Yet Another Embroidered Book

A year ago, when a friend of mine was created Princess of the East Kingdom, the embroidery guild I am a part of, Athena's Thimble, called for a volunteer to create the Queen's present to be presented to her as she stepped down at the end of her reign. I volunteered. 

Our beloved Queen (now Countess as of today) has a love of mermaids. It was on her favor that was given out.  So, to follow along with this, I found a historical embroidery pattern with just that.

Materials used:
Blue linen
YLI White silk embroidery thread
Handspun white silk thread (by myself)
YLI Black silk embroidery thread (lucet cord and tassel)
Gold braid (commercial)
Au Vera Soie Blue silk sewing thread
fresh water pearl
Blank bound journal

Source:
Pattern taken from New Carolingian Modelbook, page 154.  Winged Undine, Urn and Cherub Border Panel.   Venetian, mid-16th century.  Original was red silk on white linen done in Spanish Stitch. Shown in Pictorial History of Embroidery

I changed the colors to blue white and black to coincide with her personal device colors. The pictures below do not show the bookmark cord and tassel that I added on the ride out to the event this morning.

I  love how this came out.

 

Front cover

 

Center spine

 

Back cover

 

Inside left page

 

Inside right back page

Western Colors

So, on a spur of the moment decision (after his parents had to cancel their trip out to see us last minute) we packed up the van and drove out to Wyoming to see them. While I was there, I brought along all sorts of crafty stuff including a kit i bought from a local yarn shop to make a shawl.  The pattern for it is here:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/riot-2

As I was working on it, I decided it really looked very western in colors (like the deserts that were around his family's house) and that I would give it to his mother.  It wasn't long after that she commented on how the colors were beautiful and couldn't wait to see me model it.  I finished it on Tuesday morning early and presented it to her while she was drinking her morning coffee.  Her face was priceless. I told her the payment would be to let me take photos of her modeling it so I could post it to my blog.  Here they are.

I loved the pattern and as a friend mentioned it is a good piece to do with scraps of yarn you may have. I will definitely make one for myself and it was easy peasy!

An update...

Sometime ago I started working on embroidered apprentice and protoge tipits with my two peers arms embroidered on them. I had put them on the wayside for a while but have picked them back up again.

Here is an update on the apprentice tippet:

Post more when more is done! And FTR I hate stranded silk! Twisted is so much easier! :D

A Newly Taught Craft: Teneriffe lace

So my friend Sue came over last night on crafty night and taught me how to do a version of needle lace called teneriffe lace.  It was quite fun and went fairly quickly. I produced one in a little over an hour. Here are the pictures of it.

First you start with a round needle point type disk and you stitch around the edges to create what will anchor it on while you weave.

Then you add the first Row of stitched around and knot it in the center to give them tension and hold them in place.

Then you put weave three rows round the center going over every four strands.

Then you move a little ways up, using your own personal judgement and weave over four again.

You do the same on the next row but you pick up differing four's to make the weave more decorative.

On the last round you go over two's and when finished you knot it off, and cut away the blue anchoring threads.

This is the finished result. 

It was made out of cotton thread (as it was given to me for free to do my trial disk).

I really enjoyed it and would most certainly do it again. I saw it used in period on an apron and may consider this path down the road when making more.

A couple more projects done

Well, I have been busy lately and feel ashamed i have not posted anything since March. But...here is a catch up!
First, I knit another pair of socks..this time its a pair for my son Leo. Just a basic pattern, a soft acrylic yarn (kids are tough on clothes so no fancy wool for them right now)...nothing special. I have the concept down fairly well now.  I think the next pair will be something more elaborate on the cuff. Then perhaps Ill work down to a design on the foot itself.

Next, I finished a project I had actually started a little while ago for a friend who has honey bees. I saw it, immediately thought of her and started it. Its DMC cotton thread on linen, though I don't recall the count.

Lastly, a friend asked me to make a medallion so I embroidered this for her. It is one strand of twisted silk done on linen, over two.  I had to actually purchase a pair of reading glasses to be able to see the tiny weave to embroider it.  Im quite pleased with how it came out.  I placed a quarter in the picture to show size. 

I have a few more projects on my list I am working on. More as I finish them. 

Cheers!!

Wow!

Cleaning out one of my craft storage spots in the house (yes, I have many..hush!) I found a 3 ring binder with documentation to projects I have done and put into displays or competitions.  This predated me having a blog or facebook.  I think this weekend I will scan them in and post them as picture entries.  It was a cook trip down memory lane.

In the binder there was the Gothic era outfit hand sewn completely from the underwear out, a stump-work QoC glove, my black work coif, a laurel hood, a black work chalice cover and a hand bound leather book.

Ill work on that for Sunday..... STAY TUNED! :D

Now that it has been given...

This past weekend at Mudthaw here in the East Kingdom, a friend was elevated to the Order of the Pelican.  I was asked to create for him a hood for his regalia.  The woman organizing it sent me two yards of the fabric and I went to work.

Materials:
2 yards teal wool
5x5 square of white silk dupioni
tiny piece of brown silk dupioni
Black, red and gold Splendor Silk Embroidery floss
fusible webbing

I reused an image for a Pelican in Piety from the cloak I made for a friend this past summer. I love the image and was glad to use it again. I embroidered the white silk fabric with the image of the pelican and her babies. I appliqued on the brown next and did some embroidery on it to make it look like a bundle of sticks.

I trimmed the silk into a circle and appliqued it onto the hood i had sewn up earlier in the day.  I did a blanket stitch in gold silk around the  medallion. I lined the cloak and sewed up the face and hem.  I then put running stitches along the hems to hide the machine stitching.  Im very pleased with how it came out.

After finishing the blanket stitch

Cloak on display during his vigil

As he was walking down from court after being elevated.

These were the only pictures I have of the hood. I processed in for his elevation holding the hood and therefore couldn't take pictures myself, though a friend used my camera to do it. Besides...I had something in my eye and I couldn't see very well. It was a beautiful and moving ceremony.

Another project complete!

So, as most scadians do, I have a list of projects to do.  Most are for friends and some are for me. I have been whittling that list down and to be honest its almost empty. One of the most recent projects I finished I said I would make for a friend about a year and a half ago. He created this absolutely stunning tudor outfit for himself and I made the comment blackwork cuffs and a collar would add a nice touch to it and said I would make him a set.

Well, as real life gets, time got away from me, kids kept me busy, work, etc but I finished them last week.  Here are a couple of pictures of them.

Its black cotton DMC thread on white linen.  It took me about a week to get all the embroidery done.
I mailed them off to the gentle last week and am waiting to hear of when they arrive. I hope he likes them...and remembers i said I'd make them! HAHAHAHA!

Something I forgot..

Just a quick blurb about a project I assisted on this summer. When Countess Alethea Eastriding was elevated to the Order of the Pelican, I was asked to help make a cloak for her. So along with the help of Lady Ysemay Sterlyng, Baroness Mathilde de Cadenet and Lady Alienaora (hope I spelled that correctly), we put together a beautiful cloak for her.  
Here is a shot I took of here after the cloak was placed on her:

Unfortunately I didnt get a close up of the Pelican symbol that I assisted in embroidering so I will post the one shot I have of it here (this was prior to it being attached to the cloak).

It is made of silk dupioni fabric and embroidered with Splendor Silk embroidery threads.  Baroness Mathilde helped me embroider this piece.  We appliqued it onto the back of the cloak and couched gold metal trim around it.  It looked beautiful.

100th Entry!!! Wow...time does fly!

About a month ago or so I was asked to teach a class about the seam finishing I do for viking style clothing.  I was, unfortunately unable to attend that event for various real life reasons so I thought I would do a short post about what I do for those that might like the information.

Running Stitch:
This stitch is one that was used in flat felled seams when constructing a garment.  Contrasting colors were used to add embellishment to the piece.  As pictured here, I am working on the hem of a tunic for one of the members of my local SCA group (a barter piece). Normally when I am using this stitch I am hand hemming the cuffs, collar and hem of the piece as was done in period. As you can see in this picture they were machine hemmed due to a time constraint.  I worked the stitching as much as I could over top of the machine stitching. Since the machine stitching made it tighter, it was tough to get the needle through sometimes. I also try to keep the stitches of same length and align side by side as best I can.  Still, As you can see from the following pictures, it still came out well.

Picture of the stitching on the side gores

Picture of the stitching down the side seam to the hemline

Image of the underarm gusset

Underarm gusset and top of side gore

 Split Stitch:
Admittedly, I am having a grand helluva time finding my source for the solid  split stitch seam finish. I can't say for sure that it is an accurate type of seam finish for the viking tunic, but I really like the final look of it for disguising the mundane machine stitching, for adding that touch of, for lack of a better word, "bling" to the tunic and it does help with the flat felling of the seams inside, since linen can fray like a bi..... like crazy.  The pictures below, which are covering the machine sewing,  show how I execute the stitch.

Covering the machine stitching

Embellishing and flat felling the seams on the sides and gores

Close up of the stitch execution

Herringbone Stitch:

Another way that a seam was covered in period was to use decorative stitching. It aided both in reinforcing the seam as well as embellishing it.  Here on this viking hood, I used a single herringbone stitch to do just that: cover, embellish and reenforce.  The final picture are seams from a wool apron dress. Though I did not construct the dress, I did use a double herringbone stitch over the seams to embellish and then used the split stitch seam on the hem to hide the machine stitching.   More pictures from that dress can be seen in the post about it: http://theembroideress.blogspot.com/2011/10/embroidered-apron-dress.html

This hood was sewn by hand.

Single Herringbone seam embellishment. Running stitch was used along the hem of the tunic.

Wool apron dress with double herringbone and split stitch seam embellishment.

That is the gist of what I do for viking garb.  All comments and suggestions are welcome either in the comments section or by personal email.  Thanks for reading!

Norse Viking Tunic

I just recently finished this Norse viking tunic for my boyfriend.

The materials I used are:

4 yards of linen fabric pre washed and dried
Coats and Clark sewing thread
DMC cotton embroidery floss
Sol-U-Film Light wash away embroidery stabilizer

I used the basic viking tunic pattern and machine sewed it together. I did machine sew the hem and cuffs as I planned to do hand embroidered seam finishing to hide the mundane stitching.   There will be a separate blog post about seam finishing shortly.

I found a design online of these wolves heads and printed one out in the size I wanted.  Then I used the embroidery stabilizer (God I love this stuff!!! Worth the expensive price it is) by tracing the pattern on it in ink pen and basted it onto the tunic. I used a double herringbone stitch on the collar, cuffs and hem as well to dress it up, then did the split stitch seam tracing as well.  I am very pleased with how it came out.  I am debating entering it in the display at A&S Champs this weekend...that is, if he will let me. He is wanting to wear it badly. :D

Comments are welcome as well as suggestions.

Projects Gone West...

Im fairly sure I mentioned previously when I posted about the green cable knit hat I made that I had made two others out of cotton and sent them to Ryan's parents. Well, they were kind enough to agree to my request for a picture of them wearing them and here it is.

These are some great photos!

Awwwwwww! 

(and you can see the cabling real well in this shot)

....And the hat even looks good on Otto!