My new mantra

...is "Fraycheck is your friend."*

This became part of my life when I decided to put my device on my cloak.

Vert, in saltire two needles threaded argent, and on a chief invected Or, three crosses bottony vert.

My cloak was a half-circle for the first two years, but I've wanted to enlarge it to a 3/4 cloak from almost the first time I wore it. I just lacked the incentive to clear the space to mark it out.  Being an apprentice has motivated me to finish my backlog of projects so this one became the next thing to do.

I added the two quarter triangles to the cloak and took it to dance practice, where I was able to spread it out on the floor and pin along the edge for trimming.  At this point it looked remarkably like a green Millennium Falcon:

I began the next phase at the A&S Solar in Nordenhal where I traced out the shape for the gold chief onto iron-on interfacing.  This was prior to adopting my new mantra, when I rather stubbornly used what I considered an ingenious modern method to turn the curves on the chief that would also prevent the edges from unraveling.  Yeah, I'm not doing that again.  The curves came out looking smooth and awesome, but it's not a process I can claim as Period.

The crosses, needles, and "thread" were all fraychecked, though.  I sewed the crosses onto the chief and couched them before sewing the chief onto the cloak.

The thread I couched down in all instances was DMC Pearl Cotton #3.  On the crosses and needles I used two strands, four strands on the chief, and one on the thread passing through the needles.  It was my intention to use Elegance fine twisted silk perle (#8) to hold down all the couching, but I ordered the wrong shade of green.  You might be able to notice the lighter stitches on the picture above.  I didn't like the effect of the light stitching on the Pearl Cotton, so switched to Pearl Cotton #5 for the crosses as I had it already and wouldn't have to delay the project while waiting for the correct color of silk to arrive. (Not to mention paying again for shipping.)

I finished the applique part of the cloak in time to wear it at Bjorn's Ceilidh.  I still need to line it, and even have the linen cut and pinned, ready for sewing, but didn't worry about pushing myself to completely finish it for the event.

Here is the unlined cloak:

The gold chief wraps around to the front.  I hope to make a separate hood out of the leftover green wool and line it with the gold linen, once I figure out what style of hood is appropriate for my time and place (1190's, England).

~ Marjorie

* Thank you Lady Ruth for teaching me this mantra.

Projects

I have a belt.  I am very proud of this belt.  I'll never use it to hold up my jeans, it's way too long.  It will, however do an admirable job of indicating my new, lowly status.  The belt is green, and was given to me by Mistress Ose Silverhair.

I am now her apprentice.  {Squeeee!!!!!} 

(Okay, I promise to be more dignified for the rest of the post.)

Mistress Ose is a fiber-arts/spinning Laurel, whereas I will be focusing on medieval pattern making, clothing design, and sewing techniques.  It will be an interesting journey as I set aside "modern" habits and thinking to learn how to parse paintings and duplicate drawings to recreate clothes of different places and times.  I already have two new projects to work on along with two older projects to finish.

My first major, long-term research project will be to recreate this 1170 German purse/bag:

It's silk thread on red linen, with some sort of buttons along the edges, a drawstring, and a separate cord for it to hang from a belt.  It's a whopping 10 x 13 cm, basically 3 x 5 inches, big enough to hold modern ID cards and some money, not big enough for my HTC One 8 cell phone though.  That's okay.  I'm working on minimizing how much weight hangs from my lovely green belt.

There will be a lot of research and learning of techniques involved with this project.  I'll be writing the museum (Alfred Bonno Museum in Chelles, France 

http://www.chelles.fr/Culture/Musee-Alfred-Bonno) to see if they can tell me more about the buttons, lining, embroidery stitches, cording, and more importantly, send me high-res photos to inspect details myself.  The embroidery looks like split-stitch at first glance.  I have to master that.  The cords are probably some form of handloop cords I don't know.  And those buttons... I have no idea what'll be involved in recreating them, but I'm quite certain it's not a skill I currently possess.

My second major project, which has a more immediate due date, is to create patterns for a 1470's Flanders outfit for Lady Ruth Baraskya.  I'll have more details as we progress on this project, but it will involve drafting patterns for a chemise, a lined kirtle, and an overdress.  Ruth will do the sewing once I come up with the patterns and an order of assembly for her.

The two hands-on sewing projects I'm finishing are my first completely hand-sewn dress and my cloak.  The dress is a basic 12th century rectangular dress with triangular gores in the skirt and gussets at the underarms.  I'm still unsure of the final sleeve design, large, swooping open sleeves versus tighter, arm-fitted sleeves.  In either case I'll be doing beaded embroidery around the neckline.  I'll show research and other pictures in a future post.  The cloak project is just adding more material to my half-circle cloak to make it a 3/4 circle to fit me better.  I'll also be lining it and appliqueing my device onto the back.  (For those who speak heraldese: Vert, in saltire two needles threaded, argent, and on a chief invected Or, three crosses bottony vert.)

I apologize for the overload of information on this first blog.  I'll write more often and in smaller bits in the future.

Thanks for listening,

~ Marjorie