Tasks 2012/2013

Hi All,

My tasks for Great Norther War 2013 is:

1) Make 3 blackworked items
2) Do 3 service related rasks

For task 1, I have already made a blackworked chemise.

For task 2, I have already done 2 service tasks. 1 was to run the Tudor event 2012 in August, and the other was helping in the kitchen for GNW 2012.

How to change an crappy average dress into a fantastic dress

Hi All,

Well, I thought I would share a recent win for me in the dress department. I had this beautiful green dress that I made a couple of years ago, but never really liked wearing as it was uncomfortable and frankly, I was unsure what type of dress it was. It was originally intended as an underbust German, but it never quite looked right. In the picture below, you can see I'm wearing Italian headwear with the random looking dress.

So I decided to change it up a bit, and actually make it into a plausible frock like one of these:

So I made a yellow kirtle to go underneath the green dress, to keep the 'girls' in check and also more confortable. I also added some black velveteen around the front opening and neck, and I added long sleeves in order for the dress to look more like the portaits above. I also made some new German Headwear, a Wulsthaube (or we call it a 'brain tumour hat') to go with the new germanised dress. Yes, the headwear looks rediculous, but it is really comfy, especially if you're having a bad hair day.

I thought it turned out pretty well, and it is a great colour and vastly more comfortable to wear these days.

For jewellery I added some gold chains, and I also made a belt out of the same fabric as the kirtle.

Tasks for 2011/2012

My tasks for the coming year are to:

1) Run A&S Class
2) Make a Brain Tumor German
3) 5 x seahorse items of heraldry

Last years tasks were to:
1) Make a 'brain hat German' before festival next year (Fail)
I did however make a 'Crow' Dress, but still, no points for this one. It is on the list again for this year.
2) Make Buzz a favor (Fail)
Did not even think about what I could make for him as a favor, but I am planning on making him another Mongol coat.

3) Run an event that Morde is cooking for (probably the Elizabethan one I've been secretly planning in my head) (Fail)
The Tudor event is scheduled for August 2011, just outside of the scheduled timeframe.

4) Help Morde & Giles with step down garb/regalia/gifts/etc (Pass)
I created a passport for Morde & Giles to give out at their step down. I also made them each a gift.

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2013 Update

1) Run an A&S class

I did this successfully on 5 November 2011 by running a class on Cranach German dress costruction. I was joined by Huguette who helped me with the class. It was fun talking about how we made our frocks.

2) Make a 'Brain Tumour' German

Yes, I did this before June 2012 for Giles' Pelican Ceremony. If I find a picture, I will post it here.

3) 5x seahorse items

-1 Large Gonfalon made in Constanzia's back yard. This was fine until we left it outside for the paint to dry and the neighbour decided to 'water' it. He hosed over the fence onto the newly painted gonfalon. I was so pissed! but it all came good in the end. we had to use gold on the banner to cover up the ruined red paint that ran all over the shop.
-1 Smaller square banner made in Constanzia's back yard. No water came near it this time round.

I think that was all. If I think of any more I will add it.

Entry for Baronial A&S Competition part 2

Previously, I posted a lovely A&S entry that was half completed. I wasn't really happy with it because the gold didn't work right and the colours were all wrong. I decided yesterday to make a new piece for my entry.

On Thursday I received my lovely Daler Rowney Gouache which is excellent to work with. The paint is so much more consistent and I love the colours and quality. It is amazing how much better your artwork becomes if you spend your money on decent paints. Unfortunately it doesn't mean your a decent artist though. I guess you'll have to judge for yourselves. I didn't take a before picture, which I probably should have. I know Morde still has the originals, so I will find it and post it here.

This is my finished piece


I also should still write some motto at the bottom. Feel free to make suggestions...

Household Tasks for this year

My tasks for this year was set at GNW and includes the following:

1) Make a 'brain hat German' before festival next year
2) Make Buzz a favor
3) Run an event that Morde is cooking for (probably the Elizabethan one I've been secretly planning in my head)
4) Help Morde & Giles with step down garb/regalia/gifts/etc
 
Should be a fun year. Favours for Buzz will be difficult as he is not partial to jewelry etc. I'll seahorse him up no problem, I just need to find out what to make.

High Waisted Italian-Dress Under $50

So it is time to make another dress! Yay! And of course it has to have seahorses on it. I have decided on a high waisted Italian.

The Inspiration

Here are some portraits and drawings that I've found for inspiration. I would ideally like to make a coat to go over the top like picture 3, but we'll stick with the dress first. Once I found the inspiration, it was time to do some SHOPPING! Yay!

The Fabric
It was time for a trip up to JJ's in Redcliffe, and I found the below fabric. 5m of plain peach natural fabric (don't quite know what it is, but it burns natural) and 2m of Diamond peach natural fabric. The diamond fabric lends itself quite nicely to putting seahorses in the diamonds. There is always time for seahorses! The plain fabric was $2 per meter, and the diamond fabric was $4 per meter. Fabric for $18! I figured I probably won't use all 5m for the skirt, so I will use it for the lining of the bodice and sleeves. I will use the diamond fabric for the bodice and sleeves.

 I also bought the following accessories for the sleeves at JJ's:

The ribbon was 30 cents per meter (I bought 10m) and the braid was 75 cents per meter (I bought 5 meters). All in all the total cost for the pretties were $6.75. Total cost for the dress so far is $24.75. I also had to buy some Gutermann thread which was $4.50. Total cost now: $29.25.

While I was in Sydney, I bought some stiff denim for the interlining. The denim was $8 per meter, but I think I'll probably only need half a meter for the interlining, so that is an extra $4. Total dress cost: $33.25.

That is all the fabric done. Now for the seahorses! (obviously if you're not seahorse inclined, then you may choose some other pretty to put on your dress, or you may choose to go with the plain look)

I apologise for this blurry photo, but this is the best it gets with the iPhone.

Okay, so the seahorses were $15 for 250. I will probably need to count how many I put on the dress and sleeves to be accurate on the cost, so we'll come back to this one later. I've also decided to go with some pearls to break up the incredible seahorseness. I will use fake pearls (cause they're lighter and the seahorses are quite heavy). I bought a pack of pearls from Sunrise Imports (cheap & nasty importer of interesting goods, got the seahorses there as well). The pearls were $18 for 2500 (yes, you read right, 2500!). Really cheap! Once again, I need to check how many I use before I can estimate the cost.
 
The Construction
I have started with the bodice, and made a pattern. Well, it was more like a couple of patterns:

Here is the change from the first pattern to the last one (grey was first, blue was last):

 
I have since transferred the pattern onto the diamond fabric, and I decided on the pattern after playing with seahorses and pearls for 4 hours.
 
 
So, after I played with the pattern for hours, I realised that if I place the seahorses in this pattern, they would be crooked when it comes to the back. The diamonds aren't straight anymore! Nooooo! This means that I have to put seams under the arms to ensure that the back is straight. Not good, but hey, it will just take a little bit longer.
 
I decided to do the beading first, before I cut anything, so this is where I'm up to at the moment. I will write more as this project develops.

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2013 Update

Hi all,

Well, this has been a while in the making, but I have finally finished this project. It has sleeves too, and I have recently finished a blackworked chemise to go with it as the bodice is a bit low...

 

Entry for A&S Competition

This year the theme for the St Florian A&S Championship is Calligraphy and Illumination and related Arts. So I'm making this piece partly for my exemplar for the college of scribes and also for my entry to the competition. I can't win it again this year, but hopefully it will inspire more participants to enter.

                                       This is what I'm starting with

And this is how far I've come tonight

By my next post I'm sure I would've done some more on it. And by the way, gold leaf is crap to work with!

Grete

Buzz's Mongol Coat Part 2

This is what I did on Sunday.

It doesn't look like much more than the previous picture, but the 'behind the scenes' sewing took a while.

The final result was done right before festival, and it had the desired outcome. Buzz wore it on 3 of the 5 days of festival. He said it was very comfortable and easy to put on and take off. He said it was just like a dressing gown. That wasn't really what I wanted to hear, but I'm glad that he likes it and wears it. Here is the picture:

Buzz's Mongol Coat

A couple of months ago I decided to make Buzz a Mongol Coat to go with his Yurt. The coat looks good and are pretty easy to make...I don't know why it took me till 2 weeks before festival to get motivated to make it for him. I did some research on it a couple of months ago and decided to make one like these extant examples.

The pattern was the hardest part of the process. I hate patterning, but once you have it right, the rest of the outfit doesn't take very long. I did all of this tonight:

These are the two front pieces. They overlap to cover the front.

This is the back piece, it is just a square, but I've put some gores on it as you'll see later.

All the pieces together.

This is the sleeve.

That was the patterning done, I then cut out all the pieces and overlocked them. Then I sewed them all together to get this:

Beautiful isn't it!

Tomorrow I have to go to spotlight to get some brown silk for the neckline and the hem, and also some more brown thread cause I ran out. I will take another picture of the finished product when I remember.

Greek Garb

4 Weeks ago, Giles tells us that there is a Greek event on in February in Willoughby Vale (Red & White), and that we should all make Greek outfits. He said it would be easy... take 2 sheets of 150cm wide linen, fold them and pin them together and voila, a Greek outfit. Obviously this was the oversimplified version, and I wanted mine to look a bit better than a bedsheet. And so began the story of the pretty pretty priestess Greek outfit.

I must admit, it was probably the easiest and quickest medieval outfit I've ever made. Giles taught us the latin names for the different parts of the outfit, which we quickly renamed to represent the random pieces of fabric more accurately.

I will start with underwear (spelling will be wrong, but this is how it sounds...). Firstly, we have a Strophium (affectionately known as the scrotum, why? Because it sounds the same and it makes sense). The strophium is a long piece of white fabric about as wide as your breasts and long enough to go around your body (breast area) 3 times. This is to support your breasts because they didn't have bras back then. The next item is the chiton (aka nappy) which is giant granny underwear so that you don't expose yourself in public. I havent made either of the underwear pieces yet, mosly because I haven't had time and they're not really needed for the impact of the outfit.

The main part of the outfit is called a subligaculum (suble-gak-cleum is how we said it...emphasis on the gak). This is the two pieces of fabric about 150cm wide that is pinned together and tied with some cord around the waist. This was the only part of the outfit that took any sort of 'patterning' to make sure that it all hangs correctly. I used 150cm wide white linen for my subligaculum and trimmed it with some green fabric from my himation (explained in the next paragraph).

The last part of the outfit is the most irritating and is called the himation (or as it became known after 4 minutes of wearing it, the 'high maintenance' because it needs so much adjusting). It is basically a 5-6 meter piece of pretty cloth, mostly decorated silk or cotton that is wrapped around the body multiple times for modesty. The 'high maintenance' is annoying because it keeps trying to trip you by gently working its way down from your butt area to your feet. The problem is probably that when I went to buy a silk sari from the local indian place, the lady there sold me a 'silk' sari and when I got home and opened the packet...it had a tag on it saying 100% polyester. I was going to take it back and give her what for, but I didn't think I would be able to find something else i liked before the event, so I just went with the plastic for now. That is probably why it wouldn't stay in place and irritated me so much. My 'high maintenance' is green with a gold border, and most people that saw it thought it was silk, so I'm ok with that.

Then there is the hair. There are multiple ways of wearing your hair in the greek style. I chose to make a sakkos (aka head nappy) which made me look like I had cancer from the front, but was easy and quick to put on. It is a piece of cloth that effectively holds your hair up at the back. It was a good choice of headwear, because I didn't have to spend hours curling my hair.

Now for the accessories. I love that greek/roman style things are back in fashion these days, because I found all of my jewelry, brooches, earrings, necklace, bangles and my shoes in Carindale or at the indian place. And it wasn't even very expensive. I will post pictures of all of my Greek outfit here once I have taken some.

And that is the story of my pretty pretty priestess Greek outfit. (I'm the one in the white & green)

Welcome to my blog

So, I have a blog...

This is mostly to keep you guys in the loop and to track my progress with my SCA projects.

So lets get this party started!