asterix, silk finished

I’d put Dogmatix off until last, even though he is very very small.

At first I’d thought I’d do him all in the finest thread because of his size, but then I realised Dogmatix os a stray, a scruffy street urchin of a dog who follows Obelix during “Asterix and the Banquet” hoping for food, so I decided he mainly needed to be done in coarser thread for his body and moustache, with only his little face worked fine.

Because he’s a mutt’s mutt, when you come down to it

And trubble has decided to live up to his name

Linen tunic

I have this plan that over the summer break I’m going to try and make a new piece of basic costume every week, because some of my school stuff is either too warm or wearing out.

I’ve started with a simple linen tunic for my viking stuff. I have been wearing my wool tunic beneath my hangaroc, and it’s often just too warm, so I need a linen one.

There wasn’t much thought went into the colour choice though, it was just cheap stuff from Ikea. It’s machined and then hand hemmed, but I decided to add some Oseberg rings around the neck. People make  bit of a big deal obout the Oseberg ring being a specific Viking embroidery stitch, but it’s actaully just circles of trailed couching with two contrasting coloured threads.

I used some Veg dyed silks rather than wool like the original. Normally I don’t wash wool or ahdn embrodiered clothes, but my school stuff does get thrown in the washing machine now and then, so wool wouldn’t have practical as it would felt up in the machine.

It’s a bit of a subtle colour combination for me, but I think it’s quite pretty – and the hangaroc will be bright enough anyway.

I didn’t mark it out, it was easy enough to get the rings relatively uniform by eye – looking at the sketches of the original piece they’re not entirely even anyway.

By the time I’d done the front I was getting a bit bored though, so I spaced out the rings along the back and played with a variation.

Partly this was boredom, partly it’s just to give the reenactment uber-nerds who abhor creativity in favour of slavish recreation of thread-count something to whinge about. Because I’m bad, spank me.

 

moths

I’m not sure if the ms illustration is meant to be moths or butterflies, but in this case they are moths, because of my favourite Jethro Tull song

The leaded window opened
To move the dancing candle flame
And the first Moths of summer
Suicidal came, suicidal came.

And a new breeze chattered
In its May-bud tenderness,
Sending water-lillies sailing
As she turned to get undressed.

And the long night awakened
And we soared on powdered wings,
Circling our tomorrows
In the wary month of Spring.

Chasing shadows slipping
In a magic lantern slide,
Creatures of the candle
On a night-light-ride.

Dipping and weaving
Flutter through the golden needle’s eye
In our haystack madness.
Butterfly-stroking on a Spring-tide high.

Life’s too long (as the Lemming said)
As the candle burned and the Moths were wed.
And we’ll all burn together as the wick grows higher
But before the candle’s dead.

The leaded window opened
To move the dancing candle flame.
And the first moths of summer
Suicidal came, oh, suicidal came.

To join in the worship
Of the light that never dies
In a moment’s reflection
Of two moths spinning in her eyes.

I probably only like it so much because it’s so filthy, most of my favourite TUll songs are pretty mucky.

My mum is terrified of all moths though, something to do with the furry bodies (she’s fine with flutterbies), so I spent considerable amount of my childhood being roused from sleep by a hysterical mother and sent over the road in my nighty to fetch our very tall Canadian nieghbour who was obliging about murdering them for her. He probably thought she was a nutter.

potential new coat

So, At the Yorkshire show I bought a rather spiffy wool blanket. The intention is to make a new coat, although the cut will be carefully planner because it was a rather expensive blanket (I could have bought a very dull new coat for the same price). It will just be a very simple kimono cut, and I’ll probably line it to make it extra warm.

But now I’ve got it home I can’t decide which side I prefer.

Although it’s been suggested by certain people that a leopard skin collar would be quite stylish.

little drummer boy

Like the lady on the lion, his face was a little bit small (only about the size of my thumbnail) so not much you can do with it.

 

I think he has a bad back

In other news I’m wondering if the Yorkshire Show has reached peak gin. I don’t drink the stuff, but by going round and giving all my free samples (as well as his own) to Gareth yesterday, I managed to get him moderately sloshed. There was some beer and whisky, but it was mainly gin.

IMC 2

Just some pics of my display, really. I really would have liked to finish the music fantasy and display it, I’m soooo close, but alas.

My gazebo was open to one side, and some of my hangings sneaked across onto the back of the nieghbour’s gazebo, but Ellie didn’t mind.

And there were actaul smoke and fire breathing dragons!

I did feel sorry for the puppeteers though, those harnesses looked really heavy. I wore my silk Norman frock again because it was so warm, my wimple got abandoned in favour of just the viel halfway through the afternoon, and I swear Stephanie’s mum giving me a frozen 500ml bottle of water was a lifesaver (I alternated between sticking it down my cleavage and wearing it like a tail tucked beneath my undergown belt – it ruined the line of my dress, but then my unsightly layers of flab do that anyway. I’m going to the Yorkshire show today, and eating my own wieght in free cheese isn’t going to help much with that:)

IMC

I’m sorry I didn’t post much last week, I was kind of busy.

Sunday I taught a class on basic goldwork at the IMC. We made tiny gold and pearl pendants, and everyone did remarkably well.

Mine was worked on the edge of asterix, and wasn’t finished because it was really just a demo – helping everyone else was my priority. I do very much like the dark blue passing against the gold though, it’s very sophisticated, innit?

Everyone else played with the coloured passings as well. I thought the results gave a lovely modern twist to a medeival technique.

Not quite finished, but the white subtley enhances the pearl sheen

I forget this lady’s name, but she did well considering she had quite bad tremors, as you can see she was getting better as she got the hang of it. I gave her a quick try working on my frame, which was much more stable for her than the small handheld ones, and she coped better with that because of the extra stability (one of those extra rows along the Bottom of Asterix is hers, but I bet you can’t tell which – She really needed a more stable frame so she wasn’t fighting herself so much)

Not quite finished also, but very neat – and you just can’t go wrong with red and gold.

This lady was wearing hers on her lanyard on Thursday. I love the red surface couched with purple, it’s really psychadelic.

This lady was quite speedy, so she finished first and decided to add a couple of extra rows in dark blue round the edge, so hers is a bit bigger – just a single pearl in the middle, with white couched for the cross. That blue and gold is just yummy, I want to do something more with it for myself.

THere was another lady whose work I forgot to snap. There were meant to be twelve, but I’m used to one or two drop outs when we have Sunday workshops at the Imc because it’s the first day and people’s flights get delayed – this year the trains were apparently chaos coming up from London, so there were only six. Ho Hum.