[Ansteorra] Broadcloth and long underwear

[Isobel de Kirkbryde]

Regarding the suggestion for poly/cotton blends, the higher the cotton percentage the more the fabric will breathe.  If you want a simple test for those fabrics listed at the Walmart $1 bin as "content unknown" put the fabric up to your nose and mouth and try to breathe through it.  If you can easily, the fabric will breathe.  If you can't, it won't.  That doesn't mean to avoid it at all costs, just be aware that it will be a better winter fabric than summer, when you want every morsel of heat trapped next to your body. Ansteorra has hot summers and cold winters.  I've been equally unprepared for both conditions at events. lol.

Silk long underwear are luxurious.  They are thin, so they don't add bulk (some of us don't need more bulk).  They are very warm.  And for those of us with thunder thighs, they also help prevent inner thigh chafing.  I'm looking for something to wear in the summer that will do the same thing -- a pettipant of sorts. 

I started with not much money.  I buy patterns on sale at 99 cents.  Yes, I know some of them are not 100% period, but I can make something off of a pattern.  I'm not a good enough seamstress to take measurements, make something and have it come off right.  I buy $1 a yd fabric, and  trim on sale at Walmart and Hobby Lobby.  I have a huge button box full of buttons so I can add buttons that are period looking as well. 

After 3-4 years of playing, I have invested in a farthingale being made to fit me.  That is a luxury and you can get by w/o one for decades.  Of course men don't wear farthingales -- at least not the ones I've been around. lol

If you like fancy men's outfits, tights need to be men's tights and purchased at a dance shop.  Women's tights are NOT opaque enough and aren't designed to fit a man's body structure.  I have a man in tights.  umm, hmm, hmm.  

His last outfit was $2 worth of fabric from Walmart, less than $1 trim, a pair of tights for $15 and a $19 pair of suede boots. He had a belt and pouches, but I made pouches out of upholstery sample book scraps $1 each, so even if I included that, I have an informal men's Elizabethan outfit for less than $40 and most of it he can wear with other outfits.  That's the beauty of mix and  match.  You don't have one outfit that does only one thing.  They mix with others and so it brings the overall cost down. 

My son does much less fancy wear.   I made him a t-tunic out of about $3 worth of fabric.  I bought him women's leggings (he's a fighter and tears out everything else) for $8 and a friend gave him boots.  For less than $15 he has his first SCA outfit.

Yes, it took some help from others to learn how to make things, but I'm getting there.  And, it is fun and relaxing to sew, which I find an added bonus. 

Oh, BTW, my answer to the period police?  When someone tells me something isn't period, I thank them for the compliment.  The rules say I have to make an attempt.  Obviously, I have made an attempt if you can recognize that it isn't period.  I also offer to let them make my next outift.  Between the two they leave me alone.  They don't get the whipped puppy dog look, so it's not any fun anymore. 

OK, off my soapbox. The idea is to have fun.  It can be done w/o mortgaging your house for garb. 


Lady Isobel de Kirkbryde
Deputy Hospitaler, Barony of Namron
Guild Head of the Guild of St. Camillus de Lellis, Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Pick your friends, but not to death."
 		
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