There are, at the moment, two four five people who can expect at personal gift from me in 2009:
Come on! Join the fun! 🙂
EDIT: added two three more on my list! Wow, a complete list, better start making plans for the gifts. I already have a few ideas. 🙂
Feeling inspired (thanks to Racaire, Ezabella and K-Money among others) and after some pondering, here it is!
The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.
This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
– I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
– What I create will be just for you.
– It’ll be done this year.
– You have no clue what it’s going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure!
– I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well. We all can make stuff!
So… write something in the comments and I’ll get started (sometime this year 🙂 )!
I finished my hosen a while back but has been to lazy to take some photos…ahem. Anyway!
They are made from a brown twill wool and handsewn with waxed unbleached linen thread. I’ve draped the pattern on my foot and leg. The foot construction is based on a reconstruction in Textiles and Clothing (p 189 fig 168). They are meant to be worn with garters.
For a first try I’m pretty pleased with them. There are to much bunching on the upper side of the ankle that I need to adjust before I make the next pair. I don’t feel the seems under the foot when I walk around so that’s a good thing.
I plan to write a some sort of instruction/documentation as soon as I get the pattern back. (I lent it to Elsa 🙂
I don’t really believe in New Year resolutions. What I do believe in is challenges. I’ve been thinking about the stash challenge but not really felt the inspiration so this is what I’ll do this year:
For every new project I start this year I´ll finish an UFO (unfinished object)!
Sounds simple right? The thing is that I have a bunch of UFO:s that’s just laying around, usually without me remembering that I started them. This pile needs to stop growing!
These are just a few of the things…
In a year we’ll see how I fared!
A couple of days ago I went into my closet in the bedroom. On the floor in the corner were small pieces of something and when I picked it up I realised it was leather. The only thing made of leather in that closet are our handmade shoes. Warily I picked them up and guess what – those friggin mice had made holes in everyone of them! I know, we live in an old house in the country, mice is expected. But that’s why we got two cats! Why haven’t anyone told the cats that occasionally they need to open the door to the closet and hunt for mice there too… or am I just unreasonable? 😉
Mousetraps is on the shopping list!
On the other hand, maybe someone is trying to tell me that I need to start sewing new shoes. Not just planning it in my head like I’ve been doing for the last year or so…
What’s really disappointing is that one of the pair of shoes was made by Biorn. It took him ages and he was really proud that he managed to finish them. Hopefully we’ll be able to mend those as they were the pair that had the least amount of holes.
I just read a post on Aleydis LJwhere she wrote about a different take on the SCA A&S 50 Challenge – the Stash Challenge. The original challenge is about making 50 A&S things between 2007 and 2015 (that when SCA celebrates it’s 50th birthday). The 50 projects could either be based on depth, breath or persona. I’ve been tempted to pick up the persona challenge, making 50 project that has to do with my persona. On the other hand I doubt that I won’t make 50 things by 2015 either way, making the challenge a bit unnecessary for me. The Stash Challenge (and here) on the other hand is perfect, this challenge is about using all the stuff that you’ve been accumulating in your stash and make 50 projects. At least 50 % of the materials has to be from your stash.
Another great part of the challenge is that you set your own rules. These are a few of the rules I’m thinking about using:
I’ll be thinking about this… then we’ll see what happens!
That weaving inspiration I talked about the other week is still here! About a week ago I went out in our shed and came back in with one of my ribbon looms (yep, I confess – I have three…). Dug out an old half finished silk warp that I stuffed in a box about a year ago and voilá – I’m weaving again!
I’m so excited about it that I even got around to start making a weaving page here on the blog. Look in the upper right corner. The plan is to add new as well as a couple of finished projects there in the future.
Back to the current project. It’s a silk braid based on a braid found in London, dated to the 14th century. The plan is to make garters as a symbol for the Order of the Golden Ribbon here in Nordmark. It’s an award for service and usually comes with a somewhat (in my opinion) weird looking black chain with a golden ribbon (like the one you use to hold your curtains) in it. I never got one when I got my award so a while back I though I’d make my own attempt to a more period looking symbol of the award.
Biorn and me went to Stockholm last week. We did some shopping in the Old Town on Thursday and I managed to get some gilded leather for an intarsia project I’ve been planning. On Friday Biorn went to “Hobbymässan” and I took the opportunity to visit the Museum of National Antiquities. I was very curious to see the Bread and Buns exibition, but was really disappointed. It supposedly was a family exhibition but it was hardly anything for someone over the age of ten to experience…
On the other hand I spend considerable time in the Textile Chamber and took photos and made notes of the intasia work on display. Look here for an example. In the end I had a great time.
We also made a quick stop at the temporary Museum of Medieval Stockholm, mainly to look in the museum shop. Picked up a copy of Gerry Embletons Medieval Military Costume – great book with fantastic photos.
Elsa held an excellent class at our shire meeting today about Bestiaries and animals from a medieval perspective. Did you know that to escape wolfs all you have to do is strip naked and bang two stones together… Luckily we don’t have many wolfs in this part of Sweden.
Anyway, this got me thinking about how great it would be to make a bestiary. Calligraphy, illuminate and the bind it together in a book. To bad I don’t do either calligraphy or illuminations. Or maybe I just don’t need another project…
Another thing that happened at the meeting was that we started to take a bit about weaving. Eva brought her small loom for weaving ribbons and we talked a bit about having a tablet weaving workshop. It really inspired me to find my piece of tablet weaving that I abandoned months ago, maybe I’ll give it another go.
Cristina's ramblings 