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 two grey wool blankets that I purchased at salvation army. As it turns out the blankets are actually 53 years old!!! They were military issue blankets and still had the original tags on them which had date of 1957. The tags indicated that they were 100% virgin wool. After a couple washings the old moth ball smell faded and the wool is wonderfully soft. The pattern is based on an extant monks robe. It was constructed using a straight stitch on the sewing machine, but all the seams were folded and hand finished so that there are no machine stiches visable inside or out. The robe was completed in about 11 hours which includes about 10 hours of hand sewing.
The following are not really related to the robes, but kind of funny. I cut my hair for the event to look more like the part I was playing. I didn't have the guts to go all the way, but the look was prettey effective. That evening when the event was over I simply buzzed the rest of the hair off.
