My New COA

[Sir Edward]

Historically they could be made of silk, linen, or wool. It would depend on your wealth, how durable you would want it to be, availability of fabric, etc.

[Sir William]

In what order are they, from richest to poorest?

[Sir Edward]

I'm not sure how linen and wool compared, in terms of cost. Silk would be the most expensive I think.

[Sir Brian]

Which still holds true today! 

btw,
Ok so I’ve been psychically making this surcoat and how best to do the white portion of it. I was thinking of cutting the wavy shape on two pieces of white silk then sew them together to form an appliqué then sew that onto the surcoat. 

[Sir Edward]

That's probably a good way to do it. A lot would have been done as appliques back in the day anyway. If you can pin it in place, you can run some curvy stitch lines to stitch down the edges. I'm not sure how it's done, but I've seen appliques with edge stitching that's kinda like that dense stitching done in button-holes. Or, you could hem the edges before attaching them.

[Sir Edward]

BTW, just one word of warning about using white fabric.... it's a lot harder to keep clean, and shows the armor grime really fast. I can't get all of the black out of my white shirts that I wear under the armor, for instance. Most, but not all.

[Sir William]

^^^definitely, what he said.  Now I have but two shirts that I wear under armor now, simply for that reason.

[Sir Brian]

No worries there my friends! I'm well accustomed to handwashing my torse because the white portion of it gets so filthy from rubbing up against my mailled armpits when I hold it. 

[Sir Matthew]

Actually, according to my research, linen was very expensive while wool was cheap and silk was relatively inexpensive. Cotton was very expensive and generally only seen on clothing for nobility.

[Sir Wolf]

umm no linen was an everyday item. you will find everyone had linen under garments and tunics under their wools. cotton was not used in Europe as a clothing item until later (post 15th century anyways)

[Sir Brian]

After purchasing the dupioni silk fabric and bias tape from Hancock fabric the other day, my executive producer (my wife) strongly suggested that I hire someone to make my new surcoat – Considering that I have approximately $110.00 in material invested thus far (linen, silk and bias tape) I am inclined to agree with her, so I am now on a quest for a seamstress/tailor which won’t be an easy task especially since my first foray into that particular outsourced services was a royal PITA!

[Sir Edward]

Maybe we'll have to have you talk to my wonderful seamstress who made my nobles. I don't know what her schedule is like, but I'm sure she'd do an amazing job on it.

[Sir Brian]

Really? Well she does magnificent work! Are they going to be there Sunday?

[Sir Edward]

I'm guessing they'll be there this weekend. I don't remember them mentioning any other plans. I don't know how much she'll charge. If you have the material, it would just be labor. You'd have to work it out with her.

[Sir William]

Are you guys going this weekend?