projects in progress
I just replied to a letter from a friend in Norway, who made the lovely tablet woven trim I bought at the Geology conference back in January. She had asked what project(s) I am working on these days, and, since I typed up a full list/description for her, I decided I would paste it here, too, since some of my friends like hearing about such things:
My current projects are mostly focused on getting ready for a "Lajv" this summer--some of my friends have organized one with a Viking theme, and since I had already made myself a Viking man's tunic I decided to play a Viking man. And, since my tunic is high quality, they decided that I am clearly a man of status, and next thing I know I am one of the three Stormen in the game. So now I need more accessories. Currently in progress is a beard/mustache, a coat, a hat, and some "man-muscles".
The beard/mustache is a serious time consuming project (that I really need to put more hours into). I don't cope well with synthetic fibers, so I decided I didn't want to buy a beard, so I am sewing my own hair onto silk. Each one is attached at the midpoint and becomes two half-length strands in the beard, which still leaves plenty of length to do a nice braided beard and mustache. I hope it comes out the way I envision it, but it is still far too soon to tell if it will work out as nicely as I want.
The coat is a fully lined wool, using a dense and reasonably thick bright blue wool for the outside layer and a very fine black wool for the inside, with the lovely red and black trim from you for the edging, attached to the fabric exactly on the edge, so that both front and back of the trim shows and the coat will be reversible. I am covering the seams with red wool in a herring bone stitch on the blue side, which results in two rows of what looks like running stitch on the black side, and requires that I be really careful to make certain that both sides are looking reasonable (I long since gave up on both sides looking perfect!)
The hat is the one I am doing in Omani stitch and will come to a peak and get a fur trim around the base. So far I have almost 30 hours of work in the hat, and just over 30 hours on the coat--and both are around 3/4 done, I would guess. It will be interesting to see which one winds up taking the most time.
The "man-muscles" only barely counts as "in progress". The vision is to make something fitted that both provides good breast support with some flattening to make them less obvious and fills out the curve of my waist to give me a more masculine silhouette, using a combination of techniques from making fitted Gothic fitted dresses and gambesons. So far I have several rectangles of a sturdy plaid linen sewn into a tube with a zipper set into the front seam for ease in putting it on and off. The next step will be to take that in to be a snug and self-supporting fit, and then I will quilt terry cloth towels over it to fill out the curves. The quilting lines will follow the same pattern as a very fit man with a washboard tummy, just because. The outer most layer will be unbleached linen, so that should it be necessary for me to remove my tunics in-game the other players can pretend that it is just my skin showing, and I am not wearing anything more. I really need to find time to get going on the fitting on this one, but need to wait till David has time/energy to help, since it is far simpler to do that with a second set of hands, and he is good at fitting things.
When I started these (in March and April), it sounded like I had plenty of time to get them all done, but now that it looks like summer out there I am not so certain--the event is in August!
My current projects are mostly focused on getting ready for a "Lajv" this summer--some of my friends have organized one with a Viking theme, and since I had already made myself a Viking man's tunic I decided to play a Viking man. And, since my tunic is high quality, they decided that I am clearly a man of status, and next thing I know I am one of the three Stormen in the game. So now I need more accessories. Currently in progress is a beard/mustache, a coat, a hat, and some "man-muscles".
The beard/mustache is a serious time consuming project (that I really need to put more hours into). I don't cope well with synthetic fibers, so I decided I didn't want to buy a beard, so I am sewing my own hair onto silk. Each one is attached at the midpoint and becomes two half-length strands in the beard, which still leaves plenty of length to do a nice braided beard and mustache. I hope it comes out the way I envision it, but it is still far too soon to tell if it will work out as nicely as I want.
The coat is a fully lined wool, using a dense and reasonably thick bright blue wool for the outside layer and a very fine black wool for the inside, with the lovely red and black trim from you for the edging, attached to the fabric exactly on the edge, so that both front and back of the trim shows and the coat will be reversible. I am covering the seams with red wool in a herring bone stitch on the blue side, which results in two rows of what looks like running stitch on the black side, and requires that I be really careful to make certain that both sides are looking reasonable (I long since gave up on both sides looking perfect!)
The hat is the one I am doing in Omani stitch and will come to a peak and get a fur trim around the base. So far I have almost 30 hours of work in the hat, and just over 30 hours on the coat--and both are around 3/4 done, I would guess. It will be interesting to see which one winds up taking the most time.
The "man-muscles" only barely counts as "in progress". The vision is to make something fitted that both provides good breast support with some flattening to make them less obvious and fills out the curve of my waist to give me a more masculine silhouette, using a combination of techniques from making fitted Gothic fitted dresses and gambesons. So far I have several rectangles of a sturdy plaid linen sewn into a tube with a zipper set into the front seam for ease in putting it on and off. The next step will be to take that in to be a snug and self-supporting fit, and then I will quilt terry cloth towels over it to fill out the curves. The quilting lines will follow the same pattern as a very fit man with a washboard tummy, just because. The outer most layer will be unbleached linen, so that should it be necessary for me to remove my tunics in-game the other players can pretend that it is just my skin showing, and I am not wearing anything more. I really need to find time to get going on the fitting on this one, but need to wait till David has time/energy to help, since it is far simpler to do that with a second set of hands, and he is good at fitting things.
When I started these (in March and April), it sounded like I had plenty of time to get them all done, but now that it looks like summer out there I am not so certain--the event is in August!