New Patterns!

 Me: Look! My parcel is all pretty and French-looking!
Jon: It's a brown paper packet.
Me: Exactly!

I am actually pretty excited about the contents of my parcel too - my first patterns from Deer & Doe.  Now I just have to stop my hands from hurting, finish my half-made Colette patterns and then I can get started...

Silk Mitts

A couple of weeks ago I finished off these C18th/Regency silk mitts.  I've been collecting pictures of late eighteenth century mitts on Pinterest for a while so I decided to make some up before this year's Jane Austen Festival in April.  They were mostly finished for the event so I wore them but I didn't get around to doing the embroidery until the end of May.

I love my mitts! They're much prettier and more practical than gloves - good for sewing workshops when you want to be able to use your fingers.  Most mitts in museums are dated late eighteenth century so they go with my Ikea dress but apparently they continued to be worn in the Regency period, so that suits me well! I think there will be more mitts in my future.

I used this pattern. I found it on Pinterest, I'm not sure where it's from but I just printed it out full size (cut in half on two A4 sheets). I was going to use the one in Costume Close Up but printing this one seemed easier than scanning, resizing, etc. I just made them the original size from the image. The calico one I did to test the pattern fit me really well but the silk I used for the real ones was stiffer so they're a little bit snug - the side seam on the right hand one is almost pulling through, so next time I need to use a bigger seam allowance.

I used some silk dupion from my stash. The main fabric is an odd blue/yellow-green shot mix that I've never known what to do with but the colour looks nice in this. I lined the points with gold silk dupion. I think I'll make a matching reticule at some point. Silk taffeta or satin would be more accurate but this was the first pair I tried and I wanted to use something I already had. I think I'll make another pair in satin or taffeta soon, with a bigger seam allowance so they don't break! A lot of extant mitts also seem to be lined (often with leather) so maybe I'll add a lining in the future. I thought I could add it to these ones at some point but not if they're already tight!


I stitched the side seam and the point by machine but everything else is done by hand. For the hems I used a tiny spaced backstitch and used threads pulled from the leftover fabric, which I'm quite proud of. I embroidered the lines on the back of the hand with blue silk thread, using herringbone stitch and chain stitch. Many mitts also have herringbone stitch around the thumb and point so I may do that at some point but I shouldn't be doing more embroidery than I have to at the moment, with my hands/arms still being sore. Sigh.

New Blog

I decided to start a new blog for a couple of reasons:

1. Blogspot seems more popular among historical costumers so I thought it might make it easier to follow people
2. It's attached to google accounts, which I use (I keep losing the password for Wordpress)
3. I was feeling dissatisfied with the name of my blog (especially that the title and address were different)
4. Setting up the new one seemed like a useful way to procrastinate from doing anything important.  

Sadly I still felt uninspired about titles. How do people do these things? So I'm not sure which one I'll keep using, but for now I've copied the posts that are reasonably recent and non-pointless.  The old one is here: http://melegance.wordpress.com/

At the moment I'm happy with blogspot except for one thing: Occasionally the title loads in Comic Sans instead of pretty curly font. And then the whole thing seems futile.

Owls!

This post was originally published on 10 September 2012

I've done 3 of my planned 5 crochet owls. They're so cute!

SO CUTE

SO CUTE

Cross-Stitch

This post was originally published on 9 September 2012

I just finished a cross stitch project! I'm pretty pleased with how it came out. I saw an ad for a pattern in Cross Stitcher magazine for corgis but I couldn't get the right edition, so I was so glad when I found out the pattern was on their website! It is SO CUTE.  The original pattern didn't have a tail though, and since I'm making this for my grandma and her corgi/jack russell has a very character-filled tail I had to add one on. I was worried about doing that so I didn't work on it for a while, but I just put the tail on and I think it came out pretty well.  I'm not 100% sure about the outlining since it was meant to be in dark brown and I didn't bother buying one, but I think he's cute anyway.

Corgi!

I've also got a few more projects lying around that I haven't done anything with yet.

These ones are also from Cross Stitcher magazine (I really like that magazine. It's not all kittens and fairies). I did the bird on a train in Norway and the Santa in Evidence lectures last summer.  I'm planning on putting them on Christmas aprons, I even bought the fabric last year but I ran out of time so I'd better find time this year.

Christmas cross stitch

This was my first go at sewing on evenweave instead of aida (nicer but more effort). There's a couple of mistakes in it, which makes me grumpy, but I'll cope.  I thought I'd turn it into a Christmas decoration.  The pattern is from Modern Folk on Etsy. I love all of their patterns and want to make them all, if only I had the time.

Snowflake

This one took me so long to do. Like, years.  I bought the pattern in Scotland in, I think, 2007? I think I just found it boring to do with all the lines and it never seemed to get anywhere... But I'm really pleased with it now, so it was worth it.  I think I'll frame it, the other suggestion was to make it into a pillow but I'm not brave enough to do that after the time it took to make. The pattern is from Textile Heritage - I've bought quite a lot of things from them on various trips the UK.

Craft Fair Goodies

This post was originally published on 9 September 2012

The craft fair was in Canberra a few weeks ago and, obviously, I went. It's good fun because there's so many different things so even though I could probably get most of the stuff online it's fun to browse. Much more variety than the few shops in Canberra.  So this year's goodies included:

Packet of various types of linen and evenweave to try out (don't know the shop name), novelty zips, sashiko printed panel, sashiko thread and lovely japanese fabrics to edge the panel with and turn it into a table runner (from bebebold.com) and a book! 18th Century Embroidery Techniques, which I thought would be handy for working out how to do my pockets - I ordered a pattern from Nehelenia Patterns, which is nice but doesn't have much explanation of stitches or anything like that.  The books looks really nice, I saw a review of it on American Duchess a while ago, and I agree with everything she said, if you're interested.

These are make-your-own plastic coasters.  I have a plan for making some super cute cross stitch coasters. I don't know how pretty these will look, but it's probably a better option than sitting a mug directly on the cross stitch.  Anyway, I'll see how it goes.

This is last year's craft fair purchase! I hadn't heard of sashiko before (Japanese embroidery) but I've always loved those geometric Japanese patterns (apparently originally derived from sashiko) so I decided to have a go.  It's even easier than cross stitch (the kits come with pre-printed fabric) so it's a nice relaxing thing to do.  My mum was pretty sceptical, Japanese isn't really her thing, but she came to the craft fair with me this year and now she's got her own sashiko project : )

Crochet!

This post was originally published on 5 September 2012

Here's a project I've been working on, on and off, for about a year now:

Lots of circles!

A saw a picture of one of these lovely 'circle in a square' afghans on Pinterest, and then I found this pattern, which is what I've been using.

The wool that I'm mostly using is Paton's Bluebell, which is 100% wool 5 ply crepe.  It's beautiful wool to use and I know it lasts well (I have an orange cardigan my Mum made from it sometime in the 70s - can you spot the left over wool I'm using in the afghan?).  It's kind of a silly project for me to be doing, since it would be good for using up little scraps of wool but I haven't really built up much of a wool collection so I've had to buy a lot of it. There's some odds and ends I got from my mother and grandmother, but since it's an unusual weight they didn't have that much.  At least I got the cream wool cheap! It's also 100% wool 5 ply crepe but it's not Paton's so it was much cheaper ($2/ball?)

When I get enthused I can get quite a lot done pretty quickly but I keep getting distracted and putting it away for months at a time.  Getting tendinitis didn't help either.  At the moment I have 90 circles, so I'm somewhere between a half and two thirds done, depending on how giant I make it. I'm a bit worried I won't have enough cream wool to make it enormous though.

Oh, and when I started I was putting the cream borders around until I realised that it would be easier to link them up if I do all the cream at once.  Then I did a few more cream bits to make sure I would be able to put them together, but I can and I think it'll look nice! My grandmother was very impressed that I won't have to sew lots and lots of squares together.

And then I was on Pinterest again and got distracted...

BUT LOOK CROCHETED OWLS

They are so cute and I couldn't resist them. I won't do a whole afghan of them, and I don't want to mix them in with my dignified, classy looking one, so I think I'll just do a cushion cover. And I in fact have three owls now, so it shouldn't take long, except that I was thinking of doing the back in cream, so I really need to wait and see if I actually have some left over from the afghan... Or buy more, if I can.

Oh, the colours I'm using for these ones are mostly a selection taken from the afghan ones (the pink and green are new so I haven't made any circles from them yet, but they'll be in there) except for the bright, shiny, acrylic blue. I kind of have in mind a cute fabric range that I'd like to make cushion from which has similar colours.