Tailoring

Tailoring turns cloth, silk, skins, and patterns into the gear every adventurer wears: armor for the non-plate classes, backpacks, quivers, and the bags other trades depend on. Anyone can learn it — and a high-level tailor is one of the guild's most valuable members.

Where to combine

• Small / Large / Deluxe Sewing Kit — the basic tailoring containers.
• Loom — needed for larger cloth combines like swatches, armor, and backpacks.
• 🔒 Coming in Velious — not yet available in EQL
  Coldain Tanners Kit — the Velious-era kit for high-end hides (Arctic Wyvern, Othmir).

The governing stat

Intelligence or Wisdom, whichever is higher, governs your chance to gain a skill point on a combine — same as Alchemy. Buff the higher one before a skilling session.

What you'll make first

• Silk Swatches — the base cloth component for everything silk.
• Patchwork Armor — starter leather armor from ruined pelts.
• Raw Silk Armor — caster and monk starter gear.

Hides are the heart of tailoring, and the naming is a little loose — if a recipe asks for a "pelt" and you have a "skin," it usually works. Three things matter:

Quality grades

Hides come in High, Medium, Low, and Ruined quality. A Skinning Knife lets you downgrade a hide by one step (High → Medium → Low → Ruined) — and the knife is returned on success or failure, so experiment freely. Ruined hides are still useful: they're the base of Patchwork armor and can be upgraded into skins with the knife path in reverse (combine 3 Ruined into Low quality, and so on up the ladder).

Animal sizes

The animal decides the armor size: Wolf = Small, Cat = Medium, Bear = Large. Check the sizing chart before you cut — the wrong pelt makes armor your guildmates can't wear.

Where hides come from

• Wolves, cats, and bears drop pelts all over Norrath — hunt them while leveling.
• Spider Silk / Spiderling Silk come from spiders; vendor-bought silks also exist.
• Cultural tailoring uses rarer "superb" and "excellent" quality skins.

The first stretch is cheap and simple — spider silk and ruined pelts:

Silk Swatches never go to waste — they feed every silk recipe up the ladder, so bank extras instead of vendoring them.

The wiki's leveling path to 250. Each row carries you to the next trivial — farm or buy the ingredients, then push through:

Notes on the hard stretches

• 🔒 Coming in Velious — not yet available in EQL
  108–131 gap: the Crystalline Silk set (mask 108, cap 115, gloves 124, shirt 131) fills this on Velious — 2× Crystalline Silk per swatch, then Silver Thread + swatches + pattern in a loom.
• 158–190: the Forest Green Silk Swatch needs Dark Green Dye — an Alchemist's extract brew. Plan a dye run or befriend a shaman.
• 🔒 Coming in Velious — not yet available in EQL
  190–250 alt: the Arctic Wyvern Mask (trivial 335, Coldain Tanners Kit) also trains 190–250 if you're hunting Velious.
• 🔒 Coming in Velious — not yet available in EQL
  Coldain Prayer Shawl: the quest wants tailoring at 162 (minimum) to 208 (safe for all combines) — many tailors stop the climb at 162. EQL players can also push to 190 on Forest Green Silk Swatches, whose ground spawns in Greater Faydark respawn every ~5 minutes.

Tailored bags are the first thing every new character needs — and the quivers are best-in-slot storage for rangers. All tailored containers carry weight reduction:

Reinforced Medicine Bags are the alchemist's 10-slot combine container — every shaman brewer in the guild needs one from you. The Handmade Backpack is the classic 10-slot workhorse bag, and the Tailored Quiver (22% weight reduction on arrows) makes rangers very happy.

Patchwork / Tattered Leather — trivial 26

Pattern + 1 Ruined Pelt per piece. The starter leather set for every non-caster — cut a full set for every new guild recruit and you'll be a legend by Tuesday.

Raw Silk — trivial 36

Cap Pattern + Silk Swatch pieces for the pure casters and monks. Cheap, fast, and always needed by someone's alt.

Tailoring pays because everyone needs bags and half the server wears your armor:

• Handmade Backpacks — every new character and every alt needs 10-slot bags. Perpetual demand.
• Tailored Quivers — rangers pay well for 22% arrow weight reduction.
• Reinforced Medicine Bags — every alchemist needs one; you're the only trade that makes them.
• Reinforced armor sets — every new character needs armor; sell your skilling output.
• Silk Swatches, Silk Thread, Silk Cord — the base components. Other tailors buy them in bulk when they're feeling lazy.
• Patchwork sets for newbies — low margin, but it builds the guild's goodwill economy faster than anything else.

Tailoring is the supplier trade — nearly everyone needs something you make:

• Tailoring → Alchemy: the Reinforced Medicine Bag (trivial 68) is the alchemist's combine container. See the Alchemy guide.
• Tailoring → Dyeing: Forest Green Silk Swatches need an alchemist's Dark Green Dye extract — the dependency runs both ways.
• Blacksmithing → Tailoring: Steel Boning (trivial 37) feeds Reinforced Armor.
• Tailoring → everyone: backpacks, quivers, and armor for the whole guild. A tailor who keeps the bank stocked with bags never lacks for friends.

Cultural tailoring is the cloth-and-hide side of the racial armor system: each race's line is sewn in a racial sewing kit (itself a smithing combine), using race-specific metal components, tannins from brewing, and hides that demand the guide's skin-quality knowledge. Like the smithing lines, each set comes plain and imbued — the imbued versions are deity-locked.

Worked example: Wood Elf mithril leather (Feir`Dal)

Wood elves tailor two sets — Mithril Studded Leather and Mithril Reinforced Leather — in a Feir'Dal Sewing Kit. Same metal, same city as the mithril fletching line, so a wood elf crafter stocks one supply chain for two trades.

The kit and its subcombines

Feir'Dal Sewing Kit — smithing trivial 158–162 in a Feir`dal Forge: Mithril Bits + Needle Mold + Thimble Mold + Water Flask. The metal subcombines, all in the Feir`dal Forge:

• Mithril Bits (smithing trivial 43) — Morning Dew + 2× Small Piece of Mithril.
• Mithril Studs (smithing trivial 47) — File + Morning Dew + 3× Mithril Bits.
• Mithril Boning (smithing trivial 68) — File + Morning Dew + 1× Small Brick of Mithril.

Oak Bark Tannin (brewing trivial 102) — Oak Bark (ground spawn or foraged) + Flask of Water. Every armor combine below also needs this.

Mithril Studded Armor — tailoring trivial 108

Oak Bark Tannin + Sabertooth Tiger Hide + N× Mithril Studs + pattern, in the Feir'Dal Sewing Kit. Wearable by Warrior, Cleric, Paladin, Ranger, Druid, Bard, and Rogue, all races. Stud counts: mask 1, skullcap 3, gorget 2, shoulderpads 3, wristbands 2, belt 2, sleeves 3, gloves 4, boots 4, tunic 5, cloak 4, leggings 4. The imbued line (trivial 122) adds an Imbued Emerald, is restricted to followers of Tunare, and gains CHA and WIS.

Mithril Reinforced Armor — tailoring trivial 215

Oak Bark Tannin + Excellent Sabertooth Tiger Hide + N× Mithril Boning + pattern, in the Feir'Dal Sewing Kit. Boning counts: mask 1, skullcap 2, gorget 1, shoulderpads 2, wristbands 1, belt 2, sleeves 2, gloves 2, boots 3, tunic 4, cloak 2, leggings 3. Wearable by the studded classes plus Shadow Knight. The imbued line (trivial 228) adds an Imbued Emerald, is Tunare-only, and gains CHA and WIS. Note the jump: reinforced needs excellent-quality hides, so start saving your best sabertooth skins now.

The other racial tailoring lines

• Erudite — Steelsilk plate: tailored from Terrorantula silk in a Worn Erudite Sewing Kit. EQL inclusion is uncertain — see the Cultural Armor hub for what could and couldn't be verified.
• Halfling — Vale Leather Armor: tailored with smithing components, forged in the Vale Forge.
• High Elf — Mithril armor: plate and chain sets via the Koada`dal Forge, shared with wood elves and half elves — see the blacksmithing guide's cultural section for the forge-side lines.
• Everything else racial is smithing-side: see the blacksmithing guide's cultural section for the full race table.

Sources

• EQL Wiki: Cultural Tradeskills — the per-race set and forge reference.
• EQL Wiki: Cultural Tradeskills — Wood Elf — the full mithril smithing, brewing, and tailoring tables with trivials this section is built on.
• Guild Blacksmithing Guide — the cultural smithing section, for the forge-side racial lines.

Step-by-step and reference

• EQL Wiki: Skill Tailoring — the full leveling guide, bag tables, armor sets, and quest combines.
• EQTraders: Tailoring — classic-era tailoring fundamentals.
• EQL Patch Notes (official) — tradeskill rules change; check here first.

Guild references

• Guild Alchemy Guide — the shaman potion trade your medicine bags enable.
• Guild Blacksmithing Guide — the forge trade, fine plate, and armor dyes.
• EQL Crafting hub — all twelve trades, skill-up mechanics, and platinum strategies.