Update

Well here is the progress i made last night playing with new stitches. Getting out of the very medieval split stitch and playing round with new stitches is interesting that is for sure. Elmsley Rose has offered to give me some pointers. Have a squizz at her sight by the way...

The fishbone stitch is easier than i expected and doesn't look to hard to totally muck up. Have a lokk at the following video tutorial that is on the Needle'nThread website. I find them very easy to understand (once i do this switch over for being left handed...)
http://www.needlenthread.com/2006/11/fishbone-stitch-video-tutorial.html

As you can see i tried to do a filling stitch in the flower petals. It has highlighted the fact that a) i havn't done the stitch before, b) was doing the stitch by memory and c) that the petals are not the same size. Hopefully with all of them done this will ballance out a bit and look more normal. With have a hunt around and see what other stitches would be good for these sort of flowers.
They also just posted a link to an online book about embroidery.... here is the link i must check it out properly
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24964/24964-h/24964-h.htm

Learning new stitches

This is the first time i have tried whip stitching....
I'm teaching myself new stitches and new patterns at the moment. Rather than starting any new projects. Having see some of the wonderful work on http://www.plimoth.org/embroidery-blog/ (the enbroiderer's story) and also the work of Elmsley Rose http://elmsleyrose.blogspot.com/ I think i shall focus on playing with stitches and designs before playing with anything new. Up till recently i have mostly been doing split stitch needle painting type work. I would love to try some of the later types of embroidery shown on those sites.

if anyone has any good site rcommendations, i'd love to hear them

First shots of my dress

Hey all these are the photos i have of my dress "in action" others comming but these are from Cathalina.

Medieval Quilting Update

Well i had a go at quilting some medieval designs to see how it would turn out.

here are the results:

This is about 2 1/2 hours work, including transfering the design to the fabric. By the way Childrens colouring books are perfect for this kind of work :-)

It is not finished yet, i still have a bit of detailing on the figure before i start the next two.

If doesn't look very exciting in the pictures but i think it prooves to me that i should be able to manage something on a larger scale.

(Excuse that thread that has blown over the top of the fabric.)

All this is, is a cotton cover over 3 layers of thin wool cloth. (i do realise this would need to change)

Now i know that this kind of quilting is achievable by myself, i need to look in to the types of materials that i can use.

1. I want to make it a "good" item

2. Something that will last for a while (ie materials need to be washable/strong/colourfast)

3. The design needs to be well though out. I think i will comission my partner to do the drawing of the quilt as he is by far the more "Technical" drawer out of the two of us Not sure what i want yet. Was thinking about a story that runs around the outside band of the quilt, with a larger "image" in the center of the quilt, or perhaps like the Tristan Quilt, several larger images 4 or 9 perhaps.

Questions:

Colour: it seems strange to me NOT to be using lots of colour for this. I need to think out what colours i do want to use. The tristan quilt is very monotone, reminiscent of some cream "French" quilts that i have seen.

construction: I need to find a way of doing this that best represents the Medieval way, but this may need to compromise with modern methods/skills/cost/use....

Size: A Queen size quilt covered all the way sounds awesome....achievable, hmm, perhaps not, but i don't particularily want to break it up with other fabric/nonembroidery areas or a geometric pattern in between the story ... Perhaps i may have to do a pillow or something instead.

Mathematically i have done about 30cm2, i would need 30000 cm 2 to cover ever inch of the quilt, say, perhaps i only cover about half (leaving room for gaps between stories and things so say 14000cm2 maybe because the designs are bigger and less room between stitch lines i would need 10000cm2. (minimum) that is still about 300 times the amount that i have already done, so it would take about 600 hours??? Not including all the drawing and marking that would go on it. That seems like quite a bit to me. But then again i guess it would...hmmm.....Bring out the professional embroiderers working 12 hours a day. If i had about 6 of them... working all week..... we might be in business :-)

The Tristan Quilt c. 1400 Sicily

(image thanks to the V &A Museum) see this link for more details: http://www.flickr.com/photos/medievalandrenaissance/sets/72157604922734293/



I was rather excited and perhaps a little shocked to find a reference to a medieval textile created in "quilting style" I don't 100% say it is a Medieval quilt as i guess we don't quite know what it was used for originally. But how fantastic would it be to own a quilt like this.



I discovered that there is a project to copy this quilt.

(photo from above website thanks to the V&A Museum)

Fascinating i think but now how was it done??



Anyone tried to do this kind of work ?? PLEASE send me a message would love to know what you did. Or do you KNOW ANYTHING about this, let me know. I have never done quilting before, but a quilt like that would look fantastic on my bed!

(photo credit and information: http://www.ilclubdelpuntoincroce.com/guicciardini_en.htm )

This is a study in progress i think, but underneath are a set of links that have information on the quilt or comments from people who have seen this quilt.

http://georgresearch.blogspot.com/2005/11/italian-guicciardini-quilt.html (good information)

http://medieval.webcon.net.au/loc_italy.html

http://www.sca.org.au/broiderers/newsletters/twelfthnight99.htm

http://www.bayrose.org/wkneedle/Articles/quilting.html

http://www.florilegium.org/?http%3A//www.florilegium.org/files/TEXTILES/quilting-msg.html (scroll down a short way)

http://www.florilegium.org/?http%3A//www.florilegium.org/files/TEXTILES/quilting-msg.html
Quotes form the V&A Website:

The Tristan quilt (bed cover) was made around 1400. Linen fabric has been quilted and padded with wool wadding with outlines in brown and white linen thread. It was made in Sicily, Italy and is 122 inches in length with a width of 106 inches.The legend of Tristan and Isolde was a favoured narrative in the Middle Ages and appears in many forms in literature and the decorative arts. The story represented here on a quilted linen coverlet, in fourteen scenes, is that of the oppression of Cornwall by King Languis of Ireland and his champion the Morold, and the battle of Sir Tristan with the latter on behalf of his uncle King Mark. Although in subtle shades, the large scale designs are very clear and the quilt must have looked particularly impressive by candlelight, with lively scenes of battles, ships and castles.More images of the quilt are available via Collections Online.Museum Number 1391-1904

Embroidered Pouch

Here are the pictures of the pouch another day on... and yes i was supposed to be making a dress, but i got a bit bored after 4 hours of endless seams.

I have currently left the four squares in what will be the middle of the back of the pouch, but i don't quite know what to do with them. Anyone have any suggestions??
Was thinking about either little sead pearls, or twisting the blue and a gold thread together and doing another star? or something quite different.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I can't get the photos to come out with quite the right colour, but i assure you, that it is beautiful :-)

Progress on my first embroidered pouch

Here is the first picture of the back of the pouch. It is a gold silk back ground and the threads are a beautiful green silk. The colours are not quite the same in the pictures. I have done this in Stem Stitch. I intend on embroidering a small star, or put a pearl in each of the little squares.

I STILL havn't finished the front, but i have done a little more. Not far to go.

Please remember this was my first embroidered pouch project, if fact one of my first ever embroidery projects.

Coin purse

Here is my little coin pouch, i HAVE proper lacing for it but it is IN something else for the moment. I have just noticed looking at the picture that it looks like there are loose threads hanging off it. There isn't, it's just scrap bits of thread. The lining of this is red silk. outside wool with small brass medalion and pearls.

That brown dress again

Just some photos from the group photo shoot. These are my photos of the dress at its mist finished, not all the skirt seams are sewn closed (one near the back was completly open except for 1 inch at the top, the front one I almost finished while I was wearing the dress on the way to the park, you can see in the first photo where it is open at the bottom) I didn't know about the photo shoot till a couple of hours before, so it was a bit rushed.

The trim is half sewn onvery neatly on both sides, half roughly sewn on on one side, so I need to sew the second half more neatly before I actually wear it. I also need to make the (brown) sleeves, I have started patterning them.

This is probably the main dress I will be wearing at HA and Abbey. I prefer the skirt of my blue one, but this bodice is more comfy. If I have time I'll make a new bodice for my blue one (have pleanty of that fabric left) exactly the same as this one, but I'll try to elimanate those front wrinkles. If not, wrinkles at that point are period, I have seen them on a dress, a brown dress no doubt! Another reason for wearing this one a lot is every other lady in the group has a blue or blue toned dress. We are the smurfs.

The Progress

Ok well here are the results of my efforts over the last two days:

top photo = Chris's doublet in the "about to swear and put in the sleaves stage..."

Bottom photos = my bodice for my Italien dress. (excuse the top stitching it is a pattern only also why i'm using non period fabric...)

next step is to lace it and see how it is fitting...

The Fabric

Well here is the Fabric that his royal worship wants his new doublet made out of. Personally i'm not sure it will quite work. It's a heavy fabric and i am concerned that the puffy sleaves of a doublet might now work with the fabric. quess i shall just have to try and see.

i'm trying to figure out if the doublet (of about the 1495 mark) can have sleaves a different colour, or even have no sleaves so the puffy sleaves can be the white shirt on underneath???

Here is the back and front of the fabric

here is just the front. The colour is a little more apricot that in the pictures though. its very heavy.

The "Finished" band

Well as you can see i have finished the "band"

Now i just have to decide what i am going to do with it. It was only a tester to see how it would turn out, But it don't want to "waste" it by not using on something.

Any Suggestions???

renaissance dyeing

Thanks to Renaissance Dyeing for such quick delivery of my new threads. They are in France and i am in Australia and my thread arrived in 4 working days. (6 if you include the weekend).

Not only have they arrived quickly but they are beautifully soft and the colours look wonderful.


These are the colours i got, resting on my new navy blue 100% wool i got for $9 a meter at my local fabric store. I was doing a bank run at work, nearly got knocked over by a hoon on a bike turned around to abuse him and there in the distance i saw the words ...."Fabric...." being new to the area i ran there, regardless of the whole "should be at work thing" and found my wool.

Some more research on Bands

Well i kept playing with that embroidered band, and this is it with 1 movie's worth of work on it.

The following are some drawings from my sketch book showing some ideas for of the embroidery. These are most more "geometric" patterns. I have a whole other page of more "floral" patterns but i still need to scan them up. The top three are perhaps my favourites. Sorry i havn't had time to date them all with sources, but they are all pretty much copies from various books i have.

This one reminds me of the Bayeux tapestry, just a little....

New wool

Just ordered some new wool thread from Renaissance Dyeing http://www.renaissancedyeing.com/

Within two hours of me ordering online it was in a post van, so hopefully it will arrive soon so i can start playing with it. Angela, if you want me to send you some samples i can do that. It looks like it will be of a good quality and suitable for what we will need it for. Maybe if i send them you can take them to the next Condott training to show the others.

I have also thought about doing a embroidered band around our cloaks/cuffs/anything that stands still long enough. I was playing with a pattern tonight. If i like it i may use this one. I have seen variations of this on many braids. Variations normally include different "devices" in the middle, and maybe the red outlining being done in couching.

I tried a "new" stitch on the pink background it's the base stitch for the Bayeux couching, then the over stitching is just split-stitch. Not sure if i like it as much or if i like it for the band, but i am just playing!

Pouches...

Excuse the lack of proper ties on this one, i removed them for something else...

This is a tiny coin pouch about 7cm high with a brass device, surrounded by seed pearls and glass beads. It will be lined with proper ties.





This is my bag that matches my red and gold 14th centuary outfit. It is red and gold silk, with gold one side and red the other side. The top trim is couched on with gold silk thread.

The other side

The old embroidery at the top of the sideless surcoat... I have to rip it all out to change the neckline as it is too narrow for the neck line on the red silk dress!!!!

Holiday Blog

Just incase you want to have a look at what we got up to on our holiday, here is the link to our overseas holiday. Excuse the beer photos, but there are lots of pretty pictures. For everyone in Europe they are the same old same old, but for us, it was a new world of wonder.

http://travellingfine.blogspot.com/

In particular MEDIEVAL BAGS see this post!!!!
http://travellingfine.blogspot.com/2007/10/why-back-to-germany.html
We went to:
London,
South England
Yorkshire
Paris
Copenhagen
Berlin
Dresden
Prague
Krakow
Yorkshire (family)
London (family)
South england (family)
Barcelona
Madrid
Torledo
Budapest
Vienna
Munich
Poland (again)

and many others.

We did every museum we could get ourselves into... and enjoyed the cultural delights of many a beer hall....

drool....

This is some of my fabric that i have away for a special dress/occasion...

sigh.... i love it...

Bayeux

Ok so i have been a little slack this week...

but i have done a little bit on the trial dragon.

I still havn't fixed the face, but i don't think i will. Might finish it and keep it as it is.

Am planning on playing with a small scene based on a section of the tapestry to cover the side of a pouch.

EDIT:

Have just seen some of the detailing that Racaire has done on her Bayeux stitch. While i have done mine the same, (couching over the threads as i go) i havn't done those couching stitches as close as hers. I might try them a little closer next time.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow....

Playing With Bayeux

Had a play with the Bayeux tapestry stitch today, obviously not finished yet, as i havn't even finished the green and the black edging in the center isn't done. But i think that with some more time i could get used to this stitch quite easily.

I mucked up the lines on the face, but i can redo them.