Lots of planning, nothing done

Paola Priuli Querini

It's been one of those weeks with loads of planning (and family obligations) so nothing much to show.  I had hoped to show you the adorable pink linen apron I smocked for a friend's Award of Arms as part of my 50 favors and tokens challenge, but she still hasn't gotten pictures to me.

I'm continuing to work with the GIMP tutorials to do some embroidery designing and have prepped y linen for the white scarves in the meantime. My plan is to do some drawnthread work down the long sides and the blackwork on the ends.  In part I think it'll look best that way, but the biggest reason for not doing the blackwork all the way around is time constraints.  Solstice and the White Scarf ceremony is a couple of weeks away (December 8) so I'm in a rush.  I may just end up doing a drawn on pattern and doing real charts later for use on another project.  We'll see.

In other planning, I bought some new fabric at a ridiculous deal.  I've seen this faux silk with flocked velvet pattern at several places over the last year that is a dead ringer for Palma Vecchio's painted fabric in the unfinished wedding portrait of Paola Priuli Querini.  The scale is a bit different, but the color and pattern is a great match.  I've resisted buying it because, well, its polyester.  I'm trying to up my game and do less theatrical sewing and improve my accuracy.  Then I found it again at $4 a yards with an additional 40% off.  I'm weak willed my friends.  I bought the rest of the bolt.  I got almost 11 yards for $27 even with the tax.  Even if it just becomes pillows or drapes it was worth it.  It might be a 12th Night dress if I get a serious wiggle on it.  It'll be fun and I'll do reenactor's penance and make something handsewn from linen after that.

Spent the day working on my Impresa class

You gotta love the Rainbow Portrait. Elizabeth I in masque costume declaring that there are no rainbows without the sun. Herself, of course, being the sun.

I became entranced by emblems and impresa and other types of badges and temporary heraldry ages ago, but Michael Bath's book Emblems for a Queen about the emblems in Mary Queen of Scots embroideries really solidified my fascination. Ursula George's article on Impresa convinced me I needed to devise my own and spread the word so other people would make them too. The class I'm teaching follows along with her article pretty closely. It's just that good, clear, and concise. My presentation has several of the portraits she links to, a generous selection of my favorite emblems from Alciato's Book of Emblems (I love the fact that you can put the Latin and English on facing pages for comparison) and another big helping of images from Claude Paradin's Emblems Heroiques (the English translation)

If you have any desire to read my goofy newletter article introducing impresa, particularly in reference to Mary's embroideries, you can read it here. One more class to add to my A&S 50 challenge.