Medieval Madness!

Last Friday was our primary school fête, which this year had a Medieval theme. I think this was because the whole school had been looking at the Tudor period for topic work this year.

Husband is one of the school governors and offered to be on 'Ye Olde Whacky the Ratte' stall. No problem.... A couple of weeks before the Fête, posters went up announcing a Medieval themed non-uniform day for the day of the fête, with a fancy dress competition for all at the fête. Again, no problem.... Eldest borrowsed a green top of mine teamed with a pair of leggings for a Robin Hood look, Middlest wore a handmade Queen of Hearts costume that had been given to us a few years ago and Youngest dressed up in a Cinders costume made by Grandma.


Having finished my Sorbetto last week I decided to launch straight in to making a Medieval smock and hat. I bought a cream coloured poly/cotton double sheet from one of the Charity shops in town and started sniping away. I knew I wanted the smock to be quite baggy and I used a raglan sleeved t-shirt of husbands to get the shape of the pieces, adding in extra width to allow for gathering. I used my overlocker to sew and finish the seam at the same time. This worked really well until I ran out of thread on one spool, then spent the best part of an afternoon trying to getting the threading right on my machine......

Having finished the smock I then decided to make a hat. Husband wanted a "round pouffy hat with a brim and a feather", something along the lines of this. However, I thought I would be clever and see what I could find on the ol' internet. I found this website with a whole section on men's hats which was really useful. I did get quite distracted reading all about Medieval hats and clothing ( if I had found this a little earlier Husbands smock would have been a bit different).

Following the instructions, I made a stuffed roll from the legs of an old pair of kids velvet trousers and had enough of my sheet left to make the all-in-one liripipe and cockscomb(!) The hardest part was handsewing the cotton all-in-one piece to the stuffed roll. I had to hold it in quite an awkward position and think I have strained my wrist.

I think he looked great, although the smock was slightly (read: very) oversized, but I think he felt a bit daft, especially when one of the teachers turned up wearing the type of hat that he wanted.