Handmade trims for Nick’s fighting and court doublets.
And thread-covered buttons for the latter. Now to have it all done by Queen’s, on May eleventh. Why do I do this to myself?
Passimenterie
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Monthly Archives: April 2013
Dolly.
I finally made a dress for Bebe’s (as yet unnamed) doll. I had a scrap of linen that had a border embroidery pattern and it suited this perfectly. I hand stitched the hems and did a buttonhole stitched key-hole neckline. I didn’t want to mess around with a facing that small.
I ended up taking the dress in a bit at the waist (she was swimming in it), and I made a braided belt to go with it. I also added more strands or yarn at the hairline, and stitched down the hair along the scalp a little bit, so it lays better for the braids. She’s totally adorable now.
Wordless Wednesday: Illuminate
“A snake, a snake! Oh, it’s a snake…”
More celtic-y snake-y progress. Now I just have to make two more by May 11th for and A&S competition. No pressure…
Scattered Embroidery News
I finished my smocked apron! It’s fantastically beautiful, and I love it. It’s really a perfect low-effort, high-impact object. It’s made of weaver’s cloth and DMC floss, so I’m not overly precious about getting it messy. It only took a yard, so the materials aren’t expensive. I made it in less than a week, working on it in the evenings, so the time investment isn’t very large either. And the smocking was totally easy. I’m seriously considering making some more to give out as largesse.
I went to the Austin Stitchery Guild’s event, Stitchin’ Happy, with a friend. I got this adorably macabre needle keeper there. I totally want to make my own now; it’s terribly useful.
And I started work on a new pretty project. It’s the latest in my attempt to give all the Queens of Ansteorra a pretty cup-cover.
Maiolica Day
Remember that maiolica tile I painted? Yeah, I still haven’t taken it to get fired, but I painted a plate, too!
A bunch of us got together and bought a few little pieces to work on together. Some of us had practice tiles.
Some of us had plates. Amata threw that plate herself. On a wheel, not, like, against the wall or anything.
It was fun to see the progression from pricked design…
…to sketched outline…
…to finished tile.
I was particularly happy with my plate. I tried to incorporate elements from my coat of arms along with two Tudor roses, one each for my husband and my champion, both of whom have Elizabethan personas.
So, one of the cooler things I got to play with was Amata’s banding wheel, a tool that lets you make perfect circles by spinning your plate and holding the brush stationary. I… may have gone overboard with it on the back. I also added a maker’s mark: “Per Manum Elen,” which means “By the hand of Elen.” My Latin-major friend suggested that I should possibly have changed the name to the genitive case, making it “Per Manum Elenae,” but I didn’t think about that until he pointed it out. I’m just going to use the fact that Elen was suitably removed from classical Rome in both time (1380) and place (Monmouth, Wales) to explain the lapse.
Cloth Dolly
One of my favorite things to do is to make sure that the Bebe has enough toys for our SCA events. And by that, I mean toys that can pass as period. They don’t actually have to be what kids in the 1380s would have played with, but I try to stay away from plastic as much as I can. And since my little girlie girl is going through an all-baby-all-the-time phase, I thought I’d make her a cloth dolly.
The body is made of a peach linen napkin I found at Goodwill (6 of them for $2.50: score!); the pattern was made by a friend. I machines sewed all the seams (and wasn’t that fiddly?) but sewed the stuffing holes by hand. I stuffed her with poly-fill, because I wanted the doll to be easily washable. I know how hard my kid is on her toys.
Now she just needs clothes.
