Help with making a Norman Soldier Costume.......

squibbs25

As the title says really!

My son is going to cub camp bank holiday weekend and all parents have been asked to make Norman or Saxon Soldier costumes for their child(ren). (my son is in the Norman group).
Any idea's on how to do this and the cheapest or easiest way? (afterall this is MSE)
I am not too good with sewing but will try so i dont let him down.

Hope you can comeup with some good ideas!
Here's hoping.....

TIA
Squibbs

Savvy_Sue

Grey sweatshirt (can be hoodie!) and jog bottoms. Tabard / tunic cut from an old sheet or pillowcase (depending how skinny he is!) Fabric paint or permanent marker to put simple symbol on the front. You could sew or use wondaweb, but fabric paint is probably quickest!

Shield and sword from cardboard, covered with tinfoil if you like. You can make a helmet that way too. Helmet is an awkward shape, however. A google image search for "norman soldier" might be useful, but put those quotes in!

specialK

Found this picture http://www.fotolibra.com/gallery/170743/norman-soldiers-126/

You could try making the helmet from a ballon and paper mache (sp)

Does anyone have a knitted or crocheted jumper you could use/dye?

squibbs25

Thank you for your suggstions.
They don't need the helmets and shields as they will be making these themselves while they are there.
Its the costume that's giving me nightmares!
The lighter weight the better (apparently), as they will be running around in them and re-inacting a battle.

Savvy_Sue

squibbs25 wrote: »

Thank you for your suggstions.
They don't need the helmets and shields as they will be making these themselves while they are there.

That saves a lot of bother then!

squibbs25 wrote: »

The lighter weight the better (apparently), as they will be running around in them and re-inacting a battle.

In that case, has he got any grey pyjamas? Or can you get a cheap grey pair? Doesn't matter if there's something on the front, because that will be covered by the pillow case thingy on top!

Fritha_2

I used to be a Viking (long story) so know lots about them, unfortunately very little about the Normans but they were basically the same time so you'll be able to get away with anything I suggest!

I'd say, shove him in some tracksuit bottoms, any colour is fine but it depends on how rich he wnts to be! Blue would be very expensive, red or green common middle of the road colours, grey or any other light colour very cheap!

Assuming he wants to be a rich dude I'd recommend getting him some crepe bandages from a pharamacy, if you can dye them even better! Wrap them round this legs from his ankles up to half way up a bit below his knees and either tuck them in or tie them on using boot laces! This would stop posh soldiers getting their trousers mucky (and stop rats running up your trouser legs!), you can see them on the picture special K has posted, they're called leg bindings.

For his top half, only very rich soldiers would wear chain mail as it was chuffing expensive (but since they're getting helmets it's a fairly moot point as they were expensive too!), some soldiers could have a helmet and no chain mail so if needs be he could be saving up? ;-)

Ideally you'd want a woolen or linen tunic, but, if you have a silk shirt you don't mind him wearing he can go armed with an impressive fact: Silk is the best thing to wear if you're being shot with an arrow as it rucks up when the arrow goes in and you can pull it out without much damage to yourself or the shirt!. I'll assume you don't have one to lend him so probably a long sleeved t shirt (again, some colours denote wealth) would be grand and not too hot!

Shove a leather belt, preferably brown, round his waist and bung some leather shoes on his feet (boots were more expensive than shoes) again, brown is better than black as they would only really have not very dyed leather iyswim.

Hope that helps and I hope he has a lovely weekend :-)

Savvy_Sue

Fritha wrote: »

Ideally you'd want a woolen or linen tunic, but, if you have a silk shirt you don't mind him wearing he can go armed with an impressive fact: Silk is the best thing to wear if you're being shot with an arrow as it rucks up when the arrow goes in and you can pull it out without much damage to yourself or the shirt!. I'll assume you don't have one to lend him so probably a long sleeved t shirt (again, some colours denote wealth) would be grand and not too hot!

Well I never knew that! And hope I never need to ...

Charity shops sometimes have silk shirts. However, they're often rather more multicoloured / floral than I suspect is appropriate for a Norman. But I have found plain black, red, gold, blue and green ones, over the years. Rather partial to silk, you see ...

Fritha_2

I'm a mine of usually useless information me! Black wouldn't be around at the time (too difficult to get a colour that dark without chemicals) and as a general rule the darker the colour the richer the wearer (as it takes more dye to make it dark you see! Er, but yes, unlikely to be floral! ;-)

Don't forget, there's no point putting chain mail over a silk shirt as then it can't ruck so is a bit useless! And silk was also chuffing expensive at the time so not hugely prevelant (even rich people would probably just have used it as trim) and probably wouldn't have had buttons on either!

All in all the silk shirt wasn't a perfect suggestion but such a cool fact that I like to think any cub leader worth their salt would overlook the one or two flaws ;-)

squibbs25

Fab ideas!

Any ideas on the chain mail, how would we do that?
Thats what he has decided he would like :rotfl:

Will get him an extra large t shirt, cut the sleeves off, the put the chain mail over the top, how does that sound?

Squibbs

hev_2

Don't know how this would sound, but chain mail - try a grey string vest? or something equally loopy.

Do you have a budget for this? How about charity shops?

Good luck

Savvy_Sue

If you can knit, then large needles, thick grey wool, wouldn't take long! Doesn't need a lot of shaping ...