I don’t take commissions anymore. Not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t have the time to be able to give a commission the attention it deserves in addition to the other work (channel, day job, life stuff) that I do.
But.
Sometimes I trip over an opportunity that it’s really hard to pass by. A couple months ago, my friend Sly asked if I had the space in my queue to make him some garters to wear with his fencing kit. His Slavic name and heraldry had recently passed, and the coat of arms includes three white stripes on a black field.
After digging through my thread stash, realizing I didn’t have enough white, running out to JoAnn Fabrics before their doors close forever to get more, and coming home for a restorative cup of tea… I realized I already had a project on the loom.
Turns out, a couple months ago, I started weaving an SCA award ribbon for a friend and figured that I may as well warp up the whole loom so I had extras to give to the monarchs to hand out as largesse. As usually happens now with ‘unassigned’ projects, I got distracted and abandoned it in favor of more pressing deadlines. So I had to decide whether I wanted to scrap it completely, or buckle down and finish it to free up the loom. In light of the amount of thread (and money) I’d be throwing away, I opted to finish it.
This band was going to take a little longer than a plain weave ribbon (like the trim for the Viking coat I made ages ago) because instead of a simple tabby weave, this is a pickup Runic pattern I learned from Anne Dixon (like the Zebra trim I wove also ages ago). So I brought it with me to Partner’s house over my winter break (my work closes between Christmas and New Year) to work on it, and once I got into the swing of things, it was easy to hyperfocus.
I wove pretty continuously through the week, enjoying Partner’s company and the delicious food he made for both of us. Seriously. We had marrow-bones and crab legs and the most delicious cheesy mashed potatoes for Christmas Eve, and a creamy chicken and shrimp pasta for Christmas.
After I went back home, project still incomplete, I kept weaving, quietly fuming at my past self who thought that an entire five yard warp was a great idea.
Eventually though, I finally managed to get through it all. And, I figured since they were already woven, why not finish them all the way? They get a D ring at one end,
and a twisted fringe at the other,
and since there also needs to be an Ansteorran star, I painted some star shaped sequins black with nail polish, and then secured them with thread in such a way that the stitches make the five smaller points.
Now I can finally start on the ACTUAL project: the heraldic adidas garters.
I’ve warped this project to be substantially shorter than the previous ribbon. I don’t think anyone needs 5-yard garters. The hardest part at this step is trying to figure out how many threads each stripe needs to be to read correctly but not yield too wide a band at the end. I ended up with six threads per stripe for all the inner ones, and eight threads for the two outer black stripes. I honestly should have gone with four and six, respectively, because the ribbon turned out just a smidge wide for the buckles, but I made it work.
I didn’t keep track of how long I worked on either of these projects (even though I should have). I do know that this project took me way less time than the other; I think the finished band was about half as long as the other one; two and a half yards, ish. There will be some left over after the garters are finished, but maybe Sly can use it for trim or something.
I made myself a set of garters (also black and white) a while ago that fasten with rings, and they stay nicely under my admittedly low impact activities. But since Sly is planing to use those during fighting, I wasn’t sure if that would be a stable enough solution. So I ordered some 5/8” pewter-colored buckles (even though I really should have gotten 3/4” ones) for the closures.
Sewing them on was pretty straightforward: it’s just putting the buckle onto the band, folding over the end, and sewing it down. I tend to run several lines of stitches for extra security and to make sure the woven ends don’t fray apart.
The other end will get the same twisted cording finish as the yellow ribbons. Basically I separate each section of threads in two, twist them both in the same direction, and then twist them around each other in the opposite direction, like a tiny rope. For these, I ended up tying the twists at the bottom; when I tied them in a knot, the were too short.
