"Simple" tunics

We've asked for funding from the college to buy wool for club cloaks, so making cloaks is on hold at least for a couple weeks. We also asked for money to make new tabards for our war. In the meantime we're working on planning a medieval wedding, which shall be amazing.

Which brings us to our next project: tunics! Our guys have very little, if any garb. The nice thing about tunics is that they can be thrown on over pj pants and look somewhat period. Note here - we're not worrying about historical accuracy for this project (much) we just want something these dudes can wear to events. I found two notable patterns:
1) Anglo-saxon tunic - http://www.forest.gen.nz/Medieval/articles/Tunics/TUNICS.HTML
2) T tunic with contrasting sleeves - http://www.reddawn.net/costume/tunic.htm
3) viking tunics - http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/viktunic.html

I think we will be using the anglo-saxon pattern as it looks do-able, but still comfortable. We're probably going to make these out of cheap cotton (gotta love Walmart's $1 rack!) or blends. The plan was to have to workshop Sat., but given our track record with these workshops, we'll see how that goes.

Just kidding

So apparently you cannot buy warm wool fabric in Febuary, you can only get it in the fall. All the stores are now carrying their summer fabrics.
The conclusion is thus that we will be ordering coat-weight wool online for these cloaks.
And thus have yet to actually make them.
The drama continues!

Fabric Run and Cloak Making Workshop #1

I'm feeling a whole lot better than I was. Today I am running/hosting a cloak making workshop. In about an hour, we're leaving for JoAnn's Fabrics to try and get some wool fabric, since they don't sell it at Walmart and we want to be warm.
We will be working off of this pattern: http://home.clara.net/arianrhod/Aldebaran/DoItYourself/Cloak02.html
Using the cutting technique explained at the bottom of the page.
A friend who has used this pattern has told me that the hood pattern doesn't work and that the neck hole on this pattern is not in the appropriate place - it needs to be farther back. I am going to draft a new hood pattern based on my favorite hoody and put this on my cloak. As for the neck hole, it will be trial and error. Clasps will be hand sewn on. Hems will either be done with seam binding or just normally, depending on the fabric and what the person wants.
I am also thinking it would be nice to make a little overlap in the front, cuz when its really cold and windy having that gap can be chilly.
Anyhow, off to prepare for the adventure!

Postponing things

Well... I spent the last 4 days quarantined in the hospital, so the cloak workshop for next weekend is being postponed.
If you want a concise summary of my coif research from before, I wrote an article for AC here: www.associatedcontent.com/article/568275/an_introduction_to_the_coif_medieval.html
I may have missed some of the points I hit here, but it covers most of it and in a much more coherent fashion than this blog does. Check it out!