No pics this time

Hello!

Unfortunately this time I don't have any pics to show you. To be honest, I have not done much medieval crafts lately. And paper-crafts been bit slow lately too. I have done few World of Warcraft cards, but not much else. At least I don't have any pics of decos etc. i am so bad taking pics these days, as I can not use my phone anymore. When I take pics with my 'normal' camera, I need to open my secondary pc to get them out of the the cam and then transfer them to my primary pc. Lately it has been too much for myself. Yeah, I know... I am lazy xD

Next month I prob not update this blog at all, as it will be NaNoWriMo -month and I am joining the challenge.  And as this is not my literary blog, I will not write about the progress much here. If you want to know more about my writings and my writing blog, just comment or send me private message and I will give you the address.

To be honest, I can not remember did I tell about my silken brick stitch project? an d how I made big (at least for me big) mistake? Well, I managed to embroider 5cm of the backside of my new and own bag... and then realized that the fabric is 1cm too short. I have made already the front part...so I had to start the backside all over again. Plus, I have prob taken little bit difficult design for the backside. The progress is FAR slower than my previous brick stitch embroideries. oh well...

Golden purse for Queen

This summer (2014) I was volunteer working at turku's medieval market. Mainly I was making/fixing costumes, but somethimes I did other things (like painting signs etc). My biggest project was to make fancy purse for the Queen. I decided to use 2 different shades of gold embroidery yarn and golden yellow satin. First plan was to make fancy metallic frame for the removable purse, but things changed and I made non metallic purse.

  

All started from deciding the model and materials. Here is 1st plan with wannabe-frame for the metalwork. Embroidery took far more time than I had anticipated, so I needed to make fast changes to the design on the last day.

 

Here is the finished purse from back. Golden tassel was added on 1st medieval matrket day.

 This is closeup from the embroidery. Colors in this pic are quite off, but you still see, that I used 2 different shades of gold. Althou the other gold looks like silver in this.

 

This is the purse with belt. Purse is slightly bigger than normal female hand/palm. So the actor of the Queen could put her hand inside easily. The embroidery design is from late 15th century (taken from Tailor's assistant book, if i remember correctly) and I changed every other leaf with acorn.

  

These two pics are detailsfrom the finished bag. That black bead thing is rosary. For lining I used one fabric scrap I found. One of the finest male tunics is made from the same fabric. I hope no-one notised that queen and highest commander were wearing same fabric.  You  never know what kind of romance rumors it could have started ;-)

Minions everywhere!

This is bit more modern present I made last February. It was Valentine's day present for my boyfriend. Again I got the idea bit too late, and I was doing this like mad. But I did manage to finish it on time. So, I tell , with details, about the two parts of the gift. I am glad I did this, as it seemed to be perfect gift for him.

card-wallet

Size: bit bigger than normal credit card

Image: From internet

Materials:cotton aida, 26x26 count

cotton DMC/Anchor: pink, yellow, blue

glow-in-dark white cotton yarn

brown rayon silk

black filament silk

techniques used:

background: german brick stitch and blackwork

Minion: kind of German brick stitch/counted stitch mix

Lining: (visiple on the 1st pic) Teal uneven silk (can not remember witch brand)

tie-cord: indigo silk yarn and lucet weave  

handsewn with black filament silk

Card

Base: one sheet from DMCW Steampunk card set

Image: Frim internet, added some hearts and another cupcake

materials: blue, red, black and brown tempera, white acrylic paint, malaysian 18K leafgold (with gilding glue), shiny miniature acrylic varnish mixed with mysterious copper dry pigment

Silky celtic embroideries

Few years ago my SCA friend ordered 2 tunics from me. I made the tunics then and promised to embroider them, when I have more time. 1st embroidery I made over a years ago and I have shown you pictures too. This one was the second, and it took freaking long time to finish. It was my 1st time do embroider on silk, with silk. It took me over a year to make, as I got so frustrated all the time and I had to have a break from embroidering quite often.

I had to darken the background ARMANI silk and I did it using very strong tea and salt. It was real experiment, but the color stuck pretty well.

 

The 'board' was combination of 2 round images, 2 square ones and 4 tiny triskels between the bigger images. Both big images are from my iron-on book ( found at Amazon.com ), and as my customer wanted doglike creatures, these 2 images were selected. Triskel image was my old rubberstamp, so I just stamped the right places and embroidered top of the mark.

Materials:
Background: natural white ARMANI silk
Round image: really thin floss silk from Piper Silk
Square image and triskels: silk from The Silk Mill

I just need to finish the outlines... The man, who ordered this from me, was really excited when I showed this one. All I need to do is black outlines and then it's ready to be attached to his light blue tunic.

Celtic pattern, silk on linen
Dark pink and pink: www.pipers-silks.com
Yellow orange: Bought brom my local SCA-friend
yellow: www.thesilkmill.com
Black outlines: www.pipers-silks.com and www.thesilkmill.com
Linen : Piece grantmother's dowrylinen (from late 30's)

Another new embroidery...

This is my new, very simple, project I started after I decided to take a short break from embroidering my silk on silk order. I have actually dyed that green wool by myself, with red onion peels. I love that color. The canvas is, if I remember right, 16count, so each 'normal' stich is about 3mm long. The whole embroidery is going to be about 14.5 x 9cm

Lately I have been thinking about selling few of my embroideries over Etsy.com. I am just not sure should I sell them as final product (like needlebook or bag) or just as simple embroidery (so the buyer can use it as she wish). Any suggestions/opinions?

Comission progress

I have namaged to done quite a lot of this celtic embroidery. I also started my other commission work, but it's a bit frustrating atm. I have never done silk on silk and that's a bit problematic. Idon't like the outcome at all and I may even undo the embroidery and start again. I'll post pictures as soon as I managed to do something decent.

Comission

Yay! I got comission embroidery! 2 years ago I made 2 tunics for my friend and now he wanted some embroideries done. He picked up 3 different celtic dog images. The blue tunic will get quite elaborate embroideries around neck and the greyish brown one will get border on the hemline with 2 different images repeating (4x square and 4x round). I totally went mad when my customer gave me money and said 'you can choose the colors'. So I spent 3 mindblowing hours trying to deside the colors. ( I ordered the yarn from www.thesilkmill.com) Yup, Im going to make silk embroideries. I love working on with silk. I love the sheen and how soft the embroidery feels.

I'll post pictures when I have something to show. I have not yet got the embroidery floss....

To-Do list

- Turn your gray woollen dress more authentic aka cut sleeves, turn backside to the front and open neckline. MAYBE also fix the lacing too, but that's optional

- Cut off (and tidy up) about 15cm from your veil and use the cut of piece to make another wimple.

- Start to embroider late 14th cent bag's another side IF you have had money to buy more silkfloss.

- Continue to sew your 14th cent. wool dress.

- Ponder what kind of decoration to add to your new dress.

- Make late 14th cent. dress from linen. You need authentic clothes (/that are not very hot under scorching sun)  for Grünwald.

- Try to have time to finish your crocheted scarf.

- Play with indigo dye ;)

Shall we guess how much I manage to do. And how many new projects, not included this list, I'll start (and finish)

oh! You are so original aka another embroidery

 

That's another German brick stitch I made. This design is actually done by me. Again the fabric is 24 count evenweave and tread used is silk and wool.  it's 5cm x 13.5cm. I have no idea what to do with it, haha xD Maybe I'll try to sell it...

And more german brick stitch

Yup, I have yet another embroidery to show, haha. You can not stop me...


 

These patches are both 5.5cm squares. Left one is Bargello-design (sorry, cant find the pattern anymore :( ) and the right one is from here.  Both are wool on linen 24 count evenweave. I guess I'll make small lavender-pillows (to put inside linen closet etc) or pincushions. I am definitely trying Bargello again. I'll probably make more modern versiosn, as Bargello aint authentic enough to be used in other medieval society I am involved. You see, Bargello is 17th cent technique and the other society's timeperiod is 1000-1400.

German Brick Stitch : 1/2 of small bag

 

Here's pic of my finished german brick stitch. It's 22 evencount and made with silk (from Silk Mill) As you can see, plenty of mistakes xD I also ran out of the reddish brown floss and I ordered new skeins... from wrong color. Soooo, I decided to use it after all. I tried to make the transition line as smooth and even as possible, so maybe some people would think it was intentional colorchange xD  
I have started to embroider other side. This piece and the unfinished one are going to be a fancy little bag to accompany my  new late 14th century dress.
(Pattern here @ Medieval Arts and Crafts)

Operation: Learn gilding

Firstly I wanted to post one picture from my work. I work in museum (at least for a while) and this one is from the collections. We have plenty of pretty costumes and accessories from the past. this set is one of my favorites.

And then one SCA-scroll. I have been bit lazy/tired/busy for SCA work lately. Sometimes I should do something for myself, not just for everyone else. This one I made for Elena af Humalasalo. I decided to try gilding finally and I had some problems, as you can see. I tried new kind of style for calligraphy and eventually I had problems to keep the text neat. Plus I made too many mistakes and I tried to cover them with gilding too xD At least I learnt what to do next time. The decoration is from mid 16th century embroiderybook and I decided to use it as Elena is excellent embroiderer.

Am I alive?

...yes, I think so...

My work has taken much of my energy and to be honest, I have not been crafting that much lately. Whitch is bit sad really.

Here's proof I have been doing (slowly but surely) embroidery for the SCA wallhanging 'We have Dragons' I was planning to make two patches at least, but time is ending and my 1st one is not even finished... so sad...so sad...


That's really only thing I can share with you this time. I am painting a mongol/islamic scroll for Insulae Dragonis, but that's a bit 'in progress' at the moment, so I wish not to share pics yet.

Guess what? As I have bit more money these days, I have been online shopping like mad, haha xD You HAVE to check out The Silk Mill. I adore them!

Yule-holidays are coming soon, so I have at least bit more time to craft, yay! Maybe next time I can even tell you what I have been up at my work. I am so excited already!

Ugh... um... do you remember me?

Hi there! Long time , no see/sea ;) I have (lame) reason for being silent.
Firstly, I GOT DREAM-JOB!! I'll last only few months, but who cares. I'll enjoy the (almoust) every second of it. I can do lots of crafts there, esp. medieval. later in this post I'll show some pics of my crafts and the workplace.

Secontly, I just orgaized, with my friend Birgitta, a big(ish) medieval feast last weekend. Eventually there were totally 47 people celebrating in Byzantine feast and such. It' was like SCA event, but more strict about authenticity and men were fighting with real swords, not with rattan (like in SCA). I had massive migrane, jointpains at hip anf knees and 'that time of the month', so I was not as nice and friendly as I could have been (because of the pain) but I think I did not offend anyone and things went pretty smoothly.

This is one embroidery I made for my friend. The desing is vikingage with eastern/byzantinian influence. I'll post another pic as soon as I get it out of my phone x)


That's my new Byzantinian dress, nearly done. I have already finished it thou. This pic was taken at my work. I'll post better pic as soon as I fix the dress. As it was handsewn, It broke last weekend, when I was using it 1st time. Thank Gods and goddesses, I still have few peaces of that red/blackish silk.

Another pic of the dress and my work ;) Envy me :P

Now I have only 3 urgent naalbinding to do. I'll post pics of them, when I finish. Mittens should be ready in less than a month, hat soon (as it's a payment from my new war-axe) and socks. Luckily the socks have plenty of time to 'materialize' :)

Progress report, ATCs and Conventus

Hello again!

This time my update will be short one and full with pictures, tehee!

Firstly I should report about Conventus Sturionum, an Elävä Keskiaika/Living Middle Age semi-period academic weekend. We had many different lectures this time. And naturally I was again working in kitchen. I also had illumination-lessons in 2 nights. And on Sat I teached cooking for 2 brave students while we made much for others. We had some problems with the oven, but eventually everything was edible, even the peppery lentil-soup ;) Also few of my friends got interested of scroll-painting. I had brought all my illumination books with me and even I found inspiration from them. Maybe I should start yet another new scroll...*buahaha*

Last week I have been panic-embroidering. This time I was making a engagement-present for my dear friends Minna and Nina. I had less than week to do it and unfortunately you can see it :( But the mainthing is that my friends liked it a lot.

About 10cm, silk on cotton. C and E connected with golden ring.

I have also been doing tabletweawing lately. This dark gray and green piece is now sewed to my viking appron-dress. I totally suck on tablet weaving and I was planning to try out brokade. I saw Sahra's tutorial and I instantly got interested! I know few late 1500's lace-patterns that I could/will use for it. I'll post progress report soon!

I am glad you can not see the multiply mistakes from this picture ;)


And here is some ATC cards I've done lately...


Theme: Renaissance


Theme: Renaissance Fashion


Theme: Sindarin language

What have you been up to lately?

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

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 :)

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.

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 ;-)