Gulf Wars!

Only four days left before Gulf Wars, you guys!  And guess what?  I finally got to quit my night job!!!  *DANCES AROUND IN CIRCLES**   I've had time to actually get all of my chores and prep for war done on time, and I'll be taking commissions again once we all get home.  YAY!  So excited.  (In case you couldn't tell).

Completed in the last two weeks:

1.  A man's Viking tunic, embroidered.  There are pants and cloth winingas to go with it;  I'll have pics of the finished outfit after war.

2.  A new Caerleon company surcote, which I made from a black linen cotehardie that I made back in 2012 (I don't have pics of it, sorry).  I closed up the front and cut out the sides, over-dyed the whole thing with a fresh coat of black to spruce up the color; then added the gold binding at the top (cut from some lightweight damask from my scrap pile), the white faux-fur on the sides, and three appliqué'd lions down the front of the skirt.

3.  HOLY CRAP I FIT INTO THIS DRESS FROM 2012 AGAIN:

4.  Seven new flags for the Caerleon campsite ropeline (five pictured) and a new canvas banner/flag to hang outside of my tent (that's the big one on the left):

5.  More canvas bags, this time made from a blue, heavy cotton with a decorative weave and stitch, from which I removed a TON of orange thread in January:

L-R:  finished bag; fabric before thread removal; fabric after

6.  Fixed up this mask for the  Known World Party next Friday night - this year's theme is that of a Venetian-style masque:

L: finished, painted with teal/black nail polish, with dark flowers, star-shaped
spangles, and "raven" feathers (dyed turkey feathers from the craft store);
R:  The mask as purchased in NOLA before Gulf Wars (aside from a bit of nail
polish on the nose - I almost forgot to take a "before" picture), where a few of
us spent a day before heading to the war last year.

I've also done a million small alterations on my older cotehardies; the green Burgundian dress which I made last summer and then never wore; re-painted a small wooden chest I made last that had a horrible finish on it; and completed a Sekrit!Projekt! about which I'll post after I'm back from war.

I'll have pics of everything when I'm back. This week I've got to run a thousand errands, and finish packing - which just seems a Danaidean task, at this point, but I'll get there - and then I'm on the road Friday afternoon. Whee!

TO WAR!   

More Embroidered Fabrics Dyed

This one's for me - a dark green linen with white embroidery, which I over-dyed to blend the embroidery into the fabric:

And then made into a simple sideless surcote for myself.

The embroidery didn't come out to match the linen exactly, but it blends well enough now that it's not quite so eye-poppingly white.


The trim is a faux fur harvested from an old blanket.

A small scrap of trim in gold and blue runs across the front and back neckline, just to bling things up a little. :)

So what's next for war? 

• A pile of accessories for myself and two other people, most of which are half-done
• a couple of woodworking projects (also both half-finished as of right now), to complete

And that's it!  WOOHOO!!  

March Sewing Challenge: Procrastination Edition

Sometime last year, I decided I wanted a Tudoriffic corset*.   Several months ago - before I re-did the sewing room - I went so far as to try on my old Renfest corset and mark up the pieces so that I could transpose it into something more or less period.

oops.  bit small these days. 

For a long time, the almost-pattern that I made that day sat in carefully organized storage a pile of other crap, awaiting the day when The Perfect Fabric might come along.  It did, eventually.  It was exactly what I'd been waiting for, and I guess that day I had CrazyFlakez for breakfast or something, because it got made into the top half of a sideless surcote instead:

However...

DUN DUN DUNNNN......  (to be continued)...



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January Bonus Project (Candlemas)

Since the blue silk cote ended up not being wearable for the event this weekend, and since yesterday my office told us to stay the hell home because the city was iced over (Idk about the folks in north Texas, but we here in central and south have about as much ability to deal with ice storms as people in Russia have with dealing with tropical cyclones), I spent my surprise day off whipping up something else to wear for Candlemas.

I've wanted a sideless surcote forever, especially since I wore one that belonged to a friend back in October, and since I made that heraldic cyclas for Bordermarch Autumn Melees in November. I also had a large remnant of a pretty, pale blue damask given to me by a friend, and an old, pale blue cotehardie that hadn't fit me in ages and was kind of beat up.

Oh, and a paisley shower curtain.

[exhibit A]

 Somehow, during or after the construction of the cyclas, I lost the freaking pattern pieces I used (McCall's 7197).  Fortunately, for some reason McCall's included in that pattern four different versions of the pattern which are very close to identical, so I just grabbed another and marked it up all over again, this time for a sideless.

The finished result.

The top went together in about five seconds.  The bias trim - made from that paisley, acetate shower curtain (it's so narrow that the paisley design doesn't show; all you get is the contrasting colors) took like a million years (okay, like an hour).

The skirt didn't take long, either, since I basically just chopped off the bottom of a dress and trimmed the new waistline to match the top half.  Unless you count the epoch it took me to steam and press the whole thing, since the dress had been wadded up in an Ikea bag full of "trash" garb on the bottom of my closet for like a year. Yeesh.

Pretty, pretty blue damask. This is the leftovers, by the way, from the child's Italian Renaissance outfit that my local Clothiers' Guild made for a competition in the Barony of Stargate in May of 2012.  (There's a teensy tiny bit left, too, that will eventually become a corset).  The child's dress itself was made by my friend Francisca, who passed the remnants on to me. :)

Closeup of the brocade shower curtain bias trim; and a line of metallic silver stitching that I used to wrap the trim around the edges of the blue damask. It was going to show anyway, so I figured, why not make it pretty?  It's barely visible, except when it catches the light.  I love stuff like that.












It's sheer coincidence, by the way, that this is just about the same blue as the silk dress I made for the event and can't wear.  The first thing I did, by way of a replacement, was to alter an old, plain, black cotehardie to wear during the day.  When I thought "surcote" to throw over it for court in the evening, I originally went through all my green fabric and old green dresses, but couldn't find anything I wanted to deal with this week - the blue was easier, hehe.  (And yes, there will be a green surcote at some point soon, just not right now.  I still have a few things to finish up for Candlemas, which is in three days).


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You, Madam, Are Out of Order.

In what I'm sure is an adorable attempt to keep up with things I say I'm going to do  ...

*pauses for laughter from the audience*

I return to October's Monthly Sewing Challenge, which you may remember from this post.   While I did not finish the purple 12th century gown in October, I DID finish it this month, and will have pictures for you very soon.

In the meantime, I DO have pictures for you of my 13th century cylcas surcote, done in Caerleon's heraldry, for the War of the Rams at BAM last Saturday:*

All linen, with machine embroidery around the edges of the neckline and sleeve openings.  And for once, worn with all appropriate and period layers (with some modern ones thrown in.  It was fücking cold):

• knee socks
• knee boots
• leggings
• linen braies
• cotton chemise (white)
• linen underdress (green - and this is actually my plain beige underdress that you've seen me wear with my blue Viking apron dress.  I dyed it last week for this event).  
• Linen cyclas
• Hair: net snood, barbette, and linen pie crust hat.  I was also wearing a veil and/or scarf wrapped around my head and neck most of the event, as well as...
• a "cloak" which was a plush lap blanket from Waldemart that I picked up for $4 at the last minute to wrap around my shoulders

I was SO WARM.  Man, all those layers feel like walking around bundled up in blankets.  Yay!  

mostly the whole thing

Cotton duck screen-printed lions satin-
stiched in place, and tongues painted with
50% mixture fabric glue and craft acrylics

Bonus project for November:

A long tunic for one of my very favorite
Vikings up in the Steppes area (Dallas). 

Green and black machine-embroidery on the
neck facing. 

Evidently I'm on a machine-embroidery kick lately.

Wait til you see December's project.  :)

SO ANYWAY, now that you've seen November's project (s)...I'll put up pics of October's project later in the week, LOL.  And then maybe afterwards I'll have my poop in a group enough to get things done and posted on time.  ;)



*  Very short event review:  fücking cold. 

T- 10 Days and Counting

Until Bordermarch Autumn Melees, that is.  I can't wait!

So I kinda waited until the last minute (10 days out is the last minute), and still needed a replacement for my Caerleon uniform sleeves.  I haven't had money to buy fabric, and I didn't have time to wait to order some;  but I managed to find a friend who had some Ansteorran-gold linen (this) she was willing to sell me.  Three yards of it - not enough to do a cotehardie of any stripe the way I normally do.

After the last post, I almost...almost...made a "gates of hell" type 14th century sideless surcote.  But (a) I didn't have enough black to make trim for one of those, and (b) I'm seriously digging my pie hat, and wanted to wear it again.

And so:

This is where we start.  Note that the pattern is sized XS, S, M, indicating that I've owned this since I was in high school.

Fortunately, though I currently rock a size 20, this dress is cut loosely enough that I didn't even have to add anything to the girth for my new garb.

All I did, in fact, was to lower and armholes to just above my natural waistline (the blue pencil line).  I left the neckline alone.

I did cut gores to put into the sides, but it turned out, I didn't need them.  The skirt was full enough for me on its own.

The only other change I made to the original pattern, aside from the arm holes, was to add 10" to the hemline to make it floor-length on me.

This is by no means finished - I still need to put the lions on (and decide where they go), as well as paint the company motto along the neckline and sleeve trim, but the body of the dress is finished.

This is a 12th century women's cyclas, which started out as what we call a "tabbard", and evolved into the ubiquitous "gates of hell" sideless surcote later.

I'll  be wearing it over a plain black cotehardie, with my pie-crust fillet and barbette.  Not sure if I'll wear the veil or not yet.

I'm also not sure about the lions down the whole front, either.

I rather like them arranged like this - still vertically, but lower on the front, below the belt line (which is just below the bottom of the side slits).

I'm still playing with ideas.  Mostly because the other night, when I took these pictures, I was completely out of black thread.  (What??)  I'm picking some up tonight on the way home; but then I have to rush home and cleanup for guests I have coming later in the week.  If I end up with time to finish this dress, I'll show you guys - and of course, there will be event pics in two weeks.


:)






P.S. - I love the way this fits, looks, and feels, so very much, already, that I'm already planning TWO more.  I have yet to make a heraldic anything - and this would be a FANTASTIC format for my device.  Also, a friend gave me four yards of a *lovely* blue silk that I think, together with some gold brocade, might make a gorgeous cyclas  or even a long-sleeved loose cotte!  Ve shall zee.

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To-Do List for November

Oh, man, I just remembered that I used to do a month-in-review.  I'm such crap at remembering stuff like that, wow.

November!  

The big event in November is "BAM":  Bordermarch Autumn Melees.  It's kind of a big deal in Ansteorra.  I can't go all four days, only three, but I'm excited as all hockeysticks about it, lemmetellya (last year I could only daytrip the event, and I missed SO much!!)

I'm digging the early-Medieval kick I've been on lately, and I can't wait to do more.  I've decided BAM this year will be my impetus, and my showcase.  Heh.  Listen to me talking like I'm actually going to get shit done around here.

*sly*

And so, I have three weeks in which to:

• trace a pattern from the blue surcote pictured above, which was borrowed from a friend, and make one for myself.  I have a green cotton I've been wondering what to do with, and I think it'd be perfect if I have enough.  
• Finish the purple dress!!!  
• Locate my batiste veil, or make a new larger veil from a lightweight linen to wear with my barbette, fillet, and pie-crust hat, because the silk veil in the picture is too sheer, I think.  It works best when there's a fancy hairdo underneath, or jewelry I want to show.   
• Create a new Caerleon uniform for myself, based on this style, because the sleeveage I made before Gulf War isn't quite working anymore (read:  I've gained enough weight that the black dress I wore them with is far too small)

Bonus points for: 

• Making myself a new pair of linen buskins/socks
• A second hat for the period, this one in blue silk with beads, maybe? 
• making another wooden chest for myself (the pieces are already cut, I just need to assemble the thing and paint it) 
• Making a court-worthy sideless out of a beautiful piece of blue silk that a friend bought for me for my birthday last week.  Hooray, silk!  <3   
• Losing fifty pounds by the 22nd.  Riiiiight.  

So there you go.  All that, plus all the work I need to do in the garden, and all the projects in the house I have going on...egad.  And you wonder why I never get anything done. 

a mood board for the purple dress that I made a while back

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I hate thinking up blog titles.

Well, the purple dress I was talking about didn't get finished for Baronial.  In fact, I ended up not being able to go, which made me very sad.  And bored. And lonely, that weekend.  Boo hoo.  I didn't get it done for  was this past weekend, either.  If I want it done by the end of the month, I've got two more weeks, though.

However, I DID want to at least wear my new pie-crust hat for the Barony of Bjornsborg's "Trials of St. Anthony" event this past weekend, so I borrowed a sideless from a friend:

How FUN was this to wear?!  I have GOT to make one for myself!!!

But first I have to finish that damned purple thing, LOL.


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Another One For A Friend

Speaking of stuff I've done recently but neglected to blog about:

Here's an English/Norman surcote I did for another friend of mine, back in the September 2011.

This is Sir John of Severn, leader of the fighting company I mentioned in that post about the Japanese jin-baori.  Every member of the unit has at least one outfit done in company and kingdom colors, but in the style of their persona, be it English, Japanese, German, etc.

The whole thing is heavy linen, and unlined.  It's also quarter-charged (divided quarterly, as opposed to having a gold half and a black half).  I sewed the surcote and the appliqés (stars and lions);  another friend of his painted the company's motto around the bottom (Ut simus invicti:  "together we are invincible").

There's more coming, too, on this front, in future posts.
Stay tuned. :)





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