The husband joined the SCA primarily as an excuse to spend time with me. He has been an indifferent Anglo-Saxon, mainly because he wanted to wear pants.

At Pennsic in 2013, he surprised me by seeing a pattern for a 16th-century Polish coat (zupan) and loudly announcing, “I’d wear that!” Happy that he took an active liking to something, I agreed to make one for him.

We found the fabric at a local fabric shop (he picked it out), and after many months and the knowledge that he was going to be presented with his Award of Arms, I finally got around to putting the coat (and hat) together.

I only had about 4 days in which to work, and he wasn’t really available for fittings, so the final coat suffered a little bit. I will be able to tweak a number of issues (collar, cuffs at forearm, wonky front fastenings) so all in all it wasn’t a bad first attempt. He is terribly hard to fit, but I gained a lot of insight into what I can do to make the next version more successful.

He also loves his hat (kolpak, colpak).