Thursday, January 23, 2014

Knitting fun!

So I have been a bit remiss in posting, but that does not mean I have not been busy! The holidays had me running all over the place visiting family and friends and enjoying myself immensely!  Last year, by this time, I think I had made about a dozen hive hats for friends and such. This year, I made a few more but tried a different pattern and made three. One for my guy and two for his parents. Though I dont have pics of the ones I made for them (they were made from a natural color cotton yarn), I do have the one I made for Ryan in a variegated dyed olive green wool that I picked up from the Sheep and Wool festival.  It isnt a really hard hat pattern, just a basic cable knit style hat but not having done a cable pattern in quite some time, this was a refresher. Anyway, here are the pics. As you can tell, he is sooo fond of his picture being taken. *rolls eyes*




After finishing up another couple sewing projects on my plate its back to knitting fun! I want to master socks. Im having issues with ankle down style so perhaps the toe up style is for me...stay tuned!!!

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Surcoat for My Consort

So I neglected to post updated pics of my most recent embroidery project. What I was working on was a new heraldic surcoat for my consort Lord Rory MacLellan.  He use to fight in a kilt but sometime back decided to go with a more appropriate kit.  After much discussion and a great amount of assistance in designing, we came up with this.


                               
 Materials that were used were linen fabric, DMC black embroidery thread, Coats and Clarks sewing thread and fusible webbing.

It is a sleeveless surocat to allow for movement and room for the invisible armor.  Obviously we used the fusible webbing to adhere the shapes to the surcoat then I machine stitched them to the tunic.  

In a previous post, I had shown some embroidered words I was working on. They are attached to the sides of his surcoat roughly knee level. The words say:
"Heroes non sumus nati...ispi erant'ANGULAUERUNT!"

Translation: Heroes are not made, they are cornered!



I used split stitch in contrasting colors to edge the seams and make them pop. Though I did not get the chance to work on it before this day, I will be hand stitching the edges to hide the mundane machine embroidery.   Overall I am very pleased with how the surcoat came out.  The embroidery I was most happy with.      Now...Onto the next project!!!!  Though what it is yet, I do not know... STAY TUNED!!!



Front view. (Doesnt he look thrilled to pose for the pictures?! tehehe)
Right side: "Heroes are not made..."


Left side: "...they are cornered!!"

Friday, October 4, 2013

Newest Project

So, this is the newest project I have started.

Materials:
Linen fabric
Cotton DMC embroidery thread

I use cotton thread on garb for friends that tend to wash and wear the pieces often. These pieces of clothing tend to take a greater beating (IE: fighter tunics, etc) and I have found it to be stouter in dealing with the punishment the piece of clothing goes through.
 Also, being on a tight budget, the amount of silk thread I would need for the projects would be more than I can afford at the moment. So, I make do. I know what was used in period, I just have to work in my budget.
The finished product will be revealed in a few weeks. But Ill post updates on this embroidery. 
Cheers!

Monday, September 30, 2013

Norse Viking Tunic

Materials Used:

100% linen fabric 4 yards washed and dried
Cottom DMC Embroidery thread
Coats and Clark sewing thread

Made this tunic for Ryan for his first event, River Wars in Iron Bog in the East Kingdom. He chose a 12th c viking persona (still hashing it out) and i made this.  It was unembellished at the time so afterwards I took some time to spiff it up.  I used a double herringbone stitch around the cuffs, collar and sleeves and used a split stitch to line all the seams. I am very pleased with how it came out as was Ryan.

Tunic completed, folded up

Detail of hem embroidery

Detail of cuffs

Detail of the neckline embroidery

close up of neckline


Detail of split stitch in the arm pit

whole tunic image (yes, he is tall)

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Now that it has been given....

This little medallion was a joint project by me and my friend Ryan as a gift for my friend Markessa when she was inducted into the Order of the Maunche at River Wars yesterday. He made the bronze framework and i did the blackwork embroidery. It is black silk thread on white linen. She seemed to really like it.


Sunday, August 4, 2013

Quicky project

So, as many know, I visited a friend of mine in Wyoming for the first time and at the suggestion of my Mother, I took a gift along. I decided with a piece of linen a friend picked up for me, to make him a hanky (pictured above) embroidered with his last name initial. I washed and dried the fabric so that the sizing was removed and the weave shrunk down. I used white silk embroidery thread.
The stitches I decided to use were satin and split stitch, french knots and a cross stitch pattern.

I am very pleased with how it turned out and my friend loved it.

Now that Pennsic is over, I am finishing a few more commission items and then jumping on the "embroider all the things for me" bandwagon.

More to come....STAY TUNED!!!

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Pin On Heralic Sleeves

This past weekend I was the consort for a friend in Crown Tourney here in the East Kingdom. I decided i wanted to make a set of pin on sleeves to go with my persona's garb and took it a little further making them mine and my consort's heraldry, to honor him.


The materials I used were:
Silk dupioni
Grey linen (for lining)
Antique Satin (because purple and green silk were unavailable in my area)
Silk sewing thread and embroidery thread
Coats and Clark sewing thread
Fusible webbing

I measured my arm making a pattern with some muslin initially. then I began building the 'arms'. I used the fusible webbing to keep the device shapes in place while i used split stitch, chain stitch and couching stitches to embellish and hold the appliqued pieces to the ground fabric.
Then I cut them to match the muslin shape along with the linen lining and sewed them by machine. The hems were done by hand with silk sewing thread.

Two pictures of them below.



 Hi!  I have moved my blog to wordpress. After a short I will be shutting this one down.  Here is the link to the new site where i backed up...