More Classes

I ran my basic embroidery class again today for a couple of people. Well, they weren't really classes, as they were one on one. But its good as people are getting the idea that I can help them with embroidery questions and that I don't MIND helping them. I also had someone ask my advice about what sort of embroidery to put on a Viking outfit. We had a chat and when I got home, I sent her some pictures I had and some links that would be of use. I also had a couple more people put in requests for info on specific periods. I have been working on my research. I think I have just about every article possible. It's up to reading it all and putting my thoughts on paper.

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Maaseik Embroideries

Another research victory today. I managed to find a heap of images online of the Maaseik Embroideries. I am working on research for a handout about Anglo-Saxon embroidery. I want to write the handout, so that people interested in early period clothing can put appropriate embroidery patterns on them. So I have been doing research. There are only a couple of in tact Anglo-Saxon embroidery as well as a few fragments.

Last night I did another couple of hours on the split stitch device. I am going to have to stop doing this style of embroidery in silk, its just too hard on my eyes!!

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Heraldic Tent Stitch Slips for Pouch

I want to make a pouch that shows some of my SCA affliations. I don't want to have a heap of favours dangling from my belt so I have decided to make a pouch, using tent stitch slips, which shows these affiliations.

I haven't decided on a final design yet, except that they will be placed in a rough cross shape. My device at the top, Mordenvale and Lochac on the horizontal arm and then WCOB arms below mine. My device and WCOB will be heater shapes and Mordenvale and Lochac Populace will be on roundals, to indicated that they are badges rather than devices.

I was going to put the slips inside a quatrefoil, with possibly a rose in the centre, but I am not sure. I do want something vaguly Elizabethan in feel, and this design might be a bit early, although if I can make the quatrefoil look like strapwork it might be a viable design.

So at this stage, I am just going to stitch the slips and then work out the design once they are done.

I know that I shouldn't have too many projects on the go at once, but this is a good project for carrying around with me. The other two WIPS arn't really portable as they require specicial equipment or need to be kept especially clean.

Below is an image of the four slips at 2 hr work and also a close up of my device.

Also, there is an image on the left of my Lochac device (as mentioned in a previous post) at 2hrs work.

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New Project - Split Stitch

I started a new project. Yes, I know, not a good idea when so close to finishing the scissors sheath. Well, I needed a break from that project. I think I should have done the goldwork first, cause now I think there is too much thread on the piece and the gold thread is going to shred being pulled through. If that happens, I may have to compromise and just couch down some gold instead of doing some sort of braid stitch.

The new project is a split stitch heraldic device. It will be part of the WCOB Company Banner. I did about 2 hrs last night before I got the warning signs of a visual migraine coming on. So I went straight in to lay down. I really had to get this project started as I've had it for ages and other people have already finished theirs!! It sholdn't take me too long. Then I have to do another one. I volunteered to do one of the Masters devices. They are slightly bigger. I won't be able to do my device until it is registered, which after all the hassles I've had with it, could be a couple of years yet. I hope there are still places left on the banner by then!!

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Scissors Sheath Update

All the silver background is done. From the start, one problem appeared. The transfer pen I was using shows through the stitching. Not so bad on the outside edges, but very noticeable on the stem that goes up the centre. So I decided I needed to cover it somehow. So I have used a yellow silk in stem stitch to follow the pattern. The gold imitation Jap thread will then be worked over this.

Below is an image of the sheath at approx. 25hr work.

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Progress

I had an eventful weekend. We had to take Pharaoh to the vet as his eye just wasn't healing up. I knew that all the vet would do would be to give us drops. But they wouldn't do that unless we brought the cat in. So we trundled off on Saturday morning and about half way there the car died. So we are sitting in the main street of Mayfield, on a busy Saturday morning with the cat freaking out and Adam mad cause the car broke down. We got a lift with Adam's sister to the vet and as I suspected, after a quick look and injuries on my part (two bloody great fang marks in my sewing arm!!), we got the drops. Got a taxi home. Adam had stayed with the car, turned out the radiator was stuffed. So there is $300 down the drain. With a bit of luck, that is all, and there is no further damage to the car. It meant an early start this morning in order to walk down to the ferry.

Managed to have a very uneventful Sunday. Just bummed around. Did my first scrapbooking in about a year! Watched a DVD. Finally, got to my embroidery at about 3pm. Kept going until bed time with breaks for food. I managed to get the whole background of the second side of my scissors sheath done. So that is good. Now just the goldwork.

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Research Success

I had a good stitching related day yesterday. On a whim, I decided to have a play with some of the online journals I have access to here at work. Normally, I don't turn up much but yesterday I hit a bit of a winner. When I typed in "embroidery" into JSTOR, I got over 200 hits. As I worked my way through them yesterday, I ended up with just over 80 articles relating to pre-16thC embroidery. Now, this was tempered by the fact that many of the articles were written in the early part of the twentieth century and that some of the scholarship on early modern textiles has come along way since then. But they had something that didn't change, lots of images of the pieces under discussion. Bonus. There were a couple of really interesting finds, such as "Moldavian Portrait Textiles" and some info on a piece of 16th C German linen work that I had never seen before. So I am slowing working my way through printing out all these articles and seeing what joys they contain. One thing about the early scholarship is that that hadn't been unduly influenced by many of the now ubiquitous "paradigms" that people now like to discuss. They are very much into giving the technical info, it was this big, made from these materials, used these colours and fit into this style. I like this basic info, because it lets me put the piece into context myself.

On the practical side of things, I got another couple of hours done on the scissors sheath. I have the silver background complete on one side. I will start the other one tonight. Once that is done, I will start adding the gold (which I think I will understitch with some yellow silk) braid stitch and then some pailettes.

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Weekend Roundup

I had a fairly big weekend. I did get the hat finished. Got to the final bit, putting the hat band on and I couldn't find anything that would work. In desparation, I checked my jewellery to see if I could find anything to use. I found a natural pearl and hematite necklace. I draped that around the bottom of the crown of the hat and sewed it on. Once I got the pheasent feather on, the hat looked quite spiffy. I would offer pictures but the digital camera has decided to play up. Something wrong with the battery indicator (it says new batteries are flat)!!

Adam gave me a lift to our groups meeting place and we headed off to the demo at about 9.30am. We got to Gloucester about 11am. My Dad rang me just as we pulled up on the car park. We set up while the boys armoured up. Unfortunately, there were only four of them and it was quite a warm day, but they did well. We ended up doing two demos, with quite good crowds. Dad enjoyed watching the fighting and got to speak to our Baron, who is also an armourer. My Dad is a sheet metal worker by trade and wants to have a go a making a helmet and maybe some other bits of armour. Kinda good for me if I ever decide to take up fighting. We got home by about 5pm. It was a lovely day out. The weather was gorgeous, definately a nice way to spend a Saturday.

My outfit turned out pretty well. I was a bit warm but no excessivly so. I got asked by about half a dozen people if they could take my photo!! I felt like a super model (NOT!)

Sunday was a bit slower. Adam and I went to see Van Helsing at the movies. Not a bad picture for what it was. We then did a little shopping and organised it so we could get a frapachino from Starbucks. So sad. We got home and just crashed. It must have been good sleeping weather, we didn't wake up until tea time.

I got a bit of stitching done last night. I should get the silver background done on one side of my scissor sheath by tonight.

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Spoke Too Soon

No work on the hat. The ribbon I bought for doing the edge of the brim didn't have enough give for the curve. So no work on the hat last night. I am going to have to leave work early and pick up some bias binding to finish the edge. I really don't want to use poly binding but I don' think I am going to have a choice. I will have to hunt up some cotton for the next hat. But I should still get it finished tonight ready for tommorrow. The sleeves are done. All I need to do on those is put the lacing rings on the sleeves and on the dress and work out what I am going to use for points. Lucky I wrote this, I'd forgotten about the points. Might have to buy some packets of shoe laces for the time being.

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Hat Nearly Finished

I haven't done any stitching this week, trying to get the sleeves for my outfit done. I have the buttons on, all I need to do now is the loops. I am going to do those by making a loop with the cotton and doing buttonhole over the loop. Should be nice and strong.

Last night I got a fair bit of work done on the hat. I covered the crown and sides with the fashion fabric (black wool blend). That is all sewn up. I also put the fashion fabric onto the brim. In the end I decided not to line the brim, it would have been too heavy, but you can see the pattern of the buckram through the wool, its thick enough to cover it well. So all that remains to be done on the brim is to trim the outside and bind with ribbon. Then sew the brim to the crown. If worst comes to worst and I run out of time, I can wear it without a lining.

On a side note, the spray adhesive worked much better than the wood glue. So with a bit of luck the hat should be finished tonight. I did try to take progress pics but the digital camera decided to start playing up. It is draining batteries instantly. Either that or its just not reading the charge in the batteries properly.

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Sleeves and New Class Idea

I finished edging my sleeves last night. They now have matching black tape around them. I brought them to work today and I will start putting the buttons on. If I bring them to work everyday, I should get them done by the weekend. I want them done by the weekend because my SCA group will be doing a demo at the annual Shakespeare Festival up at Glouchester. This has the added advantage that this is where my Dad lives. And since its a good 2 hrs drive away and I don't have a licence, I don't get up there much. This way I can help my group (as I am about the only one in the group who actually has an Elizabethan personna!) and visit Dad at the same time.

Also, my heavy weight buckram (proper buckram with cardboard in it!) and millinary wire arrived last night. So after I finished the sleeves, I cut out another brim and sewed on the wire. Tonight I need to bind the edge and maybe add the mulling (interlining). I still haven't decided if I am adding this yet, as it may be still to heavy. If I can get that far, I should be able to finish the hat tomorrow night.

I watched Survivor. I still can't believe none of them got together to break up Rob and Amber when they had the chance. Ah well, with the popular vote, I reckon Rupert is gonna get the money.

For my new class idea, I want to put together a handout with very basic patterns for decorating early period garb (pre-1300's). I want something that someone with a basic understanding of sewing can do. So I am thinking of something along the lines of a handout with pictures of examples of typical garb of the period, then a couple of pages of patterns that people can use. Maybe some colour ideas or material suggestions. Even maybe how to use the same pattern for diffent classes of garb, form peasent to court garb, just by changing materials etc. I will put the finished handout on my website so that other people can use it. So if you have any ideas or pointers to resources, please feel free to drop me a line.

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New Blogger and More on Class

It seems that I have hooked another person on embroidery. Sam tells me that he has been sitting, chatting and embroidering for the last five hours. His fingers are sore but he can't stop. My mission here is complete. Muuaahhh (evil manical laugh of world domination!).

Also, Blogger has had an upgrade. If you publish through Blogger you might want to check out the new templates. Before there were only half a dozen to choose from. Now there are 5 times that many and some quite nice ones at that.

Comments. Also, a big problem with Blogger has been not having a native comments feature. This meant you had to mess around with third party comment suppliers. With the upgrade, comments are now part of Blogger. I am going to enable them and see how they work.

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Stoked

If you have ever done any sort of teaching, you know that it can be hard work. But some days, someone says or does something that really makes up for it. Today I taught a small class at our regular Barony meeting. It was one that had been planned for a while but the date was changed and sprung on me at the last minute, so I didn't have any time to promote it. But I made sure I went today even though I've been feeling pretty crap the last couple of days. I got there and not many people were there. It was Mother's Day and that kept the numbers down.

Anway, one of the girls showed some interest and three of the younger guys were all sitting there, not much doing on. So I asked if they wanted to do the class. They all sort of mumbled yes and wandered over. So I gave everyone the kits I had made up (cotton fabric, thread, needle and a loaner hoop). We got started and worked our way through the hand out. Everyone got the hang of the stitches, not perfect, but for first goes, pretty good. At the end, everyone said thanks and I left pretty early cause I wasn't feeling very good.

So I was just checking my email before packing up the computer ready for work tommorrow. And there was an email from one of the guys. He'd gone home, and used the left over materials and one of the patterns in the hand out to practice with. He sent me a scan of what he'd done. It was pretty good. He said he wanted to let me know that the lessons were actually worth something and that "I'd just like to thank you for bothering to teach".

No, Sam, thank you. Cause its emails like that that make all the bad days worth it. To paraphrase, sometimes teaching is its own reward.

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Silver Background

I have put in a few hours doing the background. I chose to use a silver sewing thead, DMC Fil de something or other. The coverage isn't great, but that is to be expected with metallic thread. So to give a more solid cover I am laying down two lengths of thread horizontally and then sewing goblien stitch over that. This does give better coverage of the silver but adds a bit too much bulk to the sewing, too much texture. When you see the extant examples, the silver thread is usually very flat. Not sure how they did it. Anyway, I don't think I like the silver background that much. I really need to find some sweet bag examples done in all silk thread. I'm sure I've seen one somewhere, I just can't remember where exactly.

At this stage though, I will carry on with the silver thread and finish the sheath. The only thing I might do is to the other background in gold. Have to think about that one.

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Progress

Well, I settled down and got another couple of hours done on the scissors sheath. All the flowers and the leaves are now done. I have to make a decision about the background. I think I will do a couple of test sections tonight using both metal thread and also silk. See which one looks best and which one sews easiest.

I feel quite proud of myself at the moment. I actually rang up and ordered something over the phone. See, I have a bit of a phone phobia. It's not really a phobia as such, but more that we never had a phone until half way through primary school (grade 4 or 5). So I never grew up with one. Even through high school I hardly ever used it. Didn't really need to when my friends lived around the block and I saw them every day at school!

It's amazing how early habits stay with us. So even now, if given the choice, I will go to a shop in person to see if they have what I want rather than ring up and check first. So I am very pleased that I just rang up and ordered my hat stuff. Hopefully, it will be here by mid next week. That should give me enough time to make it. So I really should make the sleeves this week while nothing else is on my plate.

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Best Laid Plans

Well, no stitching last night. Dad and Sheila came around to visit, they are trying to get the house cleaned out for handover next week. I don't think its going to happen.

I finally managed to get my computer at work sorted out at about 2pm. So most of the day lost to the stupid virus. I hate these types of virus cause I can't stop them. Email ones I can stop because I can configure everything but with network ones, it relies on someone else doing the right thing.

I won't be answering the Stitchers Five this week, not anything I can answer.

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Disaster at Work!

Why is it that the computer always breaks down when you most need it? I had one more set of notes to get to the printers this morning. All I had to do was print them out and what happens, we get hit by the damn Sasser virus. So a bit over 2 and half hours later (1.15pm) I finally get to do some work.

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Tourney Day

Well, its been a long day. The May Day Tourney was on today. That meant I was over town pretty early, at about 11.30am. I stopped in at Spotlight to pick up some interfacing. That was until I saw the line, it was huge, it hasn't been that bad for a while. So I picked up a few things in the notions section and went to the Tourney.

I thought it was going to be cold but it wasn't too bad at all. There was an Elizabethan picnic lunch, I only nibbled but the custard tarts were pretty good and Morwenna's biscuits were just evil!! (In a good way, that is!). The tourney went pretty quickly. I thought I was going to do some heralding but someone else was wearing the tabard when I got there so I wasn't going to argue!

I took some embroidery to do but never really got the chance. There was a quick Court at the end of the day and few things were given out. A very pleasent day all round. Got home and vegged out, couldn't be bothered picking up any sewing. But I will definately do some tomorrow. I want to get the leaf finished. I would like to get it done this week as I found out at Court that we are doing the Shakespeare Festival up at Glouchester this year. So I will be going to that, as that is where by Dad lives and I can have a visit with him and not have to get Adam to drive me.

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Finally, Some Stitching

Well, today I decided I wanted to get a decent amount of stitching done. I am still working on the scissor sheath. The flowers aren't coming out exactly like I want, but I don't want to spend too much time on it. Anyway, so far today I have managed to get the black outlinging done on the second side done and the red flower in the middle. My aim is to get the rest of the flowers done tonight. That will leave just the leaf at the bottom in the plain stitching. Then I have to make the decision about the background and the gold.

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