Monday, June 25, 2012

Renaming the Afternoon Project...

As you can probably surmise, from the subject of this post, the Afternoon Project has continued into its second week.  However, I have finished an entire side of the coif:


This is all done in split stitch, with silk on a linen coif.  I have been mulling whether I want to fill in the motif, or not.  While I think it would look more appropriate filled, I am worried that I might not have enough of the green silk thread.  I also fear that I would lose some of the details...I haven't written off the idea, yet, but we shall see how it looks once the other side is finished.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Afternoon Project, continued...

Well, I decided to expand the afternoon project...which is somewhat contradictory for it being an afternoon project, isn't it?

My daughter graduated high school this morning.  I desperately needed to keep myself busy, because my nerves were really bothersome.  So, I decided to add a knotwork zoomorphic animal to the coif.

I am using silk for all of the embroidery, and the coif is, of course, linen.  I just thought this little motif was too cool to pass up!

And, there are small tear stains on the coif (to match the blood stains where I pricked my finger while sewing it *blushes*), from crying during the graduation ceremony, today.  This coif is going to be my favorite, I think, because of how much of myself being in it!

Friday, June 22, 2012

Knots

Pintangle has started a weekly Wednesday feature, for the purpose of help out those of us with long term projects that lay unfinished.  http://pintangle.com/2012/06/20/work-in-progress-wednesdays-sewing-bee/

By leaving a link in the comments, you can blog about what has stepped in the way of your projects, garnering advice, encouragement and commentary.  This is a wonderful feature!

I have several projects that I have stalled on, putting them down until motivation kicks back in, but it can be difficult to go back to a project you have not worked on in a while.  So...how do you overcome stalls?  What do you do to keep on with a project that is taking a longer time than you expected, or is just a big project by nature?

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

An Afternoon Project

I was at the Western Homestead, and the project I needed to work on was at the Eastern Homestead.  So, needing to find something to do (idle hands are the devil's workshop ; )  I decided to make a new coif-St. Brigitta's cap.  Only, I wanted to embroider mine, so that I might be appropriate for the Viking Village.  

First step was constructing the coif.  I hand sewed all the edges, hemming them first, and then used the Vandyke stitch to join the two pieces together, using two strands of Splendor silk.


I found some trim designs from a dig at Birka, that I traced onto the linen.  Again, using Splendor silk, I embroidered the Birka design along the edge of the coif.  I added another wave like design for contrast, in a 60/2 silk thread from White Wolf and the Phoenix.


It is not fully finished, yet, but I am using it as afternoon fodder when I need a break from other projects.  Overall, I am pretty pleased!!

Opus Anglicanum, continued...

Well...it has been some time.  I have gotten out of the habit of blogging everyday and need to buckle down!  Silly things like school, family and such getting in the way!

On the awesome front, I have finished the embroidery on the opus anglicanum project!  (And there was great cheering throughout the land!)  This project has taken me 3 years, and quite possibly 50 hours of embroidery time.  As it will eventually be made into an almoner's bag, I still have to embroider the opposing side and sew it all together.  But, here is the finished front!


Now, I had some problems couching the metallic on this piece, as I used a 2-ply twist thread I had found at Michael's.  It was not as flat as a single strand of Japan silk, but it worked out okay.  I went over it afterward with a gold sewing thread, tacking down places where the gold did not sit well, and cleaning up the edges around the embroidery.  I am quite pleased, thus far!