The Armour Archive

Black Swan Designs

If you rip the armpits out of your arming doublet again, I'm not going to fix them for free -again!!! You promised me you had learned your lesson the last time.

Sheesh.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Just added another:

Winingas

This image is really dark, the fabric is actually a medium indigo blue and grey rather than black/blue.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

You don't want to hang a sword from a pewter casting, the metal isn't strong enough to hold it. At least I've never seen a pewter casting up to the task.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

"Ill go tell the woman who gave it to me, who's been researching, making, and selling these for 20 years thats shes wrong...because you took a class" Yeah well, what can I say. Everyone has to start somewhere. A doublet is a jacket but a jacket is not a doublet, so he/she is at least part...

Black Swan Designs

You're welcome. Feel free to email me directly if you have any other questions about any of our products. If it won't do what you want it to do I'll tell you. I'm also quite happy to provide references from users for any of our products. FWIW, you can wear the hose with civilian clothing but the arm...

Black Swan Designs

I suppose you could email Liz and order some. It's about Â£3.50/$6.90 per foot ($20.75 per yard) at this width/type. Oh, then there's shipping from the UK.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Since you've been asking about 15th C. stuff I'm assuming you're asking about 15th C. joined hose. On Friday a guy who does WMA at the Higgins ordered boiled wool to replace the woven wool ones he had of me. Both are 15th C. joined hose and he burst the fabric on the woven wool ones in the course of...

Black Swan Designs

$11.95, No braid (untrimmed) $31.95, With hand woven wool braid The hat is made of a woven fabric rather than a knit, so it does not stretch tightly over the head the way 'skater' knit hats are worn unless you bought a small enough size so that it fit very tightly. From what I've seen reenactors ten...

Black Swan Designs

My tablet woven braid arrived today, a full month earlier than expected, and it is GORGEOUS! This tablet woven braid was made in England by Elisabeth DaBorn. Liz's weaving is exceptional and she is a long established and preferred source of braid for members of Regia Anglorum and other Dark Ages gro...

Black Swan Designs

I found a couple more cool herringbones for winingas:

Sorry we ran out of the cream/rust, hope you like these. I think the black slubs are kinda interesting looking, myself.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Yes, herringbone and houndstooth were pretty common in the early periods. The explaination becomes highly technical very quickly when discussing this but very simply the weaves used during the earlier periods have everything to do with the type of looms being used- twills (of which both herringbone ...

Black Swan Designs

It's also not always easy to find, which is why I always buy whatever I can find, when I find it, regardless of whether I have a use for it at the moment or not.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Here is a sampling of our 15th C. tableware offerings. See the complete range in the Reenactment Goods section of our website. Chained Cats Tablecloth and Lions napkin towel , both designs typical of the 15th C. trend in patterns. The pattern was taken directly from a 15th C. textile fragment in the...

Black Swan Designs

We have a nice assortment of tableware from artisans all over the world: Gryphon Tablecloth [img]http://www.historicenterprises.com/images/products/big/product_400.jpg[/img] Zigzag napking/towel [img]http://www.historicenterprises.com/images/products/product_401.jpg[/img] Late 13th/14th C. Face jug ...

Black Swan Designs

Unfortunately, the world is not always a nice place.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

I don't do business on the boards Mike, so I've emailed you privately. Before you give ANYONE money, have a look through these threads: Theodora: Paging Theodora's customers Francesca: Attention my recent customers Sweet Stitcher: work in progress updates It is sad fact but experience shows there ar...

Black Swan Designs

Ah yes, the joys of having a super secure site.... The site bumps the address because we ship with UPS, and UPS won't accept an APO address. We ship to APOs via the US Post Office. Thankfully, this is an easy thing to bypass if you'll enter a regular US street address in both the 'Ship to' and 'Bill...

Black Swan Designs

Hi All- We ran out of that lovely cream/rust herringbone last week, so I went to LA to find something else. I found a pale straw and black herringbone, and as soon as I got back spent the afternoon sewing up a batch of pairs so they'd be available immediately. It's a much chunkier wool than the blac...

Black Swan Designs

I'd need to handle the financials with his father. The last thing I need is to get stuck with a 13-year old sized tunic. Getting stuck with a 13 year old sized tunic is less of an issue for me because I'd just take it to Pennsic but yeah, I said the same thing- I'm happy to help but I need to deal ...

Black Swan Designs

When I was the only game in town I didn't think much about documentation, provenance and all that jazz. When I got competition, I decided my angle was going to be to do the best research, and stick as close to the original stuff as I could. I've gotten better about the research the more of it I do. ...

Black Swan Designs

Chris, I'll tell you what Gerry Embleton told me lo these many years ago- "Don't believe me, do your own research." I'm human and I make mistakes like everyone else. That's one reason I've been putting more of my research stuff up on our website, so customers can see what I've derived my patterns fr...

Black Swan Designs

I think he should be wearing an arming doublet cut on a 14th C. pattern, with eyelets in the appropriate places to hang the harness from. Same idea as the 15th C. arming doublet in a 14th C. style. My opinion is that the 15th C. doublet won't work well for 14th C. because 14th C. armour is shaped di...

Black Swan Designs

Attached to the arming doublet.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Talk to Halvgrim here on the AA. He's a straight up guy and if he doesn't know he'll direct you to someone who does know. He's got a new forum you should sign up for Viking forum Egfroth is a fountain of knowledge, and seems to be a good guy, based on his responses. Ny BjÃ¶rn Gustafsson is connected...

Black Swan Designs

If you don't mind me sounding terribly parental, you should be more research/reading up before spending money, ESPECIALLY if you are on a limited budget. If you don't know what a smock is, then you need more information before you start buying stuff. Make a prioritized list of what you need. If you ...

Black Swan Designs

As far as I know there is absolutely no historical evidence for an arming pourpoint (i.e. sleeveless vesty thing, not the Charles of Blois doublet). I will very happily emend my statement if someone can produce evidence that it is. They definitely work. I developed mine when I was associated with Ma...

Black Swan Designs

Actually now we're talking about 3 different garments-

a 14th C. arming doublet like Klaus made
a 15th C arming doublet that Matt was asking about (Logan is wearing one in the picture)
an arming pourpoint (which is not historical but works)

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

14th C. is the style you got from Klaus- you posted pictures of it here a while back right after you got it.

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

I'm glad you boys are so pleased but......my eyes are bleeding! It's a very obviously mid-late 15th C. cut which is really all wrong for 14th C. use. It's a military garment, so you really shouldn't be wearing it as a civilian garment. You bought them so they are now yours to do with as you will but...

Black Swan Designs

I've been watching these 'jollyjoker126' threads. If this is "Mike" then he did email me. I told him I could help him, but that I'd need to hear from his parents that it was OK for him to commission custom work. I can't really accept a custom commission from a 13 year old without his parent's knowle...

Black Swan Designs

Custom work by Jeffrey Hedgecock Armour, Full, Italian (Milanese), circa 1470 [img]http://www.historicenterprises.com/images/products/549_large.jpg[/img] Full armour after a harness residing in the Sanctuary of the Madonna, Mantua, Italy, #B2. Hardened and tempered high carbon steel. From $25,000.0...

Black Swan Designs

Someone (may have been Bob Reed) observed quite some time ago that it was possible to buy kit for amost any other sport or hobby one undertook, whether it was fly fishing, scuba diving, or Civil War reenactment. He noted the same wasn't true for medieval reenactment, and it limited the hobby because...

Black Swan Designs

Ooops.

So I guess the new price for the winingas is $39.95....dear?

Gwen

Black Swan Designs

Rev's right of course, but for anyone who doesn't want to go into the winingas making business (Theodora perhaps? ) I just put a bunch up on the website. As for the price, well that's a funny story. I wanted to charge $11.95. Jeff wanted to charge $17.95. I said '$11.95 is enough for strips of fabri...

Josh Warren, you are BUSTED!

Tablet woven hat braid has arrived!

More winingas!

New winingas fabric added