An End to Procrastination (Socks)

For a brief, foolish moment there I really though I was going to make it out of 2013 without my annual chest infection. What I got instead was a dose so bad that after arriving on Christmas Eve, I somewhat feel like the holiday has passed me by and all the sewing plans I had with it.

Well, as energy started returning I at least got my procrastination socks finished, I would like to think they're a nice metaphor for the new year, but with the amount of projects I've given myself, I'm already quite worried that I've bitten off more than I can chew.

One project at a time. Tomorrow starts with the next Realm of Venus competition! Really should have made my final decision on my project design by now...

Regency Progress

On the advise of friends who've made these dresses before me, I gave up on attempting to draft the pattern mysself, and am now using patterns from Sense and Sensibility Patterns.

For the dress, I'm using the elegant ladys closet pattern, and will be combining the wrap front with the short sleeves to make an evening look with the gold coloured chiffon I have. If I find something nice in a light cotton, I might do up a day dress too. But the wrap front I hope will allow me to do a little ruching with the chiffon and create some extra texture.

I've also selected the spencer pattern, because passing up the chance to recreate this, as I may have mentioned before, would be a sin. Also, I think I might have developed a little something regarding goldwork.

So far the patterns are printed, laid out and taped together, with Suzie once again reprising her role as faithful paperweight...for a short while at least.The patterns are now cut out in my size (bust sizings seperate from pattern dress sizings? I think these might be my new favourite patterns!), and I just need to find the time to do up a quick mock up before I cut into the good fabric.

Just 11 weeks left to go until the costuming weekend away. Lots of time, right?

Lye Making - Attempt the Second

Things are slowly starting to move again. December and me, we're not getting along very well this year.

But as a silver lining, one of my contacts finally came through, and I've gotten access to a local orchards apple wood cuttings. So far I've collected two car boots and one back seats worth of wood, and discovered that green wood really is difficult to get burning. Given that one of my concerns regarding the last lye attempt was that the wood was too old and dry, I wanted to try and burn this lot at maximum sap. Incidentally, the minimum drying time is approximately 2 days in the boot of the car during "I though this was winter" temperatures, followed by 2 days indoors in a heated home. And even at that the wood was still fighting with me somewhat, and the fire tried going out twice.

But now the grate is cooling, and all the wood has successfully been reduced to fine, whiteish ash. I'll leave it there three days, then scoop it into a bucket to keep. I'm due a few more loads of wood in January when the orchard pruning restarts, and I want to wait until I have as large an amout as possible so I know how many leaching attempts I'll be able to make.

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Well, my procrastination socks are coming along nicely.

No, that's not all I've been doing lately, but what I have been doing has nothing to show for it.

This week has seen my attempts at drafting a regency dress pattern end in frustration. I mean, really, punching myself in the nose as I attempted to adjust the mock up was the last straw. A follow up attempt to make a simple A line skirt also turned out just Not Right. Bah.

So now I'm waiting on printer ink for my finally-decided-to-start-working-again-printer to arrive so I can print out my newly aquired Regency dress epattern, and It Will Work This Time, Damnit. I'm also hoping to pick up an entire car load of apple wood for a second attempt at lye extraction. And possibly some carving if the wood pieces I'm given are large enough.

Until then, I have to keep myself out of trouble. It's not like I don't have plenty to be doing, but let's see what I can get finished off this week.

Medieval Italian Costume

In these modern times, when everything from 50 years old and older is referred to as "costume", it can be awfully difficult to figure out what it was our predecessors wore when they went out partying. As it were. But Medieval Dead III was coming, and I refused to be undone!

Starting with Italian fairy tales, I finally came across a two line reference to creatures called Longana, faun like water spirits, not a million miles away from the Irish legend of Selkies. I could find no more (interwebs, why do you hate me so). I was saved however by Aodh who found further references under the alternate name of the Anguana. It confirmed the half woman-half goat legend and had a further reference to a harvest association, giving me enough to work with.

I ordered a bundle of rye straw from bamboosuppliers.ie, which was almost as tall as I am! Cute kitty doorstop added for scale.

I had plans to teach myself straw braiding and do something very elaborate with the straw, but I ran out of time, so mocked up a simple pair of rams horn and a small sheaf to carry around as part of my costume. On the day, my make up, which really added the finished touches, was done by Fianna, and simple though it was, I thoroughly enjoyed this costume.

Voting was by popular choice, with each person entering in the costume competition having to give a little speech on their entry. Have I mentioned that public speaking terrifies me? In the words of Nessa, I'm getting plenty of practice this year, whether I want it or not! I forgot half of what I'd read up on, but I'm told I communicated enough to show I had researched my topic so yay. One more step towards being brave enough to actually recite something. And last, the winning costume entry. Granted you can't see the make up very well in these pictures, but trust me, it was fabulous. 

 

Jam!

On top of an already busy week (the good kind of busy this week), I got my jam making on. Like baking, I don't eat an awful lot of jam, but I love the process, so I wanted to get it done this weekend to bring along to give to friends at the event this weekend.

The first of the hard frosts came last night, so I picked my dwarf crab apples just in time. The recipe I use involves equal volumes of apple with honey, so it can easily be adapted to any volume of fruit.

To start, I cut the apples in half and added just enough water to cover them. I put the pot onto the boil and after about half an hour, mushed up all the apples to release the juice. I boiled the mush for about another half hour, then strained the pulp though muslin cloth. My yield this year was just under three pints of juice, which is not bad at all!

The easiest way I've found to calculate the amount of honey you need is to empty one pot of honey into the pot, then use that to measure out the apple juice. This mixture doesn't require any additional gelling agent thanks to the naturally occuring pectin in the apples. I've made this in previous, wetter years, and I've ended up having to add commercial pectin, as a little too much has ended up being leached from the fruit. I set the mix to a rolling boil, and just once, about halfway through, skimmed off the skum that was building on the surface. To test the jam, drop a little of the liquid onto a chilled plate. If it has a jelly like consistency after a few seconds, it's ready to jar!

And good golly is it ready? This batch was very ready to set. It was almost turning completely to jelly in the pot by the time I got to the last jar. The tartness of the apples combined with the sharp sweetness of the honey just calls out for a crusty white loaf. Nom.

The jars on the left are the crab apple jelly, and that's the natural colour from the apples. The jars on the right are chilli jam, using Nigella Lawson's recipe, though I failed to get this one to set right this year. Though it too calls out for crusty white loaves... and bacon. Om nom nom.

And I'm back...

I think I'm recovered from the weekend. My first ever formal class went well! I had an uptake of three students in the end, half of the limit I'd set for the class, which meant that I went through my material much faster than I'd expected. Having had time to think about it, there are some points I possibly could have expanded on more, and had more examples available for, but my students all seemed pleased and went away happy, so I really didn't do too badly.

Post class collapse (will that ever not happen? I just need more experience, right?) meant that I only fit in two others classes - Public Speaking for the Terrified by Salvino in the hopes that one day I'll actually be able to recite a tale at an event. The second class was Fingerloop Braiding by Mistress Johanna aff Hucka. I was delighted to get in this class as I'd been starting to look at examples online, but just couldn't figure it out - it was just one of those things I needed to see in person.

In the mean time, I've a black kirtle to make and a new skill to learn in the next week and a half for the next event, so of course I've started a new knitting project.  The pattern is a german one called Nanette, cuff down. I much prefer toe up, so I've translated the chart, and am just getting along with that. Woo, procrastination!

New shinies

Alas, the class notes are still absorbing all of my time and with less than a week to go, I'm going to have to just hope that my first draft will be the master draft. But maybe I'll get a chance to teach this class in the future, and I'll be able to add in suggestions made at the first class.

That said, I took time out yesterday for my annual trip to the Knitting and Stitching show. I went with a list, most of which I managed to pick up, and walked away with no Oliver Twists silk tops this year (having 8 and no spinning wheel yet means this is probably a good thing.. or that I've exhausted their colour selection for the moment), and an unexpected new shiny.

 

Is she not beautiful? Proper, heavy, angled sheers. The gent at the stall was the nicest person, cheerful and chatty, believed in his product, and took it in good humour while I went through every sissors in the box, shreading the sample fabric he had out in order to find mine. I can't wait to use her.

Classes and Cakes

With Kingdom University only two weeks away, I'm up to my eyes at the moment, trying to get my class notes written. This will only be the second class I've given (the first was only taken up by my householders, so the panic level was considerably less), so I'm a bit nervous. A lot nervous. Hold me.

This means of course that I'm not getting much else done. My in-progress black linen kirtle keeps making neglected noises in my direction, gently reminding me it needs to be finished for only two weeks after Kingdom Uni. That and the rest of my costume.

No, I don't like this concept of "free time", why do you ask?


But I have been baking.

These are a simple chocolate maderia cake recipe, with some grated chocolate I had left over thrown in, along with some fresh raspberries, divided into bun cases and baked for about 20 minutes.

They're lovely and moist and kind of falling apart with the juice from the raspberries. They'll likely firm up a bit more overnight, but the tartness
of the raspberries just goes beautifully with the chocolate cake.


Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with a photo editing programme and a good deal of crumbs.

Barnyard Kitties finished!

I have a very strict rule when it comes to cross-stitch; I can only work at one at a time. Any other craft I'll have multiple projects on the go, but not cross-stitch. I just won't get them done otherwise.

 

My latest finished project took forever to do, partially because working on black cloth was not even half as much fun as I imagined, not was the all brown colour palate. I got the cross stitch finished some time ago, but kept putting off the back stitch and couching work. But now it's complete! And it looks fabulous. And I've already started something with more colour and on a lighter fabric. 

Tudor Shirt progress

There has been sewing! Alas, a tudor shirt at this stage of construction doesn't look like much, especially considering I forgot to turn it right way round before taking any pictures *ahem*

So to make sense of it all, so far the sleeves have been attached to the body of the shirt, complete with underarm gussets. I've been hand sewing this, backstitch for the seams and then flat felled using this nifty tutorial. I admit, the tutorial confused me a little the first time I tried it, but on the second sleeve I sailed through.

The other thing I discovered while making this shirt is that cotton thread is... rather annoying to work with. It knots at the slightest opportunity, and when working with something as delicate as cotton voile, you can't afford to be too rough. So I came up with the idea of tensioning the fabric while I sewed. This started out as stretching the section I was sewing over my first finger fingernail, but this was giving me quite a small area to work on, so I obtained a piece of leathr from a friend, and supporting this over that same finger, I had myself a much larger sewing area.

It worked *beautifully*. I had been concerned that it would be unwieldy, would be to unbalanced or just plain wouldn't work at all, but it worked so well I had all of the straight seams done in very short order! This little offcut is shortly going to become a staple of my sewing box. 

And so I finish off my post with a picture of the extremely rare, Well Behaved Sewing Supplies Support Suzie.

Blackwork embroidery research

I've been looking into blackwork lately, specifically the later period, freeform style, with a view to completing some as a sampler. I'll admit, when I first starting looking, freeform blackwork looked to me like a confusion of random shapes, but closer inspection, particularly of this cushion cover made from a woman's dress in the late 16th century, reveals a repeating pattern[1] of well known flowers that the those of the Tudor era would have been fond of. 

Row 1 top: Pansy

Row 1 bottom: Lily

Row 2 top: Daffodil

Row 2 bottom: Pomegranate

Row 3 top: Tudor Rose

Row 3 bottom: Carnation

These are my best guesses at what the flowers represent. Some of these, such as the rose and pomegranate are so often used they're easier to discern. 

Órlaith is dying some silk embroidery thread for me, in some of my favourite colours (namely purple, yes), and some day I'll have to pin her down to teach me how to dye things myself. I aquired some nice white linen recently, and though I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but I'm going to have to do a sampler. I need to see how well I can actually do blackwork, given that it's a new skill, but I want to test the colourfastness of the dye for some other projects I have in mind.

[1] Just stop and think about that for a moment. A repeating pattern. Long before sewing machines were invented, embroidery of this nature was fully done by hand, with just a few vaiations in the filling stitches. Craftsperson of ages past, I tip my hat to you.

18th Century Stays Pattern

I've finally made a start on my planned 18th century wardrobe, and I've made that start by cheating, but only a little. As I want to make both a court gown and a polonaise, I've deicded to make just one set of stays for both dresses, and as much as I can, just one set of underthings for both outfits. The pattern I've choosen is the set of 1880's stays in Corsets and Crinolines. I've previously sized up and used the 1870's pattern, so I'm use the same technique to create this pattern.


The very first thing you'll need if your reference measurement, that is, a measurement on your body that relates to a place on the pattern that is going to be the basis for the rest of your calculations. Yes, there's maths involved in this, I apologise. For my refence measurement, I measured from the top of my lap to the line on my bust where the stays woul sit; for me this was 30cm, and this corresponded to the book printed centre front measurement of 7.8cm.











Though I took the measurement from my front, my own back being harder to measure by myself, I used the centre back patter piece to demonstate the principle of this form of pattern enlargement.
Having copied the pattern from the book onto parchment, I chose the bottom left hand corner of the pattern piece as my focus point.

I measured the centre back line as 9.8cm, and now simple cross multiplication with my starting reference measurements tells me that this needs to become 37.6cm. The rest of the sizing follows suit - pick a point on the pattern and draw a line through it and the focus point. Use cross multiplication to find out how large it needs to become, mark it off, and continue to the next point.

Thankfully, the back is rather simple, so I needed relatively few points to obtain the shape. The front pattern became a tangle of refernence lines very quickly, which was the reason I didn't use it for demonstration purposes.









If you use a pattern piece that, inconsiderately, doesn't have a nice simple line to the bottom, line this side piece here, just select the next best thing, for me, this was the lower most point on the pattern, as this still allows reference lines to be drawn neatly through all of the points on the pattern.








And is this the finished pattern? Well no, there's still work to be done. Yes, I've adjusted it so top to bottom, this pattern will fit me. But over the centuries, on average, women have been getting taller and broader, and given I am more voluptious again that the average, I'll have to broaden these pieces significantly to obtain the ideal shaping I'll need for the start of my 18th century silhouette.

Sekret plans

Plans are afoot. Plans are always afoot, but these ones I'm not allowed to talk about till February.

I can say that it involved the picture above. I've been trying to pick a fabric to match the mask above, knowing that an exact match was not really likely. So I've settled on the silk dupinoni Gilded Violet, from Silk Baron, and I think the gold ties in with the mask embellishments and the purple is very me.

The part I am allowed to mention is that this is going to form the bones of my Realm of Venus comstume entry for next year, so now I've picked my colour, I'm going to start assembling my materials to have them ready. 

Jeans Skirt II

I'm trying to get my floordrobe sorted at the moment, and discovered that I have *ahem* quite the little horde of partially worn out cord jeans, waiting for the "I'll fix them later" moment to arrive. Sure, I could modify them like I did last time, but the ideal of making a variety of skirts is much more appealing.

For this skirt, I selected three pairs of cords in shade of brown, and started by cutting open the inner seam completely.  I'd already measured by waist (and my hips to make sure nothing ended up too tight) I flattened out the cut trousers, and marked out one sixth of this size on the waistband of the cords, and cut this mark down to the furthest point of the leg cuff, so I'd get a good, broad piece of fabric.

I'd planned to use all six pieces, but must have been too generous in my cutting as all six pieces together were too generous for my own curves. Where pockets would sit on the back of the skirt, I sewed up the edges, and on all panel, I removed the back pocket panel.

If I'd been more organised, or stopped to do this whole skirt more carefully, though that wasn't the intention at all here, I would have planned the skirt closure more carefully. As it was, I cobbled one of the jeans zips into the panel of the same colour. It's not perfect, but it works.

And voila, the finished skirt! I've already dubbed it the Chocolate Skirt in my own mind. With three jeans worth of fabric, it is delightfully heavy, and is whispering quietly to me of talk of petticoats.

Regency Dress plans

I am, nominally, trying to cut down on my fabric purchases these days. Or at least, using up or giving away some of what's been sitting there some time. So, of course, this was at the top of my mind when I went to the shops the other day to get thread, just thread, all I need is thread.Until the treacherous part of my mind suggested I should trying the evening wear fabrics section, just in case I spotted something... 

 So, almost 6 metres of 60" wide chiffon later, I bought the thread I needed. In my defense, it was reduced to only €5 per metre. And even if the label on the bolt said "coffee", seen by the light of the camera flash, it's really living in denial of being an old gold colour. Which is excellent, because I'll be able to tie the style I want, a simple dress with a contrast lining and the chiffon as a loose overlay, to the Spenser jacket I've already fallen for pictured here.

And now I have a deadline to sew for! I'll need to get an awful lof of these costumes done by the end of March next year for a very special weekend.

Getting back to it

Sometimes, you just need to give yourself a mental kick to get things going again. Sometimes, that even works. Thankfully, tonight was one of those sometimes.

I've had trouble getting my discipline on the last week or so, so today, I re-jigged my schedule and set my determination to be sure I'd get things done this evening. So far this has included putting my hair into one of my favourite hair masks (pampering is important too) taking pictures of some recently finished items, and even better, starting on the next project!

Firstly, I got my first Victorian hat finished. I became very happy with the glue gun on this one, so there's very little sewing involved. I used a single layer of buckram and just one round of millinary wire, which I think may have been too light for the velvet I used, so the edges don't curl up quite as much as I'd like. 

The trims I'm not entirely happy with either. There's just something missing, but I don't know what. I figure when I see the trim in a shop, I'll know. But until then, this is my first Victorian style hat, and I shall wear it with pride. Though given I missed the Victorian Field day (stupid sinuses), I'm not yet sure when that will be.



But while I wasn't doing much, I wasn't completely idle. My hands are allergic to idleness I believe. So I knit. Something easy, fast, with a simple pattern. And that was Clapotis from knitty.com. And given the sudden, yet seasonally appropriate change in the weather, as well as the corresponding seasonal breakage of the workplace air conditioning, I'm glad to have it done.

And last, but very much not the least; the most important project on my list.

You see, the green fabric I used in my recently completed Florentine dress didn't come from a shop. It was given to me by a friend looking for an exchange, and became the incentive I needed to enter the Realm of Venus costume competition. In exchange, this friend asked for a Tudor style shirt. She picked out a cotton voile for it to be made up in, and I'm planning a little surprise in the making of it that I hope she'll be happy with. Ok, sure, there's nothing much to show yet, but at least I have something to work on for A&S tomorrow.              

IRCC 3 - The Results

The results of the third annual Realm of Venus costume competition were announced and, well, I won second place! This was so much better than I was expecting. IRCC3 was the first competition where competitors were offered the opportunity to begin work on intricate items before the competition proper started. I didn't avail of this as I only decided to enter the competition quite late in the preparation process.I was sure that losing out on that time meant that I'd already lost too many points to place. But no, I won silver.

I'm finding myself very inspired by this. I want to work that much harder the next time. My dress is based on the fashions on 1560's Florence, but next time I'll do more research, more documentable research, so I can feel happy about submitting my costume as a full A&S project.

The Fourth Annual Italian Renaissance Costuming Challenge, once again allowing extensive handwork to start immediately, has been announced. And this one I already know what I'm going to be making.

Victorian headwear

Little sleep and nightmares do not lead to productive crafting. Even less so when you read the instructions 5 times and they still make no sense.

I'm working on making a couple of Victorian hats at the moment, using Lynn Mc Masters 1870-80's Bustle Hat Pattern. I'm following View C to make a red velvet coloured hat to match my pre-existing Victorian costume, and I've plans to follow this hat up with a second, steel grey coloured hat in View D to match the pinstriped fabric outfit I have planned, though it has't gotten past the planning stages yet. 
 

So far, I've been cutting and gluing, with a little sewing on the side, as per the instructions. I'm tempted too to make the next hat entirely hand sewn, presuming this to be a more period construction method, and also as a compare-and-contrast of the two styles of hat manufacture. 

If the lack of sleep continues, there's probably going to be another two weeks worth of sewing in this one hat alone. But that will, at least, give me plenty of time to decide on how I'm going to arrange and decorate the hat with all the trims I've bought. Bases on the fashion plates I've been browsing, the headwear embellishments were anything but subtle. 

Back to sewing

After completing the last big project, I was desperate to cut my teeth on something quick and dirty to get back into the swing on things machine sewn. So when I came across a lovely green and peacock feather patterned fabric while out shopping with Gytha, I knew just what to do with it.

As I imagine with many people, when my jeans fail, they rip on the inner thigh, not the worlds most repairable juncture. So when my latest pair of black jeans split, I decided to do something with them instead of just consigning them to the bin.

I was lucky with the build of these jeans that I was able to slice off the legs just above the crutch seam, giving me a straight seam to work with on the hip pieces. The fabric that I bought was 150cm wide and 2 metres long, so I sewed the cut edges together with a french seam to give myself a good wide skirt.

I wanted to avoid bulk at the join of the fabrics, so I decided to pleat the fabric. Sometimes, joining the width of the skirt to the much (but not all that much) narrower width of the hip band can be an exercise in drowning in fabric. You can get around this by pinning the fabric down at the points of the compass first. That is, I lined up the seam of the skirt to the back seam of the jeans. Then, I found the half way point of the fabric and pinned that to the front seam. I repeated again for the side seams and it leaves the fabric more evenly divided and much easier to pin in the pleats.

When the skirt piece was sewn on, I folded the seam back up against the denim and sewed it down again to give it a little more strength; hems, they were made for me to step on.

And I have a finished skirt, in a little under an hour. And even better, it has pockets! Skirtage that still allows me to carry my keys and wallet without the need for a ruddy handbag. Suzie approves too, and that's very important.

Victorian Accessories

My time is not my own this week, so while I'm straining to get to sewing on my machine, I'm having to bide my time. Which means in lieu of anything more exciting like an actual project, I can only share with you my plans for the coming months.

 

The second of my upcoming costuming challenges is Trystan's Costume Closet Accessorizing Head-to-Toe Challenge, which I'm going to use to make a series of Victorian accessories. I've shared pictures recently of my completed Victorian evening dress, and I've plans to make a bustle era walking dress shortly. While I have purchased a fan and parasol, there's other pieces, like the very important head coverings, that the outfit just won't look right without. And I'm a sucker for a sew-along. Knowing there's other people doing the same as you, that you can ask for help or advise, or just share pictures, especially when maps don't matter, I just love it.

IRCC3 Final entry - a review

The Italian Renaissance Costuming Competition finalists are even now being updated on the Realm of Venus website, with my own being one of the first up! My own entry can be seen here, and now that's it's over, and I have a little more time, I'm looking at it with a critical eye to think of how I could improve things for next time, though overall, I am happy with my costume. Plus, this is a nice excuse for a photo dump post :)

One of my biggest worries with this gown, especially as I was making up my own linen cardboard, so that it would wind up too stiff too be comfortable, or would chafe in all the wrong places. I have never been more delighted to be wrong. Sure, if doesn't fit in the way my regular day clothes fit, so it will take a little getting used to, but as the cardboard warms to my body, I anticipate it becoming even more comfortable. I couldn't get the lacing to come all the way closed for the photos, as the style should, so I'll have to see if another lacing strip is required, or if it will close further as the fit improves.

The hem of the veste gave me no end of trouble. I wanted to take it up enough that it wouldn't drag, as this is intended to be my "outdoors" garb, but it decided to fight back. After four different pinings I settled on a length and sewed a tuck into the skirt. This has the added advantage that when the end eventually does become too muddy to save, I can let down the tuck to form a new hem. It's just a shame I didn't remember to check and tuck the underskirt too, so that's one more sewing job I'm left with.

For the bag, I leaned heavily on the experience and details provided in this blog entry, on Bettina's pages. I adored the example she made, and would have loved to have had my bag a little more trimmed or adorned, but that's something I can work on as time goes on. As it is, the leather I choose for the bag is that of my personal device, and I'm tempted instead to decorate the bag with some embroidery pertinent to that. But we'll see how that goes.

This was my first attempt at an Italian style hat, so I shouldn't be too hard on myself. It fits, and it's unlikely to come off except in the stiffest of breezes, but it bothers me a little that the brim isn't lying as flat as it could. I think it's mostly a seam allowance issue, and I'll have to take care to cut out the brim pattern a little wider next time.

The Zimarra.. no, I wouldn't change anything about it, I love it so. I just couldn't resist the chance to show it off again.

That's all I'd change though, just a few minor adjustments, so I think I've learned a lot this year about my time management, so maybe I'll get away with my ambitious ideas for next years competition...