Brick Stitch In Silk - Process

Often we look at the projects created by our friends in the SCA and don't think about the labor that goes into them beyond the obvious. In my case, I'm working on my first brick stitch project using silk; previously I've worked in cotton, and that process has been simple enough. You select a length of (usually DMC) cotton embroidery floss, and get to work embroidering the pattern.

With silk, however, especially if you buy skeins of it from SCA merchants, there are additional steps involved that make the project more labor intensive. Whereas cotton embroidery floss is usually six-ply, the silk skeins are one or two ply. The silk must be separated from its skein, and then pieced off into the six-ply strands needed to embroider.

I chose to do several 18-20inch long cuts of thread, as that's the length of the strand I work with while embroidering. I set it up either between my toes (which is incredibly uncomfortable) or on my loom:

And next, one by one I cut the pieces of silk:

Then wrap them onto a plastic embroidery card:

The process can take a few hours, especially when you figure in how tangled silk can get. That's just for the set-up! Once you get to working on the embroidery itself, it's a massive undertaking. 

In this case, I only purchased nine skeins, and that was back in September. Those nine skeins of silk will probably finish off the panel pictured (and a little more besides), so I'll need nine more to accomplish the project I want. 

Thank goodness I don't have to process the silk myself, right? ;)

- Ciosa

A year in the making...

I finally. Finished. It.

My goal was to complete this brick stitch project before Battle on the Bay so I could display it on their "A Year in Display" table. I'll probably put my first brick stitch project on their "Novice Attempts" table:

While the brick stitch is basically done, I still need to work on turning it into a book cover as I had intended.

This project was started around the endish of 2017, and I would estimate it took about 90 hours of work, 20-30 skeins of cotton embroidery floss, two pairs of scissors, and four embroidery needles. (I have a habit of bending those.) And one Ciosa.

Here's the close-up of one diamond, to give an idea of how many stitches went into this piece:

Pictures to follow of the completed book cover!

- C.

How to Make Folio-Style Scroll Covers

At the request of a friend, I'm doing a quick step-by-step tutorial on making scroll covers - something any kingdom desperately needs!

Scroll covers are basically just decorative protective folios used when giving out award scrolls at court. You ARE supposed to return them to your barony or kingdom once you manage to do whatever you intended with your scroll.

Not this.

New reigns and local baronies could definitely stand to be given a good stack of scroll covers, so if you have spare fabric, cardboard, a hot glue gun, and about 1/2 an hour, please consider donating.

What you'll need:

• Scrap fabric, preferably thick
• Cardboard or foam core
• A hot glue gun
• Felt
• Ribbon or other material for laces (optional)

Start by cutting out your cardboard. Assuming most award scrolls are about 8"x10" or 8.5"x11"***, you'll probably want to do two 10"x13" pieces. 

This is not two 10x13 pieces.

Cut the fabric so there is at least an inch of edging around the cardboard. If you're making two 10"x13" pieces of cardboard, the fabric will be 22"x28".  You'll also want juuuuust a little extra on the length, because you won't lay the cardboard pieces exactly next to each other. Leave a little space between them so the folio will fold closed when it's completed.

*** I've been told that in other areas, scrolls can be 11"x14" on average, so if you have the materials to make a larger folio, please do so!

Lay everything out to get a sense of what you're doing. 

Next, get your gun.

This was a $4 glue gun from Michael's. Save up for the good one if you plan to hot glue a lot of things. This one's kind of a pain in the ass.

Add glue dots to the eight corners of the cardboard pieces, and press them down into place on the fabric.

Next, cut squares into the corners of the fabric. 

I know, weird, but just stick with me here.

Fold over the shorter edges of the fabric onto the cardboard and glue it into place.

Now, fold the corner of the length edge so it's a diagonal, and glue it down to itself. 

This is so, when you fold down the longer edges, you have what looks like a "seam", just in case it shows when you're all done. There shouldn't be any raw edges of the fabric showing on the finished product this way.

Make sense?

Cool. Glue down the long edges now.

Now you have to cut out a square of felt slightly smaller than the above square. Have trouble cutting good squares out of fabric? MEEEEE TOOO.

However, this is a donated item, not my magnum opus, and we're going for efficient, not perfect. 

At this point, if you want to add laces to tie it closed, go ahead and do that. You'll want to glue them down on the short (width) edges, dead center.

I can't seem to FIND my ribbon, so it'll be an addition I make later. It's much easier to put it on BEFORE the felt, though. 

And finally, glue that felt down. I would personally put some glue not just around the edges, but on the face of the cardboard as well, just to stop it all from bunching up.

And that's it! 

I hope this helps, and I hope to see a lot of really awesome scroll covers making the rounds soon! 

If you find my AOA scroll in your folio, please return it, because I've forgotten it there.

...And if you currently HAVE a scroll cover, please return it to your barony. ;)

(AWWWWWW) YIS,

Ciosa

So You Flounced. Now What?

Why, oh why, do we feel the need to continue to remind others that we're gone? Why do we flounce? What's the purpose, and does it really accomplish anything in the end? Why do we think that if we come back and remind people that we left, they'll suddenly realize what they're missing?

Before I really launch into this, I want to be clear: this is about a specific subset of people who leave a community because something pissed them off...

...But they just keep coming back for no good goddamn reason, just to let us know that they're gone, gone forever. Especially if they have some easy access to social media pages.

Like Facebook, for example.

Think about it like this: McDonalds burgers gave you food poisoning one time. Okay, so now you swear never, ever to eat at McDonalds again. This is a totally acceptable reaction to have.

What would not be acceptable is for you to run into the McDonalds lobby every two weeks, screaming about how terrible it is and how you'll never eat there again. (Bonus points if you manage to attach a sense of moral superiority to your outburst.)

That's the kind of person we're talking about here.

That's you. You're the crazy person screaming about how terrible your experience was at all the people who just want to get their McChicken on.

These are the things I, a person in the community you left, would like to say about that behavior:

It was okay for you to quit the community.

No matter how trivial the incident was that caused you to leave, it's totally okay for you to have done so. You have a right to seek solutions which protect your physical safety, emotional wellbeing, and mental health. You have a right to say, "I don't want to deal with this frustration. It's not important enough to me to continue."

You should never, ever feel like you have to stay in a place or within a group where you feel uncomfortable. You should have the autonomy to do as you please and need. 

That's okay.

It is NOT okay for you to keep returning 

to the community to tell them your beef.

Leaving is one thing. 

Coming back again and again to remind the community about the whys and hows of your leaving is not an acceptable behavior. If you want to leave, actually leave and move on.

Unless, of course, your intention is (somehow) to get the community to beg you to come back. Here's the thing about that, though:

No one is going to beg you to come back.

If you leave a community and return only infrequently to make shirty comments about problems you perceive within its structure, and how you decided to leave because of those problems, you're not perceived as a victim. The community you elected to leave behind now perceives you as someone who not only abandoned the group, but abandoned the fight to make the community better. Why should anyone come crying for you to return?

I get it; we all want to feel valued by our respective communities. We want to know that our voices are heard.

We want to know that if we're gone, we'll be missed.

That doesn't happen for quitters, though.

Especially in massive communities like the SCA, or the Scouts, or the pagan community: people are a dime a dozen in all of these until they aren't. That's why the real public outcry is reserved for people who contribute, work really, really hard, and would have stayed if they could. They're those people who would still be here, getting their hands dirty, if they had a little more time, money, ability, or life left to them. You want to be noticed and loved? Stay and work.

No one's got time for the people who decided to leave. We've got work to do.

Look, it's an uncomfortable truth that we, as people, reserve our compassion for those who are compassionate to us. We give to those who give. We are loyal to our social groups first, and outsiders second. Maybe it sucks, and it creates problems sometimes, but that's just how societies work.

Family comes before random folks who scream at us about how shitty our families are. And even if you are technically "family", you left. The thing about that is...

You left, so your opinion no longer holds 

value to others within the community.

Change is motivated by the persistent and communal efforts of people willing to work together to obtain a goal.

Let's look at a scenario:

Two people want shelter built for their community. Neither can immediately draw attention to this need, or elicit help from others.

The first person quits the community in outrage, and stands in a neighboring field, shouting about how no one in the community will build a shelter.

The second person stays and dedicates themselves to building the shelter brick by brick on their own, educating anyone willing to listen about the communal benefits of the shelter, and periodically asking for help from community members old and new.

Eventually, a shelter gets built...by the second person.

The first person is still standing in a field, screaming about how they weren't given the appropriate attention by the community.

So: in this situation, you're the first person. You decided to leave rather than work for your vision of what the community could be and should have. You come back now and then to tell everyone all the terrible things that the community has done to you.

Your opinion will only be received with irritation and maybe a little bemusement, not as a valuable contribution of a working member of the community. To the community, it will sound like sour grapes from a self-created outsider who did not value said community enough to work for its betterment.

The second person, however, will now hold more influence with the community because they will be perceived as a leader, a motivator, and a creator of change.

In short: if you abandon a community, you are still welcome to your opinion, but have absolutely no right to expect it to be valued by the community you chose to abandon.

You left because it got too hard, 

and now you're shitting on people who won't quit.

You left because it got too hard, and that's okay.

But here's the thing: You don't have any sort of moral highground here. You made a choice to leave. You don't get a cookie for that. Others made a choice to stay. No cookies there, either. No one is better or worse, they simply have different priorities, needs, and tolerance. Your decision to leave does not make you better than, and their decision not to follow your example does not make them less than.

You don't get to turn around and shit on people who decided it was worth it to them NOT to leave. They decided it was worth their effort and emotional wellbeing to try and make things better.

But really, if you still want to feel some kind of element of superiority about bailing - enough so that you feel entitled to rub everyone else's nose in it, let's look again at that scenario from the last section.

The actions taken by the second person probably set them up for a lot of stress and frustration - a hard road to walk, no doubt at all. But in the end, the rewards are invaluable. They get to leave behind a legacy for future members of the community, and they get to enjoy a position of respect and appreciation.

The first person jumped ship when they didn't get what they wanted. Doing it all themselves, even if only at first, was just too difficult, and they decided to quit.

That's where you are. You decided that you weren't going to keep chipping away at the wall. You weren't going to build a shelter. You were going to take your toys and go the fuck home because when things got too rocky, you found you weren't up to the task.

And everyone in the community knows it.

Meanwhile, there are still a lot of people willing to be the Second Person in the scenario. There are a lot of individuals willing to come together and say, "Hey, there's a problem here; let's fix it. It'll be difficult, but we got this if we stick together."

But there you are, screaming at them for continuing to try.

You're not selling enlightenment here; you're being an asshole.

That is why your opinion doesn't fucking matter. 

Mundane Project: The Gothening! Part 1

I've been working to redecorate my office-slash-hangout room-slash-craft space. In our previous apartment, I had a very nice Bohemian Scandinavian Minimalist look going on, but since we've moved, I've lost all the space I had in that room and the furniture has been repurposed to the living room (or given away.)

So I sat and had a think. What would Teenager Me love to see in a room that is completely mine, where I'll be for a while because we have a mortgage?

Goth.

Goth everything.

Now, admittedly, I'm no longer the little edgelord I used to be; I love my retro fashions and Mid-Century Modern designs. My tastes from "Hot Topic Chic" have been refined to something a little more adult.

So, in true tasteful adult style, I decided to Rockabilly this shit up.

Unfortunately, I'm working on a budget. Everything that goes into this room is being bought on deep discount, being repurposed, or is totally DIY, with one exception: the coffin-shaped bookshelf.

The coffin bookshelf is being custom built by Gryphon at Gryphon Furniture; if you live in Atlantia, you know this dude for his awesome Glastonbury chairs.

As for the rest...well, I'm being pretty liberal with black glossy spray paint at the moment. I had some brown shelves I'd purchased from World Market for my first personal space, but now they no longer go with the decor. I spent $4 on some Krylon and went to town:

The same treatment was given to a brown plant pedestal I acquired from Ross a few years ago, with considerably more sanding involved to remove the strange varnish that had been used by the manufacturer:

I think they both look better now, actually. The shelves were a sort of sad, dead-body greyish brown that was popular in 2016, and now they're pretty sleek-looking. The pillar has a beautiful reflective sheen on the top. (Don't worry, that's not the current or future setup for my decor, I just needed a photo of the column.)

Next came lighting; I had a massive paper lamp from Ikea that took up a good deal of space, but gave off only the much-adored-by-Scandinavians diffused lighting. I dropped it off at ReStore and bought a new lamp from Wal-Mart for $15.

It was a black base with a white drum shade. Nothing really exciting there. BUT! I remembered I had stored some pinup zombie fabric for a rainy day dress project; after excavating it, I set about making one hella sexy lampshade:

I cut out the strips of fabric, hot-glued them to the existing shade, and added some purple ribbon for trim on the top and bottom. When I actually do have some money, I'll attach some purple beaded fringe to the bottom. For now, I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

Next pay period, the projects will involve purchasing some art from Redbubble, a $25 striped rug from Ikea, and some pillow covers. I'm also planning to spray paint a light-colored Ikea bookshelf and an end table.

I decided to go classic monster themed, so there will be tons of Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price, and Boris Karloff - with some American Traditional tattoo art-inspired additions later on down the line!

Cheap DIY Tablet Loom

Pennsic tends to suck all your money away, and when I got home, I realized I really needed a loom for 25+ card projects. My inkle loom is great for smaller bands, but strings start popping off after a while if I add too many cards to it.

But what to do? A box loom can run $50 or more, depending on size, quality, maker, so on, and I couldn't keep borrowing bigger looms from people. Instead, I worked out with my husband a way to make a (temporary, admittedly) solution. We went to Home Depot (both my favorite and least favorite place in the world), and I invested about $10 in tools for a jury-rigged loom that needed only minimal tools on my part.

Here are the supplies I decided I would need for this:

- One larger piece of scrap lumber, at least 18 inches long. Light enough to be portable.
- Two small pieces of scrap lumber, about 3x5 or 8x10.
- Two cheap drawer handles
- At least three clamps
- Two clip...things. (They're in the photo.)

The small scrap lumber squares are actually flooring samples - you can snag them for free at Home Depot. They're the perfect size, and some of them actually come with foam on the bottom, which is a bonus if you want to hold fiber in place without tearing it up with wood.

I had a 2'x2' board I was going to use for another project, but this was a more immediate need so I repurposed it. It saved me a bit of money, but honestly you can probably get some scrap from Home Depot or Lowe's for just as free. 

We drilled holes in the flooring samples to attach the drawer handles. The screws ended up being too long, but that isn't something I'm going to worry about. This isn't the Sistine Chapel and I'm not Michelangelo. 

Next step: clamp the small wood (and attached handle) to the end of the long wood with two clamps. LOOK AT THAT. The two clamp side is the "working side", or where you'll be doing all the weaving.

After that, attach the second piece of wood-and-handle to the opposite side of the long wood.

It doesn't need to sit on either side of the handle because this is just where you've got your loose thread hanging out. You can even wrap thread around the clamp to keep it in place when you're not working.

But hey. If you really want two clamps on this end, you do you.

You can see here that I've stacked two flooring samples foam-to-foam, giving extra height and a place for fiber to go, as mentioned above. 

Just another angle, because I value multiple camera angles when trying to figure out DIY projects explained by people who can't explain things - like me.

So, those weird clip things that probably have a name, but I don't know what it is. They look like metal clothespins, or jumper cable clamps. THOSE are great, they were like 90 cents.

IT'S FOR HOLDING THINGS IN PLACE.

I like to weave with good tension on my project, but as you can imagine, there's probably a point where I'll tug too hard and things will explode like a mousetrap. These clips will help with that: they grip REALLY WELL, and will keep the project in place while I'm working on it.

By the way, if you're curious about how sturdy all of this is with the handles and clamps and whatnot: it weighs about 5-10lbs. I grabbed it by one of the handles and carried it upstairs just like it is in the above photo without any slipping. 

It's sturdy, it'll do the job I need it to do.

Happy crafting!

(Awwww) YIS,

Ciosa 

Baronial Award Garters

I finally settled in to do a test run of some garters for the Barony of Ponte Alto's Order of the Garland award.

Pre-Pennsic, I had plotted out the entire weave; the plan was to do double-faced tablet woven bands, using a font from Linda Henrickson's Please Weave a Message. I had graphs. I had cards.

When I sat down to actually do it upon returning from Pennsic, I couldn't remember why I had set the pattern as needing 34 cards, so I cut it down to 22. I wove through the first three letters of the word "Order", turned the page in my graphing journal to "of the" to get a sense of timing, and went, "Oh."

That goddamned "f". That "f" was why I needed 34 cards.

"Oh."

So this meant I needed to either scrap the whole thing...or play Frankenstein with the lettering. The latter seemed easier than warping up 34 new cards, so that's what I did: I re-wrote the pattern so that the "f", "t", "g", and "l" all fit into the space I had available.

GIVE MY CREATION LIFE

From that point, I was like, "Hell, graphing is easy, I'm going to add Ponte Alto's bridge from their heraldry!" and...did that. I spent the better part of the evening graphing out the bridge and then finishing the weave. I'm really happy with the results, to be honest. For a first attempt at double face tablet weaving, I think I did PRETTY GOOD. 

Now I get to do it in s i l k.

Roman Hair Pieces: The Fuck-It Method

How to create Roman-ish hairstyle when you have no idea what to do and are afraid of fucking up:

1. Buy $3 hair wefts from Sally Beauty.

2. Stare at your purchase for 4 hours.

2b. Watch Golden Girls and ignore your purchase for a further 2 hours.

3. Drink wine. Cheap wine. Out of a solo cup. Wine glasses don't do anything to enhance the flavor of $5 wine. 

4. Drink more wine than that.

5. A little more.

Does everything now seem like a good idea? Perfect

6. Start sewing. Doesn’t matter if you mess up. It’s a $3 fuck-up and you’ve been drinking.

7. ???? ??????

8. Hair.

Sources:

For the right-hand ("Tower") hairpiece, I followed instruction from the YouTube video by Janet Stephens: https://youtu.be/iZFY9Acxq7M

For the braided bun: https://sites.google.com/site/lalitadasa/method-jeweled-bun

Project Roundup

Okay, here we go!

You get this picture because otherwise, the next one 

becomes the preview photo for this post.

A little bit about me:

I'm Ciosa di Tommaso (chew that "C", it's Cho-suh 👄 ), and my persona is a 1400s Florentine courtesan. For now. 

I'm 34, and I'm married to a non-SCAdian; he and I powerlift together -

There's no looking sweet and coquettish when you're picking up 200 lbs. 

- and then our interests diverge, so you'll probably never see mention of him again on this blog. He's like Bigfoot. Maybe he exists, maybe you've seen him, but a lot of people don't really believe you.

He said "no" to photos. Here's Idris Elba instead.

I've been playing in the SCA off and on for about six years. I joined initially only because it was one more opportunity to shoot archery, and then left for a while to pursue a degree in Art History. I came back when I realized I could incorporate my education into my SCA experience, and since then I've been lurking, trying to learn as much as I can, and meet as many people as I can - especially those with similar interests.

I've managed to register my name, develop a persona, achieve an AOA, submit a device, and begin pursuit of a specialization. A blog seemed like the next step in documenting my processes, projects, and growth.

I thought about starting this post with a picture of me, buried underneath all of the projects I'm currently trying to complete; however, I realized the weight might actually kill me. It wasn't worth the joke's payoff.

Instead, I'll start with the long-term projects:

How is it only halfway done???

This is my third German Brick Stitch pattern; all three that I've done have been taken from Master Wymarc's page. This particular piece has so far taken me a year. I work on it when I have no other projects going; my persona isn't German and I have no real intention of getting too deep into embroidery (she said, fully aware of Murphy's Law applications to crafting and art), I just really enjoy the repetition of brick stitch.

~Fuzzy~

Then there's this. This is my future (and thus far only) A&S submission: I'm processing, spinning, dying, and tablet weaving Finn and Icelandic sheep wool. In an effort to save money on the project, I actually made my own Viking combs based on a semi-blurry photo a friend showed me of the extant tools:

Also useful for slasher movies.

They work pretty well.

I'm always working on tablet weaving projects, and the last two I've completed have been a belt for a friend and garters for some members of the Known World Courtesans:

I'm so sick of weaving deer, you guys.

And finally, because I'm in that Pre-Pennsic panic stage where, two weeks before I leave for War, I realized I have NO lightweight garb, I spent a few hours making a non-descript-but-passably-Italian gown.

It's VeNOtian.

This was constructed from spit, prayers, the wrong interfacing, and the silk of a second-hand sari. It has channels sewn in so I can ladder-lace it, and no sleeves because I ran out of materials. But it'll be too hot for sleeves, so that's fine. Right?

Right.

My upcoming projects (that is, those that I'll begin AFTER Pennsic) include garters for my Barony (to be given as awards for Order of the Garland), and favors for their Highnesses Ragnarr and Lynette. I also offered to work on making scroll covers, and bought more evenweave because a whitework project looked fun.

That's all I've got for you guys for now; I'll attempt to do things like "finish projects" and "update this blog", so keep checking back for more later!

<3
Ciosa di Tommaso

Welcome!

Hey, you've found my blog!

If this is the only post you see, that means there's nothing here yet, but not to worry: I'll be posting loads of things soon enough.

For now, imagine that this page is full of all the wonderful, pretty things I've learned to make thanks to YouTube and a couple of patient SCAdians. I know, if you wanted to use your imagination, you wouldn't be on the internet.

But really, give it a shot. Close your eyes - not yet, read all the instructions first! - and imagine a loom, warped with beautiful silk, cards ready to turn to the next letter, and already a pattern has formed in the style of-

YO LOOK AT YOU! You imagined it right onto my blog!

Good job. I'm very proud.

Okay, go imagine further things, but do it on your own blog. Let me get some actual articles going here.

(Awwwww) YIS,
- Ciosa