liadethornegge | Lia's Projects Blog

I've been having issues with the design of my cape. I trimmed the cape all the way around with a woven band and wanted to do a second line with the same band, but I'm lacking half a meter to make that happen. Helwig also did not have any more of that roll, so I had to go back to the drawing board.

I tried a number of variations to do another line in the same spot, and eventually came up with a combination of a green leafy trim I found at Lidl and a narrow gold lace trim..

I've been working on appliqueing that as a second outline all around, and the configuration I landed on means I have to twist the gold tape around the leafy trim every inch, so there's a lot of manipulation going on, which slows me down. I started this at the centre of the front edge, i.e. right at the back of my neck, and it meets at the centre of the hem. Since the leaves are directional it becomes another wreath all around the cape.

I also remembered that I was going to stitch on spangles all over the remainder of the cape. I think I want to lay them out to be on a grid, and I might also actually trace out that grid with more trim. We'll see.

During the day I finished stitching down the trim to complete the wreath and tried to take pictures of the shiny. It's hard though.

Tomorrow I have to pack for Lucia Baronial Investiture, and on Friday morning we head to catch the ferry to Gotland.

I pulled out my lovely sewing machine this weekend. On Sunday I made one nightshirt out of a flannel offcut.

Today I made another version of the same nightshirt, slightly longer sleeves and fancier hem treatments. I made self bias tape and did an edge binding like on a t-shirt knit.

I might continue with the modern sewing to start, at long last, on my winter coat. We'll see.

Archery last night was fun - we got to try a recurve bow and a second go at longbows as well. The rapid switching between equipment messed me up quite a bit, but my grouping was still acceptable, mostly.

The one arrow which felt effortless and straight forward was also the one arrow that went straight in the centre circle. We have only two more Mondays left on this course. After this we get to come practice on Tuesday and Thursdays instead.

I think the two of us will both want to continue practicing with longbows after the course. The club has several loaner longbows as well as the barebows we are learning on.

Forgot about this blog again. But I have been ok about actually updating my wordpress monthly Craft Recaps.

It seems more and more people are leaving the virus that is FB, and the question is where to find community again. This blog suffers, because I do not believe this is where we will re-gather. Unfortunately.

Anyway, I've gotten some more progress on my laurel cape. I've finished the badges around the hems, and I've outlined the entire cape with a laurel wreath trim. I want to add more stuff to my cape, but I haven't actually finished my design, so I'm testing it out on the project live.

After trying a cold cord three ways I realized I have almost enough of the laurel trim to double up the outline around the whole cape. I am hoping Helwig might have another roll of that, or I will have to go back to the drawing board again.

I started to get some hope of finishing it enough to wear it at 12th Night Coronation, but, I think that's not quite realistic.

The applique and all the cord I am couching means I also want to add another layer of fabric on the inside before lining it with silk. The ends of the cordage I am couching is anchored on the backside, and I'm worried the ends might poke or snag on the silk if I do nothing. I am hoping that a single layer of cotton will be enough to stop that happening. I want to keep this cape as light as possible, though.

Yesterday, the shire of Aros had a potluck get together. We started at 1 pm with crafts and then we ate potluck dinner together. I brought the red petticoat and stitched all the godets onto the big pieces. I also discovered that one part of a hem had some jagged cutouts, which I disguised with another small piecing.

I opted to wear my ancient Roman garb for the day, because it's an easy outfit to wear, and I rarely pull it out. I remembered a set of earrings and other jewelry pieces from Pennsic.

At the potluck I also took delivery of my new handmade shoes! I wanted a pair of shoes to fit my 14th/15th Century wardrobe and I had previously commissioned a pair in exchange for medieval pillowcase fabric. I finished the yardage in February 2024 and finally, at the beginning of this year, the person admitted they would not be able to finish a pair of shoes for me. At that point I asked Erik Dalekarl if he had space to make me shoes in exchange for some handweaving and he said he did.

They fit me, and they are an appropriate style. I am super happy with the exchange.

Check out the insta-post with pics

Today I continued on the skirt for my petticoat, stitching the panels together along the side seams. As I was finishing the first one I realized I had forgotten to add pockets. I did not rip out my stitching, instead I marked out the other side seam for a pocket there. So, I will only have one pocket on this kirtle, just like the first red petticoat.

The skirt now has two panels in the back and one panel in the front, I have not yet stitched the centre back seam because I can't make up my mind what to do.

I could turn the skirt around - put the seam in the centre front. Holding it up around me makes this a very tempting option.
I could attach the skirt as is, stitching up the back seam and cutting a slit at centre front so I can lace it on.
Both of these options means that I have to attach the skirt on fully flat - because I do not have enough width in the waist to add any pleats.

The third option is to add in a rectangular panel in the centre back seam - because I have a small piece of cloth left. In order to fill in the centre panel I would have to cut that remnant which is basically 70 x 50 cm in half and make one long skinny piece 25 x 140 cm which would expand the waistline by those 25-ish cm.

I'm not sure how to proceed, so I've laid it down again to ponder the issue.

The other day the Kingdom University team sent out the form for classes at Kingdom University. I am going this year and it's been a while since I taught, so I figured I should come up with something.
I asked on my fb what I could talk about, and offered a Weaver's Meet & Greet, or a Maths of Weaving class. I had some people express an interest in the second so I sent in a proposal. I only applied for 30 minutes. I don't know if I could fill a full hour just talking about the maths of weaving. It is fairly simple maths in the end.

Tonight I started writing on a possible outline as well as a handout collecting all the terms. In my head I thought I could structure it from an actual example - go from being inspired by an extant textile to working out all the maths. The only danger here is that I can see myself going off on all sorts of tangents.

I am also not so sure how much detail to go into. Do I need to explain the importance of water to sea-faring, or is it safe to assume some level of knowledge. I think it will depend on who shows up on the day. But if you have woven fabric before, I'm not sure this class would be terribly interesting, so I'm aiming for less knowledge and more terms explained than not, I think.

I seem unable to commit to actually cutting out the skirt for my new red petticoat.

I should have enough for three gored skirt panels. Definitely not enough for straight paneled skirt. I tried that on my splendor solis kirtle and was miserable trying to walk in it so I eventually re-cut it to be gored panels.

Anyway, I'm not sure how to apportion my fabric. The waistline is about one third back panel, two thirds in the two front panels.

Issue one: I don't want to have two panels in the front of the skirt and one at the back.
Issue two: the bodice is front laced, do I add a seam at the front or try to cut that on the fold and do a slit?
Issue three: how long to make the skirt to best utilize the cloth I have.

I did cut out the thai silk lining for the bodice - but I'm starting to think I didn't give it enough ease, and I don't want to put in the lining before I've attached the skirt, so can't test it yet. Maybe that's also the wrong thing, I might be able to add the lining already.

I'm just feeling meh about it

This week, Ed's been away on a work conference and then Gothenburg Street Photo Festival, so I've been left to my own devices since Tuesday.
Fortunately before he left he had cooked a delicious chicken stew thing which kept me fed. As usual, I can barely get to bed at a reasonable hour, and I definitely do not fall asleep at a reasonable hour whenever he's away from home. But I wake up 1 minute before my usual alarm no matter what, so, I've been a little sleep deprived.

But I have managed to get something done for my new red petticoat. I basted the side seams on the seam lines, tried it on and realized, before even attempting to lace it closed, that that extra 1 cm I marked on the side seams needed to be put into practice.
The new side seams are now properly stitched and I could put the bodice on finally.

The test fit showed I needed to lower the armscye under the arm by about 1 cm, but otherwise it fit pretty well. I also lengthened the shoulder straps by about 5mm. Lowering the armscye fixed some wierd tension issues I was having and I'm now ready to move on to the skirt.

My plan was to have the kirtle finished before Drachenwald Kingdom University (nov 7-9) but now I want to finish it before the Costume parade put on by Old Uppsala Museum which is October 11th. So far I haven't repeted an outfit for when I've been part of their historical costume parade. Last year I wore the mi-parti heraldic gown of bling. The year before I was in my Pisa Kirtle. This year I'm going in my black wool 1575 gown for which I used one particular portrait as a close inspiration. Check out my pinterest inspo board. I want to wear it over my new red kirtle - if I finish it in time.

I do have to pull the gown out of my closet to check if the necklines are compatible, though. I thought I had it stored in my hallway closet, and went to pull it out when I laced the new red bodice on the other day, but it wasn't there, and I didn't want to pull down my clothes bins. I also need to find my velvet veil, and starch a suit of ruffs.

At sewing circle this past weekend I dug through my binder of patterns and cut out a new bodice from my self-made and dyed fabric.

Me and Helwig also helped our new member, Anna, to start her own similar project. We drafted a bodice pattern and did a quick first fitting of it, so she could take it home and start cutting out her red wool.

On Sunday I proceeded with the new red petticoat project, cutting out interlining and stitching some lines for light boning and padstitching in the front bodice, and it was lovely to do some hand sewing.

I'm paused to figure out how I want to do my front closing. I think I will try to do something similar to what I did on my original red petticoat, which is lace through the interlining and let the outer fabric overlap and pin it closed. The red petticoat does have hooks and eyes, but my little black dress I use pins on and I love the way it looks, so I think I'll aim for that. Which means I need something else to cover the front edge of the interlining, which currently is just the selvedge of the green and white checked fabric I wove for the Pisa kirtle.

Instagram post with pictures of this process

Turns out, after counting a bit more carefully, that my Victoria loom has 120 - 140 - 140 - 120 heddles on each shaft, not just 100 per shaft. This is most excellent. It seems to me it's set up for herringbone twill, which I love.

I might also be able to get some more heddles that fits this little beauty from a weaver friend. She was going to check her stash for what she might have. I should also measure the bag of tied heddles I picked up at the car boot sale along with the wool.

Next weekend, not this Saturday, but the week after, there's an event in Holmrike (our neighbouring shire) and the options I am considering is 1) bring the loom and dress it there or 2) bring the cape and work on that.

I think, possibly, I'll do the easier thing and bring the cape. Because there are plenty of tables I can set up to do some full-scale layout at a decent working height. Currently that project is stalled because I have the new loom on the table, and the table is at any rate a little too small to fit the entire cape laid flat.

I have bought my first loom!

I went to a car boot sale, and a loppis (think semi-permanent yard sale) outside Uppsala this weekend, and a 70 cm wide Glimåkra Victoria table loom (Glimåkra official site with image) jumped into my care. I spotted it in the barn at the loppis, and asked the little old lady about it. Asking if it she knew it was complete. She said she'd be willing to sell it for 50 SEK to a person who could take care of it properly.

So, we went to take a look, pick up all the pieces and see what was there, and it turned out to have all the parts, and so I paid her 50 SEK for a perfectly good 4 shaft table loom.

At the boot sale earlier I had crouched down to look into a big blue IKEA bag containing wool yarn, and the man at the table said 'I'll sell it to you for 50 SEK'.

So, I came home with something approaching 2 kg of 6/1 Bergå wool in a few colours, and a loom for the low low price of 100 sek in total.

Instagram post with picture of the loom and yarn, and one bag of hand tied heddles

My Öxabäck floor loom is not going anywhere, so now I have two looms. OK, three if we cound the band loom that I haven't touched since 2011.

In completely other news - I think I finished the central back applique on my cape. I might be adding some additional outlining, but possibly not.
Instagram posts showing

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Lia de Thornegge

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December 2025

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Latest posts

Cape progress - second circumference done
Modern sewing and archery
A dead-end, and cape progress
Shire potluck and ret petticoat progress
Teaching at Drachenwald Kingdom Uni
(no subject)
New red petticoat
Cutting of red wool
More heddles than I thought
I bought a loom!