Skip to main content

Care and feeding of your Dressing Pins

Dull dressing pins needing some TLC. 
I have been raving to anyone who would listen about the dressing pins made by Irene Davis of The Treasury. After a few years of steady use my brass pins were getting dull. The Tudor focused group I play with called F.I.R.E. was starting to bend pins while dressing me and other ladies. I took this problem to to Irene, as the maker and asked about the card and feeding of my pins.

Problem 1- My pins are dull. what is the best way to sharpen them?
Answer- Don't use a metal file use sand paper. I tried a few different weights and a regular nail file for the bluntest pins. For sharper pins wet or dry sand paper of 400 grit works well. I just sharpened 32 pins this way in less than 2 hours. The technique will take time to get down.

Sharpening pin on sand paper strip.



Problem 2- My pin heads are coming loose.
Answer- Put down a piece of wood or an acrylic board used for leather tooling and smash the heads a few times. This should secure the pin heads in place again. Fix pinheads before sharpening pins for safety.

Problem 3- How to I make my pins shiny?
Answer- The two easiest ways to keep your pins shiny are polishing with either a jewelry cloth or with a few quick swipes of the 400 grit wet-dry sandpaper.

Problem 4- How do I store pins.
Answer- This is something I worked out for myself. Pin books made of wool felt are a convent way to keep your pins safe while you are not using them. Other people I know use pin cushions or small boxes for their pins too.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pockets in the 16th Century?

So if you are new to my blog, Hello! I took July off to focus on work and realities of covid life. Thanks for hanging in there.  This week we are doing to cover 16th Soccocia and their role toward the origin of pockets. People need a place to carry and keep their small items as they walk around. In the middle ages you might have a pilgrim satchel or a belt pouch. Some women in the middle ages had the brilliant idea to stop wearing their money purses outside of their over gowns and instead would wear them between their kirtle/sottona layer and over gowns. This arrangement still gave you access to the purse, but made it harder for thieves to cut your purse strings and run.  Fast forward to the 16th century and we find the heirs to this practice in socaccia. We have some visual evidence of these in mid to late 16th century art out of Italy. This is a detail of Alessandro Allori's,  Woman at her toilet, ca 1575-78. Currently in Florence, Church of Santa Maria Novella, Gaddi ...

Making my Viking Apron Dress

  This Week's vlog is the follow up to my Viking Age Tunic dress which I posted last week. When discussing the clothing of Birka and other Norse cultures, a woolen dress is an iconic look which is functional while tending a fire or many other activities. My apron dress is inspired by the finds out of Birka. The wool I used was a light weight suiting with a 2:2 twill weave. The long seams of this dress were finished with a machine for speed, and all of the seam finishings were hand sewn. I used a woolen finishing technique I learned about while flipping through Woven into the Earth by Else Ostergard. The technique involves using wool yarn and a couching stich of sorts to encase the raw edges of the wool. The end result is a low profile and durable seam around the neck and hem of my apron dress. I love that all of the hand sewn elements of this dress start to create a decorative finish on the outside of the dress and the only extra embellishment I added was a herringbone stitch over...

Avoid These Common Mistakes: Packing for Pennsic and SCA Camping

  #camping #mysca #societyforcreativeanachronism #glamping #pennsic This summer I've been letting myself fall back in love with the Society for Creative Anachronism. There have been some moments that have been hard for sure, but also some of my moments of greatest joy. One of the things I realized was I had completely forgotten what I need to pack in order to go camping in the different environments we see across the Western United States, at SCA events. This video does not speak in any official way for the non profit group or any of its branches. I simply wanted to share some of my pit falls and learning curves I've experiences over the years. I am a list maker. So I started planning for my second camping trip of the summer by making a list of the things that I would need to have cleaned and packed after my first trip did not go as smoothly as I had hoped earlier this summer. Towards the end of the video I give you 6 tips I've picked up from camping at these events...