Quilting and padding and layers, oh my!
Jan. 26th, 2010 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chargirlgeniusJeff’s arming cote is going to be pretty thick. This was protection in addition to his regular armor, so that layers of linen provide some protection. I’m also supplementing with a layer of cotton batting, or “cotton wool”, as it seems to have been referred to in period.
The visible lining layer is a beautiful, heavy but drapey, beige linen. The inner layers matter a little less, so I’m using what I have laying around. The second layer on both the inside and the outside has to be solid, though, so a pattern doesn’t show through to the visible layers. Funny thing is that I’ve been using wool instead of linen for so long I don’t have all that much in the way of trash linen.
Layers will be as follows, from inside to out:
Heavy beige linen
Lightweight navy linen
Black and white stripe linen (I think it’s the same stuff that fabrics-store.com carries. I’m guessing around 7oz?)
1 layer Cotton batting
Black and white stripe linen
Mustard 5.3 oz linen (which I like, but is my least favorite of the few solid color linens I have)
Sand colored 12 oz hemp twill.
That’s a LOT of ironing. I ironed a few pieces of linen last night, and cut out two of the layers for the body pieces.
It works out to be about 1/4 inch thick, which means that the outer layer needs to be just a bit bigger than the inner lining. The trickiest part of this garment is going to be cutting to accommodate various layers of padding, and applying that padding.
The above layers listed are what I’m using for the body pieces. The sleeves will have more or less, depending on placement. The top of the shoulders needs to be well padded; that is where his armour will rest. I’m going to sandwich that padding between the layers, so the inner layers will need to fit the body, and the outer layers will be ever so slightly larger in the shoulder. That’ll be interesting, because the sleeve seam is in very close to the neck instead of at the point of the shoulder. The biggest place this will matter is in the sleeve, I believe.
The armpit will have significantly fewer layers, so that it doesn’t bunch and feel uncomfortable. I will probably leave out a couple of layers on the rest of the arm as well, simply because the pieces are smaller and more delicately tailored. We also want his arms (armour) to fit!
For chest padding, I’ve never come up with a solution that I really like for making the padding integral to the garment, and have it still lace nicely. Most of the space for the padding is accommodated in the front center seam, exactly where the lacing is. If I were just dressing him in layers with padding in between, the outer layer would have a more curved edge, the inner a straight edge. There’s probably some simple way of dealing with this, but rather than mess with it, I’ll be doing the padding as a separate piece again. Well, two pieces, one on either side of the lacing. This also allows me to add more padding later on down the line if necessary, without taking apart the whole thing. His first doublet needs more beef in the chest (not that he’s not plenty beefy…) and having it separate means I can go back and do that.
Quilting is going to be interesting. I’m hoping to start quilting the butt piece soon. I was thinking of sewing a temporary quilting stitch in with the industrial machine. That’ll punch all of the holes that I need, and make it easier to go back and do that hand stitching. Whether or not I have time to mess with the industrial this week is another question. :-)
The visible lining layer is a beautiful, heavy but drapey, beige linen. The inner layers matter a little less, so I’m using what I have laying around. The second layer on both the inside and the outside has to be solid, though, so a pattern doesn’t show through to the visible layers. Funny thing is that I’ve been using wool instead of linen for so long I don’t have all that much in the way of trash linen.
Layers will be as follows, from inside to out:
Heavy beige linen
Lightweight navy linen
Black and white stripe linen (I think it’s the same stuff that fabrics-store.com carries. I’m guessing around 7oz?)
1 layer Cotton batting
Black and white stripe linen
Mustard 5.3 oz linen (which I like, but is my least favorite of the few solid color linens I have)
Sand colored 12 oz hemp twill.
That’s a LOT of ironing. I ironed a few pieces of linen last night, and cut out two of the layers for the body pieces.
It works out to be about 1/4 inch thick, which means that the outer layer needs to be just a bit bigger than the inner lining. The trickiest part of this garment is going to be cutting to accommodate various layers of padding, and applying that padding.
The above layers listed are what I’m using for the body pieces. The sleeves will have more or less, depending on placement. The top of the shoulders needs to be well padded; that is where his armour will rest. I’m going to sandwich that padding between the layers, so the inner layers will need to fit the body, and the outer layers will be ever so slightly larger in the shoulder. That’ll be interesting, because the sleeve seam is in very close to the neck instead of at the point of the shoulder. The biggest place this will matter is in the sleeve, I believe.
The armpit will have significantly fewer layers, so that it doesn’t bunch and feel uncomfortable. I will probably leave out a couple of layers on the rest of the arm as well, simply because the pieces are smaller and more delicately tailored. We also want his arms (armour) to fit!
For chest padding, I’ve never come up with a solution that I really like for making the padding integral to the garment, and have it still lace nicely. Most of the space for the padding is accommodated in the front center seam, exactly where the lacing is. If I were just dressing him in layers with padding in between, the outer layer would have a more curved edge, the inner a straight edge. There’s probably some simple way of dealing with this, but rather than mess with it, I’ll be doing the padding as a separate piece again. Well, two pieces, one on either side of the lacing. This also allows me to add more padding later on down the line if necessary, without taking apart the whole thing. His first doublet needs more beef in the chest (not that he’s not plenty beefy…) and having it separate means I can go back and do that.
Quilting is going to be interesting. I’m hoping to start quilting the butt piece soon. I was thinking of sewing a temporary quilting stitch in with the industrial machine. That’ll punch all of the holes that I need, and make it easier to go back and do that hand stitching. Whether or not I have time to mess with the industrial this week is another question. :-)
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Date: 2010-01-26 11:30 pm (UTC)