The Van Dyke is real

James’ costume consists of a linen (under)shirt, a slashed doublet, breeches, leather bucket boots, leather gauntlets, linen cuffs and collar with lace, a woolen musketeer tabard (or cassock/casaque or mandilion) with a hand-embroidered cross and pewter buttons and a wool felt hat with 5 ostrich plumes.

And twirled facial hair.

James came to my rescue and offered to help me with the costumes right before Halloween. So I had him sewing buttons for two days. There are 113 buttons just on the tabard.

The musketeer tabard that you have pictured in your mind never really existed. No one knows for sure what they look like, but the tabards you typically see in most movies and illustrations are based on Maurice Leloir’s rendition of a musketeer – he was the main illustrator for Dumas, and while he strove for historical accuracy, the tabard was likely inspired by the theatre, and based on a court pages outfit.

I used patterns from Reconstructing History (with some modifications – mainly to the tabard), and that’s also where I bought the (very fitting) collar lace from. I would say that you do need some sewing experience for these patterns – they are not for beginners – but if you ever get stuck or have questions you can email the pattern makers and she’ll get right back to you. The boots were James’ wedding boots (modified), and his gloves were from Leather Mystics.

Halloween may be over…but the magic is not. Even though it looks as if the magic of winter solstice celebrations are already trying to squish out the lingering Halloween magic, I’ll keep the spirit of jackolanterns, costumes, and the-day-after sugar/party headache alive for a little while longer. I will complete my remaining Halloween Hoopla sketches (for my high school, university and early marriage years) in the next few weeks – the reasons for the spread out delay, and the reasons why the sketches suddenly stopped, are as followed:

• I was frantically trying to get two Halloween costumes together.
• I suddenly became ill (it wasn’t the flu but I shall spare you the details. I am fine fine fine now)
• had to do multiple trips back and forth to the hospital (but again, I’m fine)
• lost about 5 days for costuming, time that was badly needed, and thus spent all of my remaining waking moments working on the costumes. my husband was kind enough to feed me while I worked and remind me to shower.

So it was a very, very busy Halloween season. We went to a party, which was fantastic. We had a truly magnificent time; I was so delighted at the quality and quantity of costumes, it truly was one of my best Halloweens.

Plus, everyone seemed to really, really like our costumes.

d'Artagnan and Milady de Winter

So much hand stitching, embroidery, button (hole) stitching…but they turned out quite nice I think. I’ll post some more photos with more details about the costumes later during the week.

It was one for all. And all for one.

(James was very, very relieved that he could finally shave. I can’t help but miss his Van Dyke)