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...

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

Something finished... finally

I finally finished my 2nd ever cross stitch work. I have done one like 20 years ago, so this was kinda new to me. I had some bad luck while choosing yaen, but generally I am quite happy for the result. And I made only few visible mistake.

Celtic image, 7.5x 7.5 cm, rayon silk and multicolor cotton on cotton Aida

Latest project

I can finally report about my latest project, as I gave the present to my friend yesterday.
This is the better part of the project, 14th century german brick stitch with naturally dyed wool and silk. Later I will post pictures of finishing touches of it.

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.

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' :)

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.