Powerful Geekery

I get distracted. A lot. My latest diversion is making and decorating a handkerchief. Part of the reason is that it is simple and makes a great canvas for embellishment. After some looking around, I decided to use a motif from a coif that I screen captured from Christie's website around May 2010. Alas, I did not write the date or provenance to the coif, so I can't tell you more than that. Silly me.

More importantly, I chose to make a handkerchief so that once IRCC is over I can convert it into pretty clothes for my dolls. Power recycling!

Once again this is cut from a piece of my liene, and a portion of the piece I cut from is stained. I carefully sorted through the floss in my stash to determine which of the colors I wanted was best at distracting from the stain. The circles are outlined in stem stitch, and the arrow parts are backstitched highlighted with French knots.

Under Here

I made myself a pair of drawers. Though I doubt this color is terribly period for late 1400 Florence, it's hard to argue with how well black can hide stains.

Construction is quite rectangular. Two rectangles make up each leg, and they join at the top to cover my hips. It's partially pleated and topped with a drawstring waistband, pulled in with a ribbon from my stash. On the bottom are two slips that I embroidered this past winter and spring.

Huzzah

I signed up for the Realm of Venus Costume Contest.(link) I've been wanting to compete for a while, and now the chance has come, or will come April 14th. Do expect a lot of ramblings between now and mid-August, when the construction deadline is.

My goals are three fold: to a) finish my outfit, b) accrue at least 100 points by the scoring system and c) have a new outfit for Comic Con. Fingers crossed.

A Palette Cleanser

To save my wrist from another repetitive strain injury, I'm taking up the slips on days I'm not making Serenity. Right now I'm just doing a long line of chain stitching. It's not the prettiest, but I doubt anyone will be looking so closely. If they are, I think I have reason to scold them for being rude.

... And Geometric All Over

Though I've been distracted by life, doll projects, and my other human sized project, I'm still putting in my effort to the slips. The diamond and French knots are nearly done, so I took another look at Elenora de Toledo's burial stocking to see what other elements I could add. I've settled on the zigzag, which will be above the diamonds on my slip instead of below for space reasons. On this piece, I marked out parallel lines which I will cover with a stem stitch. In time I will place a zigzag design in between.

 

Update on a coif

Note: I first started the draft on this post back in November. The first two paragraphs and the top photo is from then.

I'm still slogging along on the coif. I like how very straightforward the design is. All geometric and not too complicated, but still an eye catching result. I get distracted with other projects, but I can take this anywhere. I worked on it through most of the week of Hurricane Sandy, and stopped only when I ran out of floss. I have restocked, and all is well.

You need to peer closely, but on the upper left corner you can make out some of the back stitching.

By December, I managed to finish the grid and make my eyes sore for a couple of days from staring so much as at the warp and weft. I'm a bit more careful now with my eye muscles. I washed off the grid marker, got blue on the threads because I was too distracted to wash them off, and drew in the diagonal lines. Which I forgot to photograph. My silliness can be annoying.

The diagonals are done in chain stitch, with the lines all pointing up. Between the larger stitches and less lines overall, it only took a few weeks to complete. The blue is now fully washed off, and the coif is ironed and awaiting the next stage. I'll hold off on that for now in favor of my other embroidery project and some other sewing plans.

This Is Good?

I was fully expecting this to be as time consuming, if not moreso than my coif, which is still in the works. Instead, my slips are being up quite fast, and I'm not sure what to do with myself.

The two slips thus far:

 And a detail:

I am in no mood to go back and rip out stitches, even if many of them are on the big side (by my standards, most are four to two threads wide.) My idea for now is to just keep going back and adding to the design, and hopefully this will end up being the leisurely time consuming project I intended it to be.

Something Slightly Different

I marked out and started embroidering one of the slips I planned. The design is inspired by the top pattern on Elenora of Toldeo's burial stockings.

I simplified the design a bit so I would get worked into a tizzy trying to get it just right.

An Exercise in Recycling

This used to be a smock that I made for an outfit I wore to my graduation. I took a page from the Attack Laurel and use some lines of machine stitching to give the idea of embroidery. (See her commentary for her March 2004 photo.) I have no occasion to wear it again , as my persona then was Irish, and my persona now is early Italian Renaissance, so ruffs are right out. I now use this smock as a mine for linen accessories.

The gaps at the bottom are where I cut to make a couple of caps. The first cap I'm not thrilled with and will be taken apart for other projects. the second one is the coif I'm currently embroidering. After I took the top picture, I removed the wrist ruffs and had fun with my seam ripper:

Once I'm done with or tired of working on my coif, I'll embroiderthese strips, most likely to use one day to trim a pair of drawers. As there is at least one article saying that trim and embroidery got recycled between garments, I'm fine with having a separate embroidered trim for a garment. Also, since it will probably be for an undergarment, it's unlikely anyone will see and complain.

Kit Musings

I have gotten it firmly into my head that I want to make a period sewing kit. I know that I can purchase one from Historic Enterprises, but much of the fun for me is in the planning, research and creating. Buying one fully formed from the head of Zeus would be a let down. Fortunately, I have the internet and Larsdatter's page on pictorial evidence of sewing tools.

From that page I learned that needles were kept in little vial shaped cases. This leaves me confused as I have heard of references to needlebooks, mainly from a project listed by the Atlantian Embroiderer's Guild. I think the problem lies in that the description is all text, and a photo or several would help clear things up for me. I believe the project is for a place to put needles into, rather than just a pretty book cover, but I can't tell.

Later, I consulted the Athena's Thimble Embroidery Guild. The consensus was that there was scant evidence of needle books being used in period, but there's an air of plausibility to them. Hence, If I am interested, I should go for it.

What is much more understandable to me is a case for scissors. As you can see here in the detail painting with the yellow skirt, there is a pouch for scissors. It seems like a dreadfully impractical place to hang a vital piece of equipment though, I'd be afraid of the things falling out.

Finally, the pincushion.There is at least one painting involving a soft place in which to shove the pointy things. While I'm not putting this eventual project's documentation on the level of a graduate thesis, I like knowing that there is precedent for what I want to make.

So between the needle book, scissors case and pincushion, I'll have some nice 'broidery projects ahead of me.

Preamble to a coif

I've been looking at The Realm of Venus, its showcase, and its contests for a while. The web mistress has been kind enough to set of some guidelines for her next major costuming challenge that is to begin on April of next year. One of the new rules is that if a piece contains painfully time consuming handwork, such as lace making, weaving large items and so forth, you may begin earlier than the official start, provided that you document it and present the evidence when you register officially.

There is a pretty embroidered coif featured in one of Ghirlandaio's portraits, which I know as "Portrait of a Lady," circa 1480.

I can't make you the details of the pattern, which I am using as an excuse to use any design I please. The edging will be a bit more of a challenge, as I would rather that the final product not be so ostentatious, so no pearl border like some have done. I'll probably do a bit of needle lace or picot trim instead.