Friday, July 18, 2008
Gorgeous buckle
It went well

Thursday, July 03, 2008
All set for IMC


Besides working on the other tassel, I've been obsessing a bit about 'point de milan' at the moment. I'm sure that it is a variation of the chevron buttons, but I am having difficulty getting it to work well over a shape other than a ball. The thing is, most of these techniques have a 'hard way' - which is usually the first thing you figure out, and an 'easy way' - the way that it becomes obvious someone doing something for a living has to work it. I just haven't quite gotten that! Then of course, I will need to find some originals to inspect, to double-check, as opposed to just looking at images. I'll get there in the end.
Friday, June 27, 2008
First tassel complete


Above shows the embrace coulant, again I was able to re-use the gold decorative cord, but as with the tassels, all of the red and white cords needed to be made. With this, I also had to spin up some gold silk for the decorative stitching, as the weight of the original thread isn't a 'standard' today.
So I'm now looking forward to getting on with the next one...
And other than that? Well, my garden has been the best place to be. We set up a bird feeding station in January, and we have been more than rewarded. Baby birds galore! Robins, blue tits, great tits, wrens, gold finches (which are really really greedy) chaffinches, and lots of others, and yesterday a baby woodpecker. Still no baby pigeon though... And despite seeing some birds regularly (such as wagtails) I haven't seen their young yet) So, with those and the owls and pheasants and rabbits and bats, I reckon they could have filmed Springwatch in my back garden!
Monday, June 16, 2008
More tasseling
The silk has arrived, and work on the 18th c tassels has begun. I am working on one tassel at a time, and have removed all of the old silk, retaining the decorative cords where ever possible, and making very complete notes of the silk, how it's wrapped, the mold shapes and sizes. Above, you can see some of the molds in various stages of completion - the white ones remain white, with no other decoration. The flat blue ones also have no other decoration, while the others will have quite a bit to add. You can see that I have begun putting the original red cord back - some was too damaged to use and I will be winding some to match - it like the white cord that will need replacing, will require me to make a fine gimp thread first. The gold braid, though quite worn, will be able to be used again. I also have to repair one of the molds, which has a decent enough piece missing to make re-wrapping in it's current state impossible.However, the big thing this week is finalising my talk for the Richard III East Midlands Branch Study Day on Saturday. All's going well, but can I find an image I particularly wanted to show? It's on one of the many CDs I have, but it hasn't made it's appearance yet. I'm really looking forward to this study day, there will be quite a few interesting speakers and from what I understand, quite a few tickets have been booked.
So, alot of this week will be put to use writing - my IMC paper also has some fine tweaks required, and then straight into a piece for the Braid Society. It's all go...
