2am realizations.

The beginnings of some juicy raspberries.

I have been working diligently away on the embroidery. I am really so in love with embroidering, it's very zen and soothing. Saturday night, I ended up staying up until 2 am because I had no concept of time while embroidering! It goes by really quickly though, and I wasn't even tired. I had to force myself to put it down and go to bed.

Finished berries.

However, at 2 am I had the realization that I have been embroidering on the wrong side of the linen since the start. I noticed this when looking at the berries on the linen and on the color code; they were reversed on the linen from the color code. Flipping over the linen, the black ink could still be seen ... and I felt like an idiot! I wasn't ripping all of my hard work out, and in any case, no one will see the pocket. So I know for my next one, don't do it on the side with the ink!

Progress!

When this pocket is completed, I'll be buying a second pocket kit in the same style (the Salem). My biggest concern with getting closest to the end of the embroidery is putting the pieces together. I'm sure it will be fine, but from reading the instructions over I'm already confused! One at a time, one at a time.

My list of things to complete/begin is ever-growing, especially since I'm now planning on attending a ball in early January, so I'll be making a formal silk gown for that. My yellow silk gown is a practice attempt for silk, and I consider this more formal gown a practice gown for the summer garden party in 2012. But there's still a lot to do!

• Finish rewhipping a small section of the lining down in my cotton gown
• Sew and hem the pumpkin petticoat from its basted state
• Finish pleating the back panels of the cotton petticoat, then join the front and back and hem it
• Buy wool broadcloth to make a short cloak for an event on Nov. 19
• Pick out silk and linen lining for January's gown
• Buy linen lining for the yellow silk gown
• Make sleeve flounces
• Make panniers and a hip roll to keep the pannier steady
• Make silk mitts
• Maybe a new, fine linen shift with lace edging on the neck?

So much to do, but thankfully it's all fun stuff!

It's the weekend: Fly-by post.

18thc. pockets, 1796. Linen. American.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979.346.200.

Looks very similar to my pocket pattern! Click the photo to go to the Met's pocket page.

Needle + wool thread = aahhh.

Stressed out? Anxious? Need to clear your head?

EMBROIDER!

Seriously, this pocket is so, so relaxing. I thought I would have had it done a while ago, but life gets in the way. Still, I've been stressed out with a new job starting out soon, so I picked up the pocket again after a few days of not working on it. And aahhh, I feel the giant knot in-between my shoulder blades melting away. I'm thinking I need to do this more.

So far, I've mostly outlined in the stem stitch and filled in with the satin stitch. I've tried the chain stitch twice but I don't like the look of it for what I used it for. There are some bigger spaces in the pattern that I would like to try the New England Laid stitch, though I'm not fretting over only using two stitches.

I've started a second color and I can't wait to get some of the brighter shades in. I'm really glad I started on a simpler design, but I think I would have had no issue with something a bit more complex. I definitely want to do a stomacher now, for my forthcoming wardrobe.

Take a peek at my progress (first, pulling through in satin stitch, then an overall shot of my progress):

 

Lucy Locket lost her pocket!

I am not Lucy Locket nor have I lost my pocket, but I have started embroidering!

Yesterday I worked on a communal quilted petticoat at the historic crafts/trades day, so I didn't bring the pocket kit out at all. This winter I definitely want to quilt one; just a simple diamond pattern to start, but eventually I'd like to quilt the pink petticoat from the MFA Boston I posted about a few weekends ago. Mrs. S. already has the pattern for it, and is even working on it for herself! But that is a long ways off, I need to get better first. :)

This morning I started working on my pocket, and I'm finding it to be just as relaxing and zen-like as quilting. It's much easier then I thought, too (getting the wool through the narrow eye of the provided needle is tough, but a little beeswax fixes that). The stitch diagrams included in the instruction packet are very easy to follow!

Here's some photos of a stem stitch to outline a leaf and a filled leaf with a satin stitch. I'm trying to be economical with my wool, like a New Englander would have in the 18thc., and keep it neat on both the right and wrong sides.

I'll continue to post about it as I work on it!

Embroiderers of the 18thc.

My quick and dirty search into slate frames, scroll frames, screws, and general embroidery in the 18thc. proved to be very interesting.

No, really! I'm not an embroiderer, so researching something I know hardly anything about was really neat. In the past, I had picked it up with silly cross stitch kits and kits with round hoops and Disney characters on them. But that's contemporary, and really all I had to do was follow the instructions and the color guide. Thinking about it now, it's all very similar to what I'll be doing on my practice workbag and the pocket. But at the same time, it's also different.

Screwed! ... sort of.

Remember yesterday's post, about those scroll frames at A.C. Moore that could pass for period?

Well ... maybe not.

It looks like my initial thoughts about them not having screws were wrong. They do in fact have screws. And wing nuts. Those are definitely not 18thc. I still bought it, because what the heck, right? I am not going down without a fight!

I may be able to get them to work without the screws. I'm going to test a thought I had while thinking about them grocery shopping (usually, all of my best thinking is done in the shower). I think, if I can tie the dowels together in a tight X shape, they could work.

Is that 18thc.? I don't know. Before I do that, my next move is to try and find 18thc. drawings/engravings/paintings of people with a slate frame and see how the dowels were held together; my research yesterday said that one of the books on my library list, 18th Century Embroidery Techniques by Gail Marsh, has engravings of women working at slate frames. I also may find that if I can hold them together with something else--not necessarily a screw, or a tie, but maybe another dowel?--that could pass for period. I can't just try and hide the screws, as I'm going to need to get to the back of the embroidery, and lifting it up would expose the wing nuts.

This is an unexpected but welcome challenge. I may not know a lot about slate frames and embroidery now, but I'll know a little more when I'm finished. And that is really, really cool, and a big bonus to being a serious reenactor. I believe that learning never stops, it should never stop, and why not learn at least a little bit about something new?

Ready? Set? Go!