Chiffon and
organza are very similar (as far as weave goes), but chiffon may be better for the floaty effect if it's not too rough. They are about the same as far as weight goes, but chiffon's extra surface area and reduced stiffness could help it out.
I found my cloak and got some pictures.
Knotted shoelaces as the tie work quite nicely. The roughness of the knots catch on each other, making it easy to tie lightly without it slipping off. Pulling the cloak off is also super easy if you don't do too complex a knot. I had leather here, but it stuck on itself too much if it was tight and slipped too much when it was loose.
Without
the seams where they are, the holes I made (with a button hole punch) would have ripped to the edges.
Streamers with flash.Closer shot of streamers with flash.Close shot of streamers without flash. The actual appearance is somewhere between the flash and no flash pictures. If there's direct light on them, they kinda shine. Good or bad, depending on whether you think that a moist look is good permanently.
Hanging from a fan in front of a light. You can see all of the streamers in this shot, so it shows how transparent it really is. Wear dark colors underneath, especially if you'll be in well lit places.
A shot of
some individual streamers with a wall behind them.
I like one piece hoods with pleats on the forehead, so that's what I used. Just an
overhand knot with an extra turn is plenty of security with the knotted laces.
(Flash)The leather danglies are lighter on purpose. They're there to preform the action of
pulling the streamers closer. Vin mentions doing this at some points in the books, but without a solid piece of fabric available at that height, pulling a cloak around yourself is somewhat more difficult. One handed because the camera was in the other hand.
That's
totally not me.
I was planning on the layers alternating color up to the top (front edge of the hood), but if I were to do it again I would just use the black. I'd still sew streamers all the way up, getting shorter near the top. One thing I think could help the bunching issues at the base is staggering the length of streamers on each layer, the bottom layer being anywhere between 20 and 36 inches.
I can send a pattern for the coif if anybody wants them. I'll probably finish the cloak with short streamers up top to cover the coif and start over with a lighter coif or go coifless.
EDIT: Link to rar of
two videos of the cloak spinning on my fan. (~6MB)
EDIT2: Removed embedded photos and replaced them with links, as loading times on this page were kinda ridiculous. For all of the photos in a rar,
click here. (~6MB)