Jane's Journal

I bought the kit and accompanying instruction DVD back at the quilt show, but last Monday I finally got around to actually playing around.

anemoona once gave me a nacklace and matching bracelet in rock crystal. I hardly ever wore them until this year. At one point, I tied one on each entry point to my room in Mierlo, just to keep the bad vibes out.
Ahem.
In any case, since I wore the bracelet so often the elastic it was made with started to grow older, more dirty and deteriorate. I decided to buy the kit at Bead Spider and see how far I'd get.

Pretty far, actually! The instruction DVD was simple and helpful and within no time at all I had a new bracelet:

Now I'm trying my hand at some bead-wrapping, which isn't yet going so well, and some light macramé. It kills my shoulders, is what it's doing. So a small break, until my new semi-precious gem beads come in.
Also, I should still have the unakite leaf beads Steelweaver once bought me, and now I know how to make a bracelet or necklace I might as well use it! All I need is to find them in the multitude of boxes I packed and have stashed in various places.

In other, shopping related news: I went over to HEMA, armed with my colour chart (all cool, muted colours that will suit me) and bought a big armful of new basics. Their long- and shortsleeved shirts are awesome, and every season there are some new colours out (gotta catch 'em all!). I was actually looking for a vest, but I picked up two. There's a pile of emerald, violet, petrol and even a pinky grey that doesn't yet have a name (although 'taupe' might work) basic shirts, shiny shirts, sparkly shirts and t-shirts that need folding and adding to my cupboard.
(For the men and people who don't speak Colourese: green, purple, blue-that-looks-kinda-greenish and grey shirts. Some have glitter.)

All the brighter and more yellow colours will go into a box, and will be used as under-clothes for my larp costumes to free up some closet space, unless I can make someone happy with grass-green short-sleeved HEMA t-shirts in XL?

Been working on this thingy for a few days now. At first I wanted to make a pouch with a square bottom (the little house pattern that works so well for fabric pouches) but in the end I decided to make a regular one.

As a side note: it is absolutely flabbergasting what people will make out of chainmail rings. Even if I have not learned my lesson before, I might have learned it after Googling "chainmail pouch" and finding... well, something for the men. It was quite... um... filled. And my, that must have been some heck of a decrease to work in there. *cough*


I also went a bit wild with the anti-vignette correction filter in the GIMP.

( More under the cut )

I still have 1500 green rings in their original wrappers and then some few more already prepared as closed rings. They're very tempting and I just needed a fun project with them. Guess this counts as one.

Being felled with a cold that makes me sneeze until I'm tickled pink makes me not want to sit in a chilly room behind a sewing machine or bent over my homework until my brain drips out my nose. What with NoKey being injured and all, I was pretty much bound to the couch anyways, and I figured I might as well ( do something useful with my time. )

In principle, this is now finished project. The shirt is finished, although I could add gussets to the side slits at the hips. I could lengthen it with the remainder of the rings as well. I still have some of the "old" anodised aluminium rings. The gambeson is finished as well. I will need to add two rings towards the armscye to make sure it closes well enough. I might also have to replace the clasp at the neckline, which is suffering from metal fatigue.

The project was started on January 29th, 2010 and finished on March 17th 2012.
Or to recap: two years, one month and 18 days (with breaks in between). A helluvalot of money and rings too, come to think of it. But it's DONE!

...

...now what am I going to do in the evenings?

At Steelweaver's place yesterday I really made some progress!
While Steelweaver sorted through her inventory of UFO's (2102, year of the UFO) and took pictures of each project, I worked on ripping the bands of Marianne's hem and sorting out chain mail. I forgot my good camera therefor I'm afraid you're going to have to settle for phonecam pictures.

( The Project continues under the cut. )

It's very rewarding to work on this project again. The chainmail was already in a wearable state but finishing these last details will free me up for a new project if I want one.

With the financial impulse of my holiday money, Project Elf Chain continues:



I have some 5000 small aluminium scales to make a set of sleeves out of. Stay tuned for updates!

( New achievements unlocked! )Go me!

All the little steps for Project OMG-I'm-going-to-Drachenfest are slowly turning into big steps.

- One more layer of woodstain and my Captain's chair is finally going to be done (but I could always add an extra layer for added bling status).
- If I do the shoulder seams, my gambeson can finally really be worn (it won't be finished, but at least I can prance around in it and feel pretty)
- And while I'm at the prancing around part, I put the chainmail over the gambeson for the first time last night when I had basted the shoulder seams. I now know that it will fit and I can do the side seams of my chainmail. And it might be done (it won't be perfect, but it will be wearable for DF!)

Little step = big step!

I had hoped to finish the gambeson yesterday, but life happened. Today Evelyn and Jan-Jaap are coming over for some Pathfinder crafts so it probably won't happen today, but at least I can try.

In other news: european 4-in-1 is not fun to do. I'll just stick with Japanese 12-in-1 for now.

All those long months of hard work have paid off.

Yesterday I threaded the front and back panel together and tried them on. They fit - even though my hips won't fit in it unless I open up the sides somewhat - and they fit well enough!


It's a shirt!

It's not quite finished yet, but I'm really really getting there. To make it wearable I will need to add two wide triangles (as "shoulders" of the shirt) as the start of raglan sleeves. These will be 5 or 6 cm wide at the narrowest point and slope like the front and back pieces do.

Once these are finished and attached, I will probably have my gambeson ready and I can check if the shirt will fit over the gambeson or if I will need to add some more room at the sides.
When that is all done, I can continue with longer sleeves if I want, but I can even postpone this until after Drachenfest.

With T-minus two months on the clock, we're nearly there!

Now that I've finally gotten over my initial fear of (raglan) sleeves, I'm continuing work on Project Elf Chain.



Since I most likely will not have enough of the rings for full raglan sleeves, I've decided to make it a sleeveless shirt for now. This means I can just make regular armscyes, and since I can now draft patterns myself, I have more basic know-how on how to make this than 'just weave it and we'll see where we will end up'.

So, start of the armscye. I made it too large initially, but I'm working on gettimg it the right size.

Calculations on number of rings and weight next time, as I'm away from home at the moment. That's also why there's not as much blingy html as I would have liked.

Even with the several month break I've had, I am confident I can finish the shirt in time for Drachenfest. It's even strange to think I started work on this some 13 months ago!

---Posted from my Android.

I finished this yesterday.



Necklace from anodised aluminium in black and purple in the "stepping stones" weave. Six hematite droplets add a sparkle. Three different ring sizes from The Queen Ring.

This is the new necklace for Marianne, her old one is on the verge of falling apart. I hope it'll match the new stays I'll be making for her. (Fingers crossed I get that done in time for the next event)

As suspected, my two week vacation did not allow me much time for maille-ing. I spent most of it behind the sewing machine, not sparing my pliers a second look.

However, as soon as all the larp stories were written, the holiday was over and I needed to commute by train again, I took up my pliers and wove on. Gladly, even.
I am happy to report that the two week holiday didn't make me miss maille-ing, but now that I've returned to it I'm having a lot of fun again! When I picked up my pliers again I was near bouncing, so that was good.


Travel case with unprepared gold and green rings (top) and opened gold rings (bottom).


First sheet: 50 x 56 rings.
Second sheet: 12 x 56 rings and growing steadily (some 10 rows per week).

Green rings used: 3472
Gold rings used: 20.832
Total #of rings used so far: approx. 24.304 rings
(counting six gold rings to every green ring, so not taking the edges of each sheet into account)

I've decided to first make the front and back slab a square piece, before thinking about the sleeves. The first sheet of 50 rings is long enough to go over my hips when I hold it up to my armpit. The chest piece that goes from the armpit to the shoulder will be sort-of triangular and I'll weave that once I figured out how the sleeves go.

As for the sleeves, I realised I will be needing to use my bow when wearing this. How did medieval archers wear their chainmails? I'll have to do some more research. Perhaps I'll just go for short sleeves and add metal bracers to the mix. It'll save me some weaving, at least.