts of the bodice and hand-hemmed the red/white parts. I used red thread for the bottom hem and used a very careful hem stitch and only picked up a single thread in the white sections so the red hem thread doesn’t show on the white sections. I used the stitch and flip method to make the star and then appliqued it onto the front of the bodice with a hidden applique stitch.

Hood – This is my standard blue/grey open hood which I wear with my Cobalt kirtle. In the middle front of this I have stitched an “Amour” pilgrim badge which I picked up from Fettered Cock Pewters when I was at Pennsic.

Painted Parasol

“Shield” – As I mentioned, Flidais suggested I paint a parasol to match the design of Captain America’s Shield. I found a nice image of it online to determine the design and then used standard artist acrylics to paint a paper parasol I had.


Captain (Thor’s) Hammer

Up until a week before Coronet I had planned to dress Fearghus as Mr. Incredible. The problem with that outfit is it would require Fearghus to wear a red tunic.. which he hates and would never wear again. I’m, in general, opposed to making outfits Fearghus won’t wear.

About a week before Coronet we had recorded Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog on our DVR.. and I made Fearghus watch it (I was surprised to find out he hadn’t watched it). Sadly he didn’t find it as great as I find it. BUT the one line in the whole show he really enjoyed was Captain Hammer’s line.. about his fists :). With that in mind, and keeping in mind that Fearghus -will- wear a black tunic in the future. I convinced him to dress at Captain Hammer. Added bonus, it was very easy to “medieval” the hammer into a Thor’s hammer.

Details:

I used the standard tunic pattern with short-sleeves I have for Fearghus and made this up in some black linen from my stash. I barely had enough linen.

I backed the yellow wool felt with some white linen since the yellow was fairly thin and the black underneath was showing through. I found a =perfect= Thor’s Hammer and used machine embroidery to fill in the lines. This was then appliqued down on the yellow circle. The whole ensemble was then stitched down to the center of the chest of the tunic.

The machine embroidery worked well enough. I used some silver-gilt thread which I’ve had in my thread box for a long time. I think if my machine wasn’t having tension issues this would have been even nicer. Even as it is, it reminded me that machine embroider isn’t -horrible-.. and it -is- quick.

Also, throughout the evening at Coronet I kept remarking to myself how nice Fearghus’ outfit looked. The black tunic with the red Viking Rus Pants. I’ll have to keep that color combination in mind for the future.

1 thought on “Super Secret Projects for Cynaguan Coronet

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.