My First entry!

At my first SCA Event, the market on the mills, I won a new chairs, some fabric, and some trim at the silent auction. Woohoo! I now had somewhere to sit other than my purple blanket, something to cover the un treated, unstained, chair, and some trim to make it look nice.

At first, I thought I'd paint and put silly stuff on it like medieval scrolling vines. However, once I got it home, I got a much better idea. I'd stain it and upholster it! The chair/throne is meant to be taken apart and fairly easy to carry. So I thought I'd add a small leather and thumbtack to the the front, I might add a "stuffed" pillow to the back piece and make a nice cushion. That way, it looks nice but still comes apart. So far, I've stained the chair but haven't upholstered it yet.

The first picture is of the untreated, un stained chair after I had taken it apart. It's fairly easy to take apart unless it's humid and hot out. Too bad I live in a swamp! ::sighs::

The second picture is just a close up of the back of the chair. In the center, I want to add a small oval shaped pillow like backing to it. I think I'm going to use pink velvet but I'm not sure yet.

The third picture is the first coat of stain. It's a bit darker but it looks like the wood is just wet, not a deep dark color like I want. The fourth picture is just a close up again of the back part of the chair.

Finally, after two coats on both sides, I got the deep dark color I wanted. It looks almost like the color of my church pews though...hmmm.....not bad for the renaissance I suppose. :-)

I'll post picture of the chair fully assembled and if it being upholstered when I put it back together. The humidity has finally gone down and I caved last night and brought the chair inside. It should fit together nicely now. When I tried last time to take a picture, it wouldn't fit together perfectly and I had to hammer it back out. I hope I won't have to do that this time....

Garb!!!

Okay, I had made a gown for a client and had tons of fabric left over. The gown is we would consider a purplish pink. I forget the exact name of it during the Reniassance, other than it starts with an A. She wanted it for her volunteer work at a children's hospital. So if you see her running around in this, please take a picture and send it to me!

Well, the pattern said 8 yards but, after heavily modifying it, it turns out I only needed 5! So I had three yards left over. I should probably back up to opening night of Star Wars. I know that sounds odd but I had made the Padme's Peacock Gown from my own pattern. The pattern is based on an old 1850's coat I have lying around. (I have tons of old textiles!)

The sloppy picture is mine. :-) Well, as I wore the entire gown to the premire of Ep 3, a lady behind me in line told me she was also with the SCA and that the coat probably could double for some medieval clothing. Taking that suggestion, I decided to use the pattern for a late tudor, early Elizabethan Spanish Surcote.

The above is similar to what I want my surcote to look like. I love the look of the sholders but I want my to be closed in front with no sleeves. What I did is take the 54" grape stain purple velvet and added 12" to my orginal pattern so it would hit the floor while wearing a hoop skirt. Since my battery is dead on my camera and I can't find the recharger, the only picture I have right now of the surcote is the following:

You can see the shape and that it consists of a meer five pieces, the two aplets (sp?), the two front pieces, and the back piece cut on the fold. Amazingly, I think I might have still enough fabric left over to do a parti-colored cotehardie of the grape stain purple velvet and the purple plaid I won at the silent auction (breifly mentioned in the chair entry).

I'll post more pictures once I find the battery recharger....

A "crowning" achivement!

Sorry for the pun but I couldn't help myself. The battery charger has been found! Woohoo! Now I can upload my pictures of my latest project. This one I'm really excited about.

This is Princess Elizabeth before she became Queen Elizabeth I while her brother, Edward, was on the throne. She's about 13 in this portrait. I simply love the color and the style. I've been looking for a year for the perfect fabrics (you wouldn't believe how hard goldenrod cut velvet is to find at a decent price!) and have finally found them.

Although I have made this style dress many times before, I had never attempted a french hood. They were a scary thing until yesterday. I finally attempted to hand sew my own french hood for this gown armed with a plastic canvas to make the hood stand up, the correct materials, and the french hood pattern from the Elizabethan Costume page. I also had a sharpie so I could trace and enlarge the pattern I had printed off on to the plastic canvas.

I decided on plastic canvas because a) it's easy to sew the beads on b) it's flexable but retains it's shape (unlike wires) and c) no one will know the differance by looking. It's a nice light weight comfortable alternative to attempting to bend old coat hangers into smooth round shapes.

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The first photo is of the plastic canvas and the red jacqaurd that I'm also using for the gown. The color is off. It's kinda a reddish pinkish madder color. It's the same as in the "real" gown in the portrait. The pattern shows up nicely in this photo though so that's why I used it.

All the pieces! The black velvet veil, the pieces to the coif, the gold trim, and the hood pieces itself. Since I couldn't find any two people to agree on how the hood was actually constructed, I developed my own way. I figured I'd make a normal every day coif (aka skull cap), attach the gold trim to the very edge of the cap, and then sew the hood on to the top of that. The coif fits on to the head so it adds stablity to the hood overall so it won't fall off or over, ect. I also ended up adding two ribbon ties that go back around the hair to help stablize it over all. That, and a couple of braids and I should be set!

This third picture is of the completed coif. I did all this by HAND. No machine at all was used. I also completed the entire project in four hours. This included sewing up the hem of the yard long veil. It probably wouldn't have even taken that long if I hadn't been also running around the house looking for chocolate or taking breaks to play with my pup, ect. Overall, I say this is really only a two hour project by hand. That includes the cutting out of the pieces.

This is simply the jacquard carefully handsewn over the plastic canvas after watching Black Adder II. The ends are sewn right sides together and then I flipped it the other way so that the stiching and raw edges would be seen from the right side. I did this so I'd have a seam to sew on to the coif and one for the veil. It worked out beautifully, no raw edges showing, as you can see in the last picture. Overall, this is really a simple project. Now, just to add the gems!