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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A Sewing Challenge!

SarahLizSewStyle is doing a garment-a-month sewing challenge, and I'm joining in!  I'll be doing it with SCA garments, though - and maybe the occasional mundane piece.  I'd begun a new outfit for our baronial event just last week, so I've decided that that will be my October garment and my first one of this year-long challenge.

If you'd like to get in on the challenge, visit Sarah Liz at her blog here, SarahLizSewStyle:

The dress I've begun (and I spent about two hours on armpit gussets alone last night; apparently this is going to be one of THOSE projects, egad), is a 12th century pendant-sleeve down.  Much like a bliaut in cut, fit, and shaping, but with long drooping sleeve ends that start at the wrist or mid-forearm, rather than the elbow or upper arm like a bliaut.

Inspiration-wise, I give you the following:

Mistress Aénor d'Anjou, a 12th-century clothing Laurel, via Pinterest, and her website.

Revival Clothing's 12th century linen pendant-sleeved gown (there's a red/black version on the website now, though I prefer this photograph).

This lovely and simple gown by Antalika on DeviantArt.  










The fabric I'm working with is an amethyst-colored "antique satin" (a satin or silk substitute developed in the 1950s which can be made of several different combinations of fibers;  mine is rayon and silk), which is cross-woven with black and with a slubbed weave and a very subtle luster on the outside.  I purchased it at Gulf Wars in March, and while I don't have a picture of my actual fabric, it's just about this color, maybe a tad lighter:

SilkBaron's "blackberry" dupioni

I cut out the dress pieces last week; last night I managed to get the body all put together, the neckline shaped, the gores in the skirt and underarm gussets all pieced in, and the sleeve pendants shaped, but not attached.  Not bad for one night!  Especially when you consider that I'm basically improvising this pattern as I go along.  I cut the basic body shapes based on my cotehardie pattern, without didn't cut a neckline so that I could do that later, and a tad large so that I can slip the entire dress over my head.  

This fabric is what my mother used to call "hairy."  It unravels like crazy, and SHEDS EVERYWHERE.  While the fabric itself is strong, trying to pick out an errant line of stitching is like walking on a rotten rope bridge across LAVA.  UGH.  

That said, otherwise, it's been wonderful to work with.  It has some give on the bias, but mostly doesn't stretch at all, so there aren't any weird tension issues with it pulling.  It's lightweight, but with a beautiful heavy drape, and feels wonnnnnnnderful against my skin.  I'm almost disappointed that I have to wear a chemise under it, hehe. 

The fun part is, I have to have the dress finished by THURSDAY NIGHT.  @_@   I still have to create an exterior neck facing and attach it, attach the sleeve pendants, finish all the interior seams, and hem the skirt. If I end up with time, I may also run some very simple embroidery (by hand) along the edge of the neck facing, and maybe around the edges of the sleeve openings, but I'm not sure about that yet.  

For now, the dress is just a pull-over, meant to be wrapped with a loooooong cloth belt (which I don't have, by the way, so there's that).  I'll be wearing my linen pie-crust filet hat, with a linen barbette, and either my large silk veil, or my small chiffon veil with the pearl edging.  Haven't decided yet. 

Fun!  So we'll see how far I get tonight.  Update when finished! 

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Headphones That Don't Actually Work

I really SHOULD make a list of "things I swore I'd never wear but now love".  Might make for an interesting, or at least laughable, post.  Here's another one:

Nice hair, me.  

I've seen ear cauls like this all over the place, and I really love the way they look.  The inspiration for the pair I've made came from here, here, and here, via Pinterest.

☼  DISCLAIMER  ☼ 

THE FIRST RULE OF EAR CAULS IS:  We will not talk about ear cauls!  That is to say, I am not going to discuss or debate the period-ness of them, either to "SCA period" or any point in actual history, nor am I going to discuss or debate construction techniques, artistic interpretation from extant paintings/statuary, or really, any other facet of these things.    

Why did I make these, and why did I make them the way I did?  Because I like them.  End of story. 

Any comments that break the first rule, or begin with the words "actually" or "technically", will be deleted and the posters summarily executed using rabid weasels.  Luv yoo!  

☼  DISCLAIMER  ☼ 

So.  The fun part.  Here's how I did it:  

Clockwise from top left: 

1. After roaming the house holding random items to the sides of my head, which I assume would have looked hilarious had anyone been there to see it, I finally settled on the cooking implement in the first picture.  I laid a square of cheesecloth over the tool, then made a papiér maché form over that. They're green because that's what color tissue paper I had.   The papiér maché medium I always use is just water and fabric glue.  Nothing fancy. 
2. Once they were dry, and trimmed into a neat circle (papiér maché is messy, y'all), I whip-stitched a hoop of 20-gauge jewelry wire around the edges, to stabilize the form and the edge and keep them from bending, or tearing.  
3. Two squares of red faux-silk (both alike in dignity), with strips of gold metallic flat-woven braid sewn in place on my machine.  No, the grid is not straight.  Because yes, I just kinda winged it.  Wang it. Whatever. 
4. A second glue enters the arena:  general-purpose spray adhesive, which is how the red fabric was affixed to the papiér maché caul forms.  I just kinda smoothed and smooshed it down as flat as I could get it. 
5. Once the spray adhesive was dry and set (about thirty minutes?) I trimmed the fabric to about 3/4" away from the edge of the caul forms, and then folded them over and hot glued the edges down to the forms.  
6. More hot glue! After I sewed all those goddamned beads on, and then they all fell off, I hot glued those little bastards.  They stayed put. 

Not pictured:  Last step was to open out a heavy-duty hook from a hook-and-eye set for skirts to about a 38º angle, and then hot glue them in place at the top edge of each caul.  I seated both hooks in a largedollop of glue until it pushed through the holes in the hook where you normally sew them on; then covered the backing of the hook with  glue as well. This was to keep the hooks from popping off.  

The hooks were used to hang each caul from the silver circlet I already wear.  No, they wouldn't have stayed on their own;  but I braided my hair and wrapped it around the front of each caul, both to frame the caul and disguise the rather odd-looking edge, and also so that the hair, pinned in place on my head, would stabilize the placement of the caul.  

Materials used:  

• kitchen spider/strainer with bamboo handle
• cheesecloth
• papiér maché - water + fabric glue, strips of tissue paper
• strong wire for edges of caul forms 
• fabric to cover forms
• trim
• beads/pearls
• hook half of a flat skirt hook-n-eye
• adhesives: 
• spray adhesive
• fabric glue
• hot glue

Ta-da!  

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Fall Coronation 2013

1.  New cotehardie.  Deep navy silk/poly blend -  a "peachskin" weave, turned wrong-side-out to display the shiny, smooth side, rather than the fuzzy side.  Small (less than half-inch) silver buttons from elbow to wrist, and from the neckline in front all the way to the floor.

At this time, the dress doesn't actually open all the way down the front.  I was in a bit of a rush, and didn't have time to do a millionty buttonholes, so I just sewed the buttons on after closing the front seam.

Also, the dress was originally supposed to have a gray-brown faux-fur trim along the neckline and the lower hem, but I canNOT find my brown fur!!  I have no clue what happened to it! For the time being I ran a line of machine stitching in a vine pattern around the egdes of the dress;  if I ever find the fur, I'll put it on, and at that time, I'll fix the buttons down the front.



2.  Ear cauls!  These babies are getting their own blog entry!  Stay tuned!


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Jurry!*

*How "jewelry" is often pronounced in Texas Ansteorra.  


I made a pretty!  

After looking at this gorgeous necklace on Pinterest for like a year, and wanting one like crazy, I finally made something kinda similar:

I DO have an iron key around here somewhere, and when I find it, I WILL put it on this necklace. Thing is, I mislaid it several months ago and am still waiting for it to turn up.

For now, I've used a medallion that I had made at the renaissance festival by the folks with the big coin-stamp machine, with a knotwork star on one side...

And a Scorpio symbol on the other. There's also a medallion jewelry plaque, just to make things jingly.

The smaller medallion is the closure, in the back, with a lobster-claw clasp that hooks to it.






The beads are a mix of green glass beads, most of them Czech glass beads in a translucent mint (from here, where I get most of my nicer jewelry supplies). They were actually FAR too bright a color for me, so I put some gloves on, covered my hands with gold nail polish, and rubbed the beads around between my hands until they were nice and randomly spotted by the gold.  I also mixed in a few scrap brass pieces and other random green glass beads.

I may wear this; but honestly, the texture of the whole necklace feels so nice in my hands, I may end up just carrying it around events to give myself something to fidget with that looks period, rather than using the pink pearl almost-paternoster that I made a few weeks ago.

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Anyhow, fall Coronation is in two days!  I have a new dress!  I have a new hat!  I can't wait to show you!  But I have a VERY busy coupla days coming up, so it'll all have to wait til next week (when hopefully I'll have some decent shots of me in my new outfit).


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Okay, One More Box, and Then I'll Start Sewing, I Promise.

Sadly, I didn't have the presence of mind to take a "before" picture of this, but it was basically just a brown wooden box.  Light brown.  I "stained" it with watered-down red craft paint, sprayed it with a super-shiny gloss clearcoat, and lined the inside with some scraps of a vivid blue uncut corduroy (feels/looks like velvet, but sturdier).

It's hard to tell except in the last picture, which is horribly over-exposed with flash, because it's the only way I could get the red edging to show - the box edges are highlighted in a shiny red lacquer paint, to hide some flaws in the stain, and to better blend the edges of the wood and the blue "velvet" visually.  

Okay, NOW I'm going to go sew.  Two weeks to go from first-draft-pattern to completed 12th century side-laced pendant-sleeve gown.  No pressure. 

σ_ô

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The Big Black Box

I needed a six-panel chest.  You know the one, it's ubiquitous in the SCA.  It comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, finishes, and types of detail.  It's SO handy.

Enter this guy:  

This is a wooden toybox that my grandfather built for me when I was only a year old.  It's as old as me, and like me, it was showing a bit of wear.  It's been useful and beloved throughout it's thirty*COUGH* years, but lacking a hinged top made its use a bit limited.  Eventually it was relegated to storage, tucked on top of a shelf in my garage.

I was hesitant, at first, to refinish it at all (even though I hated the paint job - it's green/yellow on the other two sides), because it was my grandfather's work, I finally decided that I'd rather change it and use it and love it anew, than let it rot on top of a high shelf - and why not look at it like this: he put loving work into this thing, so why shouldn't I? This is as close as we would get to having worked on it together.

The paint was old enough to have been lead, possibly, so I did no sanding.  I spent weeks scraping and peeling and covering it with liquid and foam paint remover, before finally giving up once I realized that even where I'd gotten through the paint, it had long since soaked into the wood, and it would never be stain-able.  So I scraped it smooth, applied a wood conditioner to re-hydrate it, sealed some slightly separated joinery, and painted it inside and out.

From there, the rest was all fun.  I've been working on this guy all summer (you saw the background on the lid, and the smaller box which was kind of a dry run for this one).  Here's the finished product:

Black outside, and mint-green-blue inside (because that's
the color I had, hehe.  The top is stained because it was
cut from an old desktop, and was already finished.  

A close-up of the decorative mountings, which are
just jewelry plaques bent and nailed on with small tacks. 

The handles on the sides, which are simple drawer pulls,
backed with more jewelry plaques.   Not remotely period,
but, as with all facets of this project, I used materials
I already had on hand. 

On the outside of the lid is a mural that took me like three weeks to paint.
I absolutely love it, warts and all, from the derpy little deer to the appalling
mélange of artistic styles used  (this is a learning project, you guys).

See?   I do love how all the colors came out, though, and overall I'm quite
pleased with the finished chest. 

I do have to say that the sky is my favorite thing, though.  It doesn't show
well in these pics, but all of the gold is metallic.  Not leafing paint (my jar
of leafing paint is stuck shut!), but my trusty gold liquid paint pen. 

So, this is going to be my nightstand in my tent, and very likely full of underwear and socks, hehe.  Very few people will ever even see it, but that's okay with me.  I'm really pleased with it, and I want to keep it where I can see it all the time, and where it won't be damaged by the elements.

Next up, woodworking-wise, is another, smaller chest, that I'll be building from scratch; but with the first event of the season only weeks away, I need to lock myself in my sewing room for a while.
See you guys on the flipside.



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