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! 

A Pennsic We Will Go...at least my projects do!

It was a busy few weeks leading up to Pennsic.  I was making items to be delivered to people there. I had a request for four Queen's Order of Courtesy roses for gloves by his Majesty.  I embroidered them using stranded silk on linen fabric. They are pictured below:

Her highness requested a stouter surcoat for herself to wear while she did combat archery in the battles.  I created one based off the shape of one of the Prince surcoat that is in the regalia.  It is constructed of linen with appliqued roses and the crown on both front and back. I used a modern iron on adhesive to adhere it to the linen and then used a blanket stitch on the edges to embellish it and aid in fraying prevention

Here are a couple pictures of her Highness Matilde wearing it into battle.

Another project that went to war as a surprise for their Highness's of the East were two pilgrim bags for their retainers to carry their daily necessary items in.  They are constructed of navy blue wool and embroidered with a variation of their arms on the flaps. 

I also sent two linen viking hoods with embroidered edges to a friend, but I neglected to get pictures of them before they were packed. At 1am, my mind wasn't function on all cylinders, LOL. 

While I am sad I was unable to attend war this year due to real life issues I was glad to have sent a little things to different people and make them happy.

I think Ill work on a couple of modern cross stitches for a relative and maybe knit a pair of socks or two...for now.

Tunics for Everyone!!

In a previous post, I'd stated how a friend commissioned me to make two tunics for him. One for wearing during battle and one to wear that was fancier. After a little bit of time (and RL interference) I was able to complete it. It is made of linen with cotton thread for embellishment.  He said his second favorite animal is the raven so I added that in on the design. I embellished edges with double herringbone stitch and then running stitches alongside those.

Front of tunic showing sleeves and the boars

Close up of one of the boars

Knotwork raven on center back (sorry couldn't figure out how to turn the pic)

Sleeve

Detail of embroidery on underarm gusset

embroidery detail of the hemline

 

 

 

ravens on upper arms of the sleeves

He said it was "amazeballs" when he saw it. I'll take that!

Next up.....ANOTHER PELICAN!!!!

Pelicans....again!!

I was asked to do some knitting and embroidery by a friend for a mutual friend. How could I say no??!! It's two of my favorite things to do!  But...there is a twist! :D My friend Mary Jo asked me to knit socks for our friend Patricia. One pair in her favorite colors, purple and green and one pair in the colors of the Order of the Pelican: red and ermine.  I asked my dyer to dye me up some pelican colored yarn and then I got to work.  Here are pictures of the socks..pretty self explanatory. They are superwash merino and nylon.

Afterwards, I started on the medallion embroidery she wanted me to do.  I used silk embroidery threads on white linen base.  She wanted it small, so I made it small. I am fairly certain this is the smalled Pelican I have ever made in any medium.

Since her favorite colors are purple and green, I incorporated them into the medallion. It was turned into a pin by Mary Jo and given to her this past weekend, along with the socks, when Patricia was elevated. 

The twist to this is, Mary Jo didn't know she was being elevated to the Order of the Pelican as well. So I made her a pair of the red/ermine colored socks as well. It was a tearful wonderfully happy time and I am glad to see two friends honored and could...wait for it.... SOCK IT TO EM!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!  I slay myself!

Well, onto the next project!!!

Bhakail Investiture Embroidered Hoods

A short time back, a friend contacted me asking if I would embroider two white linen hoods for their baronial investiture. I was passed the hoods at a previous event and asked that I embroider them with a design of three trees and two red feathers. The trees were a maple tree, pine tree and oak tree.

Here is the design up close

My co-worker was kind enough to model it for me.

This is Baron Rowen and Baroness Suba wearing their full outfit that I embroidered the hoods for.

I am very pleased with how they turned out and happy they are as well.