Two Recently Finished Outfits

I have been working the past year on developing an SCA persona. For the non-SCA people out there, I have been developing a character for those crazy medieval reinactments I do. This means, at this point, picking a time period I like and choosing a name appropriate to the time and place as well as starting to construct a wardrobe. Up until this point, I have been trying out outfits from all different areas of SCA time frame. I have tried a Greek Peplos (early period), Norse apron dresses (also early period) which come in and out of Vogue in the SCA, Basic T-Tunics, generic gowns, Italian Renaissance (yay! late period), Tudor and Gothic.

Gothic, for me, has the best clothes, the best art, best architecture, and cool history, so I decided to go with that.

I have finally chosen and submitted a name. And in all fairness, I have had the name picked out for a year, I just hadn't sent in the forms. My old name had been something I chose on a whim which stuck - Hildegarde - and had used for 4 years, but I honestly didn't think it was me. And since I want my persona to be English, also doesn't work. I went with a pretty name from one of the name books (I think it opened to the page randomly) - Idonia - and then chose one of my family names as a last name - Sherwood. Sounds like it will pass the submition process, and then it shall be mine forever.

I have been working on fleshing out my SCA wardrobe with gothic fitted gowns which my housemate D has been helping me fit. I now have two, and have plans for a third for 12th night this coming winter. Here are two very silly pictures of my new dress (finally finished all the seams, eyelets and hem!) and a bucket. Awesome bucket for taking to events.


Details: 3 yards medium weight Linen (purchased from Fabric store.com) in red, and three in white for the lining.
This is a front laced dress with eyelets spaced 2 cm apart. The hem is not all the way to the ground as this dress is for tourney wear, and I dont want the skirt dragging through the mud and grass. This is a short sleeved version for now, but the short sleeve is based on peasant dress in Les Tres Riches Heures de Duke de Berry.

I have also taken a detour into later period with my Tudor gown. And now I have fallen in love with the so called "Jabobean Jackets." My friend Karis is a bad influence. Here is my latest from the back. The cap is one Karis made, patterned from Tudor Tailor, but it is too small for her, so I can wear it.

Knitted Coaster Pattern

This Christmas I had a quick, easy idea for Christmas presents. Something everybody needs. Something small and good for giving to the people in my life who I want to give something hand made to, but not something super time intensive. My solution was felted coasters with needle felted designs. And since coasters are entirely too easy to loose, I decided to make them in as bright colors as I could manage.

There were many test runs with this pattern, I think I knitted it 3 or 4 times before I came up with a pattern I am happy with. The end result fits most cups/mugs and has an attractive raised rim around the edge.

Since then, a few people have asked for the pattern. This is a fairly easy make, but I haven't found this patterns out there in exactly this permutation, so here it is.

Edit: I have gone back and added an option for a larger coaster, as some people felt (no pun there!) they were smallish.

Knitted Coaster Sets

By the Sinister Spinster

Materials:

1. Lamb's Pride Worsted from Brown Sheep Co. (one skein will make about 6 individual coasters, this works great with left overs since it doesn't take very much yarn)
2. US 10.5 double pointed needles (If you want you can do this on 2 circs or magic loop, but it does start from the center)

Finished Size Felted - 4 (5)" in diameter

With double pointed needles cast on 8 stitches and divide onto 4 needles. You will have two stitches on each needle. Join in the round and knit first rows as follows:

Row 1: KFB (Knit into the front and back of the stitch), mark as begining of the round and KFB to the end of the round.
Row 2 (and all even rounds): Knit around
Row 3: *KFB, k1* repeat around
Row 5: *KFB, k2* repeat around
Row 7: *KFB, k3*
Row 9: *KFB, k4*
Row 11: *KFB, k5*
Optional Row for a larger coaster:
Row 13: *KFB, k6*

Row 13 (15 for larger size): Join a second strand of yarn as the bind off is worked with two strands. P2tog, *take this stitch and place it back on the left hand needle and p2tog with next stitch* Repeat until all stitches have been bound off.

Weave in your ends, using the center end to close up the hole and then make a bunch more.

Felt in your washer on hot (felt a bunch at the same time to save energy and water please, also felting them in a zipper bag or drawstring bag will help keep fuzzies from harming your dryer). One cycle is usually enough to felt the coasters enough. Take them out and lay flat to dry. The coasters usually come out a little wonky from the washer, but when you lay them to dry, stretch them a little bit all the way around, and that will help them lay flat and be nice and circular.

Be warned, different yarns felt differently and at different rates if you use a different yarn. If you do use a different yarn, felt one first to make sure you are happy with the size (as the pattern is easy to make smaller or bigger if needed).

Final note on finishing: Needle felting is a great way to personalize these and you can use the left overs from other coasters to make designs on these.

Shiny

At Midwinters last month, I got this new pretty:



In other news, this means that I finally have a camera charger. I am sure that now I will find my old one. It is inevitable.

The pretty is a "Fern and Quill" which is an arts award. Yay. I now have a pretty. This is my first award in the SCA, so I am pretty excited. Notice that it was signed in September last year...that was an event I was not able to attend sadly, so this pretty thing had been waiting to go home with me all that time.

Court was fun because I got to go up twice (and under two different names even!). Once for the Fern and Quill and the second time as A & S Champion. Now I just have to find pictures...

In other news, I have a new pattern that is up for sale in the knit shop for fingerless gloves

Willow

Materials: 1 skein Willow Tweed by Louisa Harding (DK weight) and size US 5s

Saga of the camera charger part deux

....sigh....

Tuesday: Not surprisingly, the camera charger I wanted was out of stock, and is apparently back ordered from the company. I got a call at 7:30 this morning (I was planning on sleeping till 8) to tell me this and to offer to let me buy the newer charger at a discount. The newer, more expensive charger. Which charges my camera faster...I just want my old charger back.

Well, its ordered. So hopefully this one will ship and will work. I'm not holding my breath. Hopefully I wont have to buy a new battery to go with this new charger cause my old one is outdated or something. Grrrrr.

Coming soon: My week in review, or how my basement flooded, also to be known as why we need a new water heater.

Saga of the Camera Charger

So, at some point this autumn I misplaced my camera charger. I looked and looked and cleaned and cleaned, and I finally managed to find the cord to the charger. Now, as this charger requires a little black box to actually place my battery in, the cord alone does me no good.

"It will be fine," I told myself. It will turn up while you are cleaning someday. So I cleaned some more, and looked some more, and I have come to the conclusion that either my fabric, or my yarn, ate it.

The last straw was Midwinters last weekend (a local SCA event) that I went to. Surprisingly, I won A & S champion for the barony and also received a feather and quill. Yay! A great event, and I wore my new Jacobean jacket and cartridge pleated skirt. I, by the way, received several compliments on my new outfit (as well as the critique that I wasn't wearing a hat or coif). At the end I regreted that I did not have my camera (as I have run the batteries down since loosing said charger).

So, I came home and decided I would go find/buy myself a new charger to replace the old one. I have a beautiful camera and I want to use it!

Wednesday: I went to Office Max as it is close to my work and I know they carry Olympus cameras (mine is an Olympus FE 280). Unfortunately they don't really carry the chargers seperately. And well I understand that, it was slightly disapointing. They didn't really even have a universal charger that would work. Which is what I was hoping for.

Thursday: Thursday I helped Karis set up her new sewing room. We went out to Lowe's and bought shelving then went to Malwort to pick up printer cartridges. While there I decided to check out the camera chargers and they had a bunch. I found one that looked promising as a universal charger that stated on the label that it worked for Olympus cameras and had a million different attachments. $40 I walked out of the store happy in the knowledge that my camera would now work.

After helping Karis set up her sewing room, I returned home and immediately tore open the package (does anyone else hate plastic packaging that requires a hacksaw to open?) and all the little bits fell out. But that was okay, it was going to work and everything would be okay, right? I found the plug bit that fit my camera and realized that although it fit, that was a data transfer cable. The package included data transfer cables as a "bonus" inside the package. So I looked at the bits that actually worked with the charger. No luck, not a single one of them actually fit in my camera.

Are they serious? They included a data transfer cable as an extra in this package, but not a battery charger for my camera?

Turns out my camera was not on the included list (hidden deep inside this stupid thing I will have you know) and you have to have them send you an appropriate plug thing. Grrrrrrrrrrr. D was nice enough at this point to tell me "It's okay, you can return that," and to put all the little stupid bits back in the packaging. Needless to say that went straight back from whence it had come.

Friday: I called Dot Dotson's camera place and they said "no" and told me to check with Batteries Plus in Coburg. I called them and was told they had a universal for $38 that would work with my camera. When I explained my worry that my camera apparently is not "universal" the nice man on the phone said that I could try it out in the store before I bought it.

Sunday: Today I looked on the internet before heading out to Batteries Plus and found my original charger for $21 and not some universal that will not like me. So I ordered that and have my fingers crossed that they will not steal my identity or send me something not what I want at all and then refuse to take it back.

The moral of the story being: Do not loose your camera charger, and clean your room more often.

A review of the year

Last year had its ups and downs. I knitted a large amount of the year, but I did not make nearly as many sweaters as last year (probably a good idea for my hands and wrists).

New Year's Resolutions:

1. Find new job (as a subitem of said list: work on Resume)
2. Eat healthy and cook more
3. Make a pretty GFD for 12th night next year (I just ordered the lining)
4. Read more edifying material than my usual silly Sci-Fi

As a part of my year in review, I thought I would post pictures highlighting my year:





The pictures are:

1. My first GFD with l putting on my hem at Egil's
2. My Tudor gown I made for 12th Night in January '09
3. A shrug I made for my cousin A (she can still wear it, yay!)
4. A and I at a Regency Ball in my 1st attempt at a Regency costume
5. My first SCA knitted pouch based on designs from Rutt's History of Handknitting
6. My second SCA pouch made for the Baroness of Adiantum featuring my own chart (based off of a cross stitch chart) of a bicranial bear
   
7. Koolhas by Jared Flood made in Malabrigo Worsted (made in January '09 I think)
8. Me'n Dad in Maine at the 2009 family reunion
9. My 3rd SCA pouch made for Brenda in LA as a thank you.
10. Spinning on the train (at the train station rather) on the way to LA. Hint *If you spin on the train, no one sits next to you...it worked out great.
    

New Hat

Happy New Year to all! In celebration of no longer knitting Christmas presents, I have been designing a couple of hat patterns for the shop where I work. I was inspired by the currently all popular "slouch hat," which several people have come in recently looking for patterns for. As my hair is getting longer, and I am sick of not being able to wear a hat because my hair is up, I decided to make a pattern for myself. The result is my arrow head lace hat. It has too be lace, because, quite honestly, stockinette is too darn boring to bother with. I am quite happy with the results, and the pattern is now available at the knit shop. I am also working on a smaller size now, because this one is a little large on me (I have a small head).


Materials: 2 skeins Rowan Felted Tweed DK
Needles: 16" US 4s and 5s and US 5dpns

Mom was kind enough to take pictures for me, and they turned out really well. As a bonus, I also got pictures of two sweaters I made a year ago and have no pictures of:

The first is the Katherine Hepburn Cardigan from Lace Style out of Tiur from Dalegarn, the second is "Honey" from Elspeth Lavold's patterns made in the Kashmir DK from Louisa Harding. Both were made about a year ago.

Brain Freeze

Look at all the pretty colours. I looked in my fabric stash yesterday and realized just how much of my fabric is in gold/red/blue. Poor me. So sad. Now I just need to finish all my current projects so I can move on to other things.

I was working on garb for the current Prince and Princess of Summits (do not ask me to spell their names). I made a light green linen undertunic, Persian. No, not the cat, the culture. Good experience, it was fun learning a new construction technique for the gown. I did have to finish all of the seams by hand, so it took a little while to do. Then, at the last minute, it was decided to add buttons...but that was okay. Alas, I did not get a photo...

In other news, it is almost Christmas and I am getting close to finished with Christmas presents, still have socks to make for Dad, clogs to make for R and other assorted brick-a-brack.

All is well on this front, I will survive the Christmas madness.

D is making chex-mix tonight, so I must go and smell the heavenly odors as they waft through the house.

14th Century Cap/Coif

Update 11/21/13: I have completed a new tutorial and posted it here. Also, if you are interested in Italian versions of this cap, check this post out.

For Egil's this summer I decided to start trying to make myself period head gear. I had been reading the Medeival Silkwork blog and saw her information on the cap of St. Brigit and I decided that I had to have one to go with my 14-15th century persona.

The visual sources for the cap are the Maciejowski Bible of the mid 13th century, of which, if you are interested, pictures can be found here. This source has several caps with ties looping several times over the head and the body of the cap.

Another source is the Tacuina Sanitatis of Vienna from the late 14th century. Images of the Tacuina can be found through Wikapedia here at the bottom of the page.

There are several other images of such caps which are discussed at Medieval Silkwork, but the two I have listed are the most pertinant to my persona.

There is also and there is an extant cap that looks like the pictured caps, the Cap of St. Brigit which is extensively discussed in Medieval Clothing and Textiles IV and is discussed more briefly (but very helpfully) at Medieval Silkwork.

The feature that I find so appealing as opposed to other types of caps is the bands that loop over the head and crisscross to hold the cap in place, rather than tying the strings under the chin.

My first prototype worked wonderfully for Egil's and I have made several since as gifts (and as a nicer linen one for me.

I cut my linen to fit my head (one side of the square to equal half my head measurement with no seam allowance). I later made a bigger cap out of linen, and you want a nice snug cap because the linen will warm up and stretch as you wear it.

After I rounded the two halves and hemmed all edges I did an embroidery insertion to connect the. To save time, this cap has a modified embroidery insertion, I did a simple double herringbone instead of the interlaced herringbone stitch of the original cap. I like the way this looks, but I have also done the cap with a seam connecting the halves and like it as well.

The pleating I used was cartridge pleating because I recently learned how, and I have found that it creates nice even pleats with little effort. Also I have found that it is the best way to gather a lot of fabric into a small amount of space.

In the extant cap, the binding over the edges and the ties for the cap were done in a different fabric than the original (both are linen, but the thread counts are different for the cap and the ties) so I had a little fun and put some inkle woven trim on my cap. None of the caps I have found images of indicate that this was done in period. I did this partly because I wanted a pretty cap with a nice edging and partly because I was out of the linen I had used for the body of the cap. Plus I had just made some inkle woven trim. The inkle is sewn to the brim and then I pleated the bottom of the one side of the cap (that goes at the neck) into the trim which then also forms the ties.

And voila! I have a nice cap to keep my hair clean (or pin a veil to) at events. This is me at Festival of the Roses in Caid knitting a medieval pouch. This is not the cap pictured so far, this was my first attempt with out embroidery and with just a plain linen band for the ties.

I have since been able to read the article from Medieval Clothing and Textiles IV, which has a wonderful article on this style of cap and have a few adjustments that I will be making to future caps. In the extant cap it looks as if the back seam wasn't sewn up/embroidered all the way down to the neck (pictured in other people's reconstructions and the diagrams in medieval clothing and textiles IV).

Knitting Humor

So, someone just sent me this through one of my knitting lists, you should watch it too. It think it contains humor approachable even by the non-knitter.
Just a happy little break from a hectic day.

End of Days

Well, work continues apace. I will have pictures to amuse people with soon, but not yet. I have explained my lack of posts by: A picture is worth 1,000 words, and since I have no pictures, I have no words. Therefore, no posts to regale people with.

But, on to the exiting news from LA and Mirm.

This weekend is crown, we will be traveling to Fresno (4 or more hours I hear) and I am frantically trying to work on my outfit. Yes, I know, how frantically can I be working if I am typing on my computer? But I have fixed my shift so that the arms are no longer skin tight and I can actually move. I am quite impressed with the results, I added gores into the cuff of the sleeves.

My Gothic Fitted Dress needs work on the sleeves. I was unhappy with how my inset sleeves worked out the first time through, so I am attempting sleeves version 2. The sleeve caps were just a little too poofy, so I am taking off a little of the sleeve caps so they wont have to be eased in so much. Also, the dress needs to be hemmed. Doubt I will get around to actually hemming it by the event...My plan is to make my sleeves lace up too, wont get to that by the event. I might have enough time by crown labour day weekend.

Yes, I will be going to Caid Crown, and then 2 weeks later, attending Antir Crown. I am well traveled. For those of you who dont know, Caid is the SCA kingdom of Southern California, and Antir would be Oregon/Washington (and some other bits).

We have one week left in work before I head back to Eugene, we are not going to finish the tapestry (we really were hoping to) as there just isn't time. I did finish 3 areas in the past two days, so I am feeling good about that. We had a party today at work at a lovely restaurant called Samosa House that has wonderful food. And I got prezzies for my birthday! The first was a beautiful book on cheese types (a conosieurs guide) for my kitchen and the second was:

A magnetic wand!!!! So excited. I am going to go back to Eugene and D will be so incredibly jealos of me. It is the coolest for picking up pins and needles and makes an awesome noise when it extends. It makes me happy.

See you all in September.

***8/22/09***
By magnetic wand...I mean a wand with a magnet on the end. It is teh awesome. I can use it to pick up the multitude of pins and needles that I have dropped over the past 6 months in our house.

If I told you I would have to kill you

And by that I mean that I don't have much to say with the job front. The studio is fun and awesome and I adore the people I work with (all except for Kim of course). We are putting patches on the back of a textile and I am helping to stitch them down. The excitement of our days is when we get to make off a section as done. I am on a large patch so that may be awhile.

One of my coworkers' birthdays is tomorrow, so we shall be celebrating with a "green" birthday. My contribution is an apple pie, fresh out of the oven (okay it is fresh right now, wont be tomorrow). The "green" part will be green food coloring in whip cream if P & B have food coloring in their cupboard. I may fail and have to bring ordinary food coloring.

Am trying an experiment, I will wait to see how edible the pie is before I tell you the secret ingredient. It looks pretty though. No pictures as I do not have picture capabilities currently.

I was bored and made a batch of whipped cream (even without food coloring) and so tonight we will be having strawberry shortcake.

Everything is good, I am missing my kitchen though, P &B's kitchen is tiny.

LA

So, in crazy news, I may be going to LA for the next couple of weeks. Haven't finalized details, but I did get the okay from work (and there will be a job when I come back to town if I wants). Don't have tickets yet, or know when I am leaving, but it will probably be in the next week or so.

I will miss D (my housemate) because this is the sort of thing we do if we have too much fruit on our hands:

And now, since I don't have any pictures of cute puppies, you get pictures of bears:

This is a pouch I made with the baronial crest:
see Jane, see two headed bear, hear two headed bear tummy rumble...run Jane, Run!

Egil's

Another Egil's has come and gone. This is the primary reason for my lack of up-to-date posts recently - that, and I'm lazy.

D and I decided that we needed new outfits for Egil's. Well, I decided I needed a new outfit, D decided she needed a new outfit for her friend L, and her fellow. Her fella' ended up in a hand-me-down of mine, go figure. This dress was somehow made with 14" of ease on me about 6 years ago. For some -bizarre - reason, I never finished the outfit. When D first moved in, her fella' was on a pink kick. And so, she thought it would be fun to see if my enormous dress would fit him, since the dress is pink.

It fit. And he adored it, so it went to a good home, with a few alterations. The sleeves were admittedly short, and the hem was long for a guys tunic, so D took the extra from the hem and added it to the sleeves with some piecing.

We wont even go into the horrors of the other outfit D decided to make for Egil's. Which, by the way, turned out beautifully, just took way too much brain power trying to make it at 5 am the night before we left.



On to my outfit. Here is me at the event trying to stand still as L (out of frame) bastes the hem so the safety pins don't show. This is a gothic fitted dress (gfd) based on Robin Netherton's notes on the construction in Medieval Clothing and Textiles I. D helped me fit it - and did a splendid job of it. The second and third pics are of my new pretty cap for my GFD. This is also based upon an article in Medieval Clothing and Textiles IV on the cap of St. Brigit. The cap is quite easy to construct. I had fun figuring it out, with very few instructions in English, but it is such a simple construction. I would like to make another with my handwoven fabric at somepoint and try the herringbone embroidery used to connect the two halves of the cap.

On another note: Things are growing in our garden!!!

Of Dancing and Sewing

A quick summary of my weekend. Saturday was spent sewing in preparation for The Regency Spring Ball here in town. Sunday was spent sewing and in fun at the Arts & Sciences Social/Baronial Birthday Bash.

Above are two pictures of my finished Regency Gown. Last time I wore it (in winter), I hadn't finished any lacing for the dress, and it was held together by safety pins. D was awesome though, and came home early and finished my eyelets for me this time! And look! They are spiral laced. This is my new favorite technique. For it is awesome, and totally period.



I then took that finished dress and went to a ball. See the dancing and merriment? We danced for 4 hours, and I didn't sit out any sets. So much fun to be had.

Sunday's picture (right) was me teaching 5 people how to fingerloop braid. Which is wonderful. I was so happy so many people wanted to learn. What is fingerloop braiding you ask? Fingerloop braiding is a totally period way of making trim/laces. They have extant period instruction manuals for this technique. Again, wonderful.

I have to work in the morning, so it is off to bed for me.