Naughty, naughty!

My Boen just suggested that for today's entertainment we could just go out to a store, stand in a corner and watch!

Men who have gotten all their presents can be so mean... ;)

I'm still working on the collar of his Christmas shirt so I rather feel for the poor shoppers, myself.

Happy holidays!

Apparently, cookies don't make themselves.

I have been working on the last of my holiday sewing projects and am...oh about 1/2-way done with a new not puffy shirt for Boen. (At his request. Making a simple, close fitting white linen shirt with no ornamentation doesn't come naturally to me!) It's going pretty well and nicely fast considering I only discovered where the white linen I bought for it weeks ago was hiding when I was heading out the door for work on Thursday morning.

I've been stitching away all day...feeling pretty virtuous...bbbbbbuuuuuutttttttttt

We have no cookies. Not a one. Not a single cookie in the house!

I can't take it anymore.

Sewing kit is finished!

And not a moment too soon, too.

(I've suddenly realized that I had better get a move on with Christmas present projects!)

Since my last posting on this project I have finished the needle lace edging and crystal bead buttons for the needle case, replaced the bottom three tassels on the original bag with larger ones, and created a scissors case and restraining cord for the clippers. Like the pin pillow and needle case, the scissors case is attached to the bag by a length of finger loop braid, but this one was anchored at the center of the bags handle so it can dangle freely and also can be looped around a belt and through the bag's handle above the bead to anchor the chatelaine securely when the bead is raised. I have no idea if similar arrangements were done in period, but it works!

And now, for your viewing pleasure:

The closed chatelaine



And open to show off the contents



I can't believe I'm finally going to have all the gear I need to sew or make repairs at events easily to hand. I can hardly wait to give it try!

ooooh! gotta have it!

it's possible I'm obsessed....

http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI07920f04a.jpg

I think I'm gonna have to try making one. :)

(BTW, I discovered the above image courtesy of the wonderful research posted at:
http://alysattewater.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/extant-medieval-hairnet-photos-on-the-web/. Thank you Alys!)

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...