Sewing circle today was quite productive for me.

I started out by raiding Helwig's silk weaving thread supplies and made candy cane striped strings for the coif and forehead cloth set. Worked beautifully.

Then I started on setting in the sleeves in my new layton jacket, and by the time I was finishing the second one off, topstitching and all, it was twenty to midnight!

Breaking it down a little further, I started by cutting down the front half of the armscyes equally on both sides, then produced two wings.

I had not brought a pattern for the wings, so I just winged it (he he he). I measured on the armscye and decided the wings would work at a length of 40 cm, then I pulled out the scraps of cloth I had left and made up the pattern on the fabric and copied it on the lining. The shape is a circle segment, 40 cm long and about 7 cm wide in the middle, narrowing down to 2 cm at the ends.

They are made up by putting right sides together and stitching along the straight edge and up the very short sides. Then I turned them inside out and topstitched for a neat finish, which means the curved edge is left raw and open and ready to be inserted between the layers of the armscye.

Actually what I did at assembly was line up the middle of the wings with the middle of the top half of the sleeves and letting the wing curve along the top of the sleeves as far as they would go - which is about four fifths of the circumference. Before inserting this assembly between the shell and lining I turned in a seam allowance of the shell fabric and attached the sleeve and wing by topstitching from the right side through all layers (minus the jacket lining). Then to finish the inside of the jacket I smoothed down the lining and folded in a seam allowance to just hide the line of stitching.

Left to do now on the new jacket is: finish neckline, front opening and lower hem; sort out front closing mechanism, and finally stitch on decorative satin bands.

The latest work I've been doing has been going quite well. Embroidering a coif and forehead cloth set. I am going to attempt an insertion stitch for the seam on top, and to start it off I'm finishing the top edge neatly with some buttonhole stitch. I'm doing three stitches close together, then a gap, and another three stitches, and I think it looks quite snappy.

I am pondering lace on the front edges. Not sure yet if I should or not. Future will tell, but I am getting quite close to finishing this little project.

Again with the insufficient reluctance. It seems I am producing a shirt before 13th December. Fabric is coming in the mail. Ah well, shirts are fairly quick work, provided there's no embroidery. We shall see what I decide to do once I get started on it.

My half is upside down on the top, Helwig's half is on the bottom. It's a proper indenture, and we got it witnessed by Queen Fiona and Prince Franz. They signed as well as Helwig and myself. It was awesome.

So, the jacket progresses. I only made three gores to begin with, but found I had to cut out two more, so all five are now installed. Actually ten, as there's a shell and lining.

Since I mounted the body together and cut the slits at one time all of them line up beautifully. I'm still considering topstitching along those seams to sandwich the layers together further, but I'm not decided yet.

I tried it on as well, and it seems I did not add quite enough width in the back piece. Argh! This just goes to show that you should scribble notes on your patterns when you figure out alterations you need to make.

I should have just made a pattern for myself instead of using a commercial pattern. Ah well, I'm still fairly pleased with how it's looking, even if the back will end up a little tight on me. I may well toss the pattern pieces and start over, but it's always a bloody shame to throw away a pattern, though it's only almost-working.

I had quite a fun time cutting the new layton jacket out, and even more fun putting it together. I have the body of the jacket assembled; side seams stitched up with running stitches and the occasional back stitch. I pressed all seams open, but only felled one seam properly with herringbone stitch. Then I put the jacket shell and lining wrong sides together and topstitched down both sides of both side seams to make the seams neat, and to anchor the lining in the right place. It looks rather sharp if I say so myself.

The sleeves I worked a little more. They are your basic curved sleeves, based on the Layton jacket sleeves from Patterns of Fashion, but straightened out just a little bit and the elbow moved down to accomodate my much longer arms. On the seams I herringbone stitched the seam allowance down to either side, then put the sleeves wrong sides together and topstitched along both seams a couple of milimetres to either side of the seam itself.

I also finished the wrist opening by tuning the shell and lining in towards each other and topstitching around the opening neatly.

Next step in the process is to insert gores. I've marked the stitch lines on the gores and I've marked out on the jacket where I need to cut to insert the same.

If you recall, I made a simple working apron a few weeks ago. I got an off-cut from Medeltidsmode, and it was just enough for an apron. Well, I took out my tripod and took pictures just now, and here we are:

From 15th Century Accessories

Details from the apron, left to right: Smocking, ligature LT on inside of ties, initials LT at bottom right corner of apron. I felt I needed to mark it thoroughly or risk giving it away to someone in a fit of unbridled generosity. I need a rough and ready apron for my own use.

Silk floss problem has been solved. Supplier located and order is in for more thread for the coif project.

Yesterday was sewing circle and we saw some ladies who have been busy for a long while again. It was quite nice. I brough only the coif embroidery with me, but unfortunately developed a horrible headache. Soothed it by ducks, and watching Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

Today I talked a bit with my apprentice sister, who had to cancel her visit at the last moment, and was inspired enough to rummage through my fabric stash and pull a couple of nice woolens. I settled on a thin dark grey wool, and unbleached linen, which I proceeded to cut into a second Layton-inspired jacket for myself. It was interesting to note that I used up almost exactly 1.2 metres of fabric for the layout, including sleeves, and wings etc can be taken from the cabbage.

I've stitched together three of four sleeves (two wool and one linen lining sleeve) and have pinned the rest. I'm expecting this project to zoom along quite speedily and keep me busy while I wait for the silk floss to arrive.

I've made some giftbasket projects that have so far not really been featured anywhere. I just started an album over at Picasa. Go have a look if you're curious.

Some more information, re forehead cloth: T.42-1938 at the V&A. I looked at the enlarged photo and it seems to me that the long, front, edge is on the bias, as I suspected, and the shorter edges are on the grain, or nearly so.

This doesn't affect the shape so much as it affects the drape, and how it fits on the head. Ah well, the next attempt will be better and more accurate.

btw: It's snowing here - whee!!!

I've started on another coif/forehead cloth set. It's going to be all over embroidered in red, but I am running out of thread. It is thoroughly annoying! I've sent out a feeler asking if a certain retailer can supply me with more. I'm hoping to finish it by christmas.

I want to do another two sets of coif/forehead cloth eventually. Maybe it sounds a bit boring to do four sets all in red, but the red I am using is so gorgeous I can hardly get enough. (Besides, it's more colourful than black blackwork.) I may deviate a bit from this plan, I've been known to do that.

I am trying to find out a little more about forehead cloths right now. I know the dimensions, but I am unsure how to orient them on the fabric. I think the one I'm working on now is laid out the wrong way. The front straight edge is on grain. I think, now, that it would probably be better on the bias. Why didn't I think of that to begin with? Well, this time, it was because I didn't really have enough fabric to do it any other way around. I will try to find out how extant forehead cloths are oriented.

Sadly I have no new projects going just yet, but on Friday my fabulous apprentice sister is coming to town for sewing circle and I'm going to start cutting out a black kirtle with front placard.

Gaah.

Nailbed poked and now bleeding. Manageable, and not painful, aside from the fact of large red bloodstains on pristine white linen coif-in-the-making. Augh!

There will now be a pause in embroidering for a bit. Wish I had chocolate.

At sewing circle today my Laurel sent me out to do pell-work. Sorry, I mean, basic research.

I was listless and uninterested so the suggested I play with Alcega for a bit. I leafed through him and found an intriguing pattern that I didn't quite understand. A Turkish morning gown can be separated from the Spanish morning gown by the addition of a hood. I didn't understand how the hood was constructed or attached, so I helped Helwig out a bit by cutting into a supposed chemise and made a scale model (1:8) of the full turkish gown. That still didn't fully explain the method of fastening, points of attachment and other details, so I cut into the former chemise some more and did a full sized mock-up of just the hood part.

Then I used Helwig as my full scale model and tried to pin it to her turtle neck in a couple of different ways until we figured it out. It was awesome.

Awesome.

My Laurel rocks.

And then there were two - GLEE!

My favourite expression of amazement, wonder, shock, awe etc in Swedish has lately been: Jösses Amalia!

How adorable is that?

Glötagillet, the event, is over and I drove us back home in splendid autumn weather. The landscape around us was alive with yellow, orange and red in various shades. In contrast, the drive to the event was horrible. It rained hard for four hours. The drive took almost five. It was dark, and quite a bit of traffic sent even more water sheeting over the windshield.

But we got to the site alright and had a splendidly wonderful time in the company of friends. It was quite low-key and cozy more than spectacular and flashy.

Saturday morning came too soon, of course, but it was alright, the sun was out and there were a number of classes and workshops durning the day. I held a blackwork class, which did suffer from lack of content I thought. My head was not on straight in regards to that class - and I'm not entirely sure why.

For the pot-luck banquet myself, Helwig and Filippa put on our giorneas for a photo op. And to have something to change into. I think we looked splendid. I also dressed a young lady who was at the event with a single dress. She had nothing to change into, so I looked at her, determined she looked about my size and offered my brown corduroy doublet. She protested she had nothing to wear with it; I offered my petticoat skirt. They both fit beautifully, and I topped her off with my coif and flat cap. It was a little strange seeing a body double of me walking around there, but she looked quite spiffy.

I have a bunch of pictures, but they're not yet off the camera. Maybe later, if I can work up the energy. If not, then in the coming week.

Since Geocities is closing down (*wail*), I'm having to move my homepage. It's now going to be at hem.bredband.net/LiaThornegge and I have updated the A&S 50 page. It is still woefully out of date though. After the event this weekend maybe I'll get to updating. I've got loads of stuff to post.

Just a few shots from crown tourney. More will come later in the week at tworavens

http://www.flickr.com/photos/liabucket/sets/72157622444792855/

Looks better. Even - dare I say it - good.