Chainmail, chainmail, chainmail. I got my mother to knit me chainmail.
Guys, I have a confession to make. I don’t know how to knit. I’ve never known how to knit, and it’s entirely possible I’ll never learn to knit. I know, I know. Knitting’s so trendy right now, but there you go, I’m ilkniterate.
But good news, once the knitted pieces magically appeared, I got on with my costume by spraying paint all over them.
Those wooden pieces are for the swords, shhh.
And through the magic of time-lapse!
All painted!
If you’re thinking Wow, those look pretty similar… — good eye!
Once the painting was done, it was time to turn them into armour. I wrapped them in fake leather, with a piece of thin, black craft foam between them, and sewed up the sides. Funny thing about this fake leather, it doesn’t go through the sewing machine well. It’s too… I don’t think sticky is the word, but there’s definitely too much friction. To get around this, I wrapped what I’d be sewing in tissue paper. It was a pain, but it worked.
You can't really see it, but there's a layer of thin foam in there
I added straps and buckles, as appropriate, and sewed it all together. I also lightly dusted some parts with brown spray paint to try to give the leather layering some texture. Beneath the arm pieces are some straps with velcro I sewed on.
Fast forward to this.
#Protip: If I was doing it again, I’d sew the pauldrons down so they didn’t flap around as much – or build them over something sturdier than the fake leather and a thin layer of craft foam.