Shade Fly–Complete!

Bright orange stakes notwithstanding, the shade fly is now complete! I can’t say I’m 100% happy with it, but will suit my needs.

I had thought that making my own shade fly would make it less expensive, but what with all the bits and pieces I ended up purchasing, I spent nearly as much as a commercial shade fly, without all the extras. Oh well, it was a learning experience!

		Shade fly VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The back is facing due north, so is not very shady, as the moniker “shade fly” might suggest. The curtains I hope will come in handy as the sun moves across the sky, making shade where needed. I’ll also try to set up with the back facing west whenever possible so from noon on it should stay fairly shady on it’s own.

I’m hoping to pick up some plastic spray paint in black to tame some of the ‘orangeyness’ of the stakes, and I’m wiffling on whether I should get a length of dowel to make rope tensioners; but if it doesn’t end up happening, I’ll still survive.

I’ll be taking it to Uprising for a trial run to see how it does….wish me luck!

p.s. It's set up a bit wonky and I didn't straighten the poles....both things that will be fixed for a 'real' setup!

Progress! All the half-finished stuff

Warning: this post is text-intensive, and probably mind numbingly boring to pretty much everyone other than myself!

I have a whole pile of stuff that is started, but unfinished. I am hoping that by tonight, the green kirtle will move from this post to the ‘finished’ post……I only have to attach the skirt, and it’s all done. I’m not going to be wearing sleeves, but I’ll probably make them now just so they’re available when I wear it next.

The red velvet gown is still on hold, as I’m still waiting on my die stamp. Hopefully I’ll get that soon!

The beading on the Turkish loose gown is closing in on the finish line, and my friend Gypsy has taken it home to get it finished off. I’m hoping I can get the body done before Uprising so I can wile away the day attaching the trim.

I’m having a hard time remembering if there is anything that I need to start still, but unless I’m forgetting something, all I have to start on is my partlet……I still haven’t figured out what I want to do with that yet. My brain is saying “No more decisions! Noooooo!”

To be started stuff: (I forgot about needing a dedicated camacia for the red gown. That velvet crocks all over the place, and whatever I use for that dress will likely be used for ONLY that dress.)

• Partlet - decide what to do, and just freakin' do it. Gosh, Noelle! Also want to bring to Uprising and work on there if at all possible.
• Camacia for red gown - simple, simple, simple. If for some reason there is any time at all, I'll do a very simple band of blackwork at the neckline. "but thats it".
• Stockings - I keep remembering things that need to be on various lists. Stockings! Astrid is going to help me pattern them sometime after her wedding. They shouldn't take that long to make, so I'm not worried.

Here’s the full accounting of my half-finished projects, and what needs to be done to them:

• Shade fly – needs poles, ropes & stakes. Also need to sew rear casing after I figure out the cross-support pole size. If hubby remains as busy as he has been recently, I may be doing this myself.
• Red gown – needs sleeves & tuck to be wearable. I’m hoping to also do cutwork trim on shoulder treatments, bodice and hem trim.
• Green gown – only needs skirt pleated and attached to be wearable. Am also hoping to get the sleeves done so I actually do them. I’m notorious for finishing a gown, and never doing the sleeves. (Sorry, Holly!)
• Purple Turkish – the beading on the trim is started, and nearly completed. (handed off to Gypsy for finishing) I have the fabric for the gown, but just need to get it cut out and constructed. I’m hoping to work on attaching the trim during Uprising.

And mostly because I need to write this down somewhere, here are the projects that other people have volunteered for:

• Hand towel – Praksedys (I hope I spelled that right!) has graciously volunteered her embroidering talents to make a towel.
• Hubby’s shirt – Ashe’el and Michelle are on the shirt project…I sat down with Ash during court and picked out some blackwork patterns that I liked, but left the final decision up to her.
• Hubby’s outfit – The fabulous Johanne has taken on the task of the doublet, coat, venetians and bonnet for my hubby. We sat down yesterday and raided my stash for supplies and figured out some of the details. She left with two large garbage bags of fabric and some sketches, so I hope she’s set!
• Chairs – Johanne’s husband has taken my chair commission, so I’m really, really excited. I cannot wait! I need to get him the cash this week so he can go shopping for supplies. He’s going to be carving the back support with my fleur (hooray!), and we’re thinking that the body will be oak.
• Jewelry – As if it needed to be said, Holly/Aine will be working on my jewelry. She is retrofitting my favorite belt of all time for the red gown, and is making a new pearl & garnet necklace and earring set. She got off easy!
• Camacia - I forgot this one....I asked Elizabeth if she'd do a camacia for the green gown, but I still need to get the fabric to her.
• Garters - D'oh! I forgot the garters! The fabulous Marguerite (another that I'm terrible at spelling!) offered to make my garters! My forgetfulness reflects on no way on my gratitude for this work, I'm just distracted as all get out! The garters will be card woven red silk & gold, and I'm insanely excited for them!
• Shoes! - Astrid is making shoes to go with the green and gold gown. I am so excited!!!

Then, I have other stuff that I’d like to get done for Uprising: (crazyface, I know.)

• Since it’s my last Prize Tourney (sniff, sniff!!!) I want to enter some stuff….the PPoD just needs to be sewn into pillow form, though I may just bring the top to show off….depends on time. I’ll probably going to be entering my chopines and blackwork sampler as well. I’m wracking my brain for more entries but am drawing a blank. Argh! I was going to teach a few classes, but what with all that is going on, I am in a serious time crunch, and don’t have the time to put together kits and handouts.
• I’m a couple of outfits short of having a change of clothes for every day at Uprising, but I have nearly an entire linen “V” gown done, just need to finish the rings and get the skirt attached. I may just get everything cut out and bring the pieces to work on at Uprising and if it gets done, then voila, another dress. Woohoo.
• Not to mention all the mending, gathering, and cleaning of garb, bedclothes etc. and packing thereof. *ooof*

Then, there is the DNP (Double Noelle Project) stuff for Costume College, which is the weekend after Barons War. Seriously?! Argh! (After CoCo, I’m going to fall-down-go-boom.)

• wigs x2
• petticoat
• stays
• gown
• jewelry

Shade Fly Update III

Most of the construction is done – I just need to do one more casing for the cross supports, and then it’s on to woodworking.  Because it ended up so much larger than I was originally anticipating, I may need additional poles in the middle, but that is still up in the air.  I want to set it all up as is and see if the sag is too much to ignore.  I tried stretching out the whole thing so I could show you all a picture of the completed project, but, alas, that may have to wait until set up, since it’s too large to photograph indoors!

As it got closer and closer to being done, it got more and more difficult to manhandle all the fabric, and boy, are my arms tired!  I finally hit on a method of folding up the shade fly lengthwise with only the seam I needed at the moment exposed, and then rolling up the rest, so I ended up with a ‘shade fly scroll’ that had to be adjusted every few feet or so.  With a larger sewing area and/or a helper, things would have gone much more quickly, but I got it done!

It took me all day to get to this point; between running all over town to find the correct bias tape, and my machine flatly refusing to sew; I’m sorry my poor machine, I’ll be nicer to you from now on, I promise! 

Oh, what I wouldn’t give for an industrial machine!  I’m never, ever sewing on this scale with my ‘nice’ machine again….I will certainly be hunting down an industrial if I ever am silly enough to do this again!  I had an awful time sewing over joins, and my machine regularly needed tension adjustments.  There are some seams that I’m still a bit nervous about, but there’s nothing to be done about it without a more heavy-duty machine on hand.

All in all, I was having a spectacular ‘dragon wing’ moment day.

For now, here's a picture of the finished stake loops…..of which I decided better to be safe than sorry and went a bit overboard on how closely they were spaced.

Shade fly–Update II

I should change the time stamp for this post!

The major construction of the front (most difficult) part of the shade fly is done!  (joyous noise)

As much as I want to continue on, I need to make sure I don’t slip into night owl mode!  I’m stopping at the point of sewing the dags on one side.  To complete the other side, I need to finish up more dags (and go get more bias tape….)  I guessed correctly, I was 1/3 short.

Okay, here is where I’m at:

The green flaps are pockets for the front supports.  I split them in the center so as to be able to tie stuff to the support.  (Like curtains!)  This picture is before I sewed everything down.

Here is the front stretched out a bit…I have the dags pinned on the right side, ready for me to work on in the morning.  I can’t wait to turn it all over to my hubby and let him finish it off!

G’night, all!

Shade Fly Update

I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to be attaching the dags, but that will have to wait until hubby comes home so we can discuss construction specs.

I ran out of bias tape, but I think I have about 1/2 2/3 of them done. (19 green and 20 white) I completely raided my local JoAnns, so I’m going to have to hit up some other stores over the next few days to see if I can get more bias tape. (No way am I going to be making that much bias!)

For now, I’m sewing together the body of the shade fly. Oh. My. Gosh. I did not know what I was in for! I’m nearly done with sewing the first seam, and it’s taken quite a while to get to this point!

The full width of the shade fly will be green/white/green.

I want the dags to look something like this when done….I need to ponder on what would be the best way to attach them. Hmmmm…..any suggestions?

Productive Saturday

My good friend Jaquelinne came over yesterday, and it was quite the productive sewing day!  She finished off her bodice for her new side back lacing kirtle, and I got 8 curtains sewn.  (Sounds like I didn’t do much, but boy, hemming all four sides of enormous curtains takes a while!

This morning, I painted the hems of all eight curtains with ‘champagne gold’ fleur-de-lys.  The original plan was to do a ‘semy of fleurs’ look, but since the weather has been so craptastic, I couldn’t do it outside, so hems it is.  (My table isn’t big enough to accommodate an entire curtain!)

I painted on vertical of left and right for the ‘opening’, and may do more if there is time.

But for now, here’s the hems:

This morning I went out and bought a whole grundle of canvas to make the shade fly out of, and that is next up on the list.  I just need to figure out the math for it (with the help of hubby, since he’s doing the hardware for it), but until then, I’ll content myself with making as many dags as I can stomach!

Here are the colors for the shade fly:  (I had very nearly convinced myself to do all ‘natural’, but as there was only half the yardage I needed, that prompted me to throw in my favorite green into the mix)

I want to get as far as possible on the shade fly before my cork for the chopines show up, because who knows how long that’ll take!

Also, hopefully within the next day or two I’ll know about my die stamp for the cutwork so I can get back on the gown.  It’s killing me that it’s just sitting there, with no progress!

Post of Many Things

When Other Noelle was here recently, she introduced me to two new things of win; silk sewing machine thread (omg, if you’ve never used it, go try it…..it’s a heavenly experience!!!), and a book called “Ribbon Trims” by Nancy Nehring.

I just received my copy in the mail a few days ago, and it is so fabulous!

Also, Holly and Gypsy spent an unexpected night this weekend, and I begged them to look at my stash and help me figure out the Turkish robe trim & jewelry; both of which was accomplished! We ordered supplies I didn’t already have in my stash and had them delivered to Holly’s address.

She’ll be doing my jewelry for the red velvet gown, and Gypsy will be beading the crap out of my trim with crystals and pearls. (Below: the crystals are the right size on the left, right shape on the right……I ordered crystals of the right dimensions, all the pearls will come from my enormous stash of pearls I got a year or so ago. I just KNEW I would need them some day!)

Unfortunately, the chapel I posted about earlier is prohibitively expensive, and I’ll be going back to my original ‘sun shade’ plan:

I drew in fixed Savonarola chairs (or “Dante chair” or “x-frame” chair, or whatever you want to call ‘em) because that was the style I found for sale that didn’t completely break the bank, but I found someone locally that I could commission to make what I really wanted, folding Savonarola chairs!

I spent the better part of today running from place to place gathering all the little odds and ends I’ll need for upcoming projects:

• small wooden stool to be stained and becushioned (potentially embroidered, but that’s TBD at the moment)
• padding for stool (Just regular old high-density foam)
• wool roving for PPoD….I AM going to finish this thing if it kills me!
• red wool felt for velvet gown bodice & hem
• red silk buttonhole twist for gown eyelets
• red silk sewing thread
• fleur-de-lys stamps for curtains
• gold/silver tone paint for stamping curtains

I think I’m more or less ready to start on things – I’m having a hard time deciding where to begin, though! (hence posting instead of working…..)