100 Day Art Challenge 2017 - First 5 Days

Flirting with my Muse.

The Objective: 
Do 100 Days of Art in any preferred medium(s). This does NOT mean back-to-back days. Document your art "process" by taking/posting pics of each project and posting a little info about it (the process, any challenges, any pitfalls, etc.) in at least the West Kingdom A&S and your Principality A&S Facebook pages. This INCLUDES research/writing/documentation or what I call "falling down the rabbit hole". Talk about that part of the process too.

The Timeline:
Begin March Crown, end October Crown. This is a comfortable 6 month timeline. No pressure deadlines unless you set them for yourself. You are accountable to no-one but yourself on this. But posting helps keep you accountable to yourself.

Day 1:

I finished the block on the chessboard with the squares. I then did a whole block with the 8-point stars (that was a super fast piece). Began work on a Greek Key pattern.

I also decided this challenge would be the perfect time to focus on the 16th century doublet I started for Hubster last summer. I found it in the mess of sewing stuff since we moved. I tried it on him again to gauge some things. We decided that the back was, indeed, too short. Consult with my Laurel and my Laurel proxy (her fiance) via text message determined that it is located at the proper waist location for Hubster, but I will go ahead and increase the back length a little since he's not comfortable with it where it is. Then I took the whole thing apart. This required finding my seam ripper. Why do I never have a seam ripper when I need one?

Day 2: 
Went to A&S night and spent 90 minutes working only on the Greek Key pattern block. Sometimes the chessboard blocks take a little time. Sometimes they take a long time. This was one of those blocks. You'd think I'd get a block that was already started finished during this time. And yes I did socialize, but I didn't really budge from my spot on the couch next to the good light. I just kept stitching while others were bitching (kibitzing, gossiping, whatevs). I decided I needed to remind people about the scale of my work that I'm doing. So I included a dime.

The I decided the dime wasn't quite conveying the tiny tiny intricate work I'm doing on these chessboard sampler blocks. So I got out Hubster's sliding gauge. Would you look at that?! Each arch in the Greek Key pattern is 2 mm tall. 2 mother-f***ing millimeters!!! Please respect the work that goes into hand embroidery. Or I will hunt you down! And I will destroy you...2 mm at a time!

Day 3 - no pictures, just lots of research
Today was spent in researching a sewing technique that is essential to the fit of the doublet. Pad Stitch. I spent a couple of hours reading, rereading, watching videos, image looking. I can't quite wrap my brains around the pad stitch. Will most likely have to suck it up and just try on some scrap fabrics once I cut the doublet out of the canvas, wool, and linen. In the mean time, here are some of my research links:
Sempstress
Rory Duffy
This lady on YouTube
Mathew Gnagy (whose book The Modern Maker is what I'm following along with to make the doublet)

Day 4:
I went to JoAnn Fabrics to pick up the wool felt I needed for the padding in the doublet. Awesomeness was purchasing online for in-store pick up. There was a line, but when Micheila came up to help at the register, she let me cut the whole line since I wasn't buying anything more than the fabric I ordered and already paid for. The little old biddies who were complaining about the long wait were all chagrined when I got to cut the line. Nya nya.

Finished the Greek Key pattern block on the blackwork sampler. Did a block that looked rather like a stained glass window. Started a snail block. Love the snails. They're super cute. They will eventually be alternating direction.

 Also, laid out the pieces of Hubster's doublet and prepped for cutting out. But you turn your back for one second and "helpers" come and help. Not helping Poppy!!! Got all the pieces cut from the linen outer fabric and from the canvas interlining. Also cut the wool felt for the should padding on the front and back pieces.

Day 5:
I spent a little bit of time trying to work pad stitching. It's actually kind of amazing how the shape forms from the stitches. The nice thing about the pad stitched pieces I was working is that they are not on the outer fashion fabric so I didn't have to worry about how small the stitches were on the back. All parts of my stitching will be covered by the outer fabric and inner lining.
Hopefully this video links.

https://www.facebook.com/jontheartguy/videos/10155182649324138/

I also started some thread wrapped buttons (which I'll be teaching a class on soon for Shire A&S night) and did some more work on the snail block.

quick mid-June update

And this is how I find myself a bad blogger who doesn't regularly update. I haven't been doing any projects and I feel like no one really wants to hear about other events so I haven't posted since the 6th.

The house purchasing problems continue to plague us. We're at 2 weeks until we have to be out of our current home and we still haven't closed escrow on the home we're buying. Argh. That being said, a lot of my sewing room has been packed away. No progress on the list. Progress on the house purchase is that yesterday I made an unscheduled drive to Santa Rose to get signatures on the initial loan disclosures from our cosigners (my brother-in-law and his wife). They hadn't consented to e-sign documents and so that meant all the docs have to be signed the old-fashioned way and we were looking at maybe only getting keys on the 27th of this month. But Haley, you said you had to be out in two weeks. Yes, I did. You see the dilemma. That literally gives us 2 days to move out and turn around on the house. So driving out and getting their signatures so I could drop the loan paperwork off to my loan officer in hand yesterday evening? Well that moves the timeline up to the 23rd for keys. That gives us a week (including a weekend so we might get some moving help from friends).

It was suggested that my $10 Latchet shoes might make a good class (thank you Hubster - you're smart and encouraging). I like the idea of teaching a class that is very hands on and that you can leave with something period-oid for SCA as soon as you leave the class. I will definitely consider it.

The fabric for Hubster's doublet arrived this morning in the mail. Part of me wants to dive dive dive into this project immediately. See aforementioned issue with having half of my sewing packed for move. Frankly it should all be packed at this point.2 WEEKS PEOPLE!!! We have to be gone in two weeks!!! But it's a 7.1 oz linen from Fabrics Store in cobalt which is a lovely dark, but not quite navy, blue. He loves blue. It will be very nice for the doublet. Yes I know there are no real examples of linen doublets. But I'm gambling with my husband even wanting to wear it. And it gets hot here in the Sacramento/Nor Cal events. He's one of those guys that thinks one must wash every article of clothing after a single use (which to be honest is kinda necessary because boys are cute - but smelly) and I just can't do that with wool. So this will be a very simple, very "easy-going" doublet. And I'll feel better about doing it in linen anyway as it's my first time and if I royally screw up, well I didn't spend $20+ per yard on it. Plus, he's getting the striped mock-up as the lining and that just rocks.

We made a snap decision to go to June Crown tournament in Tres Pinos. It was our first time at that site. I had a really great time. I wasn't committed to doing anything "responsible" except for one shift of trotting along behind the Lady of the Swan (our soon to be Princess of Cynagua) and attending to her needs. I didn't go to any meetings. I didn't take any classes. Vittorio wasn't fighting for me so I didn't need to consort for him. I actually spent a large part of my time in the Publick House gambling with borrowed monies and drinking. And it was relaxing and fun to be so low-key. Shhhh I didn't even go to Court in the evening. And I never skip court. By the way, the awesome news is that my new friend Sylvie (go check out her blog - she's one of the ones I follow along with) is the Lady of the Swan. Her husband, Fearghus, and she will be stepping up as Prince and Princess of our area in July and they've asked me to be on their court. I am very excited. I like to be on court a lot. I declined the offer during this most recent reign for two reasons; I was worn out after serving on the last 3 consecutive courts and the most recent one I had been on had felt very stressful and socially awkward. But that worked well because I instead got to know the current Princess, Katherine, socially and in a crafting way. I got to just hang out with her. That was nice.

Okay, now I'm totally digressing on the point about Sylvie and Fearghus...this weekend at Crown, Her Excellency asked if I would serve as a Princesses Artisan! What?! Holycow!!! And she totally did it in the best way too. She's already cleared it with my Laurel (and my grand-Laurel happened to be standing right there waiting to talk to her about artisans too) AND she told me to only consider it if I didn't have too much on my plate with the house-moving and the no job thing. I've asked to at least wait until I've signed my home loan paperwork to consider, but I'm totally totally honored. This is the first time anyone in Cynagua has considered me worthy of being an artisan. Dah schucks [scrapes toe in the dirt]. I still have to think long and hard about it though because there are a lot of steps/tasks that we are being asked to do as part of the position and I know me. . . I want to do them perfectly and completely. And I don't want to take on a job that I know I'm only gonna half-ass.

Anyway, tonight is business meeting for my Shire and since I'm the one in charge of that circus, I better have some notes to talk to my monkeys about. Right now, the Shire is a huge source of anxiety with me. More on that later (or not at all because I don't know how comfortable you are with hearing about my mental issues). The quick update ended up being a little longer than I expected. But that's a good thing I guess.

the boy in the striped pajamas?

I didn't get around to cutting out the mock-up of the husband's doublet the night of my last post. But I did get to it yesterday morning. I found a great striped sheet at Goodwill and decided that I would do the doublet out of it because it would help me visualize the straight grain and get the fit better.

So rather than start packing, I cut out the doublet and put it together. It took about 4.5 hours (judged by episodes of Downton Abbey) and a couple of fittings to see how it's coming together on the husband. But I'm really impressed with the Modern Maker's drafting up of the doublet.

Unintentional pattern matching. I impress myself.

Me and the Modern Maker

Another project that I'm starting, sort of today, sort of 3 months ago when I originally began the pattern draft is . . . a doublet for Hubster. Jorgen normally wears a lot of Rus/Norse tunic-y stuff. He likes it because it's comfortable and easily made from linen to combat the heat of California summers. Well, for Christmas I got The Modern Maker by fellow bee Matthew Gnagy. I started drafting Jorgen's custom pattern back in February and then put it aside because I had to get the war pouch embroidered and finished (plus we did this whole trying failing to buy a house thing from March-last Monday). Well, as I listed out my projects of wants and needs to do, I decided I need to get around to trying to make a doublet for him. (He owns a shirt which was one of my first "getting back in the swing of costuming after 15 years" projects, a pair of wool Venetian pants that I bought him for Christmas which he hasn't worn, and another shirt in the works). I will probably make him this doublet and he'll probably never wear it. But I'm following my laurel's orders for projects to work on this year.

Today I needed to finish the sleeve pattern and the front & side-front collar pieces. Everything else was already done. I'd like to get the mock-up cut out and serged up tonight.