The Tilted Tailor: 1180-1210 Crown Tournament Commission - Part 2

Stencil Drawings

We discussed the different forms of embellishment, and decided that gold and black stencil work would be the easiest option given the time constraints, and would look quite nice. I decided to try the Martha Stewart Metallic Paints, and they gave a nice result on the fabric swatches I tested.

I purchased their Metallic true gold, and it's a really nice color. Very gold, not orange or green tinted and a really nice crisp color. It's a thick liquid paint and applies really nicely on the fabric. There were a few spots where it bled through, but this was just on a swatch to test it out and I was just holding the stencil down with my hand, not actually stabilized on the fabric or taped. It came out nicely with a clean coverage, and minimal bleed through.

Stencil for trim

One coat, even coverage of stencil paint

Below is one of the detail photographs from a reproduction in an extant piece. We discussed the option of doing something like this along the bottom of the under garments on Daniel's tunic, in black. He's designing a stencil that will have alternating his and Ennelynne's devices in the center circle, and linear work in a similar pattern aroud the outsides. The idea is to have the stencils not be continuous so that space can be placed in between them to make them fit on the given space of fabric.

Extant reproduction detail of trim

The below photograph is the inspiration for Daniel's outfit. His under tunic is gold and has the split neckline with the keyhole cut, as shown below. I'll be doing some sort of decorative stitching around his neckline and sleeves, and adding gold and black stencil painting to both pieces.

Reproduction piece that was inspirational

I opted for drawing another stencil in order to design exactly what I wanted. I thought this would nicely compliment the other baroque style stencil we purchased, and they will probably be used in an alternating fashion.

I let the paint dry on the fabric for 48 hours then decided to see how sturdy the paint actually was. Both samples below were painted, left to dry, and then vigorously hand washed with dish soap in my kitchen sink. The black didn't move at all, and retained it's shiny quality. It had penetrated the fabric a little more than the black, but even in areas where it wasn't very thickly painted in stayed with no budging or fading.

The gold paint, however, lost a lot of it's luster and began to flake off with any sort of scrubbing. It didn't have any issues getting wet or being dried, but definitely wouldn't hold up to a laundry machine. I tried a second swatch and let it dry, and then heat set it with an iron before washing it in the sink but there was still a fair amount of paint that chipped off.