Holly Leaves & Berries

A couple of years ago I worked up a pattern for a cloche hat trimmed with textural holly leaves and berries . The hat itself is nice enough, but I kept getting requests just for the holly leaves and berries as a stand alone pattern.

Here it is, available through Ravelry as a downloadable pdf and just $1.99, and in perfect time for the winter season, these little leaves and berries work up fast using just a few yards of yarn and are perfect for trimming garments, presents or jewellery. I quite fancy making a whole holly wreath for the front door with these.

Festival in the Shire

We're back from the Festival in the Shire, and it turned out to be an interesting event. The organisers clearly had some teething problems with the arrangements, and the whole thing was rather quieter than we'd hoped for, but everyone we met was lovely and a few people bought pretties from the stall, and we had good friends to camp with, so overall a good time was had.
Quick pic of the stall, taken on my phone so not the greatest image I'm afraid:The cloaks with applique detail went down particularly well, I enjoyed making those and think I'll do more in due course. Started off with a bale of undyed wool cloth which I fulled and dyed before adding a bias edge and a wool applique detailing to the back:Gareth's new jewellery was the real star of the show though, we've just had his hallmarking punch set up so we can now have his silver all stamped officially by the assay office, and it all looked wonderful. This is a dreadful picture though, I must learn to take good pictures of shiny objects.

Anyway, this week I am working on silk stockings, a Victorian bonnet, and must start uploading the items that came back from the show onto the shop site. All this and I go off to the very wonderful Cwmoernant Farm tomorrow for the fibre retreat, I'm so excited!

Of Books and Battle Bonnets

Been a busy week so far. I'm still frantically making things for my stall at the Tolkien Festival in a few weeks, and am hoping these will work well with my other items.

Been doing some bookbinding, its a bit on the rustic side, but I like the finished effect. The pages are 130gsm artists cartridge paper, hand sewn into books then bound in leather or in the case of the smaller ones, in polished walnut boards. The inside is finished with mulberry paper and skeleton leaves..
I've also made another Dwarven Battle Bonnet, this one with a few small modifications to the overall pattern, such as the tassel on top. The pattern is still available if anyone fancies making one of their own.

Elf warrior helmet

I was making some felt Gandalf hats yesterday, mostly with the Festival in the Shire in mind, and thought I'd indulge myself by making something suitable for an elvish warrior whilst I was at it. This is the result. I'm considering dyeing it a bluey-grey or a greeny-grey then adding embroidered highlights before stiffening and blocking the whole thing to make it even more architectural, but I think its rather fun.

Regency Reticules and Silk Purses

This week I have been mostly working in silk. I'm stocking up for a number of shows including the Festival in the Shire next month, and I want to be able to take a mix of historic and rather luxurious historically inspired work with me as well as the pointy hats and Dwarven Battle Bonnets.

So, here's the current stock of silk purses, one lot Regency style reticules, the other of little tassled purses with fingerloop braid strings inspired by knitted relic pouches.

I do love working in silk, the colours are so jewel bright and the finished textures are so luscious!

All hail the Goblin King!

Its been a busy and rather warm few weeks here, and we've been rather tied up with a series of small business courses, so knitting has been taking rather a back seat but I must share this commission with you.

I have a very tall client who needs thigh high stockings to work with various sets of costume, and this time he asked for hooped/striped stockings in red and white. These are a little bit fiddlier to make than my usual plain hose, so it did take me a small while to do, and I was very cross with myself for inadvertantly shrinking the first pair when I washed them to get the dressings out of the yarn, but hey, that just means I'm ahead with the felted Christmas stockings for this year.

Anyway, after a bit of grumbling about the shrunk pair, I got on with remaking the hose this week, and because I was a little bit worried about the proportions I persuaded Gareth, my ever long-suffering model, to try them on for me this morning before I packed them up for the post.

Gareth is 6ft6 and a couple of shoe sizes larger than the end wearer of these stockings, but I thought the picture was so funny I had to share it. It reminds me of comedy goblin outfits :) At least with his utilikilt on I didnt have to make him stand there in his undies for the photo!

An Edwardian Weekend

I spent the weekend at Cosmeston at the Multi-period event with my stall and sock machine, so of course I had to dress to reflect the age of the csm. I love the Edwardian style, but I must confess its not really all that easy to stay calm and unflustered in hot weather under a hat with an excessive flower arrangement on it whilst wearing a corset! Still, I had lots of little helpers who all wanted to help crank the machine, and managed to make quite a number of pairs fo socks and also some silk reticules.