Wool roses!

I've had this project sketched out for a while and have finally gotten started on it - wool roses! Racaire has been posting beautiful wool work on her blog for a while and it has inspired me to give it a try. It's a definite shift from all that silk that I like to play with.

I used the pattern from Mary Corbet's blog for her silk Tudor rose project. One day I will try the actual goldwork rose from her blog, but for now I'm just using the drawing.

So, this is my progress thus far. I've finished the fill stitches on the rose. I have just started the outline stitches, but didn't get enough work done on that to make an interesting progress picture. I am slowly getting a feel for the wool and am getting to really like it. I don't know why, but I had a mental image of wool as unruly and messy, but it is starting to look really nice. It even has a soft, fuzzy shine to it that is very nice.

Floche doodles

I bought some DMC cotton floche on a trip to the embroidery store and have been meaning to give it a test drive for a while. It is so smooth and soft, and such a nice fiber that I couldn't wait any longer. I pulled a motif from a handy Dover book, "Early Medieval Designs from Britain for Artists and Craftspeople" and started doodling with split stitch. It took me a few rounds to get a good feel for working the fiber, but I really love it. The stitches really work themselves nicely together for a pretty flow with stitch direction. The floche is a small thread though, so I need good lighting to do the split stitch. It's fairly tedious, but it's the kind of tedious that I frequently find relaxing. I took a quick picture of stitch progress on the frame along with the floche skeins.

Largesse for Pennsic Finished!

Ta-da! Finished! There are more progress pics on my Flickr stream, but since I was too lazy to blog them in progress - I will spare you. I put the penny on top for scale, since it's a fairly large pouch. Final materials list:

• wool - gray pouch, blue roundel
• white linen - white crescents and pouch lining
• Kreinik Jap 5 silver thread for couching and tassel tops
• Gutterman silk white sewing thread
• a lace weight white wool yarn for drawstring and tassels

Largesse for Penssic

I thought I'd post some of the progress pics on the little project I'm doing for our gift basket at Pennsic. I've been meaning to try some needle-turn applique, so this is my test project. The background is some blue wool I picked up at Gulf Wars and the crescents are a nice dense weave linen. I used the linen both as the applique and the foundation, since I didn't have any thin white wool. Below is a progress pic of the applique. The linen foundation gave more loft than I thought it would, so the crescents have a nice depth. After the applique was finished, I started with the outlining. The outlining is done in Kreinik Jap 5, couched with silk thread. I like the way they are turning out, though the applique acquired some skew. I starched the foundation linen, but alas, it was a crescent with lots of bias edges, so skew was probably inevitable no matter how well I tacked it down before the applique - lesson learned. The outlining smooths things out quite a bit and adds some forgiveness to the process. The camera doesn't really capture the wool / linen / silver contrast very well, but I am pleased with the look. More progress soon, since I'm on a deadline.

Dark blue pouch for raffle

Bryn Gwlad is doing a raffle next week to help raise funds for the Ansteorra Gulf Wars site. I finally finished the little pouch that I was making to raffle off. The outside is dark blue linen and the lining is a light blue linen. The stitching, tassels, and drawstring are done in white cotton floche (DMC). Here you can see a better look at the seam treatments. I used a technique that shows the lining as decoration.

Reliquery box

Out of the weekend of general craftiness at Casa de Clermont, a plot was hatched by my friends to build this box. I've started work and charted and stitched a sample for the first pattern I decided to get even closer to period practice and stitched this with a flat silk, Soie Oval. I have to say not only is the result very close to close up shots of period pieces, but its gorgeous! For comparison, here is a picture in the same light of sample in similar colors in a spun silk (Rainbow Gallery Splendor) And for fun, here is a nice close up of a period piece from the same time and place: We've started chatting about other construction details and I'm very excited about this project. I will post updated pictures and samples as we make progress. I've got 4 patterns charted so far and I think we will start work on the panels as soon as we order the silk.

More pictures :)

I have finally uploaded some more pictures to Flickr of my recent activities. Mostly I've been working on improving my current armor and making a long term armor plan, so they are pictures of our local armor night. I even managed to get a few good shots of the forge in action. The forge work moves pretty fast, so you take as many pictures as you can and hope that one catches a good moment and isn't blurry. I'll post some more pictures of general progress soon and embroidery updates as well.

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/helene83/sets/72157629890933778/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/helene83/sets/72157629890987552/