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.

Finished Tunics

For those of you following the saga of Rachel's lily tunic - it is finally finished! Hooray! She came over and re-drew some of the detailing on the sleeve joins and the curly-q's at the end of the bottom panels better to her liking, and I finished it a couple of nights ago. I really like her improvements - I had her re-draw them because I didn't like my free hand work (its really not my strong suite). You can still see some of the extra markings since I haven't washed it yet.

Today I also have a Bonus Tunic! That's right - two tunics for the price of one post! My 2 1/2 year old son came with me to Kingdom Arts and Sciences and so I made him his own little tunic. Its about a size 4T, so its pretty small. My verdict on children's clothes is that they usually go faster and are a bit easier to sew, until you get to the neck and arms, which are tiny! I had to poke the eyelets in with an awl while I was in a hurry for the lacing to work, so I will try to stitch those up nicely before he wears it again. I meant to get a picture of him in it in action, but I totally forgot! Perhaps next time :)

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.

General Update

Greetings intrepid followers! I had all intentions of making a fabulous post, complete with pretty pictures, but I seem to have left my camera in Rachel's car. So sorry. Instead, here's a more general state of the stitchery:

• Queen's gloves - I was asked to make the Queen's gloves this reign(!) and that is largely what has been occupying my time. More recently, I was also asked to do the King's gloves as well(!), so I will be busy for a couple of months. Both are being done in the German brick stitch with gold outlining. I'm pleased with the progress so far, and there will be pictures to come...
  
• Rachel's tunic - Rachel's tunic is almost finished! Hopefully I will finish it sometime soon so that she can actually wear it to an event :)
  
• St. Martin's Panel - The St. Martin's panel has taken back seat to the recent flurry of activity, so I'm afraid it is getting delayed a year for Kingdom A&S. I had good momentum this Fall, but November was kind of a crazy month and then the holidays really side tracked me. The extra time does mean that I won't be rushed on anything, which is really nice.
  

Also, I finally got a cheap little lap stand for my scroll frame and I must say that I *love* it. It makes stitching feel much less like a juggling act. The only downside is that now I'm eye-balling all kinds of expensive stands now. *laugh*

Progress on Rachel's lily tunic

I've made some good progress on Rachel's lily tunic. I'm hoping to finish it by Yule so that she can wear it to the event. All I have left is the border stitching, so I think I'll make the deadline :)

More progress on St Martin

Here's a bit more of the progress on my tapestry panel. I haven't done much the last few weeks, but I got a nice bit done earlier.

Some more stitching progress

Here's some more stitching progress. My stitching queue has been filled up now and I'm trying to work out how to juggle it. I still have the tunic to finish and now I'm designing gloves. I also realized that I forgot to do some follow-up from folks I met at Laurel's Prize, so I'm going to try to get that taken care of this weekend. Additionally, I have some armor repairs that I really need to do. Its harder to find shop time than stitching time - so I'll have to work at finding a way to that. Busy, busy, busy!