The Secret and Mundane

I have done a "Thing" for a friend.  A shiny and glittery thing for a friend from a neighboring group.  After she receives it, I will tell you all about it.  Shhh.

Today I finished a nightshirt for my husband.  A simple, mundane item, you might think, until you see it.  My husband is mid 16th-century German and partial to coordinated, but non-matching socks.  This nightshirt is a basic tunic made in his colors, black and gold.

Yes, that's one green
sock and one blue

I still need to applique a counterchanged mask of comedy on front to mimic his Arms.

Now that the nightshirt is wearable, I can move on to other projects without eye-daggers thrown in my direction from my very loving, patient, ...very patient, husband.  Projects like Christmas presents.

~ Marjorie

Trimming the Neckline

Bjorn's Ceilidh is almost upon us and, believe it or not, I'm actually done with my Viking outfit.

    ~ And there was great rejoicing.

Last week was spent sewing?/weaving?...creating the trim on the neckline of the under dress.

I don't know if this technique has an official name.  Mistress Ose Silverhair taught it to our local Keepers of Athena's Thimble group back about six years ago, just before I started attending.  She learned it from an Australian who taught it at Pennsic that year.  Locally, because Ose showed it to us, the technique has been dubbed "The Ose Stitch".

Second pass is done on the diagonal.

The technique starts with a foundation of blanket stitches.  The length of the stitch determines the width of the final trim, while the separation between stitches affects the 'tightness of the weave'.  A row of color is created from two passes of the thread.  The first is woven in a simple over-under manner.  The second pass is woven over-under also, but on the diagonal.  (see photo)  The row of stitches is then pushed up to the top (or bottom) of the blanket stitches.  All rows are done in the same manner and patterns are created by the direction of the diagonal stitches.

Things I have learned:
 - Consistency of the length of the blanket stitches is imperative! It is possible to run out of room for your pattern if some of your stitches are too short.  A potential way to avoid this is to lay out side-to-side the total rows of thread you will be using to give an idea of how long the blanket stitches must be.

 - It is possible to have your blanket stitches be too close together!  Again, it's probably better to leave a space between them equal to the width of your colored thread.  In some places the blanket stitches were so close I had to weave my color over-under two stitches at a time.

 - If there is a 'background' color to your pattern, weave that as the first pass of the row.  Weave the pattern diagonals with the 'main' color.  In my trim, I wanted the orange/peach to stand out, so I wove the green first.

 - This is another one of those crafts that requires good lighting.  (see my previous post)

 - Perfection isn't going to happen the first time.

Materials used:
 - The dress is 100% linen (IL019 BLEACHED Signature Finish from Fabrics-Store dot com)
 - Blanket stitches were done with a natural colored cotton/linen thread.
 - Colored threads are 100% linen.

So, the apron dress, under dress, cap, and necklace are all done.  In the future, I will be adding the same type of trim to the sleeves of the under dress, making a scarf for a head covering, and adding gores to the apron dress.  I did not have enough material for proper width at the lower end.  I will also be tablet weaving new linen shoulder straps and a silk band for the top of the apron dress.  That is, after I teach myself tablet weaving.  Oh, and I still need to finish off the seams of the under dress.

On another note, here is a photo of my grandsons.  It was the younger one's 2nd birthday two weekends ago. 

~ Marjorie

The Sun Laughs

There is a Greek proverb that goes, "The sun laughs at what the moon has done."  It's from the times of poor artificial lighting available after sunset when it was difficult to see any fine handwork you were attempting.  In other words, don't bother doing anything of the sort after dark, you'll just be ripping it out in the morning.  The sun was having a belly laugh at my efforts this weekend and I basically made a cap twice, with all the seam ripping and resewing I did.

- Two rectangles, hemmed on each side. Check
- Two narrow strips, folded and whip-stitched to make ties. Check
- Whip-stitch together rectangles, right side out, along one short end. Check
- Whip-stitch one long side half way. Check
- Attach ties to bottom of open long side. Check

Voila, cap done!  Until I try it on and find it's way too big top to bottom and front to back.  That was Saturday night.  With that Greek proverb in mind, I went to bed.

The next morning I pinned, measured, calculated, marked, and trimmed the top and back to the proper size.  Hey, those ties were perfect and I wasn't touching them.  At the meeting of our local Athena's Thimble group that afternoon I finished off the cut edges and sewed it back together... only to find I had closed up the front, where the ties were, instead of the back.  Those usually canny Greeks seem to be mum about working while talking with friends.

The cap is properly finished now.  It will be used instead of the scarf for the time being.  I also assembled the necklace from event site tokens, handmade beads (by other's hands, not mine), A&S tokens, and some bought beads to round it out.  What do you think?

This past week I also made a new underdress to go with the outfit.  It needs to be hemmed yet, and perhaps not all the seams will be finished off before Ceilidh.  I will be embroidering the keyhole neckline this week.

~ Marjorie

P.S. The font size issue seems to be a function of which computer I use.  Not using the iMac again for this, that's for sure.

An overload of projects

I have an abundance of projects spilling out of my sewing basket.  They include two dresses, a cloak, a hood, a knitted shopping bag, a jewelry thing, a scarf, and ... I guess that's it for now.  The good news is that I'm done with one dress!

I'm a 12th-century gal who's going Irish Viking for Bjorn's Ceilidh on Nov. 2nd.  Our barony's A&S night in September was all about cutting out an apron dress.  Many showed up  with material and scissors, some to attempt their first sewing project, most because they were Norse at heart.  Fun was had by all, including the two laurels, one Viking and one 16th-century Englishman, who gleefully swapped linen for wool and told stories for the rest of us.

The material is a medium-weight wool.  I hand-sewed it with Gutermann's silk thread, found at most Joann's.  This is the first garment where I finished the edges first, then whip-stitched the seams together.

The turtle brooches are from Raymond's Quiet Press. 

The Other Projects:
 - The other dress is a linen underdress for the apron dress.  It's cut out.  I want to put a simple hand-sewn trim along the neckline. 
 - The scarf will be the headpiece for this outfit. 
 - The jewelry thing is the string of beads and trinkets to hang from the turtle brooches.  
 - The cloak and hood will be made out of a beautiful gray wool I found at Pennsic.  The cloak will be a full circle.  I'd like to have them done for Crown Tourney, which is the week after Ceilidh.
 - The shopping bag is a mundane thing and will be ignored for the next month.

And this is my SCA life in a nutshell.  Months of nothing, followed with bursts of Things-To-Do, then taking time to recover from those intense, project-filled weeks.

~ Marjorie 

P.S.  I have tried multiple time to increase the font but as you can see, I am not able to reproduce the font-size of previous posts.  My apologies.
P.P.S. Due to the wonders of time-travel via the edit button, this post is now readable!