Embroidery for Others.

Over the last several months members of the SCA have approached me and asked for help working on various embroidery projects. First I volunteered to embroider a stylized heart for a friend's elevation to the Order of the Laurel. The heart is worked in silk and sterling silver purl.
The fleur was filled with silver plated tube beads replicating bullion. The ground fabric of the design is on white linen. A band of hearts like these were appliqued along the hem of my friend's dress. Each heart was made by someone who touched her heart and assisted on the path she took in some way.

The next piece I worked on are for the Queen of Atenveldt's dress. I completed 4 1/2 suns in splendor used along the hem of her dress. This embroidery was done using DMC cotton floss on linen. Her Majesty wore this dress at grand court of Estrella War 2015 and at other important occasions. These suns were incorporated into a larger design by the Elizabethan Sweatshop in Phoenix, AZ.

The final piece completed this week was a roundel for my friend Rytchard's elevation to the Order of the Laurel. The design is of one of his service awards, the Gilded Heart of Ered Sul. I was asked to embroider this motif in particular because of the amount of time I spent serving and living with that group in college. I worked on silk using silk thread. The design was transferred to the ground fabric using water soluble transfer film. This motif, and others like it, will be appliqued onto a gold Turkish coat.

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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 Chapel. J

Two Tone Lucet Cording

Hello Beautiful Humans! Today I have a brief tutorial for you on how I made the lucet lacings for my most recent renaissance dress. It is a craft that is hard to document in the 16th century, where I do most of my work, but I love how quickly this technique works up into fairly strong cording. This two tone technique is much stronger than a typical single strand lucet braid because of the extra cord running through the entire cord. I also love the possibilities for coordinating your laces to your outfits. My laces were made much longer than I needed them for this dress. Looking back I could have cut my lacing in half and been fine, but now I have all this extra if I should ever need it. Long laces also mean I can pre-lace myself into this dress with a spiral lace and then tighten it until I feel comfortable. For this particular style of lucet I used a hardwood lucet fork I purchased from an 18th century reenactor, a skein of DMC 6-strand embroidery floss, and a ball of size 10 cr

Voided Velvet Sleeves from a Thrift Store Scarf

Detachable sleeves are one of my favorite things to make for renaissance dresses, and always seem to be the last thing I think to make when I'm planning my outfits. These sleeves are made from thrift store fabric to mimic one possible way that "cut work sleeves" were made in the period. There are several theories, and my research has made me think that they all may have been in use at different points in time for different specific motifs. To make these sleeves I used a voided velvet scarf I found at my local thrift store and remnants of rayon velvet, silk shantung, and linen. Techniques I cover in the video include basting, hemming stitches, and how to easily sew with velvet. I completed the project using a mix of hand sewing and a modern sewing machine. I love wearing these Italian renaissance dresses at reenactment events or when I attend events for the Society of Creative Anachronism. Groups like this have helped me learn more about how period techniques and mate

The Tudor Revolution

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