Largesse for Pennsic Finished!

Ta-da! Finished! There are more progress pics on my Flickr stream, but since I was too lazy to blog them in progress - I will spare you. I put the penny on top for scale, since it's a fairly large pouch. Final materials list:

• wool - gray pouch, blue roundel
• white linen - white crescents and pouch lining
• Kreinik Jap 5 silver thread for couching and tassel tops
• Gutterman silk white sewing thread
• a lace weight white wool yarn for drawstring and tassels

Largesse for Penssic

I thought I'd post some of the progress pics on the little project I'm doing for our gift basket at Pennsic. I've been meaning to try some needle-turn applique, so this is my test project. The background is some blue wool I picked up at Gulf Wars and the crescents are a nice dense weave linen. I used the linen both as the applique and the foundation, since I didn't have any thin white wool. Below is a progress pic of the applique. The linen foundation gave more loft than I thought it would, so the crescents have a nice depth. After the applique was finished, I started with the outlining. The outlining is done in Kreinik Jap 5, couched with silk thread. I like the way they are turning out, though the applique acquired some skew. I starched the foundation linen, but alas, it was a crescent with lots of bias edges, so skew was probably inevitable no matter how well I tacked it down before the applique - lesson learned. The outlining smooths things out quite a bit and adds some forgiveness to the process. The camera doesn't really capture the wool / linen / silver contrast very well, but I am pleased with the look. More progress soon, since I'm on a deadline.

Dark blue pouch for raffle

Bryn Gwlad is doing a raffle next week to help raise funds for the Ansteorra Gulf Wars site. I finally finished the little pouch that I was making to raffle off. The outside is dark blue linen and the lining is a light blue linen. The stitching, tassels, and drawstring are done in white cotton floche (DMC). Here you can see a better look at the seam treatments. I used a technique that shows the lining as decoration.

Oak Leaf Handkerchief

This was my contribution for Ansteorr'a Pennsic largess (for Queen Dagmaer of An Tir). The design is loosely taken from her heraldry - green oak leaf and blue border. This was a chance to practice my teeny tiny hem, which I think is getting smaller and more precise. It was my first try at a handkerchief and I'm pleased at how it turned out. The handkerchief is a really light weight linen from fabrics-store.com, which is really light and soft.

I did the hem in Gutternman silk sewing thread and the embroidery was done in a single thread of the Rainbow Gallery Splendor (which is a 12-ply). The tiny chain stitch was kind of a pain, but the end result was really nice. A single thread of the Splendor is a little fuzzier than I probably would have preferred originally (it was on hand) but the end result was a chain stitch that kind of melts into itself smoothly, so I think it turned out to be a good choice. I declare this a handkerchief success and move boldly forward with more handkerchief plans.

Below is a zoom of my teeny tiny hem with coins for scale. There is a US penny, a Euro one cent, and just for fun a Nederlandish guidler. That should cover most of my readership I think :) I was so happy with my earlier tiny hem that I really finally felt like I might be able to make some nicer things out of delicate linen. With a little practice, I think that the stitch turns out really nicely. I am perhaps a little smug to officially add a new skill to my arsenal.

Gloves: Goldwork progress pictures

Here are my pictures from the goldwork progress on the gloves I posted about earlier. The materials are a woven wool background with a muslin backing, wool felt for foundation padding, Kreinik Japan Gold #7, and Soie Crystal silk for couching.


I used yellow wool felt for the foundation. Here is a progress of tacking it down.


The foundation is completely sewn down and I have started couching the gold thread.


More progress


The "V" is finished and I have started the crown.



Finished embroidery for both gloves


I used a dark gray wool foundation under the embroidery to give it a bit of lift off of the glove. Here are the circles basted on.


Front picture of basting.

After I based the circles down, I cut the fabric with a nice seam allowance and gathered it around the circles. I used a tiny drill bit to drill holes in the gloves and an awl to sew down the roundels. Next I made the gold braids out of the Krenick gold. Finally, Rachel and I sewed on the gold braid trim around the edges. Its at a slight angle to cover the depth difference between the glove bottom and the roundel top.

Overall this was a fun project. It was the first time I've used the foundation padding for more depth in the embroidery and it really does make it sparkle! Its a bit harder to work with and the precision/tightness of the couching was harder to get. Its hard to see in the picture but there is a bit of texture in the couching on the crowns that added a little sparkle. I liked the minimalist little "v" when I did the embroidery (especially in contrast to the depth of the big "V"), but now I'm kind of wishing that I had done something fancier. Ah well, that's life.

The Kreink Japan gold is fun to work with (and I have several large spools of it!) but I am looking forward to trying some of my real metal threads soon - just as soon as I can figure out the project!

More Gloves!

I've been remiss in posting, but here is the current state of things. Pictures are included of the three gloves that I have completed for the crown. After I finished the stitching, Rachel came by and helped with the construction and finishing which speeded things along. I'll do some more posts that show construction updates, but I couldn't resist posting the finished gloves. The pictures don't really capture the shine of the silk or the sparkle on the gold (especially the highlights on the Queen's glove).

King's Gloves: These are padded goldwork on a woven wool foundation. I used wool felt for the padding to give it a bit of dimension.


Queen's Glove (Front)


Queen's Glove (Back)

Royal Gloves II

Here is my current progress on the second set of royal gloves. This pair is for the queen and has the same sigil as the first pair, but is in her colors. I added a background so that the whole cuff would be stitched. The background is an "E" pattern for Ebergardis and made to look like ermine (from her device). Rachel helped me put the background design together and pick out colors. The "E" motifs are in a very, very light gray and the lattice work is in white. Its always hard to imagine how repeating patterns are going to turn out, but I think we got a nice homage to ermine on this one.

Also featured in this picture is the lap stand that I got recently. I am really enjoying using it. The stand design really limits its usefulness to frames of a width pretty close to your lap width, but it has worked well for my current projects. I'm starting to ponder floor stands for some other work. I'm a bit torn between exploring modern frames and medieval frames. I'm not sure which I'm going to look at first.

Gloves #1 are finished!

I have finished the first pair of royal gloves for Their Stellar Majesties Ulsted the Unsteady and Ebergardis von Zell. The stitching is done in German Brickwork and is Rainbow Gallery Splendor silk on linen, with Kreinik Japan Gold #7 couched as outlines. I sewed the stitched roundels onto the gloves using a leather awl and the trim is braided Kreinik Japan Gold #7. The gloves were delivered at Bryn Gwlad's Candlemas event.

Details:

Since I was attaching the stitched roundels to leather gloves, I rummaged through my toolbox and found my leather awl. It was definitely the right way to go, especially since the gloves were already put together and I had to reach inside them. The German brickwork stitching has a lot of body when finished, which makes for a really thick finished piece. Even with some tight stitching on the edges I found that I needed a thick trim to keep the edge from being too abrupt.

I tried several different approaches to the trim. I think that finger loop braiding can make really nice trim, so I tried a few different patterns and discovered that Japan gold is terrible for finger loop braiding. It doesn't hold tension well, stretches unevenly, and doesn't flex gracefully - so you end up with a chunky mess that glitters. I was going for something a bit more elegant than that so I tried several flat braids. The final winner was a three strand flat braid with 6 pieces of Japan gold per strand - 18 total strands. The result was a smooth trim which (with some fiddling) I got to lay at a (mostly) 45 degree angle to smooth the chunky edges.