Stitching trim

trim-stitch
Originally uploaded by helene83

Here's the first little bit of stitching finished last night. Its in DMC Cotton Perl #5 Ecru. The tunic is linen.

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.

Finished white work

More pictures of stuff that I have been finishing up post dissertation time :) Here is the white work that I took off the frame and started to finish some time ago. It's stitched in Londonderry white linen thread on a white linen background. This style uses many of the same patterns as the silk work that I have been working on, but has a larger geographic area and a longer time period of use. The pattern is a small (4.5 inches x 3.25 inches) notebook cover.

Buttons!

I've been rather busy finishing up my dissertation, but now that all of that business is done I am slowly returning to the joys of life :) I finished, defended sucessfully, and turned in the dissertation - so I will be graduating in August! Hooray! But enough of that, what y'all really come here for is dorky stuff like...

Buttons!

During the big crunch for graduation I haven't done any big projects, but I finished up some smaller, fidgety-type projects. Buttons have been all the rage on the A&S 50 mailing list (Home page) and I got caught up in the madness. They are perfect tiny projects and fun to play with. My biggest inspiration came from the pretty pictures on the Flickr stream for Kat_d_b, who is an Australian SCAdian. I also found some good information and pretty pictures at Guild of Tailors, Haberdashers and Mercers of Lochac and Karl Robinson's Etsy shop.

Here's what happened when I pulled out a couple of skeins of DMC cotton perl #5 and a bag of wooden beads:

They are a nice small project that is easy to put down and pick back up later. They are a bit addictive though...

Gulf Wars!

I had a really fantastic time at Gulf Wars and have posted some pictures on Flickr . I fought in the town battle, the bridge battle, the ravine and the castle battle. I'm still a little amazed that I managed to fight that much :)

Rachel's armor

Rachel got me a quick turn around on her plates. She finished sanding and drilling them and got them back to me before the weekend was over. I've been adding a few plates everyday and today I finished! Hooray! She now has functional torso armor. Next time she comes by I'll size the buckles and then she'll be ready for action.

Her coat of plates is basically the same pattern as mine, sized down just a bit. Check a major item off my to-do list :)

Snow Day

Yesterday was a real snow day in Austin, Texas! As a result, I had the kiddo home and was lounging around with him doing some more stitching on the white work. Alas, now my spools are empty! Its very sad. I am completely out of my nice linen thread. I couldn't even get more, since we were snowed it (well, the Texas version of snowed in).

I fidgeted for a bit and then realized I had enough room on the frame for another piece. I recently took a black work class at Candlemas, so I (rather impulsively) pulled out my class packet and started a small blackwork bit.

The only thing is that I was trying to finish the white work so that I could put a larger piece on my frame for fun during Gulf Wars. Now I have another piece to finish before I can free up the frame. *sigh* I have sabotaged myself by adding another item on my to-do list. On top of that work is going to keep me pretty busy as well. The good news is that its a small piece and it seems to be moving rather quickly. I am going to have to do a run for more linen next time I head that direction for errands.

On the bright side, I had a fun day with the kiddo and got some stitching done when we were all romped out and lounging around. A good streak of stitching always makes me feel better about life, so its nice. I also learned that while the little boy doesn't mind cold at all, he considers snow a nuisance.