Elven Plate Mail Project - Day 2

Day 2

Pattern-making is something that I really enjoy. Unlike a lot of the things I do, I find it is something that I can't really explain or teach. I do know that it involves a lot of "thinking through" the entire construction process. My poor client will receive a lot of questions today as I work on creating a template.

On this particular project I start with the outer lines of the pattern pieces, then detail the interior. Since the larger pieces are made of smaller overlapping pieces I draw in the overlap with a different color ink and I place the rivet and grommet positions in.

 Then the 1st pattern gets cut apart traced onto green pattern paper and then taped back together  (to deal with the overlap) then traced for the next piece, taped back together, etc.

I only pattern one side of the breast plate. The pattern pieces will get turned over and traced for the other side. In the process of patterning an interesting decision comes up. I bought a yard of brown vinyl, and that will be enough if I expose the rivets - riveting one plate to the next. However, I like the idea of hiding the rivets under the edge of each other - riveting them to another layer of vinyl underneath the plates. I think that it has a cleaner aesthetic, yet it will increase the cost (I'll need more vinyl) and the weight. So I need to communicate and get my client's preference on this decision before continuing.


The client leans toward the aesthetic solution, so after procuring more vinyl it comes down to laying the pattern pieces out. There is more to this than simply trying to get the most out of your fabric. Vinyl is essentially a textured plastic coating adhered to a fabric background usually a knit. Knits are known as self-hemming. Meaning that you can cut them and they do not fray.

The knit portion of the vinyl does have a direction.  That means it has something called bias. Bias means that the fabric stretches differently on horizontal, vertical, and diagonal axes. Often in sewing, pieces that are meant to drape or curve they are placed diagonally on the grain of the fabric. Examples could be skirt pieces and collars. With the vinyl much of the bias will be mitigated by the plastic side, however it is there a little bit in the knit portion of the fabric.

So I cut the front of the breastplate pieces on a gradiated bias, because I want more curvature on the front than I want in the back - which is cut on a straight bias.

One of the other things that became visually apparent as I worked on this was amount of material used in the construction. You can get a simple vest out of a half yard of fabric, but this is not a simple vest. All of those overlaps add up, both in material and time. I am working with 60" wide vinyl and have used almost 2 yards of it in cutting the pieces out. That is 30 square feet - which is a whole lot of leather. Leather costs for an abbreviated  breastplate (it doesn't cover the midsection of the torso) and rerebraces (cover the upper arm) would run me around $240, if I could get the right weight of leather on sale. (7.99/sqft of 5-6oz.) Start adding in the cost of rivets and buckles stains and finishes and a real leather set of armor is going to get out of the budget I have in no time. The vinyl I have to say usually runs $16.00 a yard and I got it for better than that. So the difference is about $200.

That isn't to say that leather isn't worth it. If you can afford it, it is so worth the cost. But in many cases folks are looking at a costume that they cannot budget that much for.

So end of day 2 and I have the pattern cut. On Day three I will be tracing it onto the vinyl and cutting it out. I wanted to have all of that done today, but there are 42 pieces in this pattern. That's a lot of cutting and taping today alone. Good thing I find this work enjoyable!

Elven Plate Mail Project - Day 1

 Ok - trying something new here. This is a project blog for some elven armor that I am experimenting with. It's experimental because the only armor I've made is of the Stormtrooper variety and a few pairs of leather bracers. The purpose behind this blog will be to help others either make their own, decide against making their own, understand cost and time, and hopefully learn from my mistakes - since this is a first time jump.

Day 1

Electronic communications and face to face meeting with my client to determine a direction. My client combed through a lot of photos and sent some to me along with a wish list of what they wanted. Their initial best like was the following photo:

This came along with a list of wants - They wanted the armor to read as metal - not leather. In other words banded plate mail, not leather. It needed to be fairly durable for active use outside. And initially they also wanted a way to change it up to something they could sneak around in. They need it in two weeks. Oh and the budget was $150.

This might actually be a feasible list if I had a lot more experience, a full shop equipped with a die cut machine, digital laser etcher, a vac former, experience sculpting and making molds etc. Unfortunately for my client - I am a more of a person with a sewing machine and a few leather tools in the craft room. The good news for them is that with my inexperience they get my time free on this one, because I want to gain experience in this field. It is a win/win for us. They get hours of free work, I get paid supplies to experiment with.

Granted, I always get a little nervous, because I want something that we will all love at the end of this experimental jaunt, and there is a degree of gambling inherent in this. It could come out as a critical failure, in which case we would all be fairly disappointed.

And when someone sends me a photo of a thousand dollar suit of leather armor wanting me to get something like that in two weeks, for under $150. I have to take a moment and breathe for a bit. I like a challenge, but I also have to be honest with my clients. Some things can't be done - or at least not within the reality that is my basement craft room, my calendar, and their budget.

So our first day has a lot of conversations about materials and what we think might be feasible and what might not be. I am glad the client had time for a face to face meeting because it can be very hard to get visuals out of my head without drawing and showing materials. One of the things I really wanted to show my client was the tin duct tape that I have. It is an actual thin sheet of foil with an adhesive back. Think very thick aluminum foil combined with scotch tape backing and you've got it. Good news is that it is a type of metal that I can work with, it is inexpensive, and will read as metal. The bad news is that I fear if not done right that it could easily come off looking like aluminum foil armor - and that concerns me a great deal - it will continue to be my number one concern through this whole process.

I am also thankful that my client gets the idea that plate mail just isn't built for stealth. Or at least not in a case where you are trying to convince a panel of judges that duct tape is really metal plates. With real plate mail, the first steps I'd take to make it stealthy would be to sandblast it, paint it with dark matte colors in a broken camouflage pattern, and trim the plates down to the smallest sizes possible to allow for the greatest freedom of movement and the least carried weight. It is a hard balance to find if you want the armor to have the visual appearance of historic or fantasy shiny plate mail.

So what are the take away thoughts with Day 1.
(1) Well, if you are thinking of making armor for yourself, really think through what you need. Real plate mail is expensive and heavy if you are looking for something like LARPing. There are a lot of tutorials on foam armor out there and how to make it look like metal. This is realistic because of the light weight and the idea that you can mold foam a little with a hairdryer or a heat gun. Draw backs to that are that it isn't highly durable if you are running through brush, and Rub N Buff compounds used to make foam look like metal are really good for one time photo shoots. They will rub right off of the foam onto any nearby fabric - so get used to cloaks and sleeves that have gold and silver splotches if you are active in your costume.

(2) Realize you can't have it all. Even if someone paid me $3,000 to make the leather armor in that second photo. Even though I am fairly comfortable with leather work. I would have to say no. Because that particular bit of work would never happen in my shop in two weeks. Give me a month and yes you'd have it.

(3) If you are doing this for someone else, find folks who are OK with a bit of a gamble. I am very lucky to have clients who get the idea that they are risking some of their money here for me to learn what works and what doesn't. Yeah, if it turns out, they get a good deal, but there is always that unlucky chance that I'll roll a one.

(4) If you run a small shop or are thinking of doing this as a hobby business, have straightforward conversations about what's going on. I can't promise the moon and my client knows it. Yet it still helps to go over what I know about the materials and their limitations. This helps him make the decisions he needs to make.

Flavors of life. . . .

I saw it the other day on Facebook. "My curfew was the street lights, and my mom didn't call my cell, she yelled "time to come in". I played outside with friends, not online. If I didn't eat what my mom made me, then I didn't eat. Hand sanitizer didn't exist, but you COULD get your mouth washed out with soap. I rode a bike without a helmet. And getting dirty was OK. Click "Like" if you drank water from the garden hose and survived."

It's not the first time I've seen it, and I am sure it will not be the last time either. Though I often find myself in a mental resting spot where I would be glad not to see it again. And today I'm in a contemplative state and trying to pinpoint why I have a mild dislike for this type of statement. Maybe because I understand some of it. Taken apart, I fit the person who is stating this in so many ways.

My curfew was the street lights
I lived out of the city limits for much of my childhood, so "streetlight curfew" wasn't really a part of things. Though I was free to take the dog and my .22 rifle and go on a hike in any direction I chose as long as I was back home by sunset.

my mom didn't call my cell, she yelled "time to come in"
No cell phones growing up and I do fight a dislike for that particular piece of technology - a combination of not wanting to be highly available and a dislike for its rude intrusion into many social settings.

 I played outside with friends, not online
Well, I can shorten this to "I played outside."  Shortcomings of my own and my life circumstances made friends scarce. And yet this is one that I am a split mind on. I loved the out doors, and I still find that I can grab peace there quicker than anywhere else. Yet even as a child I understood the draw of computers and technology. I spent countless hours typing programs into an ancient Atari PC just to do something simple like change the screen from blue to green. And yes mom, when we upgraded to the Commodore 64 - I was the one who took the keyboard apart to see how it worked. Had "online" existed when I was that age, I know that my own outdoor time would have dwindled drastically.

If I didn't eat what my mom made me, then I didn't eat
This was quite true of my formative years. It has also been true in my household up until recently. I understand disliking a household where children will "only eat" a narrow menu of PB&J, chicken nuggets and cheese sandwiches. I have cringed at young guests who, when I go out of the way to plan kid friendly meals decide that the fare is unpalatable because the macaroni and cheese was not the right shape.

Hand sanitizer didn't exist

No, it didn't. And my mom fought a constant battle of trying to keep us all clean, and to help us become aware of personal hygiene. Now I'm the mom and I'm the broken record. At the same time I didn't freak out when my toddler ate dirt, and I expected that my children would jump in mud puddles on the way home from the bus. I have more "play clothes" than dress clothes for the girls, and I expect that they will get stained, torn, cut, or painted on.

you COULD get your mouth washed out with soap

I could be one of the few hold-outs in my generation that went to a public school that practiced this. It was in the inter-mountain west, which ran years behind the rest of the US when I was a youth and we had an older (ancient to my 6 year old perception) principal who was a die hard on swearing. Yup, it did happen when I was a kid, although it did not happen a lot. We probably had one of the cleanest vocabularies of any public school at that time.

I rode a bike without a helmet

Quite true.

getting dirty was OK

Hmm, not so much OK, as expected. Whether it was from hard work or rough play - we got dirty. But with my mom around we were absolutely not allowed to STAY that way.

"Like" if you drank water from the garden hose and survived

We didn't just drink from the garden hose, we found many creative uses for it - launching 2 liter bottle rockets comes to mind.

These statements are nostalgic. It does make me smile to remember the rockets and the hikes up the mountain with the dog. They bring people together, people from a generation before hand sanitizer, the internet,and cell phones. Even with all of the quircky unique-ness of my own upbringing I can relate to others who lived at the time. So why does it bug me?

Because the statement is also critical. It unveils my own critical spirit, and I am not certain that the direction this type of statement is headed is where I ultimately want to go. I'm not sure that it is a bad thing that my children don't roam the streets without my knowledge of their where-abouts. Do I really want to paint the internet, cell phones, and hand sanitizer as "changes that aren't good".

There are so many flavors to life. Thankfully I have been blessed by three adventurous eaters, and I have never faced the dilemma that some parents have at meal time. In a day and age where frozen food has opened the door to having different items for meal time, the request of a child to have something different than what the adults are eating is much more easily met than it used to be. Yes, there are still questions of balanced meals, and even more importantly the line where requests end and at the point the child ends up in control of the parent, yet there is a degree of flexibility that there wasn't thirty years ago.

I've learned this as my youngest has been diagnosed with an intolerance to lactose. We have made changes and try to be mindful of this, but on frozen pizza night she gets to make Whitecastle hamburgers. We've diverged from the path of a one meal fits all. And there are so many other reasons to have diverse meals. Families that don't have the same schedules, families whose children are older and capable in the kitchen,  why would I target this issue as something bad. I could understand it  if I were a nutritionist or a professional meal planner - but I'm not.

It gets targeted because it makes me feel superior with my "sit-down, home-cooked meal,s 2 x's a week" menu. Oh yes, there is a grain of truth to this that lends credence to my feelings of superiority. It makes them stronger, and more dangerous because I can easily justify it, shaking my head about picky eaters and parents without the ability to say no.

Do I really want to paint my degree of "cleanliness" as the right one and put others who use more sanitizer on a plane labeled "germ-a-phobe". Why not allow for differing views - a broad spectrum of those who clean throughly, those who struggle with clutter, and those who accept it. Yes, there is that grain of truth - the far ends of the bell curve. Those who use sanitizer to the point that they have damaged their own immune systems, and those who hoard clutter to the point where it causes them injury. But can those ends of the spectrum really hold up such a view on hand-sanitizer? Not unless it is supported by my own desire for superiority and self-satisfaction.

The above statement connects with my feeling of superiority, but it also connects with my resistance to change. And change is happening ever so much faster than it used to. The period of time between the 8-track and the cassette tape could be a geologic era compared to the time one handheld device in our current society is replaced with a successor.

The digital revolution is here to stay, as were automobiles a generation ago. The automobile swept in and changed our lives. Cities grew and developed suburbs of extraordinary sizes, tourism started, grocery stores  offered produce from different climates. It started slowly with the wealthy owning an automobile as a novelty. Now we live in a society where two vehicles per household is normative. Take one of those away for a week at the local mechanics and we go into a tailspin.

Our children will have a world that is defined by all that is digital. Take it away and yes the tailspin ensues. It is scary at times. I have a deep and abiding fear of what this is going to do to my children. I wonder if anyone felt that way about societies growing dependence on automobiles. And I fight to accept the changes that come so fast and furiously. Because my children will live in this new world, this uncharted digital world that lives and changes at a breathtaking pace.

As a product of attempts to use isolation from society as a way of dealing with change, I know that is not the answer. And something deep inside me tells me that I need to tread a line of discernment with technology and change, not a line of criticism.

Discernment tells us that too much of a good thing (hand sanitizer?) can be a bad thing. Discernment tells us that the internet is a tool that has potential for great good and great evil. Discernment helps me find balance in this new land that is the lifestyle that my children will lead. Criticism, on the other hand, supports my sense that what I experienced was right. It draws lines and divides. Criticism fractures relationships over silly things like whether a child spends their free time on a playground, reading a book, or on survival mode in Minecraft. Criticism blurs the line of what is really wrong, by placing an unimaginable number of things in that arena to muddy reality and make the things that we truly should be on guard against difficult to find in the mess.

Discernment will allow me my nostalgia without finding fault in a changing world just because it has changed. I need more discernment, more wisdom, more of God's view on this changing scary life where I feel the need to put down others in minor areas to make myself more comfortable in my own choices. A world of critiques where I feel the need to justify choices which are just one of a range of flavors. I hope that I can learn that God created us different, and that different alone is not bad. I hope that I can grow more tolerant of others and yet still hold to the lines set up as Biblical boundaries. Not an easy balance to keep in this world.