I have very much been bitten by the knitting bug. There's something about the colder weather coming in that brings it out. This week saw the completion of two pairs of socks. The first were the Skew socks I mentioned a few weeks ago, and the second were from a pattern called Kiertoradalla, available on ravelry.com.

These socks were delayed by a week after I made a mistake in the instep, and by another step when the kitchener stitch heel join (no one said there would be grafting!) got mucked up. It took me a week to both work up the nerve to correct it and be bugged enough to want to do it.

The top picture shows the mistake I made. The bumps in the centre line of knitting in the picture shouldn't be there. When done right, grafting, or kitchener stitch, is invisible from the lines of knitting around it. Clearly I was not having a good day.

I dislike kitchener stitch. Every knitter has a different mental block and mine is on this stitch technique. Even using the nelkin designs instructions, which are the best I've found, especially with the cute little printable chart, I cannot always get my head around it, as the evidence shows.

The picture on the bottom is the amended stitching. Still not perfect, but it's close enough for now. And they're very comfy socks.  

The Kiertoradalla are also slightly off perfect, though I have to mention, this is most likely my own fault as I started with a needle size bigger than the pattern called for because I didn't want to wait until I could get to a yarn shop. The result is socks that are comfy and warm but a tiny bit loose. I'm hoping some wear will help break them in to my foot shape. Impatience, thy name is Debbie.





In more niddy-noddy news, I picked up some pure turpentine on friday, meaning I could finally get around to making my own beeswax polish. After all, if I'm willing to go to the effort of personalising my niddy-noddy, I may as well go to the effort of a special finish for it too.


A google search turns up dozen of recipes for beeswax polish. I reviewed a few then decided to make mine with 10g of beeswax, which I melted in the microwave, and 25mls of turpentine. I also added 20 drops of neroli to take the edge off the strong turpentine smell. A stronger essential oil would probably have been better, but well, I took what I could from my stash and impatience, thy name...



I made up only a small amount as I don't anticipate needing a lot of this at any one time. I anticipate the wood of the noddy drinking in the first few coats before I'll have a buffable coating. Just as well I'm not actively spinning at the moment.

Another busy week so again, not much done.

Went to a household day yesterday where I was mostly teaching, so didn't get much done myself. I did however get started on a pattern for my partlet which was so successful I've decided I need to drape it instead, and I started sewing a saccoccia, an Italian pocket, for an SCA friend. The picture to the right is of the lining, the outer fabric is the same as that used for my court gown, a burgundy taffeta. I'm hoping the lady in question appreciates the lining I picked out for her.



 

But in good news, my niddy noddy finally tuned up!

For the uninitiated, a niddy noddy is tool used to wind skeins of yarn from bobbins after spinning. I've been looking for it for a while, not being an organised person, as it was the reason I originally bought the wood stain I used to dye my wooden buttons a few posts back.

 

The stain mixture has a shelf life of 4-6 months, so I broke it out again and the above pictures show the noddy before staining and with one coat of stain. Like the buttons, it's likely going to need 2 or 3 coats to bring up the colour nicely, but it'll be very worth it to have a personalised spinning tool.

Nargh. 

I'm about ready to eat this project.

It's not that it's difficult. And it's not that I dislike it particularly. But it's at that arkward stage that every project reaches, where no matter how much work you do on it, it seems to be going nowhere. 

This, in case anyone is wondering, is the second cutwork sleeve from my SCA Italian court gown. I didn't get the embroidery completed for the competition, but I've been slowly working away on it since then, so get it completed for mid-November.

I've tried counting the number of shapes left to finish, but when that number went
over 30 it ceased to be an exercise in
encouragement.

*deep breath*
Time to pick up the needle again.

"You have nothing to be worried about. I'm here to help."

And the plague doctor mask is finished!

It's not perfect, but for my first attempt at leather mask making, I'm quite pleased with it. It fits my face nicely and I think it will lend itself well to being modified for future incarnations.

I've sewn up a simple muslin cone to hold the flowers and spices that will form the very last part of the mask. I've decided on a mix of carnations with cinnamon, cloves, and possibly some nutmeg, but I won't be mixing that up until a day or two before the event, because I want the flowers to be as fresh as possible and the event is still four weeks away.

And now to write up my documentation... ugh, the curse of the blank page....

After a weekend of fun and excitement, learning new sword fighting techniques and the occurrence of injury (not mine and not serious thankfully, though I did have to drive an unfamiliar car on a four hour journey home), I'm finding myself still quite shattered. This has meant that I've made very little project progress, but on the other hand, I've done plenty of research.

The picture on the right is Paolo Caliari's 1560 Portrait of a Woman and was my primary inspiration for my SCA court gown. Well, it start out as inspiration, but somewhere along the way I felt myself drawn to wanting to recreate it. Details like the sleeve cutwork and the necklace and brooch I've already completed, but I still have to teach myself bobbin lace and improve my reticella needle lace to make the cuffs and camica trim.

I plan to submit the gown as a whole as an A&S entry towards the end of November. That will involve completing a few more details and just one more piece - the partlet. It can be hard to see in this portrait, being almost sheer and with the lines of pearls covering the edges, but enlarging the image shows a simple embroidery pattern of stem stitch lines and stitched holes. I've selected some off white chiffon from my stash and have the pattern pieced out in my mind, so now I'll just have to find time to start it.

In longer term research, I've started looking into soap making in the pre 17th century. The first step in this is going to involve making my own lye, and for that I'll need hardwood, preferably apple wood. I've contacted a local fruit supplier to see if I can tickle their interest enough into supplying my needs, but if that fails, a friend has offered to let me ransack his wood stack. One way or the other, this project has a green light.

And in a last minute find of chance, I came across this beauty on the fabulous Anéa Costumes website. When trying to decide on garb for fencing tournaments, I decided on a plain style of Venetian trousers, but I was lost for a doublet idea until I came across a line drawing of a leather jerkin from the late 16th century in Florence in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion v3. Line drawing are all well and good, but seeing the extant examples really adds flesh to the bones. And this picture is the jerkin! I'm delighted to have come across this (even while kicking myself that I didn't think to check Anéa's site sooner).

I had some beautiful fabric put aside for this project, but on seeing this example I'm wondering if I shouldn't make it of leather instead? Or maybe I should make two, one for the fighting, and one for looking fine when entering and leaving the field.

I know now why I was putting off the next step of the plague doctor mask. It was the part that was intimidating me the most - setting the glass lens.

I shaped a piece of leather in the manner of 14th century glasses and soaked it overnight to make it more pliable. I could believe the difference the soaking made, it was so easy to shape the leather around the purchased glass discs. It's just a shame I procrastinated while sewing, meaning the second eye piece, the one on the right, had mostly dried out by the time I sewed it down. The eye pieces I think will need a little more shaping to finish them off, though I'm wary of trimming too much and having the lens fall out of their settings.


So now the mask is mostly done! I'll need to apply straps and buckle to secure the mask around my head, possibly with another across the top of the head for comfort. Plague doctors of the 14th century believed in the strong scents of flowers like roses and carnations, herbs and spices, or even vinegar soaked sponges to keep at bay the miasma or bad air that was believe to cause disease. The nose will need a muslin bag I think, as I don't want to end up with cinammon scented rose petals trapped for all time at the end of the nose.

And now it's time for me to get in a little quick baking, because home baking always makes long car journeys go quicker. Especially when they involve getting up at stupid-o-clock in the morning on a saturday.

Winter is coming. It's time for socks.

Well, ok, it's not quite winter yet, but it has turned into a very soggy autumn. And with the return of the cold weather, my sock knitting mojo has returned. It's very hard to think of lovely thick, warm, woolly socks when the weather is too warm for boots. And in Ireland, that's as warm as it gets most of the time.


The pattern I'm working on is called Skew, published by knitty.com, and my using my very favourite sock yarn, Jitterbug by Collinette. The colours are fabulous and it produces such warm and cosy socks! It may also have been the first sock knitting yarn I used, thus reserving its special place in my affections. The pattern is just starting to get to the interesting part, but thankfully is straight forward enough to still be workable on public transport.



Also, I'm am trying to work through my quite extensive stash these days, with an aim to completing projects without having to buy anything extra. Project one was completed this week, a "sit upon", a simple cable pattern Outdoor Seating made with left over yarn, backed with upcycled oilcloth, as the kids are saying these days. The result is a delightfully fully springy mat, which I can see accompanying me to many an event.