Pirates!

I started the outfit I am wearing to the Minnesota Ren Fest. I'm going Pirate! Arrrrr!
The coat is in blue velvet and it will have 3 white brocade gores, one on each side and one in the back along with white cuffs. I'm recycling my foster sister's Italian dresses she never took with her. The trim is a silver braid, and will have have a gold satin sash. I'll have a white shirt which I'll later use for rapier, because I don't really have just a rapier shirt. And I'll most likely wear my shamrock pants with mismatched socks and brown leather shoes. It's going to be a really fancy outfit, but unfortunately out of period so you'll never see me wear it at an SCA event. I must be crazy to spend so much time on something I'll wear maybe four times. Oh well. I don't know what is worse, me making this or seeing how well the pattern fit and realizing with a couple of minor alterations that the pattern can work for a Persian coat. Other than that, I haven't been up to more than the usual mischief. Blackwork, sewing, more blackwork.

Missed Practice

I couldn't go to heavy practice. I had things to do for work that I need done by next week. I still have more to do. People will not be happy with me.

Time to Fight!

So I went to heavy combat practice and for the first time everything fit! I didn't get choked when I put on my helm. I was able to move okay but there will be adjustments needed in the future but it all fits! I can finally do heavy fighting!

As if I needed another project

I've started yet *another* new project. This one is going to last a long, long time. Instead of working blackwork samples on scraps, I'm doing a sampler of all the patterns I'm stitching over my lifetime. It'll never get framed because I'll always be working on it whenever I do a new pattern. There are two problems with this:
1. I get linen from different places. It depends on if I find something I like which means the linen is inconsistent. The sizes on the sampler might be different than the actual piece. 1 yard of linen lasts a long time, and I like what I get from Joann's the best. It is a 100% shirt linen with a really nice weave. There are few if no imperfections in the cloth and it isn't that poly/linen blend stuff they carry. The bad part is the cost, $10/yard.
2. I don't have some of the patterns I've already done so I can't go back and stitch them on the sampler.
I like the idea of this project, because I don't have anything that is really long term like this so I'll be fun to do. It the sampler ever gets full, I can start another.

Adventures with Saffron

I went to Penzey's in Minneapolis, bought saffron and two kinds of cinnamon (I was out). If you are ever in the area, go, if only to smell. It's a wonderful place.
I bought the cheapest saffron they had, Spanish Superior saffron, at $6.79 a gram. I only used a little over half.
After getting some advice from Despina and from a few websites, I went for it. I tried two different mordants, vinegar and salt. I used two cards of white Splendor 100% silk, a 12 ply 8 yard skein which I cut into four lengths of about 2 yards each. This is the same brand silk thread I use for all of my blackwork. I soaked each skein in about a gallon of water, with some amount of salt and some amount of vinegar. I didn't measure, I just poured some in. I had to dissolve some of the salt by stirring but the water was warm so that worked fine. While each skein was soaking, I made a little gauze bag to put the saffron in so it wouldn't stick to the silk and cause darker areas on where that might happen.
The next step was boiling and stirring. This is the most boring step but it made my apartment smell really good for 3 hours. Each sample was boiled with the same water for close to an hour and a half. For the salt mordant skein, I added a second little gauze bag because it was paler than what I wanted. After each skein was finished boiling they were rinsed in warm water and hung up to dry overnight. While rinsing, I noticed that the vinegar mordant skein not only turned out darker (think on the lines of Northshield gold), but was extremely colorfast. It was the opposite with the salt mordant skein. In the past when I've painted different fabrics I've done heat setting and I thought about trying that to see what would happen. I'm told even the darker yellow will fade with exposure to UV light, but I'll need to wait and see about that. For now I'm keeping the silk in a dark place (my filing cabinet). Someone is going to explain why one skein is lighter and one is darker, and what exactly the vinegar and salt did. I'll take notes and post that here, but if anyone knows, feel free to comment on why that happened.

What to do When you Don't Go to Work...

You spend the day handstitching your heavy combat gambeson while watching Elizabeth I and The Virgin Queen.