[8] Fencing Drape

Oh hey..... right. I have a blog. This is where my projects go...

Anyway, better late than never! 

The last post was about the belt favor I made for Alastar to fight in Crown Tournament. However, after I finished that I immediately worked on another project. 

While fencing, I wore a linen hood under my mask. While this worked, I found that it was much easier to become overheated while fencing. 

I had wanted to encorporate a drape onto the mask itself. I'd done some temporary drapes by duct-taping a square of fabric to the mask, but I wanted something that actually looked nice. 

I looked at a lot of different drape designs. Most people had a variation on square fabric attached to mask. However I've seen a lot of issues with gaping occurring on those, especially on the sides. 

For example, this is a picture of my taped hood just flying up while in motion. 

I wanted to fix that issue but also attach the hood as far back as possible. This would allow the mesh on the tops and sides of the mask to give the most ventilation and the least sound blockage. 

I decided on an elongated arch shape that would drape well. (Though admittedly I don't have a lot of pictures of the sewing process)

This is a mock-up of what I wanted on the mask. 

Using this shape as the blueprint, I cut out some lovely purple linen and clipped it into this shape. (Actual pins scare me and I really don't know how to use them. Little quilters clips are super helpful). 

I was on a bit of a time-crunch and I didn't want to have an unfinished hood by the time Crown Tournament was happening. So, I decided to finish the hood entirely, and then add some embroidery to it later if I had time. 

Just like the favor, I did a backstitch around the perimeter of the inside-out hood, leaving a small gap. Then, I pulled the hood outside and sewed up the last remaining gap with an invisible stitch. 

To attach, I had gotten a roll of velcro straps that could be added to both the mask and the fabric. I stuck the strip to the center of the hood and lined it up to the closest edge of the mask. 

I then sewed stitches through the fabric and velcro so that if the stickiness failed, it wouldn't entirely detach. 

This was the hardest part of the whole process. Do you know how hard it is to push a needle through two layers of linen and a mostly plastic strip of velcro?? Very. 

I tried using a thimble, bracing the needing on various hard surfaces, and otherwise struggled to get through. But I did it! 

But then I had to sew the other half of the strip through the top mesh of the mask. While no fabric to go through, it was still a heck of a time to get through.

Anyway, I thought I was done with the construction. But as I tested it, it still felt like the sides of the drape were too easy to fly up, especially while moving. So I decided to tie the front ends of the drape across the front of the bib. This way, it would act like an overhood, but still have a lot of airflow. 

I decided that the best way to tie this would be a small leather strap. I looked up how to make buttonholes and added them. Then I knotted a small strip of leather cord and tied them together. 

Okay, NOW we're done with construction. 

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Oh. Oh no, I've given myself too much time before Crown Tourney, OF COURSE I can add some embroidery to this too. 

Since I wanted to be flexible with this project, I decided to do a bouquet of flowers. I figured if I could only do a few, they'd still look good. Plus, I could always add more flowers or details later. 

I loosely based this design off of my very first embroidery project. 

When planning out most of my art projects, I like to have a mock-up in some way. I usually prefer to do this through Procreate on an iPad, since its easier to change small details digitally when I'm in the planning stage. 

Being economical, I already had quite a few colors of embroidery thread available to me. I decided to design my bouquet with those colors. I took a picture of the colors I had available and literally color dropped them on the iPad. This way, I'm able to visually see how the design might come out. 

Once this was planned out, I was able to get started. Since flowers are much more forgiving than some geographical patterns, I didn't worry too much about overall scaling. Using the mock-up, I drew the design on the fabric with a heat-erasable pen. 

Since I was on a time crunch, I didn't go crazy with any kind of new stitch. For the stems I used a whipped backstitch(dark green) and stem stitch(light green). For the petals I used satin stitch(blue), and for the flowers(pinks) and pistils(yellow), I used colonial knots. 

The hardest thing for me was actually embroidering through two layers of linen. This was the first time I had attempted it and it was a bit difficult to get the tension right, especially on the longer satin stitches. 

However, I finally got it to a place I was happy with!

Yay!! I was able to finish this by the time I fought in Crown! See the super cool and cinematic photo my friend Agnes took while we were still outside on this rainy day. 

Though you can tell the leather tie has come undone. Don't worry, I've knotted it better since then. Below is a recent picture while fencing, showing how well this design keeps it from flying up and exposing any areas of the head/neck. 

Overall, I'm really happy with how it turned out! There's still room to add more embroidery to it later, but I am very happy with it as it is. 

Writing this over a year later, I continue to be happy with it. It works well as a drape and definitely keeps me cooler than a regular hood. I am even working on making a similar one for a friend (though that will probably be a future post...). 

Anyway, onto the next project! Hope you enjoyed the read. 😊

Start Date: April 8th, 2025

End Date: May 2nd, 2025.