Giovanni: The Big Stuff

It seems I've grown incapable of sleeping past 7:21 AM, so here we are, showered and ready to go and it's barely past 9 on a Sunday morning. Useful but incredibly lame.

Yesterday met with the best of success. The hood and the cloak came together with minimal mishap and I even squeezed in two geektastic outings with Chels and her debonair husband, Peter.

But this is how things looked by the end of the day:


















I really enjoy making this big "easy" stuff because you can do a couple of pieces in a day and it really feels like you're getting somewhere.

I was worried about the hood from the start but once I did the final press, pinned it to the doublet, and drew it up over my head, there was some serious Happy Costumer Flail. It's pretty near spot-on without being overly anal about the details.















































It's made with 100% Linen, hence the myriad of wrinkles which I've yet to iron out, and lined with the same red polyester seen everywhere else on this.

The cloak was a piece of cake. Because Gio's is shorter in the front and longer in the back, I could cut it as a right-angle triangle:












The right angle has been cut diagonally so this butts up nicely under the lapel and the shoulder guard. After doing a quick mock-up out of muslin, I cut the actual piece out of a brown wool/viscose blend* I've had in the stash for some five years and the ubiquitous red poly as the lining. It went together without a hitch. Yet I have a feeling the brown is going to sag a bit over time. This typically happens when heavier outer fabrics are attached to lighter linings and left to hang. It can be avoided by pinning the pieces together, weighting them, and letting them hang for a couple of months before you sew them together but time is of the essence here.

This is how it looked last night:














And this is how it looks this morning:
















As I expected. So I left the diagonal corner seam unsewn so I can pull the outer fabric up as need be.

Going to head to the 'rents place this afternoon to get out of the city and clear my brain a bit with some riding, though I'll bring the leather with me and get a start on the bracers.

Before I sign off, I've got to introduce the newest member of the team:


















Meet Daniel Craig, the Betta. He's here for moral support and aesthetic pleasure.

And before I forget, there's been developments on the Marius front but I'm so deep into Giovanni, the Elector Count won't be making an appearance for a few days.

*This brown wool has served me most nobly in the past as a back-drop for various photoshoots and as a welcome source of warmth during the night we took the Copernicus shots amid -30C temperatures.