Eva's journal

Thank you for your kinds words. It appears that we will have to wait until next Thursday to get more info about Inger's cancer. They only have appointments on Thursdays and she hasn't been called for tomorrow.

In other news I have finished a page about Valeria's late15th-early 16th century Korean outift that I made for her. This is the page.

She was beautiful in it.

This weekend started with working rather late in the afternoon on Friday, followed by celebrating Imbolc with my coven, and getting rather drunk. Quite intentionally, I needed that. Saturday I was a bit hung over so I didn't go to the gym in the morning. However, I did bake a birthday cake for Rickard, who turned 49, before heading out for some necessary shopping and pokemon hunting with Valeria and Rickard, and then on to the annual general meeting of Gotvik, the local SCA group. It was combined with silk banner painting, but I didn't have the time to spend all day thee. So I brought a small knitting project and hung out with people who painted for a couple of hours before the AGM started.

After the meeting I went home for dinner, and decorated the cake. Neighbour Anna came over and we ended up playing "Cards against humanity" (mine, and the twins' bithday present to Rickard) until half past midnight :)

Woke up late-ish, around 9.30 and had breakfast and went to the gym for an hour. After I got home (and had a bath) Valeria and I finally managed to get around to taking photos of her in her Eleonora di Toledo gown, which was finished in early December.



I will make a page with documentation over at Eva's historical costuming blog, but not tonight, I am way too tired. Especially since after that short photo session we went to my sister's place to celebrate the birthday of the youngest niece (6). Then home, where I did some simple work on the photos, and then made dinner, which consisted of medieval lasagna, that is: home made pasta made from fermented dough, cooked in broth and layered with mozzarella and cinnamon and served. it is wonderful.

After that I knitted on Alfhild's stockings through a couple of episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation, but now I really need to go to bed.

I'm feeling a strong urge to start knitting again. I really shouldn't, however, because I have Valeria's embroidered sleeve to finish and it's 1/3 done and it would be so wonderful to have finished her camicia (enough to be wearable, I will add more embrodery over time). After finishing the sleeve I will line the skirt of her Eleonora gown and attach the skirt to the bodice - another long time project that would be lovely to have finished.

But after that I will knit something, a cardigan or a shawl probably.

I did some quick knitting this week however, I made this for Rickard:

As I wrote in yesterday's post I had a wool dress in 1930s' style which had got a moth hole right in front on the tummy. The "Make Do and Mend" challenge gave me the kick in the butt I needed to do somethign woth it, except packing it down for summer and packing it up for winter. I made the new skirt from a wool twill that I bought from a friend a couple of years ago when she sold out most of her fabric stash. To tie the two pieces of the dress together visually I also made a new collar (as you can se in the post below it had a white cotton collar) from the blue wool and made patch pockets from remnants of the glencheck wool used in the bodice and sleeves. This time I made the skirt shorter, to the, to me, more flattering "little-above-the-knee" length of the 1940s.
From the lower part of the original skirt, which didn't have moth holes I made a skirt for Valeria. I feel very thrifty.



( More photos )
The Challenge: # 1 Make Do and Mend
Fabric: 100% Wool tabby and wool twill
Pattern: Not as such, it started its life as a '70s pattern, but has been heavily re-made to a) fit me and b) to give it more of a 40's style. You can see here another example of how I changed this "1970s does 1940s pattern" into a 40s dress.
Year: ca 1940-44. Typical for the war years with its combining of materials and rather short skirt.
Notions: Four plastic buttons, a zipper for Valeria's (modern) skirt
How historically accurate is it? Wool was a common dress amterial in the 1940s, unlike now, so the materials are good. It has machined button holes, which wasn't common in home made clothing and the plastic buttons are probably from another type of plastic than the one used then. While the pattern is from the 1970s it has been changed enough to make the pieces look like what you can find in an original 1940s pattern. The sleeves are taken from an original 1940s pattern too. Mixing fabrics like this gives it a very authentic look for the war years (at least in Europe) where every scrap available was used. I have studied many sewing patterns and Swedish women's magazines from the period and I think this would pass without comment or notice. (The magazine on the "old" photo is one of the leading Swedish women's magazines, from 1945)
Hours to complete: Not many, maybe five, including Valeria's skirt.
First worn: For photos I wore it today, but since I'm at home recovering from a hole in my duodenum, surgery and four weeks in hospital it may be a while before I wear it "officially". It will be great for work when I get back though.
Total cost: Nothing now, since everything is from stash, nothing newer than two years old. However, if I try to remember the price of the two fabrics I would end up with c. 150 SEK for fabric, which is about 29 USD, and then 20 SEK for a zipper (for Valeria's skirt) and 16 SEK for the buttons, so in all ca 35 USD. The lining in Valeria's skirt was scraps I can't calculate the value of.

Since Valeria already knows English as well or better than most swedish youths leaving high school and suffers from boredom and embarrassment (over her class mates) at classes she's going to take a series of tests to prove this and thus be finished with her high school English.

One thing she's going to do is to read two novels from a list and then both write a review and discuss them with a teacher. Since she didn't know much about the books in question what I have read and liked of course influenced her. So now one of my high school favourites "Rumble Fish" (my absolute favourite S.E. Hinton novel was "That was then, this is now" I think) and a more recent favourite, Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch" are on their way to us.

I think that she will like both of them.

Yesterday Vendela and Valeria turned 17. They had six friends over for cake (and then dinner since we had dinner). The cake, which was a Tardis-cake made by my friend Marika was a huge success and everybody seemed to have fun. But boy, do eight teenage girls make a lot of noise!



( the cake )

Today my wonderful girls Vendela and Valeria turn sixteen. They are so big! And pretty and smart. I am proud and happy to be their mother.

Yesterday they tried on their old medieval clothing, most of it sewn 2008, some of it in 2007 even. Except for that the sleeves were short they could wear quite a lot of it so in the end I "only" need to make one shift for them each, an every day dress (which will be a gothic fitted dress) and a court dress (which will be 16th century Saxon gown) for Vendela and two pairs of stockings for Valeria. I haven't started thinking about Maja's new clothing yet, but except for shifts I think that she needs everything new.

I made a gallery with photos from "Lady Ragnhild's Collegium".

Maja, me and Lady Astrid sewing.

Yesterday I did the necessary changes on Valeria's dress and even dragged her outdoors to take some photos.



It's made from 65% wool 35% polyester and the blouse used to be my mum's.