Next steps

Now that the heraldic surcoat is finished and out of my work queue, I've refocused on organizing my workspace, clearing out my project queue, and preparations for Gulf Wars.  These three tasks have resulted in a bit of churn in the work flow, with pleasing results.

My first reward is that I found a UFO in a random pile of stuff.  My Viking apron dress has long been neglected and counts as mostly finished garb.  The dress is a nice wool blend which is extra nice since I think GW will be cold this year.  If I finish stitching the roundels, it will be functional very quickly.  Previous posts on the dress are here

• http://helenestuff.blogspot.com/2012/08/starting-apron-dress.html
• http://helenestuff.blogspot.com/2013/04/apron-dress-progress.html 

Also, I continue to make progress on my current easy lap project - the doodles with long arm cross stitch mentioned in earlier posts

• http://helenestuff.blogspot.com/2014/10/long-arm-cross-stitch.html
• http://helenestuff.blogspot.com/2014/12/long-arm-cross-stitch.html 

My organization kick has extended to the digital world.  I am slowly cleaning up my blog and Flickr account so that things are easier to find and more synchronized.  My goal is to make it easier to find what you are looking for, follow project threads, and link the blog+flickr better.

Tunic trim

tunic-tracing
Originally uploaded by helene83

Rachel and I sewed like crazy to get enough garb to stay clothed for all of Gulf Wars, but we planned to decorate stuff later. Now that I've got some time, I'm going to embroider the trim. This is my first victim - one of Rachel's tunics. I've picked a lily design off of a 13th century German painting.

Here is the first batch of tracing. I used a washable crayola marker to trace the design. My test swatches with the crayola markers washed clean, so hopefully it will work out ok.

Brickwork notebook cover

I just finished the stitching on a small notebook cover that I've been working on. I wanted to do another piece that was bigger than my little pattern swatches. I bought some tiny composition notebooks and am going to make some notebook covers. This is the first. Next step, sewing it together.

Today, you get a pretty picture :)

Event: Bryn Gwlad 30th Year

I actually got to go out to SCA! Hooray! Rachel and I day tripped the Bryn Gwlad 30th year event and it was lots of fun :) Life is finally settling down a little, and this is the first SCA anything I've made it out to in a long while. It was my first camping event since I've moved to Ansteorra and I'm glad I got to go. The site was wonderful, the people friendly, and the event smoothly run.

I'm at a strange point on projects where I have several in the pipes, but none finished recently. On the bright side, I'm making progress on several fronts and will have some stuff done soon. Some random things I'm working on
Armor:

• Coat of plates: Front and back finished, side plates cut. I need to rivet the side plates and finish the buckles.
  
• Helm: My $10 helm is starting to look like a $20 helm ;) I've ground off the worst of the crud and need to work on the finishing.
  

Embroidery:

• Finished pattern for next critters and need to transfer it to fabric.
  
• Nearly finished with brickwork for a small notebook cover.
  
• Nearly finished with stitching up the next pattern.
  
• Need to finish sewing up gold work scissors case.
  

All of which only leaves you with the promises of pretty pictures in the future, but no pretty pictures today.

Critter progress

I've decided to start work on some bigger stuff, so I've began work on one of the border critters a few weeks ago. In the tapestries it seems fairly arbitrary whether the fill stitches are vertical or horizontal, so I went with vertical because I like it better (and maybe its more common). I don't have any color photos of this specific little guy, but I have some very similar ones that I'm using as a reference. Things have been busy, so its slow going, but here is the beginnings:

Goldwork Progress

Life intervened and I did not make the event this weekend, but I did get some stitching done in the little breaks. I have finished the stitching on one of the scissor cases and prepared the design work for the other one. It occurs to me that I didn't mount the little squares for the little scissor fobs when I dressed the frame. I shall have to do those seperately. For now I will revel in the progress so far - shiny!

Goldwork Scissor Cases

I've had a pile of Kreinik metallics, including some Japan #7, that has been itching to be used. I've been looking for a good project to play with them with. So, this weekend I started work on some scissor cases using the pattern from the West Kingdom Needleworkers Guild. The project info can be found here and the pattern can be found on their yahoo group. I love their projects and kits - they are an easy start for small projects and their members pictures are such great inspiration. The scissor case seemed like a nice, small project to try out some new stuff for fun. First I dressed my frame with some linen scraps I had in my stash.









After that I just sat down and started to play. I found a nice border that I like and its got a nice stitching rhythm. This is the first goldwork I've done in since I took a class at RUM (Royal University of Meridies) a few years back, but I'm definately liking it. Here's a couple of days of progress.

Finished sampler

I finished piecing together my sampler and here it is:




















I went to Candlemas this weekend and had a great time! I entered the piece into the A&S competition. The chat that I had with the judges was really great and very enlightening. In general I got very positive, constructive feedback and feel that I am armed with the information I need to take the next step. It was good to finally meet more people from my local group too. I made a point to introduce myself to lots of people and, in general, it paid off.

The hard part will be putting all the advice together and prioritizing the next step. I had some Or Nue work cued up, but my research on it has come up fairly light. In order to do a larger pictoral piece with the brickwork I'll need to buy some linen and I've been trying to do projects from the stash. I've put a good dent in my stash though, so maybe that justifies buying some more linen.

Also, I was introduced to "largess" - what a neat concept! Folks wander by A&S displays and if they like them, they leave a little present. I received all sorts of neat little do-dads and I've started a little treasure chest. I'm mulling over what I can put together to bring to the next event.

Piecing it together

I'm going to piece together the samples for Candlemas, so here's my workboard to put it all together. Now all I have to do is trim the edges and sew them together. I'm considering leaving the edges unfinished so that I can add more patterns as I go. It may make the stitching that pieces it all together a bit less uniform that is optimal, but it will let me finish out charting stuff from this tapestry.

More Pouch Progress

Some more pouch progress-

I've seamed up the sides using Machteld's instructions (http://m-silkwork.blogspot.com/2007/04/finishing-seams-of-14th15th-century_29.html) and I really like the results.

Pouch progress

I liked pattern #5 so much that I started a pouch a while back. Life has been a bit hectic lately, but I finally got some more blue and have finished the stitching. I am very pleased with the results. I will try to finish it sometime soon. I've also started stitching my next pattern as well.