Connor's costume includes a ton of pieces. WHY.
As far as I can tell, it consists of this.
- Regimental coat, (off-white with blue lining), with embossed hood
- Off-white waistcoat, with pleating
- Red sash
- Belt with insignia
- Dark blue trousers
- Deerskin moccasins w/overalls and straps
- Beaded armbands
- Fingerless gloves/vambraces with hidden blades
- Bow and quiver w/arrows
- Two pistols and holsters
- Sabre
- Bear claw necklace
- Tomahawk
I'm also making a 13 colonies flag with the Assassin insignia to carry.
I'm sure I missed a bunch of details, but this is what I'm planning to make. Feel free to correct me if I missed anything super important.
This is a Revolutionary War-Era costume, but the fabrics I'm using are not always going to be consistent with the materials that would have been used then, for three reasons.
Firstly- Wool is not cheap, and is not easy for me to work with when put through a sewing machine.
Secondly- Heat. Wool makes this costume not very heat friendly, given it's also layer upon layer.
Thirdly- Wool drives my skin absolutely insane. It itches like crazy and I don't want to deal with it.
I'm replacing most of the wool with cotton, linen, and polyester materials, to make it lighter. I'm wearing this in Phoenix in the summer. So making it as lightweight as possible is a huge deal.
Sorry for not sticking to making it as "authentic" as possible.
First up-- the waistcoat. I'm using a white, collared, button up shirt as the base. It's made of heavy cotton.
Looks like this.
Then, I just sewed them up.
After that, I ironed the pleats so they lay flat and aren't as puckered.
Pulling the seams apart as far as possible, I used a tiny paintbrush to fill in the seams.
Completed, it looks like this.
Since the shirt is stark white, and Connor's is off-white, it needed to be stained. I found some generic tea in the cupboard, which turned out to be Kroger Pekoe tea. I have absolutely no idea what that is, but it was the right colour.
I filled a large bowl with warm water and steeped six tea bags, then soaked the shirt in it for only about thirty seconds, since the colour needed to be light.
Then I rinsed it out with cold water.
Done.
And now my hands, the shirt, and the whole house smells like weird tea.
Second-- the trousers. Easiest out of all the pieces. He wears some kind of navy blue trousers, that look like denim, but I doubt they really are. They're probably made of either linen or wool. I picked up some jeggings to use instead-- they're capris, but that doesn't matter since the overalls come up to mid- thigh.
Three-- the overcoat. This is by far the hardest part of the entire costume, since I made the entire thing from hand. I bought two yards of white linen from Joann's (which I later tea-dyed), and two yards of royal blue cotton for the lining and lapels.
***Disclaimer*** ~ I am using someone else's pattern that I found on the internet, and I do NOT own. ~
I printed out the pattern, then used the scale to freehand draw it onto sheets of thin paper and cut them out, then traced them onto the linen and cotton pieces.
I also leaned that apparently, I fail at following a pattern. (In my defence, there were no directions, simply a drawing and a scale with the grid.) For the most part, I followed it sort of, then when it didn't line up the way it was supposed to I made the rest of it up. But seriously, as someone who has absolutely zero experience making clothing from scratch, it's not bad.
(Terrible picture of what the main part looks like, stitched together, without the lining)
Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this part of the process because I just powered through it. It was giving me a lot of grief.
(Still is.)
All that's really left to do is add the buttons on the lapels and make the vambraces to cover the unfinished sleeves.
The Flag- I bought a replica 13 colonies flag from some military/historical surplus place for like $6. It's a full size flag, 3x5 so yay for carrying that around. I printed out the Assassin's insignia and traced it with a Sharpie onto the fabric in the centre of the circle of stars, then filled it in with fabric paint.
~ The first time I tried to paint the insignia I used plain acrylic paint. It will look like it works at first, but it doesn't. I promise. Flags are made from coated fabric and the second it bends, the paint will crack and flake off. I repainted it with fabric paint. Although since there's acrylic paint beneath it, it's starting to crack again, but not enough for it to be an issue. ~
For the pole it's attached to, the father found me an old broom handle. It's almost as tall as I am so that'll be fun.. We marked where the grommets are on the flag, then he drilled holes and put in a screw eyes, and I used heavy string to tie the flag to the eye part. Easy peasy.
Bow and arrows- I made the quiver Connor carries from a short round tube, the kind you use to mail posters and things. I covered the outside with coarse brown suede, then hot glued plain white string around the outside in the design. I made a fringe from leftover suede and glued it to the back to cover the seams, and also glued a feather to the bottom, which I actually found when I was on a walk in the neighbourhood.
The arrows are 36in dowels I got for like $1 each at Home Depot. I had to cut them down to about 31in because otherwise they stuck up like 4 inches above my head and looked absolutely ridiculous. I painted the ends with bands of red, black, and white, but left the rest of the shaft the colour of the wood. I hot glued three feathers to the ends of each one- there's six in all.
(Yes, that is tea in that bucket on the ground. It's hard to tea-dye a coat in a bowl, okay??)
Sash and Gloves- The sash I made from some plain red cotton, cut into strips and sewed end to end. I used three strips, and it wraps around my waist three times, then knots and hangs down about eight inches.
The gloves are a plain pair of leather gloves I found at Goodwill, and I just cut the fingers off.
That's it for the first part. The boots are finished, and the father is helping me make a bow, the tomahawk, the Assassin's insignia belt, the weapons belts, and the hidden blades. The rest of the prop weapons I'm carrying I already have. Then there's just the vambraces, the necklace, and the armbands to make!
~Michelle
