Work Hard...Play Hard

Found gold organza gold embroidered placemats on Ebay, been eyeing up these for a while. I figured a partlet was possible but didn't realize there was enough for a matching bonnet. These have some Tudor like embroidered flowers, gold seed and bungle beads on gold embroidered leaves and swirl edge with scalloped edging. This was a lot if fun to make, though it was a lot of assembly and careful stitching. Organza is not very forgiving on fraying, so had to negotiate the gorgeous gold shiny fabrics carefully. These were made from placemats, as seen by the photo below. Took an evenings worth of hand sewing to complete.

It's ironic that once I bought this and started assembling it, into a new to me partlet/bonnet set, that one later gown I purchased would match it. A couple weeks after buying the placemats for my birthday, bought two Elizabethan gowns in partial completion for a steal of a deal. It had a small amount of binding tape the same color as the burgundy in the partlet flowers. I found a merlot burgundy fabric to line the sleeves, which there was enough fabric to complete the sleeves and guards. I have to add the burgundy trim that I have, which was from an SCA auction in large quantities. Figure I can try a few different combinations of laying trim and see what looks nicest.

 Here is what the fabric looks like.  The bodice was complete but needed to add a back panel, sleeves, skirt and eyelets. It comes out as a similar to side back lacing on me.  So I will have more control over the fit and not squeeze into a gown too small.  The picture to the left is a good photo of the color and damask pattern variation.  It's very beautiful in person. Lining with the burgundy fabric really punches it up, all because I followed the same color binding tape on the gown bodice. Right now besides setting sleeves and laying the trim. Looking into laces for these but still lots of finishing to be done before looking to lucet laces and points.

I have a second gown with puffy sleeves and yardage for a skirt. It's burgundy with gold lozenge pattern. Though there are laces on the front, maybe to attach a placard. I have to set a back panel to make this side back lacing to fit. Sleeves fit and length is good. Looking for pleating the skirt, attaching it to bodice.  I need to figure out if I can find hundreds of freshwater seed pearls to accent the lozenge fabric. Not sure if I want to make an open from skirt or keep it closed.  There is black binding  on the bodice and the black laces. So got to figure out this war puzzle of fun.

So collecting real silk for A&S projects.  Finishing off these partial gowns and accessories for something new to wear. For now just keep up working on these and thoughtfully plot my next A&S project for the coming months.

Regards,

Maureen

Time to myself

I did a wise thing when planning my vacation in January.  Took the day before and the day of my birthday off.  Which makes me happy because in the middle of the summer being as busy as I have been with work, it is nice to take some time for myself. Which I plan on this being a lovely sewing/ embroidery extravaganza at home. I may just plan it again this way next year as well as plan in some long weekends to disburse out my vacation days.

In the meantime, I have one panel of my embroidered waistcoat full of flowers, spangles to be added

soon. So progress be at slow is being made, photos to come. My research continues more into these garments. I definitely can say no more now about these garments that when I started this project. I had mentioned about not making any more large scale embroidery projects. But with my knowledge that I have now,  might actually change my mind. Though nothing is certain at this point I have a few projects in mind but nothing that needs to be started right away. With the anniversary of my birth soon approaching, been trying to figure out what I want to get for my birthday. I'm not exactly sure at this point but fabric is always on the list.Actually books are also on the list of items that are great for birthday gifts. I acquired two new ones on embroidery that I find really fascinating. Thereby the Glasgow Museum one on 17th-century embroidery, by Rebecca Quinton and another book by the same author in regards to samplers..

My birthday wish is to learn to be more historically authentic with all of my garb. It definitely have crating the historical silhouette but I believe that to really achieve the next level in my historical tailoring, it is now time to work with all period materials, as much as possible. Focusing on more authentic materials, techniques, and finishes in my garb.  So I've been looking for silk at good prices that either I can dye or find ways of using in smaller amounts. I do have some wool that was gifted to me that I have to put to some good use. These are huge yardage amounts maybe 3 to 5 yards but it's definitely something I can use and work with. I know that I will need to stock up on the following: some silk organza, silk taffeta or dupion, and medium and tissue weight of unbleached linen.  I will need to also stock up on buckram, cotton wadding, and some millinery wire to make some hats.

It's not to say that any of the interesting synthetic fabrics that I already have, are not to get used. Though used in projects that are not to be arts and sciences based. When I use the synthetics for garb, there definitely just garb, not arts and sciences related.  I have some synthetics purchased recently that are going to make great Italian gowns for warm weather events and maybe Pennsic in the future.

Finding out more about the portrait that I'm interested in replicating. There is a portrait of Mary the I that has these beautiful coral silk sleeves done with goldwork and a matching fore-part skirt that is just gorgeous. So I have enough silk, I believe to make the four sleeves the skirt and a strip enough to do make a hood too. This is one the projects I want to get a good start on during my birthday break. The only item left that needs to be found in some sort of goldwork needlelace that seems to be on the edges of the fore-sleeves. I also need to get it hold of about 3 to 4 yards worth of black silk velvet.

Have the black silk fabric and the coral silk fabric at this point so I have about half the materials collected. The beautiful embroidery on the collar which house is believed to be copied on wrist cuffs underneath the fore-sleeves would be easy to replicate. So this is the next gown to be made,  unlike the rushed predecessors I think this is going to take most of the year to make.

In the meantime on another crafting front, made a hand strung, hand-knotted freshwater pearl necklace. I'm looking for some nice closures for it and more findings to make a pair of earrings as well. The other pearls I have leftover are going to be made into an awesome looking snood. Looks very regal.Well that's pretty much it for now, little things to keep me amused and out of trouble. Besides working a very busy schedule at work.

Keep Looking Up,

Mairin

So Many Pretties and So Little Time...

 
It is now that wonderful time of year again where I am deciding what I want to make next. I have a custom order pending, I'm waiting to hear some details. Custom orders are always a challenge and joy, I'm very excited to get started.
Included better photos of the embroidery box that I recently completed. The pictures before were a little dark. So cropped these and lightened them up so the detail is more distinct.

 I believe from what I can gather it's going to be in accessorizing late period gowns with a possible hat order depending on the customer. Which is always a good challenge to match up existing outfits to find proper accessories to give it that period finished look . So far my idea is to hand strand and knot a long freshwater pearl necklace on silk. I have some fantastic silk cord at home that will work great for this project. I also have some gold over silver ear wires that I will be able to use for dropped pearl earrings. I have to locate the proper size and weight freshwater pearl drops for the planned earrings. These two accessories are very commonly seen in anything from an Italian late period through some Spanish late period and English late period clothing. So these two items are very much something that you could transition through multiple gowns if need be. For the different time periods I play with within 100 year span I find it these transition pretty well from time period to time period.

I still have one late Italian gown that I want to make that is white silk with coral edging.  I have a  late Tudor in red velvet with brocade sleeves and inset skirt with foresleeves that are decorated. These two are gowns that I still have on my mind, that I want to make. Which I'm going to include the following pictures as inspiration from portraits. So these are pending projects but there's no deadline on when to get these gowns done. I have some red velvet but it is a  polyester nature. And it would behave for the well, it is the perfect shade to the red velvet in the portrait. Unfortunately it is not the content that I would be needing to make a arts and sciences based project. The other pieces I have for the foreskirt and the foresleeves is a similar pattern but not extact. But it would be a viable option to Pearl and finish them in a period method with lining them properly. I have some fantastic coral velvet that I would love to use for the coral and white and Italian gown. The portrait itself does look more like a silk fabric, in Italy silk was popular considering the climate. So I'm trying to find a viable trim that will simulate the white with pink embroidery we see on the gown. Trying to find a white silk that will suit the composition of the portrait. So I do want to hold off till I can find the right silk with undertones for this project. I do not normally make white gowns but this is one that I have admired for some time.

So on the garb plans for this year, projects waiting in the eaves.  I believe that these 2 gowns will occupy most of this year sewing time. Right now I am focusing on finishing my embroidered jacket.  I have decided to take out the coral wool stitched edging that I've been putting in for some months. Using matching teal thread in very fine small stitches around the teal trim. I am not able to take off the blue edging on outer edges of the jacket otherwise it will not fit properly. This occurred because of a improper patterning and sizing issue when I had created the project. Though at this point I know that when is complete it will look fantastic. I will be able to wear it over myself teal gown and it will match beautifully.  The silk downs that I bought off of eBay have proven their worth time time again. They are consistent with their fit in sizing, they work great as an under kirtle, since they're fully lined and boned, for Italian or English gowns.

Everything has a learning curve and I've learned very much of the past few months especially from a Ice Dragon on the areas I need to improve upon. So I'm trying to take this time to carefully choose the projects I want to do next. And see how close I can get to a proper historically accurate project. And I believe that working from portraits is really going to help me try to get that finished look. I do get quite a few compliments that I have stepped out from a portrait with my gown as is, but I want to make my silhouette more historical accurate and impactful if I can. 

Living the dream,

Mairin

All work and no play...

It's been a hectic month, finally finished my work. I took on additional work to help with accounts needing serviced. Very successfully completed them before my deadline, which makes me happy. Turns out these locations I trained at over 9 months ago, so soon as I entered; recognized them immediately.  Finished them in time to make the trek home to meet up with hubby for us time, yay!

With my extra time was able to watch Maleficent in 3D with hubby yesterday. We had free tickets due to our loyalty club membership. It's not how I expected it to be but was interesting how the story danced in detail around the original animated feature from 1959.  I wish some of the story wasn't so rushed to workout the iconic scenes. Though overall I liked and the animation effects and such were dazzling. Out of the live action films so far I would say this is the best sticking to the original with a twist being from the villain point of view. It uses the first telling as a tale woven through time and the facts were lost in translation, which does happen in history. 

Since I had the rest of the weekend to myself despite being on call, I was able to finish up a small embroidery project that I had been working on for some time. This is the embroidery box that I created as inspired by the 17th-century embroidery caskets used to store embroidery items tools notions. Now this one is just a simple square box,  I was able to cover it over with Aida cloth and some of the edging is a strip of cross stitch fabric, the strip was decorated  for a bell pull.  I used it to go all the way around the edge of this particular box, as well as accent the top cover. I added some looped lace on the top cover for interest.I was able to also add one of my patches of my heraldic arms, there are two sequined peacocks with cockleshell's pearls and glass beads accenting flowers around the sides all done with silk. Most of this is a conglomeration of items that I already had in my embroidery stash of awesome. The peacocks I purchased specifically for this project and they would be considered tree ornaments in their original state.

Contemplating the next project. Though it's best for me to go back to the embroidered jacket to make actual progress on it. Came too far to turn back now, it will look great when done. I just wish it could embroider itself sometimes. Brings to mind my favorite scene in the 1959 movie Sleeping Beauty is, when the fairies are making the dress and it magically sews itself while waltzing in the air. I kind of wish there was that type of magic for creating my renaissance gowns as easily. The gown making scene by birds and mice in Cinderella was good too.
Wishing there were more hours in a day,

Mairin

17th century Respite

Machined Embroidered Jewelry Box

You never know what items you may use until you find a use for them. My poor home has a collection of various different items that I found it through the years that I knew I was going to use for project in the future, I just didn't know when. Mostly when I am out shopping for various different pieces of needlework notions, beads and other findings inspiration strikes and another project is added to the already long list of items I want to create. Luckily I do my best to try to make sure the items that I purchased our ones that I will eventually use. A lot of them came together with the 16th-century embroidered waistcoat, that I am still working.

Embroidered Waistcoat 

I have's been seeing a new project put on by a great site; thistle-threads.com, about a course called cabinet of curiosities. Though unfortunately I do not have the amount of money to take the course or for the materials. However I do like the idea of the course topic, and it has inspired me to see if I can make a needlework sewing box of my own. This is going to be somewhat of a spinoff on the same themes as my embroidered waistcoat and will be 16th century needlework heraldry based themes and motifs.

Found the wooden box that I needed for the base as a piece that I had picked up for dollar at a thrift shop, it is a small slatted display box for soap. I am going to get all of the exact measurements off of this box, drawout on my linen the exact measurements that I need to create a needlework outer cover for this box with lining. Then after all the patterns are laid out, I am going to needlework them on the frame, then pad the work with a thin layer of cotton batting. Then stitch all of the pieces together around the wooden slatted box. Pad also the inside with the same cotton batting and then lined the lid and line the interior of the box. This box is not nearly as deep as I would like. Though I'm not finding the other varieties of a deeper box that I feel I could sufficiently needlework in a timely manner.  This would definitely be a useful piece for me to store my small sewing items at home and have it near my favorite sewing chair.

17th C Embroidered Casket

It however will not be a 17th-century replica, as well as the fact that it would not be something that I could document for an SCA related project. These sewing caskets made by young ladies in the 17th-century are post period. Would not be very good to document for the SCA since these are post 1650. This would be one of those projects I would keep to myself and making enjoy as a inspirational-based project, and might be used for gifts for friends and other inspirational based needlework. It seems for some reason I am really inspired lately by things that are passed 1650. I'm guessing that it is a phase, and  I'll be getting back to finishing off my SCA related projects. All artists go through a creational respite from the normal routine. That it does not hinder my ten year long fascination with Tudor and early Elizabethan topics. I found a fun one made commercially that I plan on using for more sewing supplies, which will still be fun to use. Not sure if I will add stumpwork elements or not, will decide when I get the

Besides this gives me another wonderful used to do more fantastic ideas with stumpwork as well as a excuse to use more peacocks, and put my heraldry on something which is always fun. This larger project may give rise to smaller decorated trinket boxes, I could see having something like this with a very personalized name put upon it would be a great gift.

In the meantime I am repleating my ruff and cuffs, resetting then in their bands and we will see how it works out.

Regards,

Maureen

Reworking with Coincidence

Originally planning to attend War Practice, though a pre-scheduled work business trip has gotten in the way. I received some fantastic feedback with my work last year. This year I will have to send some of my items with friends for the Arts and Sciences display. I wanted to teach as well at this event, though that is foiled with the work trip, maybe next year.

Since I will be going away for work in May, been formulating a way to bring my polychrome embroidered waistcoat with me, so I can work on it with downtime in the evenings. Been working on it every evening right now, taking out machine stitching and replacing it with woolen embroidery stitches all the way around all the pattern pieces. It is looking much better and much more organized. I didn't realize when I had bought the trim for the jacket that it matches one of my Elizabethan gowns perfectly! So I am going to wear this dress underneath my jacket and I really believe that it's going to just accent each other beautifully. Showing the photos to see how extremely close the color match shows. Even with the lights and darks of the silk fabrics playing on each other these were never intended to go together, though it's fantastic that they do!

With the Ice Dragon feedback I know the areas of improvement and am reworking techniques and methods now so the projects will be better examples of my work. I am disappointed I will not be there to field questions. Though it's important to share my work with others, I use all the trial and error with my many projects as a learning lesson. For me it's easier to learn from creating, I sometimes make my best discoveries about textiles and fiber arts.

I recently had found out that there was some new literature, not known about on the polychrome embroidered jackets. It was in a series of individual subject booklets called the complete anachronist, published through the SCA. I had gone through the long list of topics, there happens to be many a useful topic. I inherited a handful of these from a friend, and was able to complete my Elizabethan  embroidered gloves using one of these little booklets. Now I have one for the my current in progress project.  Now I have ordered and received these on various types of embroidery woodworking and other Medieval topics.

So for now figuring out what events I can make an appearance and get my work reworked for arts and science displays in the future. So busy also working on more late period embroidery styles and reading up on better tudor fit and plans to make period patterned linen bodies and woolen kirtle.

Plotting away,

Maureen

Ice Dragon 2014

Entered the Ice Dragon Pentathlon this year in singles entrant; my polychrome embroidered Elizabethan waistcoat in heraldic display, needlework, and post 1400 clothing. I also my suite if ruffs in accessories and medieval rope knight game in toys.

After doing so well in the novice level competition in 2013. I figured that it would be interesting to see the level that I could do this year, as a singles entrant. Felt that I would be in the middle of the pack of folks that decided to enter the Pentathlon. Which was a good start I thought, comparing scores last year I would have been third place in singles if I had tried that level in 2013.

I was riding with friends but had to leave early before the end of court. Before I left, received Prince's choice for the rope toy puppets. Later found out I was runner up for the Pent, which is second over all, and captured Toy category. Very pleased with the results for a first shot as a singles entrant!

This really motivates me not only to continue to at least enter one thing in every Ice Dragon A and S

competition. It also gives me the motivation to fine tune my projects and make sure that they are the best that they can be from now forward. Checking to make sure that the quality of the materials, the application of period methods, and period techniques are executed to higher standards.  Am interested in seeing where my standings sit in the point rankings. They will not be posted at least for another few weeks until then, my curiosity definitely is peaked.

My Teacher, Her Grace Mistress Illish ODonovan is pleased with my performance, that is the most I was concerned was disappointing her. I want to bring honor and glory to the household in word action and deed. Constant improvement and progression is the goal. I don't know what a great ice dragon pent performance, what this means for the future but it's certainly positive. With winning Novice Pent and Baroness Choice last year along with this years attaining runner up on Singles Pent this year and capturing Prince's Choice.  That means something I should hope, it's not easy and a real struggle to get it just right.

Now on to getting exact replicas, in materials technique and execution if all possible. In the meantime much more work on the embroidered polychrome waistcoat. Knowing my luck will take another 2.5 years to complete ;-) It was the real entry of talk amongst many a gentle, I met during Ice Dragon. Standard gentles can't believe how elegant and pretty it's turning out, there are lots of details for improvement but when it's done will be a stunner. I am hoping I can get it complete to wear by War Practice.

Well back to work and catching up on household chores. The hubby and cats missed me tremendously.  I have much more work to do but looking forward to a healthy challenge.

Excited for the Future,

Mairin

Pretty, Pretty Peacocks

Making some major progress on my embroidery project. I was able over the past week to outline all of my peacocks which there are six. Outlined in embroidery stitches and get their wings in progress. I currently now have three of them filled in with the darkest teal color. Eventually those will also have accents colors stiches to the body and a lighter to green and then seafoam green for highlight.

The crown on the head will have glass beads as will the eyes of the many tail feathers. I will use the three colors in conjunction to create textured tail feathers. After these are done the work on the flowers begins.

Slowly coming together,
Maureen

Beaded Pearled Blackwork Partlet

  Completed the blackwork partlet with beads today. Here are some photos of the completed project and matching theme with the other items I completed recently.

Debating on wearing these next weekend for Kingdom 12th night. I .have my peach Elizabethan gown I want to wear with pouch,  partlet, bonnet with peach pearls. Will give it a trial run for fit and make sure it looks right. Want to post photos but will see if time allows.

I have some embroidery to complete for someone at this event. Will show it later when completed, though I will have to work steadily on it this week to get it completed on time. Though I like a good challenge, will get my things done first before the mailed project comes.

Crafting Storms

      Not that I am powering powerful have to craft up some amazing weather. Even though we've had

some wonderful snow to make it a very festive December. In Central Pennsylvania we got about a good 6 to 8 inches worth of the white stuff have enough to shovel. Heavy enough for me to only get a part of a days work in over the weekend. Was a little worried considering it was my on-call weekend the case I was going to have to run out to customers.  Luckily with all of everything else going on no calls really came in.  More snow is supposed to be coming in tonight. I know that it's going to be a real challenge to get all of my stops completed before the holidays. I do have a majority of my work to do this week, praying the weather holds.

In the meantime I have been crafting like a mad woman. At this point I am in the process of making a blackworked pouch with beading on it. It is in the same pattern as my black worked chatelaine from previous post. It is all drafted from the same piece of fabric with black embroidery, believe it or not was a short skirt. And unfortunately did not fit me so I found better uses for the fabric. I didn't find very many black embroidered type of cotton fabric,  it's was a great find.

     Besides making a pouch and working on the other blackwork

pieces to go with it. I have also been making stands for my linen ruff and cuffs. These are to help me better iron out my ruffs as well as for display purposes when I take them to competitions. What I did is I took wooden loops, there were letters from a craft store. Sewed a pouch of cotton fabric, inserted the wooden ring, and then stuff it with polyester batting. Proceeded to sew the back closed, glue them to the base piece of wood. And then glue that piece of wood onto the top of the wooden candlestick. I am going to paint the wood a beautiful gold color..

For more interest in not having a plain piece of white cotton fabric on top. I sewed the  heraldic patches on, from my peacocks as well as my heraldic shield to give it a unique look. Looking to see if there's some edging that I can do around the side with other needlework pieces. Though I have to be careful, because there's edges really are going to be used to help hold the ruffs to the stand. So more decision-making to be done though as you can see there has been some major progress

In my crafting moments, I been working on assembling the sleeves to my 16th-century embroidered

jacket. I have the sleeves pretty much completed this point and assembled with the guards on the top and a little bit of the shell beading.  I was planning on using some extra peach pink pearls with the gold spangles. I'm wondering whether not I want to make on the teal edges some very pretty snakes or salamanders out of these pink pearls to give it some extra interest I would only maybe put one or two. I don't plan on doing too much with the real edges. They already have coral stitching to keep them together and I do not want to hide all of that work.

I still have a lot of embroidering on the body of the particular piece. I've been working a lot of pattern

issues with this project. It's been a real challenge to make sure that everything is going to fit right and the gussets are going to lie flat and be the way that it was designed. So if all works out it's going to be one very stunning jacket. unfortunately my documentation on this is firm but I did not follow the period materials as much in making this. So I'm afraid that if I do put it in arts and sciences competition it is not going to score very well. Though I did learn a lot from making this particular project and that might be the only saving grace my documentation. To make more progress that I can post on this soon.

For now I got to get back to what I do best work, 

Maureen

.

;-)Up to No Good ;-)

It's been a while, sorry to be away for so long. Life has been hectic and it's hard to keep up. Yesterday

participated  in the Kingdom of Aethelmearc: arts and sciences competition. I didn't win but I had a wonderful time, a great day of learning, and feedback for my work. Entered my embroidered Italian pocket, Elizabethan embroidered gloves, and my 16th-century marionette puppets. I had documentation for these, displayed my pearled partlet, but the documentation is still pending on this and my ruffs.  Below are listed a link to some pictures taken of me and my display, while I was at the championship. The teal and pink tudor gown really shows up very pretty and these pictures.

I also made a new chatelaine, one to match the blackwork pin cushion and measuring tape. I used the machine blackwork embroidered cotton fabric and attached it to my Tudor Rose cross stitched Sachet. Made a loop added Bee Pin for Elizabethan Costume Bees from Facebook.  I also covered the back to complete the look. So here is the resulting pictures of the completed work, stayed up late to complete this project.

Lady Mairin at Kingdom A&S Championship

Blackwork Chatelaine

I have been inspired to complete on my version of the Pilmoth Embroidered 16th Century Jacket. Have been working on adding cotton batting on the inside to give body to the jacket. I got pearls and glass beads to add the sparkle to the jacket.  I have some other decisions creatively for this project yet, but I have some good options.


I have the sleeves nearly done, lining the gussets, and work on peacocks on body panels. After all panels are embroidered, beaded, and lined then pieces are sewed together. It's going to take many weeks maybe months to get this project complete. The documentation is going to be non-existent since I did this opposite the norm of period embroidered jackets.Though it's going to be awesome to behold if I can get the vision in my head to be reality.

Work is going well, I am salary now. Interesting to see how this will work out for pay.  Still have to take state exam this month, hope to do well. Going to so more studying this week and stay up to date on my schedule. On the hubby front, Justin has a potential for a new job, hope it all works out. Things are looking up guess we will see how it goes.

Keeping Positive,

Maureen

Pocket Paradigm

Embroidered Appliqués

     Well I had a very productive weekend, despite being on call.  I have finished my pocket and I wanted to elaborate more on all of the work that I have done. It's time to get my work on the erect projects completed to be documented.

     I started with a linen base on my pocket which was made with a running stitch. The shape of a pocket traditionally is pear shaped. Mine is shield shaped, compared to the traditional. I wanted to go with something that had a longer top edge so I have an easier time putting a drawstring it though the top to be reinforced better. Though plans changed in the end on the strings. If I was sewing two corners, I wanted to really give it a little extra support in the pattern.

Linen base pocket

     I had made the original linen sometime ago and had not picked it up to do needlework, was going to make blackwork this originally. original in linen sometime ago. After having done some research even despite the pattern being a little bit different for my pocket. I will still wanted to use the linen that I already had. So I went to look and see if there was different types of materials I could use for the outside. And I found the documentation on Italian Soccici.

     Basically there wasn't any English version of these pockets until the 17th century. So the Italians were using a decorated pocket for ladieswear in the 16th century. I was basing my pocket on the extent example still exist, as well as a reference to a Italian fresco that shows a lady laundering items and has one of these pockets while she works.

Assembled Pocket with Embroidered Appliqués 

       After I studied the period examples, I looked at my stock of fabrics and chose the following materials; orange gold silk fabric and coral velvet fabric.  I had embroidery that I made on silk chiffon blend fabric and appliquéd it to the surface of my orange silk. Then I used the same unplied filament silk embroidery thread and made a border of floral accent in orange with a green herringbone stitch, where the velvet met the silk fabric. Then added pearls to the edges blending some into look like buds in the design.

The embroidery pattern is based from the painting of the Marchioness of Northampton; Helena Snakenborg circa 1569. This is the embroidery pattern that you see on her shirt in the painting, I enlarged it to look at the pattern. The  arrangement of the roses depicted is what I used as the basis of my embroidery pattern. It's an unplied filament silk embroidery on silk chiffon backing with fresh water pearl accents then appliquéd to the  pocket.

Added Appliqués and Pearls

       I had every intention of fingerloop braiding the tie strings and accents on this pocket. Unfortunately the unplied filament silk tangled as I was trying to create the fingerloop braiding. So I opted for a handmade version of some two colored twisted trim that you would generally use for edging and other purposes with garb making. I'm not exactly sure the time period in which this was created. I do know that you see similar treatments done for strings on 16th century purses and other accessories. In this case, this treatment worked really well with the silk and allowed it to slide past one another without tangling.

Completed Pocket

       What project would not be complete without pictures. I'm including that various
different photos  showing the progress that I had made despite working the weekend. Now to get the rest of it documented properly on paper  plus get the documentation done for the ruff and cuff suite as well as the gold work and pearled French Partlet.

Well that is it for now, I must get back to the mundane. I will be lining and adding the tie strings to my French partlet.

Until next time,

Mairin

Partlet a la Francais

Francois Clouet drawing 

       I had made this weekend on projects. I finally completed my French renaissance partlet. It has gold and silver cord trim, purchased at Pillaged Village. I hand embroidered some gold and silver work in a lozenge pattern with freshwater pearls at the intersections. It is based on portraits of nobles from the French court from 1520-1560 by the artist Clouet.

      I have yet to write up my documentation on this project and have yet to do the same on my ruffs. It's hard sitting with  hubby since time is limited in the evening to be together. I still have work on details of this project. It needs to be lined which I do still have some linen to line it with. And I also have to attach some ribbon to the corners in order to have ties. I also need to fine jeweled clasps like on the front of this example Clouet drawing above left.

French Partlet Back

Front French Partlet

On ward to pockets now. I have orange gold silk for the top face of the pocket and I have another fabric for the bottom, most likely be cold lozenge fabric which I'm going to use also as an accent fabric for these fancier pockets. I have silk thread to attach everything together and then the inside is lined with the linen. I was also thinking of using my coral colored velvet as another alternative to make a different style of the Italian  pockets.

Hope to post more progress on the pockets as soon as I can. Have so many ideas on design it's hard to narrow it down. This is why I am doing more than one based on portraiture from the period. That will be more explained when I finally write up the research. I need to get these projects done ASAP and sent to a friend. Let's hope when they are done that they get a warm reception.

Back to the Grindstone,

Maureen