I decided to sew my husband a Tim the Enchanter costume from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but quickly discovered that there really are no good images online of the costume. Plus, it’s mostly black, so a lot of detail is gone; you just can’t see how it’s constructed.

I tried taking notes and making sketches from watching the scene (over and over) but even pausing it wasn’t helpful because it’s just too dark to see the details. What I finally ended up doing was putting the disk in my computer and trying to take screenshots (nope, it’s protected, didn’t work), so I used a camera. In all, it took me about 45 minutes of watching about 6 minutes of the movie in slow motion and frame-by-frame to try and find the images I wanted. The photos aren’t good, but they didn’t need to be. All I needed was to be able to adjust them in Photoshop to see detail in the black that I wasn’t able to see otherwise.

If you look in the photo above, you can see a triangular point at his left shoulder. I have a couple of photos showing that, and I’m confident that it’s the front yoke of the hooded cloak. It wasn’t until I blew up the brightness that I could see that. I can also see pretty clearly how the front and back of the black layer connect. I also got several pictures showing the back of the cloak and how shredded it is, revealing the red lining. Tim’s robes?  They’re a mess. The good news is, I won’t have a lot of finished hems to worry about.

I’m using McCall’s 4320 as my jumping-off point for the robes. Instead of cutting two front pieces so the robe opens in the front, I’ll cut two back pieces and modify it at the neck for comfort. The sleeves are thin, they are only a single layer, so they will be made only in black. The red will consist of two layers, front and back (2x) of inexpensive broadcloth I got with a 50% coupon — 7 yards of it. (My husband’s tall, not quite John Cleese tall, who’s 6’5″, but tall.) The black layer will be the front and back plus the sleeves, out of more broadcloth. Once that’s constructed, I still have to make the cloak, and I haven’t decided what I want to use for that yet, but it will be more of the black, with the red lining. Oh, and the ram’s horn headdress! (Yeah, so not buying that plush thing I’ve seen online.) And the accessories! In time for Free Comic Book Day! [insert scream here]

Next time I’ll have work-in-progress photos. Pardon me, I need to get busy…