Doubleface

Here I am posting from my new tablet, Timothy. We've had some dramaz talking to the sd card on the dock, but I think we have it all sorted now, so hopefully I'll get to post my pictures! Anyway, on Sunday I warped up my loom to make the strap for my awesome bag of awesome! I did a continuous warp, but I had to do it in two lots because I needed to use eight balls of cotton. It also took way longer than I thought it would, as usual. I also ended up just manually threading the eight selvedge cards because it was easier.

On Sunday night I went to Nathan and Catherine's house to watch Eurovision and have snuggles with the puppy, and Mister Nathan finished my shuttlebeater!

I forgot to take a picture before winding my weft on, but you get the idea. YAY SHUTTLEBEATER! I love it very much, and it smells like oranges because Mister Nathan used his special orange flavoured wax stuff :) Thanks Mister Nathan! I took my loom up to visit Spoh on Tuesday night because she's home for two weeks! I realised I couldn't use my embroidery pattern as a weaving pattern, because the embroidery pattern has zigzaggy stitches, and plain doubleface has all the stitches next to each other. Anyway, I fiddled a bit to see how doubleface actually works. Even though I didn't get much done, I understand more about doubleface and I got to do a lot of unweaving too.

Yesterday I used Guntram's Tabletweaving Thingy to draft a pattern. I haven't used the program much except to print off Guntram's threading diagrams and turning sequences, but actually it's really useful. I drew this:

GTT even changes the colours and stuff, and you can set the threading direction and look at how it will look as an actual band. Anyway, I couldn't fit the motifs on the embroidery pattern in the middle, so I decided to just do the diamonds. It still looks nice. I started weaving this yesterday, but I only got a few picks in before I realised that once again my weaving stretches patterns way longer than they should be, so I unwove it and drafted a new pattern.

It looks ugly and squashed, but then I started weaving it

I think it looks pretty awesome. The bottom looks a bit chunky, so I modified the pattern a little when I got to the top and it looks heaps better. I can't be bothered unweaving it and it doesn't bother me too much so I'll just leave it how it is. You might also notice that my picks get smaller as I go along, which is good. It took me ages to tension it but so far I'm not having any trouble.

I'm pretty happy with how it's going, I think it looks great. I haven't decided which side I'll use for the top yet, I guess we'll see how it looks when I'm done :)

Sleeves

I thought I'd do a step by step picture diary thing of The Making of the Hinge Sleeves. I finished hemming the green cote last week, so on Thursday I finally had no choice but to face Cutting Out my sleeves.

STEP 1:

Open a bottle of wine. Om nom nom. Tempranillo is my favourite at the moment.

STEP 2:

Lay out fabric and pattern pieces. The wonderful thing about linen is that you can fold it, so you can cut out both sleeves at once!

NOTE: Cats love linen, and I'm pretty sure they can smell it a mile away. At least Tory can. I was laying out my pattern pieces when I heard a loud roaring noise, and it was Tory gleefully making himself comfortable on my linen, purring loudly. Five minutes earlier my sister had gone looking for him, and do you think he could be found? Nope.

STEP 3:

The actual Cutting Out part. I did it. I survived. Sleeves aren't as bad as a whole dress. The only thing about sleeves and linen being double sided is that it's really easy to accidently make two left sleeves, which I have been known to do on occasion. The bits are laid out above as they will be sewn together. Once you join the two pieces, fold it into a tube and make sure it's different to the other one :P

STEP 4:
Completely lose interest in the documentation process. I'm pretty sure on Thursday night I had stitched the two parts of both sleeves together, and finished the seam. I also finished a couple of glasses of wine. For a more comprehensive look at the medieval hinge sleeve, have a look at the La Cotte Simple page, there's also heaps of stuff there about fourteenth century things. The only thing I don't do is put buttons over my elbow. I made my first cote like that, and used rabbit poo buttons. They were uncomfortable enough to lean on, I wouldn't want to try it with hard metal or plastic buttons. I also ended up with gappy bits when I straightened my elbow, because there's extra fabric there to accomodate a bent elbow, it just bags when your arms are straight. Besides, I have long arms and usually put nine or ten buttons along seven inches of sleeve, which is only just over half way up my forearm. If I went all the way up that would be more than twenty buttons on each sleeve, which means more than twenty buttonholes. No thanks. Maybe one day I'll put some fake buttons on one of my cotes, because you don't need to undo them to get your arm in. As it is I only undo the four or five bottom ones, except when I'm in the kitchen or something and need to roll up my sleeves.

Anyway, I finished the green dress tonight. I made minimal effort on it during the week, so tonight I had to sew the buttons and buttonholes on the last sleeve, then attach them both to the dress. Done! Two weeks until Pencampwr, where I wanted to wear it with my green brocade surcote, but I wanted to fix that up first. I still need to warp up both my looms and get started on the band for my awesome bag of awesome, and that's for the class I'm teaching so it's number one priority. If I have time when that's done then I'll make a start on the surcote, but I can't see myself having enough time. Only three more weeks of uni left, and I have assignments due for all the units again. Plus Hairspray opens in two and a half weeks, so I'm busy with rehearsals and stuff for that.

Right now it's my bedtime. Goodnight.

Boobies!

I have an assignment due tomorrow. It's the last of three that I had due this week on top of a mid-sem exam. Tomorrow's assignment is not finished yet. What is finished is THIRTY-FOUR PROCRASTINATION LACING HOLES!

This means my cotehardie can be laced up, which means BOOBIES! All is right with the world.

The end.