Chain Maile

Today was kind of a bust. I'd made a form for the quiver last week. I used a giant styrofoam cone and whittled it down to the correct shape (which is an elephant tusk.) I then made a form using paper mache.


I was going to sculpt the quiver today using oven-bake clay, which I rolled out into thin layers with a wine bottle. It kind of looked like raw bacon or something. Disturbing, especially since we just had a pig roast yesterday.



Well, the clay was just not working. It was lumpy, it was stretching out, it just was not good.


So, I gave up. Matt suggested using fiberglass or something - I don't know, he'll have to tell me what to do. It's apparently what he used to make the form for his R2D2 dome. My biggest concern is that I have to be able to sculpt this, and I'm not good at sculpting. I need something that won't dry until I want it to!

Anyway, I gave up on the quiver for today and turned to the chain maile. Remember, I spent a long time making chains, and Matt spent a long time piecing those chains into sheets of maile. We ended up with two big sheets of chain maile.


What I did today was I split both sheets of maile into two sheets, so I ended up with four identical sheets of maile. I was trying to figure out how to attach it to the corset without 1) ruining the corset, and 2) making it look fake. Matt suggested hand sewing it to a belt, but I broke the needle on the first attempt and didn't even get it all the way through the belt. Then I remembered that I had an extra leather cord!

I wove the cord through the top row of maile, tying a knot on the last ring of each sheet to keep it in place so it didn't slide. This way it has enough body that it can move and ripple as I walk like a full shirt of maile, but it's not going to slide around. This will tie around my waist. And - ta da - I've got a maile skirt! (Click picture to view larger image!) I will spend this week making chains for the top and the sleeves!