Thursday, January 20, 2011

My New Eye-Dazzling Silk Tent

I'm slowly getting started with my new "garberobe". Here is something I finished yesterday after some stitching frenzy.

First a basic under layer. Wool. The pattern is Herjolfsnes nr 39 with lacing added to the front. The sleeves are done without gussets, a mistake I will not repeat. The next one I'll make shall be more tight-fitting. This one doesn't give any support for the bust.


Then the outer layer. Machine embroidered silk, linen lining. The pattern is somewhat similar to the one above, except for the sleeves, of course. I had to cut it differently to get the embroideries parallel to each other, though. I was so careful not to make it too small, that it became way too big and is like a tent. It's too wide under the arms and at the back. I wonder how could I best fix it. Do I have to open it up and take it in at the seams or would some lacing on the sides be enough? Would that even be period for an outer layer? Or should I just get a pretty belt?


Here you can see the sleeves a little bit better. The veil is a fast fix for the pictures, usually I wear a little more elaborate one with a chin piece.

This must be the most comfortable garb I have ever had. Perhaps I shall keep it as it is, the tent and all?

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

A Christmas present

I wanted to make a christmas present for a friend of mine. He really likes the drum playing skeleton by Hans Holbein (see for example this page, detail in here.), so I embroidered him a needle roll. (He makes awesome garb, by the way.)

Cotton on linen with split stitch and whatever stitch for detail.


The other side, where you keep your needles, is wool, there is a couple of layers of it to make it thicker.


The strings ended up being a little bit too short, but one can still tie it up, so no harm done. He recieved his gift and liked it. And I liked making it. It was a new experience. I've never embroidered line drawings this fine before and the details made it hard to transfer the design on the fabric, but the result looks much better than I had hoped for. This took all together two days to make.