After Aarinmetsä-Academy

Just short message. I am too sick to write long :(

Anyways, Aarnimetsä Academy went quite ok, althou I forgot to take my medieval clothes with me. Yes, I forgot to take my dresses with my. How embarrasing.

I was working at kitchen whole event. Food was delicious ;)

And I (finally) got my AoA, so now you can call me Sayyida/Lady Amal. I was SO surprised to be called before the court 4 times in one night. I have been before the court only once within my 14 years of SCA. In a way my AoA wasn't that big news. One of the court herald's presented me as Lady Amal at the 1st time I was called forward to get thanks to volunteering to Wall-hanging project. I kinda started to wonder if I get another call for the court and it came few moments after that.

I managed to do the 'comissioned' scroll, just in time. I put last gold-pieces minute before leaving to the event.Here it is. Note to self: DO NOT try to use new kind of gallicraphy-font if you are in hurry. The writing looked SO bad. oh well, at least Tuomas Tharo got his AoA-scroll in time (I am still waiting mine to arrive)

Here again

It's been a while, since I updated last time. I have good reason. My new work takes so much time and energy, that I simply don't want to update. My body is finally getting used to VERY physical work and I have even lost 10kg within a month, WHII!

Anyways, due my work, I have not had time to do any crafts lately :( My 'saldo' from 1½ months have been 2 halloween cards, 2 rows of naalbinding armwarmer and 2 ATC cards.

oh, I forgot one thing. I am making a AoA scroll for Aarnimetsä academy . And I just informed that i'll be slaving at the kitchen whole event. If you come to Academy, come to say hi to me. I'll be at the kitchen, or doing naalbibding :D

Here's some pics of some cards I've made this fall.



erm... Apparently that's the only one I have a picture...

And here...yours truly... Trying out my friend's veil

Win craft supplies!

Yes, I am giving a away some craft supplies! The lucky winner will get this lot --->



2 skeins of cotton embroidery floss, one small ball of fuzzy thin yarn and 5 skeins of silk in different colors.

AND HERE ARE THE RULES:

1. Comment this post , telling me what would you like to do with these yarns
2. IF you have a blog, tell your friends about this competition and my blog ;)

I'll keep this open till end of the November. Good luck to you all!

I have managed to do something, wohoo

I am sorry to be so late, again. I have ment to update days ago, but I seem to find other 'more important' things to do. But I have done something.



My sister's friend liked thesemittens I made her. They look a bit wonky, as these were only my 2nd pair of naalbinding mittens I've done. Below is another picrute of them.



I have also finished my 3rd patch for the SCA Wallhanging. I'll do at least one more patch, but later. Here's picture of CoA of Miehonlinna, my former 'home'. I still need to trim the gatearea. for some odd reason I made it longer than needed o.O



I just want to give you a small warning. I'll have my first give-away/competition in few days. Someone of you, my dear readers, might win small but useful and fancy price ;-)

Oh, I also have biiiiig problem. What on earth I'll do next? I have several halfdone projects, but I don't know witch one to continue first :D And I also should start to do xmas-presents. Too much to do, too little time... ( I also have no idea witch audiobook to listen next; Sookie stackhouse 3, Harry Potter 3, Two towers, Gadfael 1, Oliver Twist or Agatha Christie)

Ps. I have started to collect stamps, does anyone know a cheap please to buy/get used stamps? I already save every stamp my pelpals send me.

New embroideries

so, I finally finished my second wallhanging patch- Nea Nikopolis. Here's the picture :) I only have one patch to do and I am already panicking :D It's less than month to go before I have to send my works.





I also made birthday present for my friend Lena. Her bithday was yesterday and she got embroidered, medieval Y (her persona's name is Ylva). Embroidery is 8cm x 8cm and made from cotton on cotton. I hope she likes it :) I am pretty satisfied for the work, I have to say.


Later this week I'll post pictures of naalbinded mittens and some cards I've made lately.

ps. I love embroidering while listening audiobooks! I'm gonna hunt some new books today from library. Wish me luck ;)

Pictures... finally!

Here is my 1st patch for the SCA wallhanging




yeah... It's really artistic picture ;) Deal with it :P Anyways, My boyfriend's mother has 2 of these things ( I have nooooo idea about the english word) and she let me use them. I spent whole midday unwrapping the skeins. I totally love it! Oh, the wool has been colored with indigo.




5 little balls of wool... 5 little delicious balls of wool <3. I still have 10 unwrapped skeins to do. Most of them are naturally colored with plants.

I have a small Poll for you readers, Please, answer 2 basic and easy questions

1. Do you like Giveways? Would you like me to give away something made by me? (I just may have something to donate ;) )

2. Do you wish to see my papercrafts, like ATC cards and such?

Best wishes,
Amal

I DID IT! (wallhanging part 1)

Wohoo! I did it, I DID IT! My first patch, Harpelestane, for the Drachenwald's Coat-of-arms wallhanging project. I am soooo releived. And I only have like 10cm of the red and yellow floss left xD That means I need to buy more blue and white for the remaining 2 patches I have promised to do. Pictures fill follow as soon as I find my USB- cord for the phone (I still have to use phone's crappy cam)

Busy Summer

It's been a while since I posted last time. I had no idea my summer could be so buzy. I've hardly had any time to do crafts at home. And weekends I have spent 100% with my new boyfriend. No time for crafts, you see ;)

I really enjoyed Turku's Medieval week. It has always been my no.1 event at summerstime since 1998. This year I was mostly hanging around with my darling, doing crafts with other re-enactors or dancing. SCA Unikankare had small dance-show at the market-area and I was one of the dancers. It was great to do that kind of activity after a break. And the market-area was total heaven. I spent nearly 50e for woolyarns *uuuups* Now I have enough yarn to start my tabletweave... I even bought the tablets, haha (I am like 13 years late)

I started a new project. I know... I have not even finished my older ones. Anyways, I started to crochet hammocks to my pets. They love them, and you can not never had enough. And it's nice way to use small random skeins of modern yarn. I'm sure Omppu and Häiriö will love them too :)

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures this time. I still don't have real camera and my phone's cam does not work well. I'd love to take picture of my yarn collection. It's getting bigger and bigger every moment ;) If anyone has pictures from Turku's market, I'd love to get copies. Esp. If I am presented at the pictures :)

I finally finished my sister's friend's naalbinding mittens. I'll post a pic soon. I am glad this work is over now and I can continue with my other projects.

New Layout

I decided to change the Layout. I'll keep this one until I have time to make my own backround.

Old maps = <3

First Ancient Market this year

Las weekend I was pretending to be a Viking. Me and my friends Nana (from Kierteleväkettu) and Päiwi spent lovely weekend at Kokkila's Ancient Market. We srayed at my mother's place near market area and Ladies were very pleased of my mother's hospitality. I knew my mam likes to see my medieval friends, but her hospitality was even more than I expected. I <3 my mam :) It felt like staying in 5 star hotel :D And Mam was so surprised to hear singing (in tune :D) in the house, ha ha :D

I was planning just to hang around at the market, but I ended up helping Nana at her stall, giving craft-shows from naalbinding and lucet braids, singing and dancing front of mundane visitors. I had such a blast there :) I even managed to learn something new (lucet braid) and managed to do 1/3 of Johanna's 2nd naalbinding mitten. It seems I can managed to finish them before winter ;)

Things I bought from the market:

- 2 skeins of woolyarn from Rikissa (?) ( I love the colors)
- Horn naalbinding needle and wooden lucet fork from Nana
- copper Thor's Hammer ( I lost my tin version year ago)


New game: Looking for the lost fishing hook


Old (and baaad) C-cassette got better use as Lucet braid


Päiwi , me and Nana




And we played and sang a lot


Posing


Me as shop-assistant

Happy Towel-day to everyone!

Happy Towel-day to everyone!

And DON'T PANIC!

ATC creativity and update from other projects

First of all, I'd like to thank and say Hi to all my new followers o/ I hope my crafty things keep you inspired in the future , ha ha ;)

I'd like to post scans of some ATC cards I've made recently.


Pingu swap @ Swap-Bot


1st Row: Pingu and Celtic
2nd: Steampunk x2
3rd: Viking x2 (the last one says Odin in runes)


Celtic with ogham writing (Left: Noderns, God of dogs, right: Clota, Goddess of river Clyde. I used to live by the river Clyde 4 years, so I just had to write it there :) )


These are ATCs I've got recently. Unfortunately I can not remember/too lazy to check who made these. I'll write down the themes just in case.

1st row: Ancient Greece and Viking (That is real copperplate. I totally LOVE it, as it's 1st metal one I've got)
2nd: Naked Lady and Alice in wonderland
3rd: Alice in Wonderland and Faeries (I love the metal wings)

And the is time for the Project update:

- My undergarment is on the way. I still need to finish the backside gore and then I can put on sleeves and do the sideseams.

- I have started to make my sister's bridemaid's naalbinding mittens, 1st one is halfdone.

- I decided to make totally new patch for the Drachenwald's wallhanging. The Nea Nikosia's embroidery looked to bad and after wondering I decided to start it all over again with different kind of stich.

- Harpelestane's patch is on the way. I still have to do some fixing with the towers, as each of them looks different size at the moment :D

- I have decided to postpone my own naalbinding socks, armwarmer and mittens to autunm. I figured out I should finish my 'comissions', like Bridemaid Johanna's mittens, first.

- I have been starting to plan to do a needleroll. I got inspiration yet again from Racaire's blog. I really need a needleroll, as I ALWAYS loose my needles or they are places they should not be (like my divan's armrest or my toys' heads :D) I was wondering if I could practise German Brick Stitch :)

Help needed!

I desperately need cogs and gears. Can someone donate for excample their broken clocks to me?

or does anyone know cheap online shops for such parts?

New crafting stuff etc

Last weekend I attended SCA Drachenwald's Crown Tournament. Most of the time I was beating pie-crust ;-) but I did had time to do some crafts too. There were also merchants at the event. Look what I bought!



Loose skeins are from Dracon's Den (?) and smaller ones are from lovely Lady Sahra. Too bad I had so little money left. I'd loved to buy more yarns from Sahra. All those yarns are hand-dyed with plants.
I also bought one book, Celtic Illuminated LEtters. I am so excited to start my new scrolls!

I also started my effort for the Drachenwald's Coat of Arms Wallhanging. To be honest, Iam not satisfied with the embroidery I did :( I tried Laid and couched work 1st time and I did it a biiiit wrong :D Plus I should have used 3 threads, not 2, as it seems it does not cover the area well. Oh well, I'll finish that Nea Nikosia's badge as I started it and try something else on the next ones.

New Scrolls

Inpired by Racaire's recent scrolls, I made these:








The 2 last ones are blank. I still need some practise with calligraphy, as you can see. And of course I had lost my smallest pen-nib, so some of the text is not poor quality because of that. I used my 'drawing' nib for the scroll on the middle.

ps. Sorry poor scan-quality. I really need to fix it soon.

~Amal binti Hamid Al-Chania

Tale of misfortune

Once upon a long,long,long time a ago (last week) Fair and modest virgin (Aka lazy and not-so-virgin me) was sewing her new and fancy dress ( very basic undergarment).



She was master in her dressmaking (yeah right!) and she did everything by the book. All 12 gores she sew with love and perfection. ( there was only 4 gores and frontal one 'accidentally' was sewn wrong way) she finished her fine dancingdress with expensive trim (I covered the mis-sewn frontal gore's seam with cheap braid, because she was too lazy to undo and sew it again perfectly)

There. I'll post pictures when I have fnished the dress. It becase a bit more fancier than I planned, just because I had to cover that bloody gore :D I think I won't use it as kitchen Dress after all.

- I started another project. I decided to do my lil sister's wedding present early. Esp. because I am using a new stitches. I won't give any futher details before end of the May. Just in case. I know sister's bridemaid is checking out this journal.

- I have nearly done my scrolls. I just need to write one blanck and then I can send them to SCA Scribe. I may do some srolls for the Finnish SCA Scribe too... maybe...

One Scroll I made

I finally managed to finish one scroll I've been doing too long. The scan aint good one, but nor are the paints. Unfortunately the only gouache paint I found here, was not that good. And that was the 1st time I did a calligraphy.

Does anyone know any good Gouashe brand? BAck in UK I used paints made by Winsor something. I can not remember the name :( I only remember that they make more oilpaints.

embroidering and crocheting

Firstly, here's one ~10cm tall embroidery I made while roleplaying today. I am going to send it to one US girl vie Swap-bot's swap. Made from cotton on linen.


Some of you might be already familiar with Swap-bot. It's great site to find all kind of swaps. I have been member about 2 years now and I have participated several swaps. This swap was actually 1st one I made something like embroidering. Normally I parttake only letter/postcard/ATC swaps. This embroidered D is just extra for one letter-swap. It was so fast to do, so maybe I should surprise my swap-partners with embroideries more often :) and oh, my nick there is Silvermoonsnake


That's one of my crocheting projects I am doing. It's going to be some kind of bag. This yarn was the one I called Restless. There is so many colors is short intervals, so this kind of thing was propably the only one I could make. This is 3 weeks old pic, so I have done about 5cm more of it. As soon it's square, I'll start the lid and bottom.

I also finished my crocheted mittens. Unfortunately I don't have picture of them. They were birthday present for my cousin, made of gray-pink-white wool yarn. Maybe it's better I don't have picture of them. No-one can see how funky and odd they were ;-)

Some ATC cards I have made

I promised to send here few scans of ATC cards I've done. Here are few...


Themes from right to left: Kawaii, Bunnies, Deagon, Kawaii, Kawaii, Kawaii, Bunnies and Middle Age. Bigger pic here


Themes: Black and white Faerie and Black and white Skull. Bigger pic here

I should seriously remember to edit my pics before saving the scan :D

I know I have at least one more image , but i can not find it :( Maybe next time then.

Armwarmer

That's my armwarmer. I used naalbinding. This was kinda like practice job for me. The yarn is lovely Novita's Puro, color Frozen Cranberry. The yarn was so soft. I made this one mostly when I was travelling between Kimito and Helsinki, whole trip takes over 2h, so I had plenty of time to kill with naalbinding. You can see, that I've made some mistakes, but I don't really care. I am not going to sell it, so who cares if the patters is a bit uneven ;-) And because the yarn was so soft/loose, I did not need scrissors to cut it. All I need to do is the other armwarmer...

I am going to Start my 1st ever callygraphy. I am painting few scrolls to SCA, and for 2 scrolls I promised to do the writing too. I am scared. I am not a good with calligraphy. Wish me luck!

Just testing

New name

I desiced to change this blog's name to a bit more 'professional' Now you can also use my new url,

	http://bone-needle.blogspot.com/

New start

Hello all!

I decided to start this blog finally. I'll try to report my art and craft projects here and maybe someone of your dear readers have inspiration or suggestions. I also have somewhat limited vocabulary about these subjects, some words I know only in Finnish. Aaanyhow, here we go...

and oh, I forgot to mention that I son't have camera at the moment :/ I'll try to get one soon, but...

Here are some projects I have going on at the moment.

- Handsewn viking age undergarment. It's thin, greenish grey linen. So far I have sewn only one seam. I am using York/Oslo seam to sew different parts together. You can find useful information about the seams here (I'm using the lower left seamtype from the big pic)

- Celtic embroidery, 2 dogs entwined together. I am using cotton fabric and silkfloss (cheap brand from India). I'll try to scan (yup, scan :D ) pic here asap. So far I have made ½ of the 1st dog, using beige and darker 'mustard'yellow

- Naalbinging mittens. I am making naalbinding mittens for myself. I am using mostly dark green 'Huopanen' woolyarn with one light gray stripe (from the same yarn brand) at the middle of the mittens. So far 1st mitten is nearly done.

- Naalbinding socks. I am using dark green woolyarn. I can not remember the brandname, it's not very common anyways.

- Croched handbag. I have one yeally 'restless' woolyarn with so many dofferent colors in it in short interwals, so I could not use it for anything medieval. So I decided to crochet a handbag. Halfdone at the moment.

- 2 Scrolls for SCA. These will be my 1st ones I also write. I am not that good in calligraphy, but I really hope I won't mess up badly.

- Several 'medieval' ATC-cards... more info to follow.

There :) Satisfied? ;) I'll try to blog again with some kind of photos.