SCA: Goofy Little Tent Flag

 Last month I showed you my new heraldry which was passed in June: 

I used to have a little cloth flag that I would put up in front of my tent to say, "this is my tent," but since I changed my heraldry this summer, I needed a new flag. 

Rather than try to replicate the entire device on a 12x14" flag, I decided to make one of those little "weathervane" style flags like you see on Norse banner poles (like this).  (No, it doesn’t look remotely Norse now that it’s finished). 

There's a blue background and a gold pomegranate on one side: 

And a black raven rising on the other side: 

(If you're curious, the cloth is white cotton sheeting; and the paints I used are plain old artists' acrylic paints mixed with a little bit of Tacky Glue and some liquid matte medium. The glue keeps the colors from running in the rain, and the matte medium is just to water down the paint and make the finish the same across the different colors).  

Just a small fun project which will absolutely NOT make up for the fact that I have a big, blue, modern tent, LOL.  (I would love to build myself a real Viking tent, but I don't have the time or the money, or the space in my workshop to do all that carving!) 

SCA: 1490s Florentine

 After refitting my two Florentine-cum-Venetian dresses, I still had my old red velvet court dress to figure out. Here it is in 2013 when I first made it: 

It still fits! I still had the original pomegranate-print linen sleeves, too, thankfully.  They were too tight, however, and originally I thought I'd just add a gusset under the arm to widen them, but then I thought, hey, I'm a bona fide Crazy Person, right?  Let's do something crazy! 

So, I cut them apart and re-shaped them as pieced sleeves a la 1490s Florence, to make them a little more accurate for the style of the dress (see below).  See the embroidered pouch on the far left?  It's the same fabric, but in 2013 I embroidered over the printed design to spice it up a bit, and I decided to do the same thing to these sleeves.  

Here they are finished: 

And here's the whole dress, updated and complete (click to make bigger): 

The dress isn't period accurate, I'm afraid.  A big thing with the laurels around here is to be able to explain THAT you know something is wrong, and WHY you chose to let it remain wrong.  Technically, the red velvet gown should be a giornea, open at the sides or the front to reveal a gamurra dress underneath.   However, I simply don't have the funds right now to make a whole new gamurra to wear under this dress, so I left it closed and used the matching sleeves and front panel to simulate the look of a separate under-dress.  I'm not a huge believer in the "10 foot rule", but it passes the 10' rule, and it looks cool, even if someone who really knows their Italian stuff would know right off the bat that this isn't right.  It bugs me, but it's what I've got.  I guess for making something old wearable again, I didn't do a half bad job.    

So now I'm all set for Baronial in October! At least, as far as things to wear goes.  I've been designated site decorator for the event, so I have a lot of work ahead of me making loads of flags and pennants and signs and ribbons and who knows what all.  I'll be busy with that for the next month and a half.  Meanwhile, I might even figure out what to do with my hair for the event.  And before Baronial, the annual fall Bjornsborg event is coming up early in October, so there's that to prepare for, too!  October is going to be busy.  

 

SCA: 1520s Venetian - Brown Dress

So, I'm a Viking pretty much full-time, but we have an Italian-themed event coming up in October, so I thought I'd drag out my old Florentine wardrobe and see if it still fit.  

Reader, it did not.  I'm a bit larger than I was when I made these outfits - ten years ago!  The corset, first of all, rides up over my belly into my armpits, so it's not workable at all. Thankfully, the two dresses fit well enough if I lace them wide open (they used to close in the front), and can be laced tightly enough that they're supportive, so I don't need the corset. All of my old sleeves are also too tight.  I wanted to replace them with bag sleeves, but between that idea and the fronts being laced wide, I was getting pretty far away from the 1490s Florentine style that these dresses were originally supposed to be. 

Enter Palma Vecchio and his contemporaries.  I found the following paintings online, from 1510s-1520s Venice: 

Cariani, 1520

Unknown, 1520s

These Venetian dresses are laced wide (tied, actually), and shown with baggy oversleeves.  That's exactly what I wanted!  Now I know it's actually a thing.  (Mind you, I have no actual research to back this up, just a few paintings to go off of). 

The first thing I did was to dye my old brown dress.  It was badly faded after all this time, and needed the color refreshed.  Rather than overdye it with brown (I hate Rit's browns), I combined a wine color with an eggplant color, just like I did with the cotehardie I dyed two years ago, and it came out beautifully: 

Then I created some bag sleeves for it out of a blue linen, dyed to match (eh, they mostly match. They’re a little lighter, but then the original color was very pale).  I had to improvise the pattern:  all I had to go on was a pin from Pinterest with a broken link; I couldn't find any 1520s Venetian sleeve patterns anywhere else.  I copied the shape as best I could, and the sleeves came out just fine. 

 

my version

 

The only problem I had with dyeing this dress is that for some reason I originally attached the skirt with dark gray thread. It didn’t show much against the brown linen, but now that it’s red, it stuck out like a sore thumb.  So, I took the skirt off and put it back on with thread that matches.  Not a huge deal, but kind of a pain in the butt. 

So now I have a new dress to wear to the event. I have a black one to re-work as well, and a court gown to fix up. I’ll show you those soon. 

A Heraldic Chest

In 2014, when I made this chest for my friend Simona, I made one for myself, too.   I didn't stain or finish it - it came in very handy at events, but it was always unfinished.  Eventually I painted it plain black.   I've always wanted to do something cool with it, but I never got around to it.








However, I finally painted it!  It's an adaptation of my device: 

I painted one half of each side of the box white with 3 coats of Killz primer;  then painted the red parts with red artists actylics and acrylic craft paint.  I used  artists' acrylics for the green leaves.  I coated the entire box with polyurethane to seal the paint.  While the hardware was off the box, I also sprayed the handles with primer and then a metallic gold spray paint, to spruce them up since they were looking a bit tarnished and gross.

I'm not sure exactly how to use it, though.  I used to use it at big events to pack and store all of my underthings and accessories - braies and bras, socks, headgear, and jewelry.  On the other hand, my feast basket recently died and I'm thinking this chest might make a great little feast box.  I'm not sure yet.

What's Next? 

I still need to fix or replace the back of the blue chair I re-covered a few weeks ago.  I may also make a new cover for my old parasol this week,  if I have time.  And, of course, Valkyrfelt is coming up - not this weekend, but next, and I'm planning and scheming like mad because I'm nervous as hell about camping for the first time in nearly three years.  

I Came, I Saw, I Made My Own (II)

I have a bit of a Thing about pomegranates. I always have, and when I joined the SCA, I made the pomegranate my symbol.  It's on my heraldry, many of my personal items that I've made, like boxes and bags, and in a lot of my jewelry, too, in every way I can get it.

So when I saw this on Pinterest, I HAD TO HAVE IT:

22 carat, hollow beads with a pomegranate pendant
Persia, 500BC

It's far earlier than SCA-period; but it's still GORGEOUS.  And people have always loved antiques and ancient things, so, I'm going with it. ;) 

While I do a lot of beading and wire work, I have zero experience with casting jewelry - and no materials which which to do so.  But I've been meaning lately to learn to work with modeling clay, and I figured beads MUST be easy, and probably a decent starter project.  They were a wee bit more challenging that I thought, mostly having to do with getting the holes right, but they came out pretty well: 

I formed them around some sort of knitting tool (it was in a starter kit I was given once, but I never learned to knit, and I have no clue what it's supposed to be).  It sure made a great bead mandrel, though. It might be just as useful for knitting, but for now it's the first tool in my clay kit, hehe. 

About a third of the beads I made came apart when I tried to push a needle through them the first time.  I ended up making a second round of beads, and a bunch extra - and it's a good thing, too, because while stringing them up I realized that the first round was really not nearly as many as I needed!

After all were done and baked, I spray-painted them gold, and strung them on a length of embroidery floss.  I ended up spacing them out with green glass beads, because my clay beads weren't as pointed as the ones in the inspiration pic, and it looked weird having them all butted up against one another.

YAY!  I LOVE the way this came out! 

Here's the necklace on my dress dummy (Violet, who is in serious need of re-adustment, but we'll get to that in another post), along with a red...secret project...that I'll start discussing some time next week.

Stay tuned!


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Poky Storage + Sewing Kit

Perhaps you remember my little red velvet needle case, which I made in February of '13:

It's just a little tri-fold doodad, made from fabric scraps, padded and lined with the inside of a fake fur blanket.  I was very new to embroidery then, and so only the random leaves and wee pomegranates were hand-embroidered - all the swirly bits were done on my machine.

Don't get me wrong, I've always loved it's functionality;  but recently I pulled it out to work on some hand-sewing, and I thought, "Wow, this is crap, I can do WAY better than this!"  So I grabbed some more fabric scraps and sat down in front of Game of Thrones season 2...all of it.  (I had a migraine, but couldn't sleep).  This is what I made to replace the red one:

This one is also a trifold wallet-like design; and these are two of the panels.  The third panel is left blank, since it's going to be tucked inside anyway.

The white backing is cross-stitch fabric.  The inner lining is the fuzzy blanket lining from the old needle case, for padding.  The blue lining, which is wrapped around the outside as a decorative edge, is turquoise linen/rayon blend.

The full pomegranate is the back of the case.  This is the front, when it's closed.

Yes, it's all rumply.  I intend to iron the whole thing out, and then put a button or tie or something on it to keep it closed, like the red velvet needle case had.

The inside, which contains a smattering of sewing and embroidery needles in various sizes, several sizes of glass-head pins, a small curved darning needle, and a large upholstery/leather needle.















I keep it in here, a box I made in 2011, along with more pins, some bobbins of thread in common colors for on-the-go repairs, a small pair of steel snips, and random things people always need, like safety pins, extra bobby pins, random buttons, and a couple of extra dress lacings:

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Silk Banner 1.0, Part 2

The banner is finished!  Okay, well, more of a flag...and there's actually a proper, period term for this kind of flag, but I can't remember it for the life of me. But HERE IT IS:

That's:

• one yard of 45" white silk charmeuse
• Dye-na-flow paints
• black Pebeo gutta (resist)                              ...all from Dharma Trading Co. 
• a tapestry hanger that I think is actually Balinese; I've had it forever
• a scrap length of gold trim that I just pinned in place on the hanger

The finished flag is 20"x25";  you can see in the picture above that I set it up in the corner of the fabric.  The extra space around it got painted, too:  I'm not ready to show it off yet, but I painted part of the extra silk red, and other parts black, and made both a small pennant to fly from the top of my tent, and a long, thin, silk belt to wear with my leather ones.  :)  More on those later. 

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My Fandom Is Made of Hot Glue and Paper

Apologies for the lack of posts recently;  I've been having issues with Blogger and Dropbox not speaking to each other.  I think I have it fixed, though...



So, you know all those pins on Pinterest you think you're going to make and then you really do?  And those ones you see and HAVE to jump up and do right away, and then you do, and it's awesome?

Yeah, me neither.

Except for this time.  I was bopping around on Pinterest (coincidentally, waiting for the glue to dry on another project, and wondering what to do in the meantime), when I came across the tutorial for the Harry Potter wands made from chopsticks and hot glue for the hundredth time.   And for the hundredth time, it was adorable, and I really wanted to make it, but I'm not into Harry Potter enough to make one for myself, and I don't have kids.

But then I remembered this:

16thC Venetian fans; one parchment and one plant fiber

And my brain did about fourteen double-takes.   I searched high and low for a chopstick, a hair stick, pencils (too short), anything - then I remembered that I had about a frillion wooden dowels in the garage, in different sizes.

I grabbed one, and chopped it to length with a bolt cutter (it was out on the work bench), and sanded the end smooth.

And then I hot-glued the crap out of it:

Later, I spray painted it black, and then wood-grained it with various brown and yellow paints.  Lastly, I had to try to figure out how to make the fan part.  In the end, I went with a thick watercolor art paper just inked and hand-colored (mostly with Sharpie marker, actually):

(apologies for the photo quality;  I'm using my phone again until I get whatever #%^!# is wrong with my
camera now fixed)  

Yup, that's my device.  The shield, not the border stuff.
I laced the paper onto the stick of the fan with fake sinew; then applied a line of
glue over the lacing for extra insurance against ripping and slipping.  

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More Accessories

Remember waaaaay back November of last year, when I was going to do this for Candlemas 2012, and the project shat itself and failed in every possible way?

Well, not in every way - the green linen gown part actually worked really well, just not the sleeve fabric, the timing, the accessories, or the entire look as a whole.  SIGH.

Well, the pomegranate fabric rides again, as it turns out.  In two ways.  The first of which is a pouch I cut out waaaay back in like January of this year, and have been embroidering off and on all year long (because I keep losing the pieces, because I'm THAT organized).





My progress so far:

All I'm doing is outlining the print that's already there.  I thought it would be a nice serious embroidery project for a beginner - lots of work, but only a few, simple stitches, on a paint-by-numbers sort of background.  Good practice.

It's certainly working, too.  Since I keep losing the pieces and not working on them for a few weeks (or months) at a time, I can really see the difference between my early work and my recent work.

The front and back are interchangeable at this point.  Just trying to decide which I like better.  I think this one for the front.

I have to say, I understand now why I misunderstood the color of this fabric when I ordered it from the website.  It looked off-white with a red/pink design on the screen, but when I got it, it was decidedly a wheaty yellow in person, and I could NOT figure out why it was such a huge difference.  Can't people take good photos?!

Holy CRAP this stuff is hard to photograph and color-correct, though!  If I get the reds right, the background looks white.  If I get the background right, the reds look either dull and dark, or over-saturated and in-your-face, depending on the lighting!

I learned how to do French Knots this week!!!  :D

This is a good shot of the three different reds I'm using so far:  a dark Mulberry, a medium Pomegranate-y color, and a bright Strawberry color.  I love the depth.

There's going to be green, and possibly some gold, in the design, too, by the time I'm done with it.

This loopy business, which is basically just a variety of chain stitch, is just about my favorite part so far.  I love the way it looks and feels.  And it's period!  I'm trying to keep all my stitches as period as possible.

The French Knots are stretching that a bit, but they're pretty, so :P

Those chain loops were often used to fill in blocks of color in period embroidery.  It was usually more nicely done than I've accomplished, though, LOL.  I'm new.

This is a great example of why it's bad that I keep losing this projects and finding it again.  I did this to the one single leaf on the "back" of the pouch;  turns out there are TWO of them on the "front", and now I either have to do it all over again - twice! - or unpick this one and try something else.  Yeesh.

This is probably the closest these pictures get to the true colors in the fabric and thread.

I love these little flowers so much. :)

Some of the color variation, and some finished and unfinished parts.

This X or cross fill inside the centers of these opening buds - while lopsidedly and inexpertly executed - were inspired by this easy, period, all-over fill stitch that I found via Pinterest.  I really wish I had made the Xs smaller and more numerous.  Considering taking them out and doing them over...except I've done *five* of these buds, which are 2" across each!

I'm not really in a hurry to finish this, because it's a GREAT project to sit around doing at events when I need some handsbusy.   But when it's done, it'll be a belt pouch.  I have a red linen lining for it, some red tassels and gold beads to affix to the bottom corners and center point, but that's about as far as I've gotten.

And, dangnabbit, for such a self-proclaimed hater of embroidery, this is REALLY FUN!  And it has me wanting to make a second one when this is done, on plain white fabric, with my own design.  Because I'm insane.

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A Pomegranate Project

The fancy, wonderful, beautiful fabric that I ordered - the one that turned out to be a completely different color than I anticipated (because, as it turns out, I read the website wrong), is seeing some action after all.

It's gorgeous, and it feels so silky and soft.  It's linen, the design painted originally, and printed on the bolt. The pattern, as it turns out, is also quite a bit larger than I'd anticipated...again, because I read the website wrong.  Those were inches, not centimeters.  Far too large a print to use for sleeves, and have them make sense once they were all made up.
Oops.


However, I've carefully extracted a small sample from the main piece, and am making myself a new purse. The giant pattern lends itself really well (I think) to a very small piece like this, since it highlights some of the fine details that may be lost on a larger project, when looking at the entire design as a whole.

vaguely purse-shaped (this is the back)

highlighting the major lines

This embroidery is relevant to Sweet Pea's interests. 

Some of the interior portions will be gold, and green.

And beaded, too, although I haven't decided
exactly how and where just yet. 

The best thing about period embroidery stitches, I've learned, is that they're all very easy and simple...which are the only kind I can actually *do*.  Heh.

More news as the situation develops.

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OHNOES.

The fabric I was waiting for showed up over the weekend!  It's gorgeous. It's a heavy, upholstery-grade woven linen, and it's SO soft and supple and silky.

It's also the wrong color.

The fabric I ordered, I thought, was a cranberry-pink-gold-brown design on a white or off-white background.  The website description called the background "wheat"...but all the pictures looked off-white to me, except for one, which I thought was just a photo exposure thing.  Because I'm an idiot.

Turns out that the yellow-y picture was the only one with the correct color:  the background of the fabric is a lovely, golden-brown, cafe-latté ...wheat...sort of shade, which, don't get me wrong, is absolutely gorgeous...but it's also horrible for my skin tone.

Which honestly wouldn't matter--because I do like it just the way it is--except that it was for a pair of sleeves.  Will they be close enough to my face/shoulders to make my skin look horrible, as I suspect they will?  Or will the shoulder and neckline of the gown they're to go with be enough distance to keep this "wheat" color from making me look transparent and jaundiced??

And if it's the second thing, and it doesn't work, what will I use it for?  And what will I do for sleeves for this dress, if this fabric doesn't work??

Drumroll, please...