kareina

Still feeling not entirely healthy, though also not really showing much in the way of symptoms, either (slight hint of discomfort in my throat if I swallow, but other than that nothing). With luck I will just get over it without ever feeling worse, but to be certain, I have taken it easy today.

Project #1 was making a template for decorating my hammer dulcimer. I think I have mentioned before that in an attempt to learn to read music I am trying to colour-code it (A=red, B=purple, C=blue, D=green, E=yellow, F=orange, G=brown). At first I was doing the colouring of the music in a drawing program, but it turns out that the uni printers are calibrated way too differently from my monitor, so that the colours which are easy to distinguish on the screen are hard to tell apart when printed (especially the brown-purple-blue-green and the red-orange). Therefore I have given up on that and am instead just using colour pencils to write on printouts of the sheet music. I had had little coloured dots, printed from the computer, that I glued down to the bridges of the dulcimer, but the quality of glue stick is variable, and some dots were coming off, and see above about the difficulties in telling the colours apart. I could mostly manage anyway, since I know the sequence, so the one just above the yellow has to be the orange, but that sequence of several in a row that look nearly the same makes it harder.

Therefore I have decided to invest in some paint and do decorative little swirly bits on the bridges in the colours, and, while I am at it, make the ones that are sharp or flat look different from the ones that are natural. The first step was to order the paint. The other day I checked the Swedish art supply store that David orders from, and noticed they had some sets of acrylic paint, but none of them seemed to contain all of the colours I needed. Therefore I sent them an email explaining what I wanted, and why it was important to be able to tell the colours apart, and could they recommend to me which sets and/or individual colours I should order? I wrote in English, but included a sentence in Swedish at the end saying they were welcome to reply in Swedish if they like, as I have no problems reading it. Not much more than 24 hours later I got a reply, in English (the writer confessed that it is his native language) stating that since none of their sets actually contains purple, I would be better off ordering individual colours, and he gave me the list of product numbers to get the full set I need. As soon as I placed my order I also filled in their contact form thanking them for awesome customer service, and naming the guy who had written.

Since the paint has been ordered, it was time to decide exactly what I will be doing with the paint, so opened up an old drawing of my dulcimer, with strings labeled as to which is which, and added a new layer to actually draw the bridges (which I measured). Then I added another layer to design the swirly bits to paint onto the bridges, and coloured them on screen to see how it would look. I decided to go with making the sharps and flats have only a thin line connecting the top and bottom swirls, but the naturals have a wide bit in the middle, too. Easy to tell them apart, but not distracting, either.

Then I printed a black and white version of the bridges and swirls, coloured them in with my coloured pencils (which I can easily tell apart), and tried sliding them under the strings and onto the bridges. It turns out that my spacing of the bridges wasn't quite right, so I needed to print and colour a couple of times before I managed to have a perfectly sized strip to label the strings (I also had to scrape away the remaining old glued on dots). I have tried playing from sheet music with these swirls under the strings, and it works. It will look much better when I have replaced that paper with the painted swirls, though I am not looking forward to having to loosen all of the strings enough to push them off of the bridges to do the painting and then tightening them again to the correct note. I will need to do them only a few at a time, I think.

Once that was done I spent an hour curled up on the couch reading, took a nap, read some more, and then was inspired to do a long-procrastinated project. Back in about 1989 or so my then-boyfriend, George, had a pair of wool dress trouser that he didn't want any more (shrunk in the wash? wearing out? tired of them? I don't recall why, but he gave them to me). They were much too big in the waist (even in those days, when I was much chubbier than I am today), but with a safety pin to hold them on they did just fine as a layer over silk or wool tights for cross country skiing. I have used them for many years, and over time the fabric in the crotch wore thin and then gone. At some point, years ago, I kinda patched them from the inside with scraps of some other wool, but that wasn't working so well anymore, since the holes had grown. They got stuck into the mending closet some unknown amount of time back, and largely forgotten.

Till late this summer, when I wanted something to wear on my legs while working outside on a cool, rainy day. Then I remembered them, checked my clothes cupboard and couldn't find them, checked the mending cupboard, and there they were. Still too big, still with holes in the crotch, but over wool tights they were just fine for working outside in not so nice weather. This time as I overlapped the waist huge amounts before pinning them on it occurred to me that it might be possible to cut away fabric from the inside of the thighs to get rid of the holes and take them in to actually fit.

Today I remembered that, and thought I would give it a try. Sure enough, looking closely at the legs, the damage was concentrated in the crotch such that a straight line up the back of the leg, from the ankel to the waist would just miss the damaged area, and the part below the holes, but between that line and the original inner leg seam looked wide enough to make some triangle gores for the crotch. So I gave it a try, and three hours later I have a pair of trousers that fit. I might have liked the thighs to be a little looser, but that wasn't possible given the fabric I was starting with, and they aren't exactly tight. Much to my delight I was able to do the entire project on the treadle sewing machine. I had expected that I wouldn't be able to do the second pass of the flat-fled seams on the legs, but I managed it.

Thinking that I couldn't do the finishing of the legs, I decided to try part of it anyway, to reduce the amount of hand-sewing that would be needed, so I first finished the back seam from the waist to the crotch (I didn't do anything to the front seam--it still has the original zipper), then sewed shut both legs, the opened it up and, starting from mid-upper thigh, started finishing that flat-felled seam, expecting that I would be able to manage from there, across the crotch, and down to about the same spot on the other leg.

However when I reached that point I realized that I could managed to crumple up the fabric behind the sewing machine foot and smooth out the fabric in the path of the seam and do another couple of cm more. Then I realized I could smooth out the next 2 cm, and so on, right down to the ankel. Since that worked, I returned to the other leg, and gave it a try from the ankel up, and sure enough managed to smooth out and fold under about 2 cm of seam at a time till I reached the part that I had already done. This won't be at all surprising to those of you who sew by machine regularly, but for so many years I sewed only Medieval costumes, and then only by hand, so I didn't think I would manage.

Now it is 22:25, so I should go to my yoga, take another hot shower, and get some sleep.

Today we were out the door just after 08:30, and at the home of the shire's other Laurel by 09:00 for a shoe course he was running. There were at least 17 of us present, all working on shoes. I opted to make a pair of 12th century shoes to go with my bliaut. My inspiration was the photo on page 99 of this paper about silk embroidered leather shoes. The shoe in question was embroidered in Runes, but in Latin, with the phrase "Omnia uincit Amor et.", and I decided that I have to have a pair.

The course ran till 16:00, after which I walked across the street and stitched for two more hours while listening to the musicians of the Luelå Hembygdsgille practice some lovely Swedish Folk music, and then I participated in our normal Sunday folk dance session (which I have missed all too often this winter). I knew that if I had followed D & C home after the class I wouldn't have come back out for dance, and I am so glad that I stayed. Folk dance is so much fun! And that extra two hours of stitching meant that I got one of my shoes stitched all the way around the sole and ready to turn, and the other is more than half way 'round.

I managed to finish the apron and pocket I started a week ago (links to the folk costume I was inspired by in the older post):




32 hours of hand sewing, and perhaps one hour of using the treadle sewing machine, which we final got around to fixing (the leather band that drives the machine had broken back in 2014, and it took some years to get around to acquiring more leather in an appropriate weight/size, and then a few more weeks to get around to attaching it). I only used the machine for the first pass of attaching the trim around the edges of the apron, and the waist band to the top, but that hour (give or take) probably saved me quite a few hours of hand sewing.

In other news, my exercise log for the year is looking pretty good, since not only have I managed a workout each day & longer than normal yoga sessions, today I started the day by going skiing in the forest by our house (it has finally snowed a bit of light fluffy snow to cover the ice formed by melting over last weekend), then this evening I went for a two hour walk L., who is up visiting from Umeå. Originally she had planed to come over here and hang out, but yesterday C. got sick, and we now probably know the answer to the question "was it food poisoning or virus which made D. so ill on Friday?" Therefore we decided that rather than coming inside where one is mostly recovered and the other only just starting to recover, we could just as easily talk and walk at the same time.

However, such a long walk means that I did only the prep for making the filled bread pockets that I want to take with us when we head south for a friend's wedding on the weekend, I will actually bake them tomorrow. I think they will be yummy--the bread dough contains wheat, oats, barley, and rye flours, and the filling is a mix of walnuts, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, almonds, pumpkin seeds, and egg (ground together in the food processor with spices) mixed with grated zucchini, carrot, plus broccoli, and spinach, silverbeet, and kale that I had steamed before running through the food processor. Since I ran out of time to shape and bake them tonight I did mix a couple of spoons of the filling with some cous cous for dinner, and enjoyed that.

Yesterday was the first nyckleharpa night of the autumn, and, as always, it was ever so much fun. Seven people playing nyckleharpa, while I worked on my sewing project. I so love living in Sweden!

Today was my first day back in the office after my week of at-home vacation, and I can't claim to have accomplished much, other than battling my way through the pile of email that had accumulated. Then I went home and took a nearly 2 hour nap. But this evening was the first choir meeting of the autumn, and it was much fun. Even though we hadn't done much advertizment, we still had ten or so people, and it felt good to sing again. One of the new girls sings really well. At one point we were doing a round, and our conductor put that new girl and one of the boys into a group of their own, and the other two groups had 4 of us each, and I had to struggle to sing with my own group instead of following the group of two, since they were so loud and clear behind me.

I actually finished this project in April, but it took till now to get the photos off my camera. The case itself was 3-D printed by lord_kjar, and we both worked on the design till it was as small as it could be and still hold all four pairs at once (driving glasses, sun glasses, computer glasses, and sewing/lecture room glasses). I sewed the cloth cover, My apprentice did the tablet woven carrying strap, and the clasp is an old broken hard drive magnet.
( photos )
I really, really, love this case. It is strong enough to stand on, so I needn't fear damaging the glasses. It is light enough that I leave it hanging on my shoulder most of the day like a baldric, so they are in easy reach to change back and forth to the pair I need just now. It is bothersome to need so many pairs, but, since I do, I am glad we were able to make it easy to have them with me.

So far we have done 58 hours of stitching on the cloak. This is about 14.5 meters of embroidery. I just measured, the northern lights, instrument, and cloak hem together comprise about 41.3 meters of embroidery, so we are about 35% done.

It has been 31 days since I started, which means that the cloak has seen an average of 1.9 hours a day of stitching.

There are 51 days left before the event, which means it will need 2.1 hours a day between now and then to be done. Good thing more than one person can work on it at once.

By "done" I mean the minimum, not the ideal--these numbers don't include a third colour of lights that would be nice to add on top (I have the fabric). They also don't include the stitching around the hem to keep the lining from poofing out (as well as looking nice itself) or the letters around the hem saying that the cloak is for the Norrskensbard.

Ok, so I am rounding by 1.5 years years yet, but the photo taken of me at the event this weekend doesn't look to my eyes that I am really as old as the calendar claims I am:



This, not surprisingly, pleases me.

I also like how the dress came out. Still needs a few more beads on the sleeves, but other than that it is done.

Photo credits: Uladzislau Iwanou, who bought a camera good enough to take photos of spiders, but it works well for people, too.

This morning was too rainy for earth cellar work, so we took the opportunity to warp the loom we made last night. Of course it has been years since I had access to in inkel loom to warp, and the one and only time I saw a demo of how to do the continuous warp method would have been somewhere in the late 1980's or early 1990's, so, of course, we thought of all kinds of things we should have done in the first place, AFTER doing it slightly differently than ideal. Therefore it took nearly three hours to get the thread onto the loom in the first place, and another three to untangle threads and sort the cards back out into the order they should have remained, if we had only been smart enough to keep them fastened to one another while we worked. But now I have everything ready to start trying to weave. Wish me luck that it goes more smoothly than the warping...

Back in 1999 khevron and I took a trip to Ireland, during which I purchased a beautiful hand-woven shall in a soft blue and black twill. I loved (and still do!) that fabric very much, but I am not in the habit of wearing a shawl, so I have rarely used it over the years. In recent years I have thought that I should make something else out of the fabric, and in April I finally decided to do so. The shawl was exactly big enough to do a hood and matching belt pouch. I believe that I have mentioned the project here before, but this time I have photos:

One of me wearing them, taken, with permission from a friend's blog:



and another that shows a close up of the trim, made by another friend:

I think I mentioned that our friend C came up for a visit just before Easter. It was lovely to have her here--much progress was made on sewing projects, plenty of time spent relaxing and cuddling, and lots of yummy cooking happened. lord_kjar and I had a four day weekend over Easter itself, of course, but even the following week felt like a week off, even thought I went to work on the other days, since our normal weekly activities didn't happen because of the holiday, so we were free to stay home and work on projects.

She now has a new dress nearly done, and has worked out a hood pattern that fits her very narrow shoulders comfortably. I finished my bliaut! I also accidentally started a new hood of my own.

Many years ago, when khevron and I traveled to Ireland together I bought a lovely wool shawl in a large scale blue/black herringbone twill that is deliciously soft and really stunningly beautiful. However, in the (17?) years since I have only rarely worn the shawl, because I am just not in the habit of wearing them. Usually if I am cold enough to want one more layer, what I want is sleeves, or a hat, not just my shoulders covered. Last time I noticed the shawl, some months ago, I thought that it would make a lovely hood and mantel, but had several other sewing projects in progress, and set the thought aside. But then C was working on modifying the pattern from a friend's hood, and it inspired me to look at the shawl again.

Yup, it still looks like it would be a lovely hood, especially if lined with the wonderfully soft white linen herringbone twill I have left after making my Viking undertunic. So while they played with pattern modifying I took scissors to the pattern fabric and made a rectangle the same size as the shawl, and started experimenting to determine the best way to cut it apart and re-assemble it to make a hood. After four different approaches I finally decided on dividing the length into five equal sized pieces, sewing three of them together along their selvage edges to make the main hood rectangle, and then cutting four squares out of the remaining two/fifths of the fabric for gores (which leaves a rectangle appropriately sized to make a matching pouch later).

Of course, doing this with the twill was time consuming, as I first did a blanket stitch along the lines where I intended to cut, to be certain it wouldn't fray at all, because the fabric is really too pretty to be willing to lose any of it. Then I basted it to the lining fabric and assembled it. I decided to edge the hood with some pretty tablet woven trim that we bought from the same lady who did the trim for my bliaut, which, coincidentally, is the same colours as the bliaut trim. All that is left to do to finish the hood is the final 3/4ths of the trim around the bottom hem, I should be able to finish it at Nyckleharpa tonight. I love small projects--they are so quick and satisfying.