I have a little time off for the holidays and my fun project is a heraldic surcoat for a friend of mine. Here are a few teaser photos of the work in progress. The surcoat itself is machine sewn. The cross was appliqued with my sewing machine using a blanket stitch after I ironed down all the edges. The embroidery is by hand using a #12 pearl cotton. The wyvern is going to be all by hand, both applique and embroidery. The term "fiddly" doesn't even begin to describe the displayed wyvern.
I let my little dragon sit on the frame for a short bit and finally added a few finishing touches. They pale yellow I used for the claws and teeth was so light that they didn't show up, so I added a pink outline for contrast. The maroon I used for outline, didn't give the kind of contrast I wanted on his back, so I added some white as highlight. About halfway through the swirls I wished that I'd used the pink, but it was too late. I absolutely hate picking out stitches - especially wool! So, here he is, my ferocious little dragon is all finished up.
Technically, he is done here, but I will probably keep futzing about. I think that the maroon outline looses some of the detail and will need highlights. Also, I may add some detail highlights to the claws, because the yellow is so light that you can hardly see them.
I'm really enjoying this stitch along. Bayeux stitch is one of those things that I've been meaning to do for quite some time. I think the hardest part of this project is staying patient with stitching progress. Fortunately, we had an SCA demo this weekend and I got a nice chunk of time to get some stitching in.
I started my project off by trying a new design transfer method - quilter's mesh. I picked some up recently at a clearance store for very cheap and it seems like a neat option. Here is the mesh and the dragon template I downloaded.
I traced the template using a Sharpie permanent marker and it traced pretty easily.
Here is what the mesh looks like with our cute little dragon drawn on.
I have a nice Micron pen that I use for embroidery, but the tip is small and too stiff to work well with the mesh. The mesh holes have just enough depth to snag the pen tip a little, over and over. Instead I went with the Sharpie felt tip and it worked really well. When you lift the mesh up, you get a nice little dotted line to trace.
Here is the design with all the dots connected and the lines smoothed out a bit. My little dragon is ready for stitching!
Mistress Amata was kind enough to take a picture of my display this year. I brought Giant Sparkly Banner, the populace banners, one of the mouse hats, the German brickwork bag I am working on, and a few sundry fiber arts bits. I also brought my research binders and got some excellent feedback on them. I finished up my new dark blue dress and light blue under dress for the event, which I am wearing in the picture.
I took quite a few photos this year, but my camera is dying so many of them didn't turn out well. I did manage to get some good pictures and they are posted on Flickr in this album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/helene83/sets/72157647188468460/
Sometimes I post pictures to my Flickr feed with all intents to write about them - and then forget. Such is the fate of the brick stitch pouch that I am currently working on, so we will take a quick trip back in time. This project started out as a quick doodle to test out some new fibers that I picked up at the local embroidery store. Having recently played around with some filament silk, I was looking for something that was a cheaper approximation of that pretty high shine and that soft hand. DMC has recently changed their rayon line again, so I pick up some DMC red and green. The Reaissance Designs "Silky" threads were another synthetic option that was just so shiny and soft that I had to get a couple of skeins in blue and yellow.
I started stitching this little doodle using an impromptu brick stitch pattern and was really having fun with it. It just kept getting bigger!
The DMC rayon is in a very familiar skein, that are individually wrapped in a plastic tube. The rayon is very slippery and easily separates into six strands. Each strand barely has any twist at all and reminds me in feel and look of flat silks. I used two strands for the stitching on the 28 count linen, but I think that next time I would use three. The fibers are finicky like silk, so got find your hand lotion and check your cuticles. I love the feel of stitching with this rayon and really, really love it bright shine. I do not like the feeling of starting, finishing, or tying off knots with this thread because it fights back and seems to leave you with the feeling that the second you turn your back it's going to spring out of place. After finishing the stitching however, the piece feels very solid and I don't have anything wiggling out the back. The threads do snag, so you have to be careful with your hands and environment. They can also tire easily, so shorter lengths are better or you get fuzzy parts. Overall, the red and green are beautiful and shiny and soft, and I think they are a good option for that silky look.
The Renaissance Designs "Silky" comes in a lovely twisted skein and also separates out into smaller threads. These threads seem more solid than the DMC threads and were much less likely to fuzz or snag. They had the same springiness that made starting, finishing, and tying threads a bit unnerving. Two strands of the blue and yellow provided really good coverage on the linen, but they seem to have more texture and less shine. Some of the texture comes from the threads having a bit of a twist, so if you are looking for that twist this thread is a good option.
At this point, it was clearly a "Project that Must be Finished" and so I had to figure out what it was going to be. (to be continued)
Here I am modeling the latest in my armor. My leg armor is coming along and is in a wearable state, although it still needs more work to be truly finished. I also have a new helm from Master Max and a new aventail that Sir Ysfael hung for me. After a long hiatus, I am finally back in the fight.
Here are six pairs of little hanger loops ready for the assembly line as I attempt to finish up the populace banners.
Three banners finished stitching with hanger loops attached! I'm currently finishing up the last one and then I will have two full sets of three. Next I need to come up with a hanging pole arrangement that is slightly nicer than the yardstick I had hanging around the sewing area.
I knocked out a quick linen fighting surcoat for a friend. It's another project in my continued theme of reducing the fabric stash.
And last, but not least, I have a preview of my next outfit. The dress and under dress are assembled but still need finishing on the neckline and hem. It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but the dress is dark blue, the under dress is light blue, and the eyelets+lacing are in light green.
I've been busy, but there's not lots of pretty pictures for hemming six banners. I snip, clean off threads, roll the brocade, stitch, and repeat. I am currently hemming banner number five, so there is an end in sight. Well, an end to hemming anyway. I will still need to cut and sew the loops to for the banners to hang from. I've also begun plotting banner stands, so that I can display them. Progress!
Production on these was fairly simplified since I was aiming to actually finish them this year. I wanted a look that would complement Giant Sparkly Banner, but they aren't competition pieces, so bring on the sewing machine and quilter's hacks! The black is a sturdy cotton velvet with a very short pile. It's a very pretty velvet, but it's best feature is that a test swatch passed the ironing test - on high heat. That means I can do all sorts of fun things with it.
First, I fused a tear-away stabilizer to the back of the brocade. The brocade is pretty, but it would never hold up to the abuse I was about to heap out without some help. I cut out the and fused the velvet charges to the brocade using Heat-N-Bond. I wanted something that could pass for hand embroidery at a distance, so skipped the traditional fusible+satin stitch option. My machine has a nice blanket stitch option, so I used a narrow blanket stitch and stitched down the edges for each of the charges.
Any banner that is going to sit next to Giant Sparkly Banner is going to need a little pizazz, so I dug out my left over gold twist. I couched the gold twist around all of the edges by hand, on top of the blanket stitch. The result is nice. The gold twist makes a nice contrast border for the velvet and adds some sparkle, while also covering up any stray machine stitching that wasn't exactly flush with the edge of the charges.
I left the fused stabilizer on the back, which made the stitching for the couching quick work. I didn't need a hoop or frame, since my tension was perfect. The lightweight tear-away stabilizer didn't hamper my the needle work at all. Below you can see the back of the pieces with visible machine work in black and hand work in gold.
Overall, this was a great approach to get maximum bang for my time. I started to feel like the project was dragging, but then realized that there were six of these things! After the embroidery was all finished, I ironed out the pieces, squared them off, and cut the canvas backing. This part was all classic quilter's skills, except I had a stack of brocade, which is less cooperative than quilter's cottons. Again, I found that you can never have too many binder clips and there is always a use for more. After taming the wild brocade and squaring things off I managed to actually hit my target of a width of 12 inches for the banners (although some of my hems will be very small). In another stunning development, when I finally hung them up, the charges are all lined up correctly. I kind of held my breath on that one, because no matter how much you plan and check and re-check you always fear that something weird would happen. Will one be out of vertical alignement? horizontal alignment? upside down? I kind of just stood there and stared for a bit when they turned out just fine. Hooray!
The sequence is from right to left for no reason other than that is the angle that I took the picture.
I've resumed work on upgrading my armor, starting with the legs that I was working on. The pieces had been previously cut and dyed, and then laid on a shelf where they weren't doing much of anything. So, this weekend I decided to make some progress. I punched rivet holes and gave them a nice coat of neatsfoot oil. The oil darkened the green dye a bit, but greatly improved the handling and feel of the leather. In the picture above you can see the legs partially assembled with the knee cops.
I borrowed some beverly shears from a friend of mine and got to work cutting out plates for splinting the thighs. I've mounted the shears using some C-clamps onto a wooden spool that I picked up for $5 from the electric company. The spool is heavy enough to be sturdy, small enough to fit in the back of my micro van, and the round shape makes it relatively easy to move around. This setup worked really well and I got all the plates for the thighs cut out.
And here is what two sets of thigh splints look like after they are pattern drafted, cut, and laid out. I still need to grind the edges, since they are a bit rough in places.
What armor kit would be complete with out some fashionable bling? Ok, it's 14th century fashion, but still - fashionable. I pulled out some thinner black leather and cut dagging strips for my knee cops. The black helped contrast against the green, making it appear less dark. I decided that the contrast needed a bit more zing, so I painted a white border around the edges of the dagging. It looks even nicer than I imagined! As an added benefit the paint sealed the leather on the edges and made the dagging cuts look more tidy.
Giant Sparkly Banner made a trip to Kingdom A&S and to Bryn Gwlad A&S competitions. Above are pictures of it in action. Below is a picture of the banner completed getting ready to go traveling.
My display used two trays: one for materials and one for technique. The materials tray contained my tools including scissors, needles (in the needlebook), and a laying tool. I made skeins with the threads I used in the green, the passing gold, and the gold twist. Finally, I included a sample of the gold twist lucet cord, which I stored on a thread winder.
The second tray displayed the various steps for the embroidery. The two fill patters were embroidered in a series of steps
