Introducing Percival Drake

I know I've already technically introduced Percy at the beginning of the PVC Pipe sword tutorial, but I really ought to do it properly. So here he is: Percival Drake, my younger brother by a couple years. As you know, he handles our Forge, making the medieval weaponry we use when we play. As well as that, he likes to fiddle around with duct tape, and has constructed several back sheathes for our swords. He's a bit more reserved, personality wise, which is why he often gets picked to play either the mysterious lone warrior or the villain in our games.

I love him to pieces. He's an awesome brother.

It was Percy's birthday the other day, and I bought him a tunic and belt as presents. Well, they arrived a week late, since I kept forgetting to actually place the order, but oh well. So I bought these items from YourDressmaker.com, the same place Dana got his kilt from. The tunic is a dark blue version of the Tall Lace-Up Shirt No.15.

"This shirt was developed in response to customer requests for a half-lace-up shirt with a longer hem. Like our similar tops, this design fits a wide variety of looks and epochs from pirate to peasant to renaissance poet. The 100% natural cotton is a favorite fabric with customers and provides an authentically rustic look with contemporary ease of care and comfort." [Taken from description of Tall Lace-Up Shirt No.15.]

The belt is the Medieval/Celtic belt No.1. It's real leather, and only cost $26. The tunic cost nearer forty dollars, but both of them are very much worth the money. I didn't get the tunic tailored to Percy's exact measurements -- that would have given away the surprise -- so I guessed and got him a medium. It fits him very well; quite a relief!

The hood he's wearing in the picture is one that I'd made him a while back for a Robin Hood Imagination Game we played a couple years ago. That back sheathe he made is constructed of duct tape, and his claymore is one of our numerous PVC pipe swords he made. As you can see the tunic falls to the lower thigh a little bit above the knees in length, and has a slit on either side that goes to about mid thigh to allow more ease of movement. I didn't manage to get a good shot of the lace up on the front because his back sheathe is in the way, but if you visit the link to this tunic, you'll be able to see it. It's made of lightweight, sturdy material that looks and feels like it will hold up very well even when we move back up to Illinois and play in the forest near our house.

In short, he's happy with it, I'm happy with it.... Percy had a very happy birthday. ^.^

Dia duit,
~Penny

My Green Medieval Dress

Me in my green dress

I always knew that I would not be able to make a well tailored medieval dress for myself, so I began to search around for a place that sold medieval dresses for a reasonable price. That's when I lighted upon a website called Armstreet.

"ArmStreet dresses are one of the best Middle Ages costumes you ever seen. It's not a blowing our own horn, just fact. Some of them are based on well-known medieval patterns and realized in style which looks beautiful in modern world, most of our dresses are made of natural fabrics, in particular of natural flax linen.
All our costume's patterns are self-designed, you can find a lot of imitators in internet, but only here you can get original costume in custom-size and custom color."  ~ Taken from the website

Armstreet is located in, of all places, the Ukraine. 'Twas rather confusing at first to recieve a package several weeks after ordering the dress from somewhere in Europe. I had managed to catch a sale on the site, getting The Medieval Fantasy Dress Tunic Costume for $80 instead of the now advertised $109. I typed in my measurements, and placed the order.

A couple weeks later, the package arrives. It seems a little small, and I wonder whether or not it's really the dress I'd been waiting for for so long. Lo and behold, when I open it, there it is, tightly and neatly folded to fit inside the little package. The above picture doesn't do the dress much justice; it's a wonderful outfit.

Here's the website description of the dress:
"This severe 100% natural medieval cotton black dress has long narrow sleeves with numerous authentic silver-coloured buttons and silvery great quality trims and is very modest yet at the same time so beautiful! Lacing allows making light size adjustments easily. It is at once apparent that the dress is medieval, from the 13th – 14th century. So it is completely unimportant whether such dress-pattern existed in real history or was just our designer’s phantom of the imagination. The fact that we clearly conceive what time and historical period this garb reproduces to us is much more important. The attire will suit both for the young lady from any medieval European country and for the heroine from the fantasy story. One picture is worth thousand words, so just have a look."

I ordered it in green instead of black, obviously, and I love the color. It's a much richer color in real life than in the picture above (we don't have a very expensive camera). The dress itself is not too long, has a balanced train, a nice flow to the skirt, and the material is durable, yet soft. It feels very practical and not costume-y. I had been worried about the fit -- it being custom tailored and all -- but I shouldn't have. The fit is as near perfect as it could get. It's not tight enough to be impolite, but it's not loose enough to look like a bag rather than a dress.

Overall, I love it. I don't get many chances to wear the dress, but it's always worth it when I do, and I'm glad I paid what I did for it. I haven't tried any of the other Armstreet dresses since I don't actually have a million dollars just lying around, but judging by the quality of the one I did buy, which happens to be one of the cheapest ones on the site, I'm sure the rest of their products are top notch. Armstreet is on the slightly pricier side of things, however, but I can definitely see why.

Since the one picture I have of the dress isn't the best, I may post some more pictures this August or late June after the OYAN Summer Workshops my brothers and I are attending with some of the other PenKnights.

Dia duit,
~Penny

PS
Maybe it's just because I've lived in Germany, but I noticed the tell-tale grammar nuances in each of the paragraphs I took from the Armstreet website that show that the writer's first language was not English. It's very distinctly second-language phrasing. Fascinating....