Brrrr!

As the mornings become colder again, I've taken to having more savory breakfasts. Today's is naan bread with garlic hummus and some leftover bean soup. Delicious! 

I need to get you guys some pictures of  how the brown wool dress is progressing. I have one side's worth of eyelets (15, to be exact) and the bottom hem to stitch and it's done. It gets easier every time. To anyone who says that hand sewing a garment would take forever, I say unto you Nay! Two hours in the evening for the last few days and I'm well on my way to a new outfit. 

Outfit? Oh yes -- I made the sleeves short with the intention of making pin-on sleeves. That would make the dress more adaptable to changes in the weather, like when it's cool and foggy in the morning, but warms up and gets sunny in the afternoon. And then I thought it would be totally cute to embroider the sleeves with a design, and then use the same design on a matching hood. Oh my! A new hood! So exciting!

And I found some wonderful inspiration to share with you all. Check out this guy's stuff! It's AMAZING. 

Stay tuned for some pictures of the brown wool dress later today once the sun comes out. See you then!

Fall!

Now that I've been sewing stuff for over a year, I've gotten to a really comfortable point.  My stash is full of all sorts of notions and yardage, and I've got a basic pattern for a standard dress that fits well and is easy to play with. Used to be when I wanted to make something in particular I'd find the bits as I went.  I had to draft up a pattern first, and I'd remember things I needed halfway through and have to make late-night trips to the fabric store. But no more!

Yesterday afternoon there was a slight chill in the air, and I saw a posting on the Glymm Mere mailing list that Yule Feast is coming up. Folks, it's Fall, and that means it's time for me to make a new wool dress. When I got home, I pulled a few yards of caramel-colored wool out of my closet, took a small cut of dark brown to use for trim, chose a piece of linen to line the bodice, grabbed my tried-n-true pattern and a spool of thread, and got to work right after dinner.

I cut out all the pieces and sewed the lining for the two front bodice bits while watching Battlestar Galactica, so this project is well begun. I even chose some crewel yarn colors out of the drawer to use for an embroidery design on the cuffs and collar.

The yarn colors seem especially bright in the sunshine. I haven't chosen an embroidery design yet, so I don't know if I'll be using all the colors or just one or two, but they all looked suitably autumnal together. Anything can happen!

Gluckhaus

Here it is, my finished Gluckhaus game. Well, I still need to attach at string so it can be rolled up and tied shut, and I still need to craft two six-sided dice to go with it, but the big pretty embroidery work is done.

See for yourself!

Told ya I was making something!

It was time for another quickie project. I've been busy, like I said in my last post, and I really just wanted to have a little something at hand that I could pick up and put down fast without a lot of fussing around. So I whipped up a plan for a Gluckhaus board.

What's that? you ask. Well, it's a game. It's easy to learn, fast to play, involves gambling, and doesn't require any strategy or even  much thought.  (Click here for more info.) Mostly you just give or take coins. Because of its simple nature, I find it a little boring. I intend to spice things up a bit by involving a drinking-game element to it, or perhaps something in the way of a truth-or-dare or forfeit. We'll see.

So up there at the top, you have The King (12). And right under him is The Wedding (7). At the very bottom is The Pig (2).  If you roll 12, you get to take all the money in all the squares, because you're the king! If you roll 7, you get to take all the money on 7 as a wedding present.  And if you roll 2, you get to take all the money on the board, you greedy thing, except the coins on 7 -- because not even a pig would steal from a wedding.

I think I need to add an outline on the figures.
They're a little indistinct without one.

The cloth is a piece of wool/linen blend, and I'm using tapestry wool for the embroidery. The brown stitching on the natural-colored cloth looks very rustic, and I think a climbing vine with leaves and flowers will decorate the framework of the squares before I'm done.

There's a chill in the air these mornings that is prodding at me, reminding me that all that wool in the closet would like to be made into warm clothing. I wonder what I'll make next..?

Oh, where have you been, Wenny-girl, Wenny-girl...

Jeepers! It's been a long time since I updated. To be fair, though, it's been a while since I did any sewing. The last two weeks have been pretty much non-stop petsitting clients and working with my horses at the stable. Seems like the only times I stopped were to eat or sleep, and sometimes that felt like the same time. It's hard to eat a sandwich when your head is nodding, and yawning with a mouthful of that sandwich is just gross.

Now that Labor Day is past, my schedule is almost back to normal. With one exception: I've found a woman who will let me work with her horses since the training stable where I've been going is closing down. She has three out-of-shape horses that I have nicknamed "The Three Little Pigs" (TLPs, for short) and I have made it my goal in life to get them into good condition. Once the stable is closed, I'll be working with the TLPs three or four days a week.

Oh no! I hear you crying, But does this mean the end of Wenny Makes It? 

'Course not!  I still have all that wool in the closet, remember? And if you'll pardon the cliché phrase, Winter is Coming. New garments for the rainy season must be made. Plus there's my magnum opus! So never fear: Wenny will go on, probably far longer than anyone holds an interest.

Stay tuned. Tonight I'm gonna make a start on something and pictures will be forthcoming!

The Big One, Update

I spoke about two weeks ago about a big project I have been planning for about a year. It's exciting to have a secret project under wraps, but you all have been pestering me so much to hear more details that I will relent and show you a few of my plans.

You saw the materials --the fine gold wool fabric, the crimson linen. There's black wool, too, and it all is going to work together in this:

A very rough sketch, but perhaps it will give you an idea of what is taking shape in my mind. To give you further ideas, I point you towards Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene Book I, canto 4:

Suddein vpriseth from her stately place

   The royall Dame, and for her coche doth call:

   All hurtlen forth, and she with Princely pace,

   As faire Aurora in her purple pall,

   Out of the East the dawning day doth call:

   So forth she comes: her brightnesse brode doth blaze;

   The heapes of people thronging in the hall,

   Do ride each other, vpon her to gaze:

Her glorious glitterand light doth all mens eyes amaze.

So forth she comes, and to her coche does clyme,

   Adorned all with gold, and girlonds gay,

   That seemd as fresh as Flora in her prime,

   And stroue to match, in royall rich array,

   Great Iunoes golden chaire, the which they say

   The Gods stand gazing on, when she does ride

   To Ioues high house through heauens bras-paued way

 Drawne of faire Pecocks, that excell in pride,

And full of Argus eyes their tailes dispredden wide. 

But this was drawne of six vnequall beasts,

On which her six sage Counsellours did ryde,

Taught to obay their bestiall beheasts,

With like conditions to their kinds applyde:

The new smock!

I thought that hand sewing a linen underdress would elicit more conversation on an airplane than it actually did. When I pulled it out on the first leg of our flight, the woman in the seat next to me exclaimed "Oh, look at you! What are you making?"

"A reproduction of a 14th century linen smock," I said, trying to keep from sounding boastful.

She took a sip of her tonic and lime and put her nose back into the Janet Evanovich romance she was reading.

And that was that. Well, what did I expect? And you know, if she had kept talking it probably would have just annoyed me. Instead I got to stitch in peace, like a little Tyrannosaurus Rex with my elbows crammed up close and my hands under my chin. I hate those tiny airline seats.

It was quick work to hem and whipstitch the smock together, and thanks to careful cutting, the sleeve cuffs and bottom hem landed on the pre-existing hem of the tablecloth and already had a nice finish on them.

The neckline is a bit lower
than my older one, but I like it .

Here you can see how I worked the existing pulled work into the smock design. And yes -- I cut the sleeves  into the body at an angle to save me the step of sewing in an underarm gusset.  

Details of the middle and lower hem.
Needs ironing!

I finished the smock faster than I thought I would, and then I didn't have any project to keep me busy on the flight home. And what a miserable flight it was! I think the air conditioning wasn't working properly. It was warm and stuffy, and the seats seemed even closer together than usual. Ugh. 

Now I'm home again, I've started work on the wimple and veil to go with my St. Birgitta's cap. Wait and see!