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 ;-)

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)

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...

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.