liadethornegge | Entries tagged with laurel

The plan was great and wonderful, but it did not come to pass.

The weather was not cooperative the first half of the week, the shade-fly we have is not ideal and I did not have the peace of mind to sit down with just my own project.

Sunday we set up camp, and our tent and I visited Viscount Richard the Rampan who sat vigil for Chivalry. After that I had to figure out a speech for him as the Laurel worthy.
Monday I added the new Prince of Nordmark's name to the Nordmark mantle, because he was leaving site that day, and then spoke for Richard's elevation to knighthood, then went to Morgan Donner's first class.
Tuesday I listened to Sir Harman's lecture "Keen on Chivalry" and then Laurel meeting, then I sat around our camp and did nothing, chatting with people.
Wednesday I stayed in bed until 12.30 and then I went to check out the arts display, after court we then hosted a party in camp.
The weather was great on Thursday - but we cooked and served dinner for 150 people that day.
The weather was great on Friday, but we had to start packing stuff up, and I did a whole bunch of nothing else in camp that whole day without putting more clothes on than my pyjamas and the tent-building herjolfsness dress.

So, that was my Double Wars. Not a stitch take on the Laurel cloak project. I did attach maybe ten spangles on my heraldic cote, besides adding the names on the Nordmark mantles.
I double checked Prince Maximiliaen's name spelling and got it right (I hope) but thought I knew Princess Katerina's spelling, spelled it with two a:s so I had to re-do that.

Yesterday myself, Master Edricus and Viscountess Helwig daytripped to the event May Count in our neighbouring shire of Holmrike.

We got there by 10, and I got right into setting up a couple of tables for myself to work on my Laurel cape. I decided that it was going to be my event project. This may change. Anyway. Here's a photo of the general design:
Go to Flickr --> Cape design

What I started with was cutting out a half circle to my measurements - 140 cm radius - from a white linen. This will work as interlining, stabilizing the wool/silk we dyed green last summer at my Apprentice Christina's place.
This cloth is now in four pieces, two pieces 1.40 cm long by 70 cm wide, and two about 90 cm long and 70 wide. I can make up a full half circle out of this, with only a couple of piecings.

I proceeded to baste the two longer panels of wool to the centre of this linen, folding in the cut edge seam allowance over the selvedge. This effectively anchored both pieces of wool to the middle of the interlining, lining up the grain lines there.

Then I basted the shorter bits of wool onto either side of the two middle panels, but catching only the wool. After layout of the linen I realized it needed to be ironed before I anchored any more of the outer fabric to it - so I did as much on this as I could. Then I rolled up the line and wool and folded it up so I could continue on the back applique.

I found a silver faux leather at the Arts&Crafts expo the other year, which I will use on the back to applique on a big laurel wreath and my badge. Around the hem I will also add roundels with my badge.

I worked out how many leaves I would need for the wreath on the back, and I marked out all the pieces on the reverse of the leather in pencil. By that point it was time to head out to watch the tourney, so I set down my project.

I thought I made good progress in any case.

This morning I unfolded my sandwich of linen and wool, and ironed it all over again. Next step is to lay it out again and baste the front edge and the two seams joining the smaller bits to the linen. Then cut and piece the small triangles needed to fill in the half circle. Then I can stitch all the seams down properly and I will have the base for all my applique and embroidery.

I have a bunch of silver cord and the plan is to do couching, picking out contours and add details.

The finished cape will then be lined in green silk. For closure my plan is to do a similar thing to how we set up the Nordmark capes - that is to say one cord sewn on about a third of the way in to it on either side of the front edges so I can tie the short ends in front of my chest and the long ends underneath the arms around the back. It makes for a very secure fastening and remove the need to constantly pull down in front.

I envision it to be entirely SCA regalia blingy in the end.

Still vintage though. The very early notice of a party with early 20th century theme inspired me to finally start making those more modern clothes. Still over 70 years out of date though.

I finished one dress and a slip just after easter. Tonight I finished a second dress. It looks great from the front - the collar and neckline are much more to my liking than the first one. But for some reason I decided to leave a slit at the top of the back neck, above the zip - and this opening turns into a hunchback when I put it on. So, not fun.

I did hem it with a bias binding, which I made from the scraps of the self fabric. I should be able to adjust the back to get rid of the extra fabric there. Hopefully anyway.

I also need proper foundation layers, becaue the fabric is a very light weight denim. It also needs a belt, and probably also shoulder pads. The shoulderpads were on my list - but the belt got added when I tried it on.

I have also started on some embroidery for the new peerage order. I'll finish that for Double Wars for delivery to other people there.

I also pulled out all the materials and measured out to make my Laurel cloak which has been on my list since last year when I dyed a wool/silk blend specifically for this.

I did a new design sketch of the idea, and made up templates for three sizes of leaves and three size of my badge. One large version will go on the back inside a massive Laurel wreath. Smaller versions will go all around the hem. My plan is to make this my event project for a while. Just for fun. I'll make a start at May Count this weekend, I hope.

So, at Glötagillet, the event in Gyllengran this past weekend I brought the new black tablet weaving with text, plus thread and the hood to do edgeweaving.

The plan was to do the hood first, then continue with the tabletweaving. Yeah, that didn't happen as the edge weaving was super-annoying. I managed about ten centimetres before I gave up and switched back to the new belt.

Yesterday when I got home and today I continued working on it, and I finished the entire warp now. So, at home I managed two whole repeats of my device, at the event I did one more, and I did it twice more again before reaching the end. So it's on there five entire times. It's practically impossible to make out though, as black wool on black wool doesn't cast much shade.

In other news, at Glötagillet, I had the honour and pleasure to deliver a writ of summons to Viscountess Anna Laresdotter to contemplate elevation to the Order of the Laurel at Lucia Feast/Baronial Investiture. We received the official word early Friday afternoon that Their Majesties had decided to give her the offer. I was contacted by His Majesty and called him up an hour or so before my travel-mates were due to pick me up. They thought it would be nicer for her to receive the news at an event rather than via a phonecall, and asked if I and Helwig were willing to deliver it to her. I asked if they wanted me to write up a writ to deliver and he said that would be delightful.

So, I had about an hour to do some calligraphy. That was a bit stressful, and the writing wasn't my best ever. Not helped by the fact that when I did the pencil lines (using my Ames guide) I didn't pay close enough attention and ended up using the wrong row of holes, so after two lines had to basically write by eye rather than on a nicely drawn out line. Gaah! I didn't notice that mistake until I came to the third line of calligraphy, so couldn't really start over.

I was kind of sweating and my heart was beating quite fast, with thoughts and memories of receiving my own writ (which is what I used for inspiration for the text).

It turned out decent, and I think it was the right choice to give Anna something tangible to take home.

It was also one of the most awesome things I've gotten to do in the SCA so far.

Vivat! for Anna Laresdotter, our next little Laurel :)

So I've been to my first event (properly) as a Laurel, and Ed asked me how I experienced it. Truthfully, I did not find it very different from any other Double Wars, except that I felt more self-confident and secure. Since I sometimes am a little lacking in that department, that was A Good Thing.

I did also bring a security blanket - my camera - and the idea that I should take lots of photos. I did do that, but not so much that I was too busy to enjoy myself in the moment. I have worked in the past to find the balance between being present and documenting the present, and I feel pretty happy with having found the right mix.

Although this is still early days and the event was much smaller than usual and with almost all people I've known for a long time. However, if this is how it will be in the future as well, I can not imagine I will ever want to stop playing in the SCA.

Speaking of the camera, I shot over a thousand photos, but after two passes of going through and throwing out bad ones I'm now down to just over 400, and there'll be even fewer left after I'm done.

I've also made plans for attending my first Cudgel War! It is Aarnimetsä's own week-long camping event in an idyllic site outside of Åbo. I'm busily working on a number of small projects right now as well, all commissions for others with various deadlines. Currently, I'm doing some blackwork on two different garments, after that I'll be doing wool applique, then making shirts shirts shirts...

So the last post was all about the outer layer. This time it's for the kirtle. The only entirely new piece of clothing I had decided on making for the event.

I sketched in my notebook what I wanted to aim for, and included cuttings from the silk fabrics I had to choose from:

I found the wool at Ohlssons Tyger & Stuvar and bought the first bit off the bolt. It was a new type of wool in their stock, and I think we went to the Stockholm store the first day they had it on their shelves. The same day the Uppsala store did not stock it, but one week after it was on display here as well.

The wool was a joy to sew, and I stitched and topstitched all seams in the skirts using white silk thread.

I didn't want to have to wear a corset, so the bodice had to have a little stiffening in itself, so I used a very fine unbleached linen in my stash to create an interlining layer with stiffening on the front panels:

I still used another linen as interlining in the entire bodice, before installing this extra layer. Below, testing the colour of silk on the bodice, showing interlining and clipping to fold in seam allowances smooth:

I was making a separate pair of sleeves, with a modest version of the baragoni I did for my green Venetian gown, but I also wanted something decorating the shoulders of the kirtle, so I cut out little rectangles of wool and linen, stitched around the edges to close the raw edges without folding in any seam allowances, and folded them double. One row I stitched closed into solid double layered squares, the other row I only closed at the edges and left the middle open to form little loops.

In the photo above I am trying on the tabs at the shoulder, seeing if I needed more or were satisfied. I ended up adding two more tabs to the back and one more to the front so the tabs would go further around the armscye.

The sleeves were done to the same pattern as the Layton sleeves, a simple lightly curved sleeve, fairly close fitting. I cut out one pair first and stitched them up very carefully, only to find that they were a little too narrow for me, so had to cut out another pair. The baragoni consists of six strips of wool, edged on either side with dark green silk. Before attaching the baragoni to the sleeves I also inserted a picadil edge of purple and green shot silk between them and the sleeves proper. The strips were lined with the same linen I used for the rest of the dress, and with the silk edges I left it to the stiffness of the fabric to create the shape. Since I stitched the lower edge about two centimeters shorter than their actual length, there is a little bit of curve and separation between the strips and the sleeves.

You can see that the two lines of green silk at the bottom of the sleeves is echoed at the bottom of the skirt, where the lower stripe is dark green doubel velvet, and the upper one the same dark green silk as on the bodice. The skirt guards both had picadil edges on both sides, which I cut with a very sharp knife after having stitched them on.

The sleeve-guards I also cut into with the same sharp knife to make some nice cuttes:

Wearing the kirtle, from the side (photo by Kit), and from the front (photo by Edricus)

I had a very clear image, fairly soon after I got my writ, of what I wanted to look like at my vigil and subsequent elevation.

I listened to Sir William who said I surely had something in my wardrobe, and decided to add the finishing details to my Green English fitted gown I made for Double Wars 2006.

It was always meant to be finished off with a suite of ruffs, as shown by my source image

Making a suite of ruffs was going to be tedious, I knew, so I started with that before anything else. I cut two strips of loom width linen and appropriate width (I don't remember anymore, but about 15 cm) and stitched them together to form one 3 metre long strip. Then I hemmed all sides.

I then cut two strips of loom width linen to about 8 cm wide and hemmed all sides to make two separate wrist cuffs. I was always going to make double layer ruffs, but I disregarded any issue of up or downside and just hemmed everything to the same side.

Then I went about attaching 3 + 3 + 1.5 + 1.5 metres of cotton lace to the long edges of these three strips of linen. I worked on that for two months. Tedious, is the word.

After that was done I cut out more linen to a collar length and proceeded to use foul language in an attempt to gather the much too long ruffs into much too short collars and cuffs. Before attempting to do the gathering I folded the strips double of course. I did not measure, more than to find the half-way points, on the cuffs I did run a gathering thread. I actually first did that very carefully with the running stitches about 2 mm long. I had to re-do that because there was much too much thickness of fabric to be physically possible. I re-stitched the cuff taking stitches about 4 mm long. Equally impossible, and in the end I stitched it a third time with stitches about 15 mm long. This was at least possible and the other cuff I started with the right length of stitches.

On the collar ruff I did not bother with a gathering thread, instead went for the divide and conquer method. Pins, pins and more pins. This was my task the weekend before Kingdom University, and I am very glad for the moral support of Aros sewing circle thay day, because I kept being so frustrated with the entire concept of ruffs I threw my work across the room several times.

In the end I triumphed, and got both edges of the collar and wrist-bands attached to the ruff, and closed them up. I did it as shown in Arnold, PoF 4, stitching each pleat to one edge of the band, and the other edge of the pleat to the other edge of the band so that the pleated ruff takes up the pleat-depth between the two sides of the band. It ended up being about 1cm on the collar.

After finishing the collar and wrist-band attachment I only had to starch the ruffs. But before doing that I ran a thread through the lace edges to create the perfect figure eight pleating. On an Elizabethan Costuming group I'd picked up the tip to use the very regular lace to help me determine depth of pleats, so I simply did a large running stitch through the peaks of my lace (5 peaks per stitch for the wrist ruffs and 10 peaks per stitch for the collar). I tied this off and finger-formed the two layers of ruff into rough figure eights. Then I could proceed with the starch.

I managed to miss Baroness Margaret Walsingham's class on starch at Double Wars this year, but I persuaded her to send me her handout and had purchased barley starch (Ohrakas-fi, Kornstärkelse-sve) at Midsummer coronation in Finland, because in Finland they still use that stuff for baking. Her recipy called for one part starch and four parts water to be heated while stirring. It formed a lovely wall-paper paste type gloop, into which I mixed another eight parts water. Into this starchy bath I dumped my collar and wrists, wrung them out, and then hung them up to dry, after again finger-forming the figure eights of the ruffs.

They dried over night, hung by clothespins upside down. By morning they were satisfactorily papery in feel.

I found a small bowl with the right circumference for the collar ruff and a wine bottle for the wrist ruffs and then lightly sprayed smaller sections of the ruffs to finger-form them into the right shape. I first had to moisten the bands to be able to pin them around the bowl and bottle respectively. Then I could start on the double layer ruffs. I went around once, carefully spraying and pulling out the lace as well. When I first stitched the lace on it was very narrow, after starching and pulling it out it ended up about twice the width it was when purchased. I went around twice on all three ruffs to get the figure eights to look somewhat decent and then I let it dry again for most of the day. In the evening I again carefully sprayed and finger-pressed the figure eights. I would have liked to have a heat source to help in this, to get the linen very flat and orderly, but I think I succeeded fairly well even with just my fingers. At this point you can see I left the lace guiding thread in, to help me keep the figure eights orderly.

So, on Friday evening, Their Majesties held court, with only a couple of things on the agenda, one was to send me off to vigil, and my vision there was to come dressed in my new white kirtle, but the Green English fitted gown would be the overall impression. I had to pin the ruffs into the gown on site, they had been transported in a large paper bag to keep from smooshing in transit. I could pin through the picadil edges of my gown around the collar band to attach the ruff there. On the wrist I similarly pinned through the picadil edges to fasten the ruffs to the gown. The right way would probably have been to pin the ruffs to the shirt - but I wanted to shed the outer layer, including ruffs, once in the vigil room, so I opted to make them easy to remove as once.

I had to have help to close up the collar ruff in front. One straight pin right in front to close the band up (before next wearing I have to make either lacing holes, or stitch a hook and eye pair there), and two straight pins to make the two layers of ruff into a circle of figure eights around my throat. Once that was done I felt like I was being hugged by my gown and I was very pleased.

Of course, the ruffs were not all, the headwear had to be right too - and after looking carefully at a bunch of portraits of 1560s and 70s ladies I discovered that they not only had ruffs, but also wore a typical French hood. I had wanted to try out the new theory of French hoods (pdf from Sarah Lorraine) which works from the layers of headwear already in use from early in the century and constructed of many parts, rather than the slightly older theory of building a solid single-layer millinery hat. So I put my hair up in two braids, tied around my head, put on the forehead cloth, and coif (pattern #48 in PoF4) and then tied on a bandana of the same purple and green silk I'd used as picadil edging on my vigil gown on top. I carefully folded an edge in as it was a completely raw piece of fabric (no time) so that the front of this piece of silk showing behind the line of the coif would be neat. Over the top of this, and covering the fact that it was just a piece of fabric roughly tied around my head, was a black velvet veil with billiments attached at the front edge. This veil I had from my first Tudor gown and attempt at a French hood.

In the end, I this my attempt was wholly successful, and my Lord Edricus took a number of photos of me before court where I look pretty much like a portrait or effigy of the time.

On Flickr, better image

I didn't want to sit at my vigil and just receive stuff, and I also wanted to make sure the people who came would remember it, so I decided early on that I'd have something to give out as well. I thought about embroidering something small for everyone, or producing a length of useful braid, but quickly realized that would take too long, and a cast pewter token would be better. So I talked to Master SvartulvR up in Frostheim who had the original for the silver necklace I wear all the time. It's in the shape of an inverted seeblatt inside a circle. I thought a variation of that would be to have the seeblatt, in the ring, and my new motto inscribed on the ring.

It turned out that explaining what I was giving out to people worked as an educational point for me all through the evening. My motto, for those who have missed it is: Facio, Disco, Gaudeo which means To create, to learn and joy/to enjoy.

What SvartulvR did was create two composite moulds with two tokens in each so I could cast four at a time, since my original estimate of the maximum amount I would need was 100 tokens. I know that is a much inflated number, but I wanted to be sure not to run out. In the end I made 72 tokens out of pewter I got from Sir Johann's stash of leftovers, and I gave out more than half - I haven't counted the ones I have left.

This is what they looked right cooling off from having just been cast. I bought a very sharp pair of snips and used that to cut off the plug and clean off the outside edge.

The embroidered bag is one I finished after Visby, lined with blue silk and was what I used to carry the tokens in. The embroidery was started in May 2010, but had stalled out after the silk was done (the red and blue bits). After Visby, instead of starting my vigil gown, I picked this embroidery up and finished it with the linen thread. I stitched it up and lined it with a scrap of blue silk in my stash. The holes for the drawstring are simply pushed through with an awl and the drawstrings pulled through. There is no stitching holding them open, following period examples. The holes should be as small as possible, and letting the fabric close up around the drawstring accomplishes that.
The drawstrings are fingerloop braids, 8 loops, four white and four blue, braided in a spiral pattern. My favourite style. They are not my colours, but it's a pretty bag even so.

I went to Kingdom University with lots of stuff, and I came back home with even more stuff.

I suppose I should do a write-up. The entire experience started with getting the writ at Visby (more about that here). That was a pretty awesome day.

The entire Kingdom University experience started with the ferry-ride over there, which was labelled the Nordmark Armada! The airstrike, Lady AElfwynne, started a few hours earlier, but the rest of us were on the 8pm boat from Stockholm heading to Turku. I was in the car with Edricus, William and Isabetta. Helwig was in the car with Åsa, Ludewic and Katarina. The other three cars held Åsa and Martin, Anna and Celemon, and Sara, Iseut and Gilliam. So we were a large invasion force!

We spent Friday basically in Turku, having lunch, going to the museum Aboa Vetus, going off for dinner before finally heading out to the site. We were there around six or six thirty, and started setting up our sleeping quarters, and then changing into period clothes. The others in my party pretty much went off to set up the vigil room and things, and I worked at getting out of their way, and getting the last minute details of my outfit ready.

There was food laid out before court, but I couldn't eat. I was, however, rather dry mouthed for some reason. And the lovely ladies Katheryn, Helena, Melisende and Uta were poking me by threatening some sort of torture. I was easily rattled at this point.

During the evening court there was some piece of business first, I apologize but I forget what, before I was called up, then the Laurels were called up, and Their Majesties Paul and Aryanhwy sent me off to vigil. Mistress Helwig led me off and I didn't leave the vigil room til just before three am. I looked at the time when I crawled into my sleeping bag and it was just after three.

For court I was wearing my new white wool kirtle with green silk and velvet details, over a green brocade petticoat skirt, and my un-embroidered white linen shirt. Underneath it all were a pair of new silk stockings (a gift from Sara Göransdotter), and a pair of linen breeches sewn by Viscountess Filippa Birgersdotter, as a gift for me. Over the white kirtle I was wearing my green English fitted gown onto which I'd pinned my new suite of ruffs. I had some help to get into them in the end. I should have added some hooks and eyes to close the neck ruff in front, but Lady Iseut solved my problem by bravely sticking a pin through both of the neckline layers 1 mm right in front of my throat. She also helped me to pin together the two layers of the ruff itself to make the ruff into a circle. Since the English fitted gown has picadil edges, I could pin the ruffs to the gown through those. I felt like my gown was hugging me.

On my head I was wearing the version of a French hood posited by Mistress Sarah Wydville. To wit, first a forehead cloth, then a coif, then a piece of silk. I had to do this bit a little improvised. A selvedge width piece of the purple/green silk I used for picadils on the kirtle about 25 cm long was all I had: I folded in some of the length in so the doubled silk formed a nice front edge and tied that around my head over the coif showing the white linen underneath. Then over the top of this I had help pinning a black velvet veil with billiments on.

I had Lord Edricus take pictures of this before court and I think I look like an effigy.

After I was led into the vigil room and before the rest of the visitors were let in I had the ladies help me out of the outer layers. The velvet veil, and the silk came off along with the suite of ruffs and the English fitted gown. I sat my vigil in the linen underthings and new white wool kirtle, plus the pure white linen forehead cloth and coif.

In with me were lots and lots of cookies - mad amount of cookies, I had two thermos flasks of tea, and water, and Lord Ludewic Nilsson provided me with a bottle of his own delicious port. I kept forgetting to offer the visitors nibbles or port, so when the vigil guards tried to bring in a fresh tray of cookies I had pretty much all of the first load left.

I slept in til eleven or so, managing to get up in time to have lunch as breakfast. Then I attended a couple of classes (Raghnil's on needleworked buttons and William's on lines of clothing - both very good), then I went to have a lie down and prepare for evening court.

It took a while, and did require a little help with the hair-do, etc. I laced in the sleeves into my white kirtle, which I couldn't do on Friday because they wouldn't fit under the over-gown. I wore my green belt for the last time. I wore it during the vigil on Friday night as well. I minimised the bling, though, wearing my pearl earrings, and my big green malachite ring as well as my silver & hematite ring which I never take off. I did not wear my silver necklace which I otherwise always wear - Mistress Helwig told me in no uncertain term that "bling would be provided". I didn't put on any headwear, coming into court with only my hair braided and put up.

During court some lovely gentles received some well-deserved awards, among them Lord Knut, Lady AElfwynne and Mistress Johanna and Lord Helgi all got Panaches. I was astounded Johanna didn't have one yet, and much pleased to usher AElfwynne up into the presence as she didn't believe it was her name that was called.

Eventually the Order of the Laurel were called up and Mistress Helwig was asked to go fetch the candidate, i.e. me.

There were words, the speakers were for the Laurels: Mistress Helwig. For the Pelicans: Mistress Katheryn, for the Chivalry: Sir William and for the Royal peers: Duchess Alessandra Melusine.

I was not informed of who was speaking in advance, although I was fairly sure about Helwig and Katheryn. I was totally surprised that Mel wanted to speak for me, and very honoured by her words and by the others' as well. I was afraid I might not let myself feel the moment, instead keeping in control, but when Helwig started speaking for me I burst into tears and that continues pretty much the rest of the way through the speakers.

Then I received the medallion - made by Master SvartulvR Kåte as the first piece of casting he did after returning from having received his own in October last year. I wept again when I saw it.

The Drachenwald Laurel cloak was put on me by Mistress Helena and Mistress Uta (I saw in a couple of pictures afterwards, I wasn't aware of who did that at the time), and Mistress Katheryn put the laurel Chaplet, an embroidered coif, on my head. I wasn't really aware of her at the time, but I knew it would be her, because she took it off me after I fit it to my head right before court.

Then the scroll was read and Their Majesties held it up. I cried again when I saw it. Mistress Melisende Fitzwalter made me exactly the scroll I most would have wanted.

Then I had the oath of fealty left. I had decided early on that I wanted to use our old oath, the one the West Kingdom, and many others, still uses, but with a couple of alterations. I took a couple of deep breaths, and started in on it at my cue. My voice broke a bit to start with, but I had memorised it and managed to recite it in full:

Here to I swear,
by mouth and hand,
fealty and service to the Crown and Kingdom of Drachenwald.
To speak and to be silent,
to come and to go,
to teach and to learn,
to do and to let be,
in matters as concern the kingdom,
on my honour and the lawful command of the Crown.
In need or in plenty,
from this hour henceforth
until the Crown depart from their thrones,
or death take me,
or the world end.
So say I, Lia de Thornegge

That was pretty much that.

I was looking forward to feast with my household enormously - since they'd been busy preparing, setting up, and then holding classes I didn't see them very much all of the event - but it was not to be as me and Edricus had been invited to sit at High Table. The feast facilities were a bit special, with the High table seating 16 in one separate room and the rest of the populace in three other rooms. But sitting next to King Paul is never uninteresting, and I had a good time. The food was lovely too. I had a bottle of sparkling wine with my food and by the end of the evening after feast, I eventually got to sit down with Edricus, Helwig, William and Isabetta all in the same room for more than two minutes. Both me and Helwig were very tired though, and we went to bed along with Isabetta at about midnight - I think.

Sunday was another day spent in Turku, before the ferry ride home and the documentation of all the presents.

I didn't mention before the additional project I meant to finish for my vigil - but it is one from the list of started ones: A wool applique banner. I bought green, black and white wool, half a metre each (or was it one?) to make a banner for myself .... and I don't even remember when, where or from whom I got the fabric. It might have been at Double Wars?

In any case, I had made the pattern and cut out the fields way back, and made a pattern for the seeblätter but not cut those out. My original plan was to use intarsia embroidery to fit the seeblätter into the fields, but when I picked up the project yesterday I abandoned that and decided to applique them instead. I used blanket stitch in white to attach the white seeblätter, and blanket stitch in black for the black one. I used a simple backstitch with about 5 mm seam allowance to attach the field pieces together, felled those seams to either side and topstitched them from the outside to keep it all flat and streamlined.

The only thing left now is to line it and manufacture suspension options. Pictures will come tomorrow.

While finishing the applique I changed it up a little and finished the sewing table that arrived at my door yesterday. I needed some finishing touches on the centre bolt that attaches the tabletop to the leg. It was left unfinished by my father by my request so I could make it into a pincushion like my inspiration-images showed. So first I glued down a piece of foam mat my father sent with the table, then I cut out ten or so layers of wool circles in full size, a couple about half size and a couple even smaller circles, plus a large circle to put on top. The bolt was prepared for a thickness of fabric to be folded over to the underside, so I applied glue here and pulled the large circle down over all the layers of mat and wool, just like upholstering a chair seat. I pleated down the excess, and stitched the pleats down with silk, cut off some of the excess and then covered the side with a cotton ribbon and a satin ribbon to make it neat and decorative. All in white. I can now keep my sewing needles pinned in the centre of my table, threads, off-cuts, scissors and lots of other stuff fits in the tabletop, and the quite massive leg keeps it all even-keeled without the risk of falling over.

Tomorrow, when my camera batteries have recharged I will be posting photos of this new wonder as well.

Tonight, to change the topic entirely, I attended the monthly Shire meeting. There were five of us, and we decided on a new Yearly Meeting on October 1. Hopefully we'll have new statutes to club through then, and afterwards we'll go out for a pint.

Tomorrow, I'm hosting scribal night here at home, hopefully I'll finish a couple of nagging items then. We'll see who else shows up. My littlest apprentice sister Isabetta said she might show up :) Again, if I finish anything, I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Tomorrow, tomorrow...