Pikachu

A little crochet pokemon for my niece :-)
Pikachu's the best!

I used cotton instead of wool, I like how sturdy it is.

My Quiver with Runes

A year ago I made a viking quiver for my husband. I tried to make it historically accurate, according to reconstructions based on excavations. My quiver is more creative than that.

I chose a serpent from this Sweden rune stone as the main theme. I traced it with a pencil on beige dyed piece, painted the body with a darker dye with use of a cotton swab and carved the edges with a scalpel (two cuts - V shaped line). It is necessary to paint first and then cut so that the light color of natural leather would show as a contrast.

The body of the quiver is sewn with a front stitch with a leather band. I made the upper part separately and joined it with this front stitch at the back. I also repeated the lower four side stitches through all layers.

It requires some physical strength to tighten the leather when finishing. I went around a few stitches back.

Viking were decorating a lot of things, so I used a cross stitch to make the handles instead of back stitch, it also looks more female if you like :-)

The bottom was made from piece of leather that was soaked in hot water and pushed into a mug or something in that shape. When it went dry I pulled it out, cut out and sewed on. This design prevents the arrows from cutting the stitches, which happens to straight bottoms even when the stitches are led diagonally...

The design is too wide and the quiver too narrow to make sense from the front, the serpents peek at the sides.

 Ready for shooting!

Weapon Wall Display

 I've got a new bow and I couldn't wait to give it a worthy place to stay at. Even though it is a recurve bow, it's still quite long, so I couldn't find a board long enough in the shop. I bought three pine planks and glued them together with pegs. Having only meter long clamps for a meter and half long board I had to manage somehow, and I'm proud of my solution :-D

I traced the edges - all curves come from some part of my beautiful bow. The edges are decorated simply with use of U-shaped chisel. I wanted to gouge the board through the whole width, but I ended making only small eyes, because I found out it is very difficult to do this at the vertical sides due to the direction of grain. All the cuts and the decoration are sanded.

One layer of transparent paint, sand, second layer of paint.

Mounting this wall hanging with six screws all by myself was a chalenge and I'm aware not all the screws are in wall plugs. But victory is mine anyway :-)

I like my sewing workroom even more now. All things that I love at one place!

Paper Tissue Box Cover

This cute thing was made as four patchwork pieces sewn together with a bottom piece and the upper sleeve, the box is inserted from the top and the sleeve gathers around the tissues. I took some beads and feathers off from our dream catcher to match it.

Wire Wrapping Adventure

I've been looking at wire wrapped jewelry pictures for a while and today, while procrastinating from other work, I finally found time to try out one myself.

Plus I'd made a copper bracelet recently and had nothing to match it with.

I chose a great beginner tutorial. I thought it would be tough, but it was quite a lot of fun instead, especially the wrapping :-)

I used a 0.8 mm wire that I bought in bead store and a really thin wire from an inductor.

The pendant looked a little wierd on a black cord, so I created a chain as well. Just figures eight, easy as it sounds, and it looks almost like a regular chain. I copied the fastening style from the bracelet. It's funny not to have to depend on bought components...

For the earrings, I made a little spiral, then I bent the wire a few millimeters from the spiral and threaded the bead on. I bent the wire along the top and made a loop. Earring hooks are made from the same wire. It's just important to file the ends. Even though I always turn the pliers to cut the wire with the less slanted part of blade, there is still always some sharpness left.

Card Weaving Loom Version 2.0

I'll be making a new viking apron dress and I wanted to try out a new model of loom.

I can't take it anywhere with me, but I don't have to move the warp every now and then and it should't be such a problem that the threads are twisting at the end.

I cut two rectangles of wood and attached little triangular pieces to the bottom (it's a piece from fruit box :-) ). The front rectangle is attached with screws to the base. It has also fixed hooks. The rear is attached only with a clamp (I hate this type anyway, so I don't miss it in the workshop). I made hooks from wire and set them on washers so they could twist.

I drew a simple pattern. I wanted a simple one. Only turning all together forward and backward. It doesn't really work like on the picture, but kind of :-) The slashes mean the direction of threading the cards. 

Every second time I change the direction one turn later and it creates this green dot inside.

I love the new loom. It took me a lot of nerves to assemble it. Then it took quite a long time to thread it. But the weaving... It was so fast and comfortable, I can't believe I had it done in one afternoon! (and enjoyed it)

Beware. Card weaving is addictive.

I got down to make some wardrobes for our new bathroom.
The center part of the sink table will be open and will be an alternative to having shelves on the walls.

The boards are connected with pegs.

All holes are filled with glue before peg insertion.

Some glue is added to the sides as well
It will be sturdy as hell
This is all I can tell

Any time I can I choose torx screws.

The rear side is made with screws, pegs are used only for visible places. Screws and glue, of course.

The space for the wardrobes is getting prepared.

The bigger wardrobes are the quickest. Just a big coffin, no pegs needed...

It's so robust, I could dance on the top :-D I love it.
This is when you use proper material for the back, not like the paper wardrobes from Möbelix, that move with every opening of the doors...

And a lot of shelves.

I made more hole than I need, so I can choose later on if I had to store tall stuff.

So this is the plan. One wardrobe for bathroom, one for the toilet.

Placing the heavy pieces inside the small space hell.

The room under the wardrobe is filled with expendable foam.

One side of the sink table will have a hole for washing machine hoses. I made two circular holes with drill hole cutter and joined them with a jigsaw.

I love to work with wood. The smell of it when you cut it, oh...
The surface is treated with linseed oil and yacht varnish.

Renaissance Court Gown - Chemise and Bodice

Last summer I bought brocade fabric and I spent half a year in procrastination over half-finished corset. Here's the story.

I chose the extant bodice of Dorothea Sabina von Neuburg.

 I drew the basic pattern and spent some time trying it with a scrap fabric. Here's the bonus that I didn't expect - I found out why the breasts are excluded from boning. I used to think that it is for the breasts to show at least their natural shape, but the opposite is the truth. The poor breasts get a bit squeezed at this pattern of corset and you can see that the the fabric is supported by them. It is easy then to take the chalk and trace the line where the boning is not needed. So no natural shaping, they just wanted to save the boning! :-D

(And it looks nice as a piece of underwear of course)

Two layers of twill for the right side, one for the lining. At this point I hid the seam inside, but later on I decided to leave the side seam allowances out. If I took on weight by chance :)

I sewed a line where the edge should be and cut it out with a few extra milimeters.

I sewed the tunnels, put in steel boning and sewed on bias tape. The ends of stell boning are ground as usually (this took me ages!)

There is a great tunnel at the center for a simple wooden busk.

During fitting the inside of the corset got a bit dirty from sweat and I started to imagin how it would look after one summer of performing. Disgusting. So I also made a chemise. I traced the neckline along the bodice neckline, just a tad smaller. The shoulders are 5cm wide. The pattern is simple A-shape and sleeves are like squares. The front neckline is by chance 10cm wider than the back one, so I made the whole front panel wider.

I don't have the wrists yet. I added lace to the neckline.

The chemise. The neckline is far too wide without the corset :-)

Hooray, half a year and the corset is almost done. I just need to add the little spaniel-ears to the lower back. And you know what? I can tie the bodice myself! The trick is that you start with the lacing wide open but thread. Start pulling the ribbon and make your back wide so that the edges don't touch. Keep on until the edges are closed at the top, then just pull and voila.

Then you spend next ten minutes trying to persuade the chemise neckline to go along the corset neckline :-)