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Friday, October 1, 2010

Monks Cassock (Breadth and Depth)

As part of a role that I intend to play at an event I will be playing the part of a Monk. I will be serving as a corrupt member of the clergy. While I travel the lands spreading the word of the one true Church I also sell indulgences and display the bones of my Patron Saint. This portion of the costume was created using a grey wool blanket that I purchased at salvation army. As it turns out the blanket is actually 53 years old!!! It was a military issue blanket and still had the original tag on it which had date of 1957. It indicated that it was 100% virgin wool. After a couple washings the old moth ball smell faded and the wool is wonderfully soft. The pattern is based on a simply period mantel which was cut a little larger than normal. I mocked up a trial version using another salvation army blanket. Initial construction was done using a straight stitch on the sewing machine, but all the seams were folded and hand sewn so that there are no machine stiches visable inside or out.  In all I believe this item took about 4 hours to make.


The robe was based on the extant garment worn by Saint Francis.