Project Elf Chain
Feb. 25th, 2012 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzAnother long one coming up, you might want to sit down and brace yourselves for impact have a cup of tea to go with this.
Project Elf Chain is still ongoing. Until I've set the final ring in this thing it's not going to be dubbed "finished". Lately I've been working on getting the armscyes closed. At Drachenfest last year we had a sleeve cap of scales and last entry of this project I had attached the underarm 4-in-1 and lengthened the sleeve somewhat.
I've also been working on a little scalemail skirt to go with it. I wasn't quite sure about the skirt though, so I wanted to see how the entire outfit would look together. It's always a tight squeeze to get into these garments (you don't want flappy chainmail!) but even more so if it has to go on the mannequin because she can't be bent and prodded and bulged into the right shape.
Yesterday I was still working on closing up that armscye. Here's how I marked it.
If you lift up the sleeve, you can see a crease forming at the underarm (even though the mannequin is quite armless). I figured that's the point where the increase should start so I could create a kind of half-circle to fit the sleeve to the armscye. I marked the place where this happened, but I didn't want to do the increase in one point so there's two places to increase.
That evening during Stargate I fixed up one armscye worth of increases. Looks pretty nifty! I also attached part of the sleeve to the armscye, but I noticed that at the far bottom part I needed two or three extra rings vertically. I didn't feel up to doing that right then, so I set the project aside.
This morning I dressed up the mannequin, with some help from NoKey and bits of sisal rope.
The skirt is not symmetrical at this time, nor is it long enough. I had wanted it to reach past my knees. (My inspiration is still Eomer from Lord of the Rings!) However, I ran out of scales and it's always good to fit stuff to see if it works before plunging head-first into a ton of work only to find disaster at the end of the road.
In the rear, the gambeson 'escapes' into a sort of a tail-form between the two halves of the skirt. Hm. Well, I knew my mannequin doesn't quite dial up to my ample hips, so there's nothing for it: I'll have to wear the lot.
There's me, modeling the three pieces: gambeson, chainmail and scale skirt.
I know the gambeson is not fitting right. It works well enough for swordfighting practice, but the armscyes are too low and don't fit right. I still need to make a new one.
However, put a chainmail shirt over it, and suddenly everything gets pulled into nooks and crannies. The sleeves get a few centimeters shorter, the hem rises a bit and the neckline gets pulled down. That's what a chainmail shirt will do to your carefully (if not necessarily correctly) drafted pattern.
One thing that was really horrible is the saddlebags. The scalemail skirt hangs from a 'belt' of European 4-in-1 that was modeled after a pencil skirt pattern I drew to my measurements. However, the scales don't stretch and instead they try to escape at the largest dart, in the side, because they are granted that room by the front and back slit I need for walking.
Note: the whole thing is hanging lopsided at this point, so please forgive me that bit, and focus on the fit for now. It's bad.)
What might help with this problem is to take the scales off the belt and redo the belt. I could calculate how long the top end needs to be and how long the bottom end needs to be and do the increase gradually over the entire width to prevent the bulge at one point and instead have it gradually occur over the entire width of the thing. I just don't know if that will make a difference since the split at the side is the only part where it can escape and you can't do an increase in scalemail that looks good.
There's also a stress crease coming out of the armscye and running over the collarbone. This is partly due to the fact that the gambeson armscye is very low, and it pulls on the chainmail armscye which is a little better fitted. Part of this problem can be resolved by making a new, better fitted gambeson.
The other part of the problem is that the increase doesn't start far enough down the arm. It creates a weird dent in the sleeve shape. I was stupid not to see this earlier, but it will probably be a lot easier to just open up the "underarm seam" and increase the sleeve width overall until it fits the armscye! That will make for an excellent T-tunic shape which we all know from other chainmail shirts and it will be a lot easier to fit.
If this makes the sleeve too wide, I can narrow it down towards the bottom with a decrease quite easily.
ETA: I just realised that increasing from one end or decreasing from the other end means exactly the same. The only difference is that I'll know that the armscye is closed when I start to decrease.
At the very least I've got some experimenting to do and I can just see myself sewing a new, better fitted gambeson for swordfighting lessons in another dark green. Ah, the work! The angst!
Project Elf Chain is still ongoing. Until I've set the final ring in this thing it's not going to be dubbed "finished". Lately I've been working on getting the armscyes closed. At Drachenfest last year we had a sleeve cap of scales and last entry of this project I had attached the underarm 4-in-1 and lengthened the sleeve somewhat.
I've also been working on a little scalemail skirt to go with it. I wasn't quite sure about the skirt though, so I wanted to see how the entire outfit would look together. It's always a tight squeeze to get into these garments (you don't want flappy chainmail!) but even more so if it has to go on the mannequin because she can't be bent and prodded and bulged into the right shape.
Yesterday I was still working on closing up that armscye. Here's how I marked it.
If you lift up the sleeve, you can see a crease forming at the underarm (even though the mannequin is quite armless). I figured that's the point where the increase should start so I could create a kind of half-circle to fit the sleeve to the armscye. I marked the place where this happened, but I didn't want to do the increase in one point so there's two places to increase.
That evening during Stargate I fixed up one armscye worth of increases. Looks pretty nifty! I also attached part of the sleeve to the armscye, but I noticed that at the far bottom part I needed two or three extra rings vertically. I didn't feel up to doing that right then, so I set the project aside.
This morning I dressed up the mannequin, with some help from NoKey and bits of sisal rope.
The skirt is not symmetrical at this time, nor is it long enough. I had wanted it to reach past my knees. (My inspiration is still Eomer from Lord of the Rings!) However, I ran out of scales and it's always good to fit stuff to see if it works before plunging head-first into a ton of work only to find disaster at the end of the road.
In the rear, the gambeson 'escapes' into a sort of a tail-form between the two halves of the skirt. Hm. Well, I knew my mannequin doesn't quite dial up to my ample hips, so there's nothing for it: I'll have to wear the lot.
There's me, modeling the three pieces: gambeson, chainmail and scale skirt.
I know the gambeson is not fitting right. It works well enough for swordfighting practice, but the armscyes are too low and don't fit right. I still need to make a new one.
However, put a chainmail shirt over it, and suddenly everything gets pulled into nooks and crannies. The sleeves get a few centimeters shorter, the hem rises a bit and the neckline gets pulled down. That's what a chainmail shirt will do to your carefully (if not necessarily correctly) drafted pattern.
One thing that was really horrible is the saddlebags. The scalemail skirt hangs from a 'belt' of European 4-in-1 that was modeled after a pencil skirt pattern I drew to my measurements. However, the scales don't stretch and instead they try to escape at the largest dart, in the side, because they are granted that room by the front and back slit I need for walking.
Note: the whole thing is hanging lopsided at this point, so please forgive me that bit, and focus on the fit for now. It's bad.)
What might help with this problem is to take the scales off the belt and redo the belt. I could calculate how long the top end needs to be and how long the bottom end needs to be and do the increase gradually over the entire width to prevent the bulge at one point and instead have it gradually occur over the entire width of the thing. I just don't know if that will make a difference since the split at the side is the only part where it can escape and you can't do an increase in scalemail that looks good.
There's also a stress crease coming out of the armscye and running over the collarbone. This is partly due to the fact that the gambeson armscye is very low, and it pulls on the chainmail armscye which is a little better fitted. Part of this problem can be resolved by making a new, better fitted gambeson.
The other part of the problem is that the increase doesn't start far enough down the arm. It creates a weird dent in the sleeve shape. I was stupid not to see this earlier, but it will probably be a lot easier to just open up the "underarm seam" and increase the sleeve width overall until it fits the armscye! That will make for an excellent T-tunic shape which we all know from other chainmail shirts and it will be a lot easier to fit.
If this makes the sleeve too wide, I can narrow it down towards the bottom with a decrease quite easily.
ETA: I just realised that increasing from one end or decreasing from the other end means exactly the same. The only difference is that I'll know that the armscye is closed when I start to decrease.
At the very least I've got some experimenting to do and I can just see myself sewing a new, better fitted gambeson for swordfighting lessons in another dark green. Ah, the work! The angst!
