Edith of Winterton's Weblog

Breadth Challenge #13

Edith of Winterton — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:15:24 +0000

So at the Amherst Celebrates the Arts demo I mentioned to Cori, who is wonderful in more ways than I can name, that I may be demonstrating drop-spinning for kids at a summer camp this year. Cori said something to the effect of: “Why don’t you demonstrate spinning on the wheel, too?” At my response of ‘because I don’t have one and don’t know how,’ she replied, “Why don’t you borrow one of my wheels so you can practice?”

And so at Brass Ring a week later she taught me the basics and lent me her Traveller, and it is currently resident in our guest room. Last night she stopped by and showed me how to oil it, and … this afternoon I spun most of a bobbin and am currently stopped to do more detailed research on the care and feeding of drive bands.

I think that counts for 13…

Breadth Challenge #12

Edith of Winterton — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:10:38 +0000

… this would actually be the very-beginning illumination class I took at Three Ravens, I think. Placeholder for the Visconti Hours notes when I copy them over.

Depth Challenge #12, revisited

Edith of Winterton — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:01:59 +0000

Actual knitting done! Need to sew the ends in and sew up the bottom; this requires a needle I will go looking for when I’m more awake. Casting off worked just fine. The tension did not ultimately work out so fine — the patterned bit tends to be slightly narrower than the rest, so there’s a bit of a waist. But much better than it could have been. Clearly I will have to make more to experiment further and find out how much slack I’ll ultimately want to leave.

All in all, though, pretty pleased.

Depth Challenge #12/50

Edith of Winterton — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:31:09 +0000

I will count knitting with multiple double-ended needles as a second skill for the breadth challenge, when I have that down; but not yet. Instead, Depth #12: a pouch off the recent Tournaments Illuminated article on knitted pouches, zigzag stripe in blue and white. Started it yesterday afternoon. In around talking with in-laws around dinner, managed to cast on and get the first couple of inches done; did the first triple stripe (white/pale blue/white) this afternoon, then did the zigzag portion in roughly three hours this evening. I may even have gotten the tension someplace in the vicinity of where I wanted it to be — I’m still using the wrong size needles, and it is not yet complete, but the hard part is done and really it just needs a little more mindless TV-watching and then becomes my First Experiment In Casting Off By Myself. (Uh oh.)

Seriously, this has gone much faster than I expected it to. Which is good, because I haven’t finished a project since September…

This Was An Unexpected Complication

Edith of Winterton — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 07:46:40 +0000

So I am now working on knitting in the round.

I may count this as a separate skill entry for the Breadth Challenge, because I’m learning roughly as much and taking roughly as much time and effort to do so as I generally do learning something from scratch.

Mostly, I’m learning that if I knit around my three-year-old nephew, every twenty stitches or so I will be surprised and in starting I will lose three to five of them off the end of one or both needles.

Rrrrgh.

Breadth Challenge #11/50

Edith of Winterton — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:40:38 +0000

Knitting! Scarf complete. Doesn’t count toward the garb challenge, though. (Have also acquired linen toward Pennsic garb, so that will have to do there; there should, I think, be enough for two dresses and an experiment with cut hosen, so we’ll see.)

Oh, yes. Breadth Challenge #10/50

Edith of Winterton — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:27:34 +0000

SKIRTING FLEECES.

Oh, boy.

Depth Challenge #11/50

Edith of Winterton — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:25:19 +0000

The weaving and award medallion projects will have to be pushed back one.

Depth challenge item #11 of 50 is a black wool Viking apron-dress, entirely handstitched with handspun thread and a bone needle: white for the running stitch on the seams, yellow for seam finishings and hemming, and blue for sewing and affixing the shoulder straps. It is not quite actually finished — I skimped on seam finishings so I could wear it at Summer’s End; I want to at least fix that, and probably redo the shoulder straps – but it is finished enough that it’s been worn successfully. I used Vigdis’ pattern, and it was reasonably successful, though by either a body type mismatch or a measuring mishap (I measured three times, darnit!) there was SIGNIFICANT excess above the waist. It didn’t come to where I expected it to, it tried to come to above my shoulders!

Took about three weeks: I see I plied up the thread on August 24, and it was a few days before I could actually cut the cloth. (A Thursday afternoon, if I remember correctly.) But it was wearable on September 13.

Notes: The shoulder straps were actually sewn up and sewn on at Summer’s End; the back ends of them need to be repositioned outward. The back center seam may be strained a bit where the gore ends; will have to look into that. I noted a mention on Thora Sharptooth’s page of a seam finish that was sort of ‘run and fell, but only folded over once’ — my mother and I mused over that, and wound tacking down the seam allowance across the seam, then overcasting it. This is a best-guess attempt at the finish and really needs looking into further. (However, I’ll need to spin more yellow thread first, since I’m very nearly out.) And I need to make sure I have scissors with me if I use this seam finish in future: the biggest problem I had was that the seam allowances were not themselves even, so tacking them down couldn’t be.

But when the goal was simply to prove I could handsew a dress?

No complaints!

Spinning updates

Edith of Winterton — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:25:39 +0000

Spun a bit of the yellow at the Scottish Festival demo last weekend, and some of the logwood blue between then and now… and tonight I got around to plying a bit of the white. We’ll see if I can pull off what I have in mind for it…

Post-Pennsic Additions

Edith of Winterton — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:46:02 +0000

Lucet cords and shoemaking can be added more firmly to the Breadth challenge now. Also, my husband’s camera is now in working order; perhaps someday when I have organization and time I will be able to add pictures!