Veil edge beading

Today is about veil edge beading. I enjoy beading veils as I think it adds some style to the veils, weight to help them from flying up (and potentially into the face of someone behind you!) and is more historically accurate for fine dressing. In the attached picture, I'm working on a black silk organza veil which I had pre-hemmed and am now attaching the black and gold seed beads. I could have hemmed and beaded at the same time but it's my first time using the silk organza and I need some more work on that. Baroness Eithni has a wonderful magic veil stitch on her website that I encourage you to use.

To give you an idea of the time needed to bead in this fashion, it took me 55 minutes to bead 20 inches of veil. I'm using 14 black and 1 gold seed bead for every "swag". For my next black veil, I'm going to use the black seed beads again but also adding garnet style teardrop beads for a triangular effect.

I've had some criticism to say that black veils would not have been used but I disagree and have found some in use in pictures. I'll post pictures when completed plus give you an idea of the amount of beads you'll need and time. I'm not sure who will get this veil. It's quite large and on me (I know I'm short!) it goes down to my backside.

Thanks!

Colour choices

The embroidery continues slowly due to other projects to get ready for our group's event in Gimli next weekend. I've started to build the colour and decided to go for a very striking colour arrangement. I started the ends by using a kelly green wool and have now added purple wool/silk mixture. I found some funky yellow to use. While the colours may not be everyone's "cup of tea", I believe a multiple of colours would have been used when available. I'm sticking to wools, silks and linens as much as possible to keep it authentic. Not sure if it will be a gift or for myself.

Next stage of cuffs

The cuffs are coming along and the picture is attached. I'm using red linen as the base and so far I've used two tones of green. The kelly green is a wool/silk mixture and the dark forest green is a strandable, washable silk. I'm trying to figure out what to add next in terms of colour. Whether to keep it simple or flashy.

Making cuffs

Good day everyone! I'll be posting a series of posts and pictures as I assemble a set of cuffs so you can see the process.

Some people, ie. my friend Isobel, have great success with transfer pencils. Me...not so much. I use an old overhead and gel pens for darker fabric. One of the challenges is that the gel pens don't always adhere enough so I need to ensure the pattern comes through enough to go over it again. Deciding on colours is a challenge too as I try to decide what to put the cuffs on or if I'll be giving them away. I decided to use green which I realize may make you think of Christmas but I'm trying to use up some of my fibres which have become separated from their tags. Think of it as the no-name project.

Pater Noster - to tassel or not to tassel

Good day everyone,

Attached is a picture of my latest pater noster for my friend Karel (Shhhhh!). I made it out of:

Black silk thread-6 ply and twisted

Black lace agate

Red glass beads ( to represent large rubies, if only we could afford them that large!)

and an Alexander pewter cross I picked up at Pennsic.

I'm debating whether to add a black silk tassel to the end. Any thoughts?

Back from Pennsic with tons of inspiration

I had a great ten days at Pennsic and have come back with lots of ideas, inspiration and supplies to work on projects. My class on Tassels, Cords & Braids went well with some lovely people attending and participating. I do need to tweak my handouts with more detailed illustrations and my next step will be to recreate specific tassels and cords from pictures.

I helped out at Viscountess Mistress Aramanthra the Vicious' classes on breadmaking in firepits. It was great and I learned so much. She is correct in that once you have had homemade English Muffins, you'll never have the storebought ones. One of their neighbours brought over honey to have on the bread which was so great.

I had a quick trip through the A&S display in the barn on Monday and wished I could have spent more of the day talking to people. I'm including a picture of one sweet bag that a woman made and I cannot find her name unfortunately. I finally found beads for my veils after a few days of searching as my usual supplier did not bring any and I decided to try making my veils from scratch rather than premade ones.

Heading to Pennsic

The wagon train (or in this case, the station wagon) will be ready for the road on Tuesday. Isobel and I will be heading to Pennsic until the 15th. I'm looking forward to taking some classes, including the bread class taught by Mistress Aramanthra, and teaching my own. That being said, I'm quite nervous about it.

I'll be at Master Giles Horsebow shop most mornings and in camp or bounding around for the rest of the days. Please drop by to say hello.

I'm hoping to learn techniques and info from:

Bread making by Mistress Aramanthra

Card weaving by Athena

Viking knowledge from Asny

and many more.

Today's photo is not about my 50 for 50, sewing or other. It's about why most of us do what we do in the SCA-for the fun and camraderie of friends. See you soon!

Recycling old garb

When you find you don't have a use for pieces of garb anymore, consider a couple of things. One, consider giving it away particularly if it dosen't fit you in size or persona anymore. Two, consider remaking it.

I'm in the process of taking apart a Byzantine dress I made a number of years ago (for Hrodir's first cor'n as prince before we were a kingdom) and making it into a coat. I split the front, moved the two stripes from over the sides to lining the opening and cuffs. I just have to line it, fix the top piece (small sec'n missing), and hem it. I also stripped the garnets, pearls and hematite from the dress to use again but I'm switching out the round large pearls for seed pearls instead.

Part of the reason for doing this is economy but I really like the burgundy fabric. Originally, there were 4 dresses made using the fabric but each was different for each person who wore it.