The Second Measure: Sewing, Yarnwork, and other Needlework

[SnowAngel]

SnowAngel, that's a great quilt. My wife and I wish we could quilt.

Thanks! It's not hard, it just takes some practice and a lot of patiences.

SnowAngel, your quilts are so lovely! I'd love to learn how to quilt someday... it is such a lovely aspect of needlework. Maybe someday! Is it possible to hand-sew quilts, or would it take too long?

Thank you! I have never hand-sewed a quilt. It is possible. However, it's much faster and easier to use a sewing machine. How long it would take it would take if you did by hand, would depend on the size of the quilt and how much patiences you have.

These are some pictures of my nine patch quilt. I tried taking pictures of it on my bed, but the light in my room was really bad, so I put it on the couch to take the pictures. There are some more pictures on my photobucket.







Now if fall would just come early so I could comfortably use it.

SnowAngel

[ValiantArcher]

Yeah, I guess that cloak would be hard to carry around, stwin. But for a project of that magnitude, a couple of months doesn't sound bad at all. I take far longer than that on shorter projects usually.
Ah, I see. Well, at least the Pippin scarf will get finished eventually if you work at it little by little.

You'll have to let me know how putting up a loom goes, wolfloversk! I hope you can get something sorted out pretty easily. But I'm glad you have a back-up plan of smaller projects if you can't pull the big loom together.

Ooooh, that's so pretty, SnowAngel! I'd love to try quilting sometime, but I think it'd be too much effort/difficulty at this point for me. Also, I don't really have any color coordination abilities, so I'd probably be horrible at putting together squares.

Classes started up again this week so I haven't started any new projects yet. I'm thinking about knitting some handwarmers though, so maybe! It'll be my first time using a pattern for knitting (or crocheting...or pretty much anything, I guess), but hopefully it'll go okay.

[shastastwin]

A slight update: due to some unexpected birthday money (I believe the term is windfall, but that sounds like mounds and this was a small amount) I have the rest of the yarn to make my DW scarf now. I started it the other night, but so far I have only finished the first (very) small section of purple. I'll start on the next section (a nice, big tan section) tonight. This will probably go to campus with me off and on for the next month or so as I work on it.

[ValiantArcher]

Hurrah, stwin! That's great. Are you knitting it in separate sections and then stitching them all together, or will this be one long continuous piece of knitting?

A quick question for knitters: How important is it to knit a test swatch/gauge before you start a pattern? I'm guessing it at least partially depends on the project and that I kind of bring it upon myself if I skip it. But, it just sounds like such a pain.

[shastastwin]

One long piece, Valia. If I were crocheting, I might consider stitching them together. With knitting it is much simpler to just incorporate the new color.

I've never done swatches, and I usually don't have any trouble. Then again, I don't often to complicated patterns and I can typically tell when I need to adjust a pattern after a few rows. If you're concerned that your gauge won't be right (for instance if you are using a yarn that is thicker or finer than what the pattern calls for, or if you are using a different size needle) then do the test swatch to be sure. It will save you a lot of headache if your gauge is different by more than a couple of stitches.

[Meltintalle]

kat, what did you end up doing for your edging?

Mel, I know you said you just made the pattern up as you went for that potholder, but if you can figure it out, would you mind sending it to me?

I will give it a shot sometime, yes. The basic shape isn't too hard, the trickier part will be charting the random speckling. Unless you feel confident that you could eyeball it...?

A friend of mine made me a Pippin scarf awhile back! It's very cute. But it's hanging in my closet because I rarely wear the sort of outfit to be accessorized with a hobbit scarf.

That's a lovely quilt, SnowAngel!

Valia, I've just finished the embroidery. Thanks for asking, apparently I'd set it down when I was thisclose to being done and forgot how little I had left to do.

On swatches... I don't like doing them. But they can have interesting results. It depends on the project. If it doesn't matter if you're off by a bit, then skip it by all means. But if it's a sweater or other article that requires more precise dimensions you'd probably be happier spending the half-hour or so on a swatch than finding out many days and hours later that it's not quite right.

[ValiantArcher]

Ah, okay, stwin. I've never switched colors in knitting or even crocheting, so I didn't know which way would be simpler. Guess I know now!
Thanks for the advice on swatches! If I remember correctly, I can't find the weight for the yarn I have, so...

Ooh, gorgeous, Mel! Hehe, I think I may've done that before. But, then again, I haven't really finished many craft projects, so maybe not.
Hmm, well, it's wristwarmers, so the gauge might be important. So, I suppose I should go ahead and do the swatch, measure, and then unravel since I'm not sure how much yarn I actually have/will need.

[SnowAngel]

Ooooh, that's so pretty, SnowAngel! I'd love to try quilting sometime, but I think it'd be too much effort/difficulty at this point for me. Also, I don't really have any color coordination abilities, so I'd probably be horrible at putting together squares.

Thanks, ValiantArcher! Quilting really isn't that hard. And you don't have to do squares, there are lots of quilt patterns that are strips. We have a strip quilt that my Mom, Grandma, and older sister made, we call it our Alaska strip quilt because they made it while we were living in Alaska. It's really cool, it has some pieces in it that I would never have used, but they look pretty good in the quilt. So, you never know what you will end up liking.

That's a lovely quilt, SnowAngel!

Thanks, Meltintalle! It has been just cool enough for me to use it the last couple of nights. It really is an awesome quilt. I'm really looking forward to showing it to my Grandma and Granddad when they come visit us soon.

I really want to make another quilt, but I don't really have enough fabric and I don't need another one right now. I think I'm going to make denim bags for my Mom and sisters for Christmas, so I might start on those soon.

SnowAngel

[wild rose]

Snow Angel, that's a lovely quilt!!!!!

Mel, I love your embroidery!!!!

I embroide a little, mainly cross stitching, but I hope to learn to do more
I'm not that great of a sewer, but I do enjoy doing it from time to time. Being a reeactor, I mainly sew costumes and soft toys from time to time. I've sewed three dresses for 14th century Russia (two of them were sewn completely by hand) I'll get around to posting pictures soon (as soon as I get around to taking them )
I love weaving, I've just about mastered tabletweaving and am moving on to other types, I'm not really sure how they would be called in English, basically there is 'berdo' where you weave on an instrument like this ,
and there is weaving around a needle. All these technics are for weaving belts and decoration for your costume; I also have a small little loom and I've been experimenting with it toom but so far I've only made some ugly little pieces of material that I am too ashamed to show

I've also gotten really into making traditional dolls, you can make them from thread or from scraps of cloth. So far I've mastered three different ways of making them, but there are lots more ways that I have yet to learn, here are my dolls
my dollies
and the really beauty of them is not one of them is sewn, you fold and tie the cloth/thread together, you don't use needle and thread at all

[Meltintalle]

Those are lovely dollies, wild rose. I know you've mentioned the dresses before, because I'm still waiting to see those pictures.

Anyway, you do tablet weaving?!!!! Do you have any pictures of the process? I need to replace the handles on my purse/bag, they've started to wear out, and I've been thinking I'd like to try my hand at tablet weaving... I've looked at a book and read some tutorials online, but I haven't quite wrapped my head around how to start.

[wild rose]

Those are lovely dollies, wild rose. I know you've mentioned the dresses before, because I'm still waiting to see those pictures.

thank you
you're right, I did promise to get the pictures uploaded! I completely forgot!! how emberassing I shall try very hard to have them ready by tomorrow

Anyway, you do tablet weaving?!!!! Do you have any pictures of the process? I need to replace the handles on my purse/bag, they've started to wear out, and I've been thinking I'd like to try my hand at tablet weaving... I've looked at a book and read some tutorials online, but I haven't quite wrapped my head around how to start.

I don't really have any pictures of the process, but I shall take some tomorrow (I was just about to start on a new belt anyway) and try and have them up by tomorrow as well, or at any rate, by Friday the latest

[SnowAngel]

Thanks, wildrose! Your dollies are cute!

I think I am the only Narniawebber who quilts and sews, but doesn't crochet and knits so little it can hardly be called knitting.

SnowAngel

[wild rose]

thank you so much SnowAngel

okay so here are the some pictures of my dresses and the accessories that go with them. In real like it's very hard to say just exactly how medival Russian would dress because no actual archeological finding have been found of a full costume. We glean as much as we can from old pictures and description and little bits of things that are found, but it's hard to say for sure. The dress is very simple both the over dresses are handsewn, I did that to make them more authentic
Here is the linen dress
linen dress
under the dress is another linen dress called the 'under dress', it's basically undergarments that you always wear under any type of over dress. It looks identical to the over dress
I decorated the sleeves and the coller of this dress with tabletwoven strips made of linen thread coller sleeve
and the belt is a new belt of mine (though it has been through a number of historical festivals and has gotten a bit scragely)
and here's my woolen over dress
woolen dress
woolen dress 2
it's pretty much the same as the linen one except the sleeves are wider. I haven't decorated it yet cause I plan to sew silk stripes along the collar and sleeve, but silk is difficult to work with and since procrastination is my first name and laziness would be my second name, I haven't gotten around to it
I think I have posted pictures of my belt with it is my bag made of silk. People didn't have pockets in those days so you wore bags on your belt to keep things. Technically I should have around three but I've only made one so far. Oh and another very important part of the costume is this thingy called an 'ochelie'. It's basically a band with temple rings that you tie around your head. Mine is also tabletwoven, out of cotton thread, though it's a very big argument if cotton was used in those days

Mel, I haven't taken the pictures of the tabletweaving process yet, I've been really busy this past few days, but do plan to take them, it's on my to do list

[wolfloversk]

Started work on my second weaving project... I opted for something smaller than a scarf... I'll end up roughly the size of a potholder, but so for I only have 5 rows done...

If it's large enough, I might make something out of it when I'm done... maybe a small bag or something.

[Lady Haleth]

Right now I'm working on a little embroidered pillow. Its like a crazy quilt, and I'm almost finished embroidering a little sword on it. (I've already done a fish, a clump of grass, and a vine with flowers on it.) I'll try and see if I can post pictures when its done. I still have a couple more embroideries to do on it, though. (A flute and an archway with more flowers.)

[IloveFauns]

I am going to start sewing again in December when my school life is over and I have a gap year to spare.

I have made a few items including a quilt, a jacket, zoidberg toy and a few other little things.