Better Living Through Shopping

I admit that I am feeling the teensyiest bit guilty about this (it's too easy!) but I think I've found a way to test-run a lacis partlet.

That is, to try it out and make some observations about the shape, support and coverage I will need prior to making my own lacis partlet 100% by my own hands.

You guessed it, I found some lacis pieces on e-bay. Ten of them, in fact, and each about 8 3/4" square.

They came in the mail yesterday and while they make my own poor attempts at lacis look like great hulking lumpish things in comparison (I'm going to have to look into getting a smaller gauge and some finer thread) I'm excited to skip past the 'making the lacis' stage and get right down to making a partlet so I can experiment with the 'how in the world does this work!?!' part.

Now I just have to figure out how I want to assemble them....


and then get up enough courage to wear it!

Well, my scissors (and stuff) came yesterday...

and with them came something I had forgotten about, a pewter pilgrims badge representing St. Peter of Rome (Vatican City). I bought my scissors from Fettered Cock Pewters and I got to pick a pilgrim's badge as a free gift (and you will too if you order while the special is still on.) Quite a nice holiday surprise!

Naturally I immediately started on a scissors case for the chatelaine, but my big news for today is:

The Pater Noster I made with my new badge!

Talk about projects you never expected to undertake. I went to the bead store [Danger, Will Robinson!] to get three little beads to use as buttons on the needle book and walked out with just a teensy bit of additional stuff...clear and white quartz crystal beads...and lapis beads... and some red silk beading thread...

I made the red silk tassel with a spool of silk thread I've had sitting around for ages. It's not quite the right color (aka, matching thread) but I just had to get as done as I could with the stuff I had on hand!

Ain't she pretty?

Progress on the insides

While I wait for my clipper scissors to arrive (so I can get started on the scissors case) I've been working on the pin pillow and needle book for my chatelaine.

I made a little bitty piece of lacis for the pin pillow and learned several very important things:

1) Yes, stretching it on a frame is important!

I decided to just stretch the netting in my fingers as I worked the pattern. Bad idea. The finished piece is...kinda lumpy. It's not as easy to control the tension as you work the pattern into the net and it's also much harder to get all the stitches in the correct place.

The second reason it's a bad idea? Dirt. I handled the piece a lot more and it's beautiful creaminess is decidedly grey in spots.

Live and learn (and wash itty bitty pillows!)

2) Cotton batting doesn't like having you squish it into a tiny space and then stick pins into it.

Next time I will try looser filling, but I suspect cotton is not the material of choice when it comes to filling pin pillows, mainly because the glass-headed pins I bought keep bending when I try to stick them into it!

3) It would have been a much better idea to graph out the pattern I wanted.

If I had I might have realized that my original idea for a pattern wasn't going to work before I stiched it up. This tiny little piece of lace is positively riddled with joined sections from figuring out what I was doing on the fly.

Still, all in all it looks pretty good.

The needle case is much more of a work in progress. It's got a little pocket for a needle threader and two leaves of felt with a selection of tapestry and general sewing needles. I'm thinking I'll work the edges with needle lace and add a button to close it. And/or I might add some white work embroidery...

Oooo...look what I found!

It appears to me that some of the extant sweet bags/chatelaines may have a band or bead to adjust the cords they hang by. I've had them on pouches or bags in the past and found that they keep the strings under control and add an extra level of security in keeping things closed so I took the dangerous step of going to the local bead store to look for a suitable bead. (Cue danger music track.)

I should, perhaps, mention that said store is only a block away from my new place of work and knowing the temptations such places offer I have, up to now, been very good and kept far far away...

But that's all over now!

(Cue joyful crescendo of bliss.)

Let's just say that it's a nice shop, but the important bit for now is that I not only found a yellow jade bead that works nicely for controlling my strings, I also found Mother of Pearl oblong beads which I think may become the most beautiful thread winders.



It sounds like I should be able to grind a curve in the long edges (maybe with sandpaper?) and then polish them back to shiny goodness. I guess we'll see, but they sure are pretty!

Holiday yummies!

Tonight is the annual Yule party for our local barony and Boen and I have been up for hours working on our contribution to the potluck feast. We are making an absolutely enormous meat pie with beef, almonds, raisins, apricots, apples, bread crumbs, eggs, milk, coriander, cumin, tumerick, onions, garlic, lemon zest and juice, bay leaves, salt and pepper...all baked up in pastry with a topping of egg custard.

It smells as yummy as it sounds!

For those of you who don't recognize this dish from the list of ingredients (which I wouldn't have until earlier this week) this filling is one of the many variations of a South African classic: Bobotie. We used this recipe for the ingredients but changed the technique a bit. Basically we precooked the meat (as did several other recipes) and added a crust.

I love that it is completely possible/plausible/believable in the context of a medieval kitchen, yet I've had Bobotie pie at a restaurant and found the recipe in a gazillion places on-line.

I hope it tastes as good as it looks(and smells)...

Is it a butterfly yet?

You remember my lacis piece that wanted to be a bag? Well, my project has changed form several times, but it's coming along well!

I started out thinking it just wanted to be a sweet bag...but then it got more detailed...and wanted accessories...and now I seem to be working on a sewing kit/chatelaine much inspired by this example.

I've worked and attached finger loop braid for the edging and tassel/strap loops, made tassels and am currently working on binding the thread loops and making more finger loop braids for the various straps which will be necessary to attach all the pieces together as a chatelaine.

Since I lined the original bag with silk organza and it is going to be possible to see any objects it contains, I want to stick with my current off-white color scheme. I'm thinking I need a needle case, pin cushion (with pins), scissors with case and maybe some thread winders or lace-making supplies (bobbins or gauges?) or something.

I'm going to have to do some research on how period chatelaines were made and worn but I really excited to add such a useful item to my kit!

Progress thus far...

New thoughts...

Do your projects ever speak to you?

I've been getting some increasingly clear messages from my second piece of lacis.

It doesn't feel like a fan. It doesn't want to be a fan!

It wants to be...

a bag!

Hmm.....