One cuff done

I'm posting the first cuff that is complete from the set I'm making. I still haven't figured out if I'll keep them or gift it but I'm pretty sure I'll gift them to someone with a norse persona.

It's done on red linen and the threads are mainly silk or wool. I have used one orange cotton thread for accents as I was unable to find a suitable (and cost effective!) silk alternative. I will post pictures of the cuffs on the tunic when completed.

If you are looking for a nice addition to a tunic, cuffs are the way to go. You can also do a neck design to match or coordinate if you wish. I normally suggest doing cuffs or necks on a separate piece of fabric than the tunic. Reason? If you stain the tunic or ruin the tunic, you can remove the cuffs and move them to a new one. It took approx 11.5 hours to complete one cuff. Understand that I was not working at top speed so you can do it more quickly. You may notice one small part is not done. After I took the picture, I noticed it and have since fixed it.

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.

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?

Embroidery and pattern transfer

Today I wanted to share an embroidery mistake with you. The picture that has most of the embroidery filled in was transferred onto the fabric with a transfer pencil. Problem? The marks wore off before I finished the hawk. I will finish it but for the 2nd hawk (these will be a set of cuffs) I traced the picture onto tracing paper and stitched through the paper onto the fabric with a running stitch. It took a little while but as you can see, I have a pattern that can be followed and won't wear off. Once the stitching is done, the basting stitches can easily be removed.

Not sure who is getting the hawks yet. I did a set for Baron Erec a few years ago and I'll try to get a picture of those. I have used silks and cottons for both sets.