About a month ago I met a fellow tiny human named Yitka at Cynaguan Coronet and we bonded pretty hard–after all us miniature female fighters have to stick together.
Yitka lives in Reno and is squire to the next Prince of Cynagua and…. all of her garb is disintegrating. I volunteered to help her out since I already have the patterns figured out for my early Elizabethan doublet and venetians.
Her knight’s colors are black and gold and she has pale skin, brown hair and blue eyes so I went with gold venetians and a black doublet with gold trim. If she’s happy with these I might make another doublet in dark green because I think it’ll look great on her.
I completely failed at documenting the venetians but they’re basically the same as mine. The only difference is hers have criss-cross lacing eyes since the pewter ones look cool but are annoying when you need to pee…. Lacis sells small metal rings meant for lace knitting stitch makers and I used those as the lacing eyes.
Her bust and waist are a little larger than mine so I scaled up my pattern a touch. While I was at it I opened the shoulders up and made the neckhole smaller since this is based off a men’s pattern that does not understand the plight of tiny ladies with big shoulders.
I sewed the fashion fabric and lining together and fitted it on her at Crown. After shortening the waist and the sleeves I blindstitched the whole thing, tacking the lining to the fashion fabric at the arm holes to avoid the stupid way bag lining can float at the armhole.
I changed the trim placement up a bit– I could NOT get it around the base of the collar since shoulders do not lie flat, and even though I marked it on her I’m concerned the sleeves are too short so I’m waiting on cuff trim until she can try it on. Buttons are from Wholesale Buttons on etsy and I got 50/$11 which I really can’t bitch about.
All the finishing and buttonholes are by hand except the trim, which is sewn on by machine. However it’s black on black so you really can’t see it and it saved me a lot of time.
Problems/learning experiences: Sigh. Doublets definitely need some substance to them and this… Is probably too light. I wanted it to be light and comfy but the collar in particular needs more structure.
Also, when you make a garment where the fashion fabric and lining are the same fabric weight you have to make sure they match EXACTLY or it’ll pull. The skirt is doing this a tad–ironing will probably help but really I just need to have one layer but stiffer than the other or it’ll always be a problem.
Not Another Costuming Blog 