Ithronian Adventures #129: Rockcliffe mysteries

Tags

fnh, Fools and Heroes, LARP, Newcroft

The White Star are currently occupying the surface area around the Dwarven Kingdom of Dun Mhurdo and their mining mountain, or at least that was what the office of the Thane believed. Lord Bremer Van Brock called for a small group of adventurers to look into an alarming report of White Star around Lake Kelther.

The fashionable noble – making a Tudor-style doublet

Tags

blackwork, costume, embroidery, fabric buttons, how to, kit, LARP, thread button loops, tudor doublet, tudor shirt

Over the last few months I have shown how to make the Tudor shirt (plus a couple of variants) from Simplicity’s #4059 Renaissance Man costume.  These variants have included a simple “arming” shirt, a ruffed collar and decorating with black-work embroidery. Today I would like to show the doublet I made to go with my first ruffed shirt, and the fabric buttons I waxed lyrical on a couple of weeks ago. This doublet (from Pattern A) forms part of my Black Knight’s banquet kit along with the red ruffed shirt and the capelet I adapted to use for LARP.

I hope you find this walk-through helpful.

For more tutorials/walk-throughs, go to Tutorials

Ithronian Adventures #128: Go forth, the brave and the bold

Tags

fnh, Fools and Heroes, LARP, Newcroft

Early Thawing MX, a mild morning with the promise of spring but the bitter bite of winter still lingering. After a night of personal contemplation, meditation, fighting off sleep and thinking on the coming morning Ravenna Corvidae rose from her cramped position on the floor of the Firebridge Chapel, donned her armour and put on her new tabard to take a knee before the Head of Order and her Knight-Master at her Knighting Ceremony. Upon reciting her Honour Kills, making her Oath upon her sword, and being knighted by the Head of the Black Order she rose, saluted the two senior knights and left to travel towards Newcroft and the hiring arranged by an aide of Baronet Auklish.

That’s right – my Black Knight character made it to Knight and now has the right to call herself Dame, wear the symbol of the Order openly on her chest and carry her Honour Sword. This major milestone in an FnH Knight has been reached, the long slog through being without armour or seeking things to kill alone over and done with, and no more should she be confused with the Griffin Order! Thank you to those who made this little moment special on the weekend, and to those who turned up from far and wide to come and game with the local branch. You helped make the day what it was!

If you were there and find yourself misnamed (or missing) from the lists below, don’t forget to comment below for corrections to be made, or contact wolfish[dot]written[dot]author[at]gmail[dot]com.

Ye Olde Pockets – the humble coin purse

Tags

belt pouch, costume, craft, how to, kit, LARP, larp kit, pouch, pouches, tutorial

What is a traveller without a belt bristling with pouches to tuck items in, or a rich man without a coin purse? When out larping it is a frequent problem that you have no pockets in which to stash those all-important items (tokens, coins, bandages, vials of potions, holy water, spell cards, spell components, healers brews etc) because your actual pockets are hidden somewhere beneath layers of cloaks, shirts, tunics and in some cases armour. What can you do? You could slide a load of leather pouches on a belt to get round the problem and end up with a utility-style belt bristling with weapons and pouches, or turn to cloth pouches instead. Some characters suit the bristling belt, some don’t, but it’s all down to personal choice.

Pouches can be many shapes and sizes, particularly when dealing with cloth – small enough to tuck into a bag or big enough to act as a bag themselves, or even as an emergency “swag” bag for the times you can’t quite carry enough loot back from your rummage through a Troll Hoard. And whilst I do end up with several leather pouches strapped to my belt, cloth pouches are easily customisable and easy to make. I have found several ways to make cloth pouches during my experiments with character kit and thought it was time to bring some ideas to light that might help fill the gap between stuffing everything into the pockets of your out-of-character trousers and trying to stuff everything into an already full leather belt pouch.

This is the beginning of another set of kit tutorials (for the rest see Tutorials), so keep checking back for more pouch ideas and changes you could make to make them more you.

Fabric buttons and thread loops – or continued adventures in handmade details

Tags

costume, fabric buttons, how to, kit, LARP, thread button loops

I’m still learning how to make practical costumes for LARP, as well as general tailoring and clothing making with my sewing machine, most of which has been detailed on Wolfish Written through photographs and general kit enthusiasm. Having stumbled on several costuming blogs with their detail photographs, progress updates and tutorials I feel more confident in sharing what I’ve been up to – hence the growing collection of walkthroughs on the tutorial page.

However, recently I came across fabric buttons. Not the ones where you cover a button with fabric and press it to shape (though they do do kits for that …), but the old fashioned self-stuffed ones made with cloth scraps leftover from your costume project. When I saw these I thought they would make the perfect touch for my Tudor-style doublet I was making for my Knight character. Then I thought I’d share them with you.

This week I’d like to share how I recently made fabric buttons and how I used them to button close a Tudor-style doublet.

For more tutorials/walk-throughs, go to Tutorials