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Real Fighting Garb, Part 3

A red long-sleeved caftan on a hanger, hooked on a wall in front of dozens of hanks of yarn.
Already worn without buttons several times, so the sleeves are pre-wrinkled.
The next step was making buttons for my fighting caftan—the buttons themselves are very easy. These ones are squares of fabric stuffed with scraps and cinched tight at the base, so I have tails to stitch down and help keep them from pulling off. Seemed a wise move for a fighting garment.

A pack of little fabric buttons with long tails, looking like small red ghosts.
And they look like tiny ghosties!
I decided on nine buttons through the extremely scientific method of eyeballing and guessing completely at reasonable placement. This is my usual strategy, and it's been shockingly effective over the years.

A small handstitched buttonhold in red fabric.
Preliminary buttonhole bound.
To seat the buttons more firmly and keep them from wanting to pull out under strain, I made buttonholes in the caftan where the buttons were to go, and pulled the tails through to stitch down on the inside.

A small red fabric button with the tails inserted into a buttonhole in matching red fabric.
Starting to pull the tails through.
Some of the tails were really not interested in behaving—the buttonholes were all as small as I dared make them, in an effort to hide them under the bulk of each button once it was attached.

Frayed tails of red fabric emerging through a small buttonhole in grey-blue fabric.
Yanking the tails through from the underside.
Lots of getting stabbed with pins at this point.

A small, roughly folded square of red fabric, pinned along the edges of the square to grey-blue fabric, with messy pleats running to the center of the square.
Of course I meant to have only the background fabric in focus...
The fabric for the buttons did start as a square, but after being gathered in the center and hauled through a slightly-too-small buttonhole, it no longer really resembled a square, so tucking all those raw edges under and pinning them to death was a fiddly, slow process. Also, lots more getting stabbed with pins. Shocking.

Two round fabric buttons stitched to matching red fabric, with small diamonds of backstitches around their bases.
Judge ye not my wobbly diamonds, lest ye be judged.
The trickiest part of these was tucking all the raw edges under and keeping the stitching consistent on the tails; since it showed on the outside, I decided to be fancy and make little diamonds around each button.

A white long-sleeved tunic with blue neck binding and buttons on a hanger, hooked on a wall in front of dozens of hanks of yarn.
Shirts really do not photograph well off the body.
Pretty much concurrent with the button-making, when I needed to work on something easier on my hands and fingers, I made a shirt to go under the caftan. This is handkerchief weight linen, bound at the neck with some scraps of blue linen to match the little buttons there. Those buttons are a slightly different design I like rather better: a circle of fabric with the edges folded and gathered into the center repeatedly, until you end with a tiny, dense sphere of fabric and a tail of thread you can then use to attach the button.

A Snapchat of a black cat's face peering out from under white linen on a yellow, orange, and magenta print blanket, with a bar of text reading "Project cat sez yur seams r crookit."
The Helpful Cat was very helpful by shedding black fur all over the white fabric.

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