Socks of Freedom!

Her Majesty came to me some time back asking me to knit a small sock in the East Kingdom's colors.  She wanted to give it to a kingdom officer that was stepping down from his office. His knick name was "Doby". So, how else do you free a Doby?? You give him a sock!!

I give you...the East Kingdom Doby Socks of Freedom!!

They are hand knit with super wash merino wool and nylon. 

"Doby" getting his sock of freedom!

Mercedes receiving her sock of freedom! 

Embroidered Tunic

A friend contacted me and asked if I could embroider a tunic for him. I assumed he wanted me to construct one and embroider it but he sent me a blue linen tunic via SCA courier.  I thought adding black embroidered linen to the blue tunic would be more dressy.  Also, in period, embroidery was done on separate pieces of linen then appliqued onto the garment so that when the garment deteriorated beyond wearing, they could remove the embroidery and attach it to a new garment. Materials used were black linen fabric and Splendor silk embroidery thread.  Stitches used were double herringbone stitch and split stitch. 

The knotwork embroidery was executed in split stitch.

Adding herringbone stitch to hide the mundane machine stitches used to attach the piece.

Completed embroidery for sleeves and hem of the tunic. 

Knotwork dogs on center of neckline.

Completed tunic. 

I am very pleased with how it came out.

Dying to Try Something New...

A friend of mine sent me some un dyed yarn and some samples of dyes to give a try at hand painting yarn.  Decided to give it a whirl the other day.  Soaked the DK weight yarn that was superwash merino and silk in water that had citric acid mixed in. I used the plastic wrap and microwave method since I don't have anything more appropriate for doing heat dying. (a friend uses stainless steel bowls on her cook top)  I used the sapphire blue and bright yellow, which ended up mixing and making a lovely green as well. I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I have two more skeins to dye and also a sock blank. I post results when done! :D

Soaking the yarn in citric acid water

Laying out the wet yarn to apply the dye.

Placing the dye soaked yarn in the plastic wrap in a glass tart dish to cook in the microwave. 2 minutes at first then 1 minute each time after until the dye is soaked into the yarn and the water is clear.

Finished cooled yarn hanging for picture. 

Dried completed hang of hand painted yarn.

East Kingdom Queen's Guards Baldrics

While M.I.A. from the SCA for three months due to postal job hell, I was not idle with projects. Aside from various pairs of socks I made, I took on a project of making baldrics for the Queen's Guard to wear at SCA functions. They had several baldrics but they didn't have enough for all the guards on staff and some had seen better days. So, I thought this would be something to keep me busy but still keep me involved behind the scenes.

 I hand embroidered each rose and then appliqued them onto a purple baldric that I backed and trimmed in matching yellow fabric. In total there were 35 to start, but...there was a corgi puppy incident with one..so then there was 34.   Materials used were a thick cotton for durability, cotton DMC thread, again for durability and cost factor.  I am very pleased to have them completed and very happy with how they turned out.

Each rose was hand embroidered using satin stitch, split stitch and stem stitch.

34 Baldrics in total.

Limoncello!!!!

Life has been crazy but good. There have been job changes, lots of projects and fun.  This will be the first of a couple posts, just so as not to make them so long.

I had a job with the Postal Service that kept me from getting to events because my hours were every Saturday and Sunday. I made it to Coronation here in the East Kingdom and that was the last event until this past weekend with 12th Night.  In between then, my wonderful and beautiful sister in law treated me to my dream trip of going to Italy. We did a whirlwind tour of all the great places to see in 9 days.  My favorite place to see and eat at was the Almafi Coast and Positano.  I had my first limoncello there and fell madly in love with it. I brought home a bottle of it and it included a recipe.  I thought I would give it a whirl when we got home and the bottle was quickly emptied between my husband and I. So, I got the supplies and followed the very simple recipe with one change. The italian's use grain alcohol like Everclear, which is very strong in flavor and expensive. After consulting with a friend who also makes it, she said to use Vodka.

Recipe:
Skins of 10 lemons
Large bottle of Vodka (not an expensive brand)
Biggest mason Jars I could find

Friends were visiting and they all joined in the fun.

Zested lemons on left, peeled on right. 

Once the vodka lemon skins mix has sat for minimum 8 days, you make a simple syrup solution of six cups of water and six cups of white sugar. Pour the syrup into the vodka/skins mix and swirl around. Because the jars were full to the top with vodka, we had to split the jars off into an empty one to be able to add the syrup. Once done, you strain out the skins and bottle.  Here is the final results.

Lessons learned in making this: in our first attempt we zested some of the lemons and peeled the others. I would stick with peeling the lemons with a potato peeler from now on as the zested bits didnt all completely strain out even with a piece of linen. 

Still tasted fabulous though!  On New Years Eve, we toasted at midnight to glasses of Verde with limoncello mixed in! It was sooooooo good!!!!

Got more "cooking" as we speak!