Coat of Plates

This weekend there was an armor open house! Our gracious host helped my friend and I get started on our armor. We are making a coat of plates using plastic barrels. We made significant progress (with lots of help from the expert): plates cut, fabric cut, some fabric sewn, and one beautiful riveted plate.



Its been a very long time since I was in a shop and I was a bit of a klutz *sigh*. I think I was a little nervous and I'm still a little physically unsure after my troubles this summer. I'm starting to get the hang of it though. We have a plan, so hopefully my friend and I will be able to finish the coat of plates relatively soon. It hard to be patient, because putting together an armor kit is slow going. The current kit goal is to get on the field, but then there are so many long term decisions on armor - I have a lot of reading to do.

Pattern #14

Here is the chart and stitched sample for pattern #14. I really, really like this one and can't help but think it would make a very nice trim.




















It stitched up so nicely and the pattern lends itself to a very tidy back. A little more effort on my part and the back could have been even tidier.



















When I finished the trellis, I realized that this pattern would work really well as an Opus Tutonicum / German white work piece. Both techniques share designs and charts, so its legit to use as such. I took a picture of the back to show that it could be a very tidy back for something like napkins or a tablecloth. The stray cross-over threads on the back could very easily have been avoided and then the back would look remarkably like the front. It would prevent any "see through" on a loose weave linen as well.

Gambeson Goodness

My latest project has been trying to get together gear for heavy fighting. I am trying to get stuff together as cheaply and quickly as possible, and then I will upgrade gear to nicer stuff as I am able. Towards that, I have finally finished the gambeson that I started a couple of weeks ago. Its made entirely of stuff from my stash! I had some cotton sheeting left over from another project and a roll of cotton batting in my quilting stash. I even had thread that mostly matched.

I am really happy with how it turned out. Its reversible and I managed to keep the seams from getting too bulky. I used two layers of batting, as recommended by several gambeson how-to's I read online. It was a pain to put together. In trying to minimize seam bulk and make it reversible, I did a crazy series of piecing then quilting then piecing then quilting... it was more like a wrestling match than sewing session. I think it was worth it though - it looks decent and feels very sturdy and padded. I'm really happy that its done in time for fighter practice this week.

Pontification

This has been mentioned on another blog that I follow, but I thought that I'd second the notion. Please enjoy the charts and make pretty stuff with them. I'm putting them out there for people to use and I enjoy the thought that somebody else might enjoy them.

Also, there's probably going to be a little overlap between me and other folks charting the same genre of stitching. That's just fine with me :) Some of it is a delay between charting, stitching, and posting. Some of it is loosing track of who has done what. I'm not going to get my feathers ruffled over it and I hope that others feel the same. I will compile the patterns in a pdf for easy download at some point in the near future, maybe when I hit the 15 mark.

I debate whether patterns are too similar to chart again and have really followed my whimsy on it. Part of it is whether or not I want to use the pattern. I've got some color pictures now and was thinking of stitching some samples from those, so I'm probably going to chart some stuff that is similar just so that it matches what I'm going to put together. The little w's from pattern 13 are very similar to other little w's I've done, but the interlock differently and that piqued my interest. Whimsy...

Pattern #13

Another pattern finished! This one is from a smaller critter of the borders of one of the tapestries in shown in plate 272. I've seen several examples of this pattern, both up and down "w", and in a few of them the direction of the little "w"s vary kind of randomly. So have fun with it, up, down, or mixed.

Pattern #12

I finished out stitching my pile of patterns a while back, so I've been charting more in my free time. Now that I have another pile to do I have switched back into stitching mode, so here's the first of the new batch. I seem to have misplaced my note that tells me which plate this is from, so as soon as I find it in my pile of source images, I will let you know. Sorry about that.

Stitched example:


Chart:

Finished knotwork

I finished my knotwork last week and am finally posting a picture :) I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but its just the right size to be sleeve trim, so maybe I'll make it a companion. I've decided that I really do like the sleekness of silk split stitch. Its just so shiny and pretty.