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. 

In Which Our Heroine Is Up 'Til 3am

An  11' flattened tube of black linen, 3" wide, all machine-"embroidered" (it's just fancy stitches my machine does).  I'd started with the white and yellow, thinking "silver and gold on black", but then somehow it became a "garden" of green "turf", red "flowers", and blue edging for water around the outside of the white "fence."

Yeah, I have no idea.  It was 3am.  I went through FOUR SPOOLS OF THREAD.  All stuff I had laying around not being used, so, no big.  It also took me just over four hours.  But now I have a pretty, and looooong, cloth belt to wrap and use with my bliauts and things like that.

Tiny picture is tiny.  This is just a plastic "pearl" button.  I painted the "pearl" with red nail polish, LOL, and will be sewing it to the front V of my new purple dress.  As a centerpiece, yes; but also to cover up a place where the decorative stitching is a bit f'd up.  I promise the red doesn't look this plastic and pinky in real life.  You'll see.  :)


Three days and counting!


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A Poopy Purple Preview

*Nothing* I could do could make this color come out right in pictures, so, I'm posting these now (because the dress is DONE!), and I'll bring you daylight, outdoor pics of me IN the dress after the event this week:

Finally, finally finished.  This was supposed to be done by the end of SEPTEMBER, you guys.

This is the purple antique satin I bought at Gulf Wars (rayon/slk), with black linen on the trim.  It's not lined - it's cross-woven, so the inside of the fabric is black.

This stuff was HAIRY AS CRAP.  And Fray-Check rolled right off the stuff, and what little soaked in spread too far and just gunked up everything, so I had to keep trimming and tucking and wiping little purple "ants" and black hairs off of EVERYTHING.  ARGH.  

12th century pendant-sleeved gown - basically a bliaut with a different sleeve - as shown here, and here. They actually hang down well past my fingertips, since they're meant to be turned back and pinned in place.

Yeah.  Photo editing.  Phuck it.

The black linen trim, with some white machine embroidery on it.  I did the same thing around the sleeve bands and the edges of the sleeve openings.  Oh, and around the hemline, too.  Yay, machine embroidery.

The whole time my dog kept coming in and looking at me like, "Moooooom.  Are you dooooone yet??"  *mope*

Not finished yet:  a looooong black linen belt to be worn along with this.

Also to go with: my pie crust hat and barbette, and long silk veil.

I'll wear my all-purpose underdress (it's just a long, long-sleeved, loose cote with a keyhole neckline, untrimmed, beige) underneath it...and I may actually be dyeing it tonight.  Ve shall zee.


To be continued...


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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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