My Knight in Shining Armor - Happy Halloween to All

This knights suit was tailor made for my son, Adam.

What is better than a knight of the realm!  So, I went to the local material store and checked out the pattern books - nothing exciting.   What to do?  This is what I came up with...

I began with a black Hanes T-shirt and a pair of black jeans.  

I bought a shiny thin silver metallic material for the chain mail and coif. I cut the short sleeves off the T-shirt, then cut two long sleeves from the material and sewed them onto the black T-shirt.  I used the same metallic material to make the coif - a piece of headgear that is worn under the helm.  I put one of Adams old sweatshirt hoods onto the remaining fabric and cut it out a bit bigger and several inches longer. The nice thing about the material was that it didn't fray - so I didn't have to make large seams - I just edged it with a zig-zag stitch since no one would see them anyway.

I found a piece of black leather upholstery material with a diamond print sewn throughout for the Surcoat - a sleeveless garment that was worn over armor . I needed less than a 1/2 yard -then I took the long rectangular piece of fabric - divided it in half - cut out a hole the size of my sons head on the fold and added a small slit so he could get it over his head. It was open on the sides so I used a hole punch and made 2 sets of holes on each side which I later laced together with black shoe strings. 

My daughter is very handy with a computer so she had the job of creating the coat of arms and family motto for Adam.  Every knight had to have his own coat of arms so that his friends or enemies could recognize him from a distance.  My daughter asked Adam his favorite beasts (animals), colors and what he wanted on the 4 fields of his shield.  The motto went over the coat of arms.  She printed out two family crests using iron-on paper for one and regular paper for the other.  I centered it and ironed it onto the front of his Surcoat.

Adams helm was a bit trickier!  I bought 3 black sheets of thin black art foam.  I took one piece and placed it around Adams head and measured and cut it to fit an inch larger, then I used a hot glue gun to attach it together along the seam.  I turned it upside down and traced the circle on the other piece of foam.  I cut the circle out a bit bigger and attached it as the top of the helm.  As it is now it would be very hard to keep this on your head - so I shaped it to fit over his shoulders by cutting it triangular in the front and back.  Well the boys gotta see - right?  I put the helm on Adams head and judged where his eyes would be, marked it and cut a rectangular hole. I then cut 4 slits below the eyes for air holes.  I had a bit of extra foam left over.  I cut a few circles and thin strips and used these to define the helmet and face plate.

Instead of purchasing boots, I decided to let him wear his regular tennis shoes and since I had bought an extra piece of black foam - I cut it in half, wound each half around each leg.  I found extra long boot laces at Walmart and used these as the cross garters to keep the foam in place.

I used two pieces of heavy corrugated cardboard for the shield.  With the 2 pieces of cardboard together I cut them into the shape that I wanted and glued them together.  Next I spray painted the shape front and back with a shiny silver color to match the chain mail.  I matched up the sides and taped them together using black duct tape.  I took the other coat of arms and glued it onto the shield.

Adam used black gloves for gauntlets and we found a fantastic sword to finish off his costume.  Behold Adam the Medieval Knight!