The Squirrel Pinball!

One of my many pinballs as gifts is done! This one is a squirrel on one side and initials on the other. The squirrel is an undated design from The Ackworth School Pattern Book by Jacqueline Holdsworth, and the initials are from Tokens of Love: Quaker Pinballs by Erica Uten.

The color scheme is a documented historic one--the Met has one in pink and blue with cream designs.







Tons more pictures in the Flickr set if you enjoy in progress pictures!

And now, to the next one, which will be pink and fawn with a bird in a leafy tree and a different design for the initials :)

And may as well link the Ravelry page as well!

Parisian Pet-en-l'air!

I just realized that I haven't posted pictures of the Parisian pet-en-l'air I wore on Friday of Under the Redcoat!

First, with the knitted pinball, of course :)





I'd like to get a few more detail shots eventually. The cuffs have a round of pleated trim and then are shaped at the bottom with a covered button and a cord.

And a few before trim pictures.





I used this pet-en-l'air from the Manchester Galleries as my inspiration. The fabric was bought in Paris in 2004. It's made over a fitted lining, using essentially the same techniques as the chocolate francaise. This doesn't have robings though, so I lined up the front edge to the lining and hemmed it.

I'm wearing it over a shift, 1770s stays, stockings, two linen under petticoats and my Burnley and Trowbridge shoes with William Booth Draper buckles. I had left my handkerchief at home, but fortunately had a length of silk gauze (that I wore in my hair with the Marie Antionette dress), which actually stayed better than the triangle pieces.

I did take pictures of making my black silk hat, though I claim no knowledge of how they made bonnets like this in the 18th century. The techniques I used are from 19th century bonnet patterns I've used. There will be a tutorial eventually :)

I didn't have the trim go all around the skirt--it's a slightly heavy cotton and I was worried it would disrupt the line of the pleats. The stomacher pins shut and the bows tie over it. This is different than the pet-en-l'air I copied; however, I wanted the bows to be more decorative and not have any gapping because the bows were sewn underneath. This happened with my Jacobean jacket, and I liked the effect there, but I didn't like the idea of it for this dress.

Strawberry Pinball!

The completed pinball! With plenty of time to spare before UTR!



The other side.



From the side with my gorgeous ring from Williamsburg. I want more of these. Sadly, I haven't won the lottery :)

Compared with my first!





Here it is, ready for stuffing. I ended up not using the circles of stiff paper. These are used in the pinballs in Tokens of Love by Erica Uten and I used them in my first pinballs, but I found that they weren't needed with the ring. They do somewhat limit how big the pinball can be made, though I imagine it'd be easier with stiffer paper than what I used.



This is the first pinball I lined.

These are made essentially like covered buttons. I ran a running stitch around, stuffed, and sewed back and forth until everything was nice and tight.



Wool batting! All of this, plus a little more, went in one half of the pinball.





The gathered pinball.



With stuffing!



Though it will never be seen, I still put in the little card with my name and date :)



The two halves, ready to be sewn together.



Pinned and ready for sewing.



Sewn together.



And stuffed into the ring! It's nice and secure. I had planned to sew a stitch or two around the top of the pinball and the stem of the ring, but it's amazingly secure. Wool batting is amazing!

And I'm ready to start my next pinball! I have seven planned as gifts at the moment. I just need to print out the pattern--my thread is ready to go :)

There are more pictures in the Flickr set as well. Just click on any picture.

What I've been up to!

My lack of posting here hasn't meant I haven't been doing anything! While I still haven't sorted out the promised spotty dress posts, I thought I should share a little of what's going on, and that's basically Under the Redcoat preparations!

First, something mentioned here before--the strawberry pinball. It's half knitted (I don't want to say half done because stuffing it is a little work!)



And almost done--it just needs sleeves and the fabric is due to be delivered today, yes I under ordered--is a striped linen dress. I actually volunteered to help a friend cook (as far away from the fire as possible!) at UTR this year. You see, she moved several states away and it's rather annoying. When we lived in the same city, it was no big thing to not see her at UTR, but this year, to actually spend time with her, I said I'd help. Ahh, the things we do for friends! Anyway, I'm hoping it falls into the category of super cute, and I'm proud of myself for not doing anything neat with the stripes. I did put the front panel at a very slight angle, but other than that, the stripes landed where they landed!

This will have no trim, though I am halfway looking for a cuff that would be appropriate. I just like the idea of cuffs on this.



And next we have the completed except for trim pet-en-l'air. It's made of a cotton print I bought in Paris, which just makes me happy. It doesn't have robings and looks rather naked without them! I'm looking forward to applying the trim to make it look more normal. It'll pin shut and then tie with a mass of black ribbons. It should be so fun to wear! I'm basing it of this jacket in the Manchester Galleries.





And lastly, a linen riding habit. I found a description of a natural linen riding habit trimmed with green silk on the 18th century woman mailing list and went with the idea. Mine will be trimmed with blue silk. So far I only have a few buttons made. I'm really enjoying them, fortunately, as I need tons! Forty-four, it seems!

Pinball Progress!

The first set of strawberries is done! I'm not sure how much they resemble the originals, but their cuteness makes that just fine. It's also very strange looking at it with bright colors instead of the faded colors of the originals--something often true, I find. Reproductions always look so new, don't they?



I'm quite pleased with how it's coming out. I think I pulled the floating threads in back a little too tight behind the strawberries though. This won't affect things once it's done, but something I want to be aware of for the next set. Also, three colors? I'm so glad it's only four rows per strawberry! It's exceedingly awkward, what with the super fine threads and all!

I have had some problems with the chart (this is what happens when a spatially challenged person who can barely hand write anymore and has deficient counting skills tries to make a chart). On the left side strawberry (which really looks more flowery now!), I left off a few stitches. Easy to fix, mentally even.

I did notice that it'll be very easy to make the middle strawberries the same height as the others. Just don't do that extra row! It's just a row of stem, so quite easy to skip.

Today though, near tragedy struck. Yes, I'm being dramatic, but they're my 000000 needles, so I'm entitled to!

Anyway, I noticed the spacing on the central strawberries was off. One stem started 5 stitches from the previous berry, then the next was six. Visually, not significant, but it bothered me all the same since I thought I had made it even. Then I noticed that the tip of one leaf overlapped the center of the strawberry below, but the other didn't do that. Very odd. Though I doubt it'd be visible in the end, that overlap really seemed to affect the balance of the whole thing.

Then I noticed the central strawberry's right leaf. I added an extra stitch, so one side was one stitch wider than the other. See? Spatially challenged! This made the it so the strawberry on the right was properly aligned and didn't overlap and the one on the left overlapped.

However, finding the mistake made it easy to fix. I marked out the extra stitches on the central strawberry, added them where they should be, made a little note to move the left hand strawberry one stitch over, and now there are two stitches between the central strawberries instead of one. All I have to do is when I'm knitting just concentrate on the ins and outs of each strawberry, which is how I knit these anyway. You only need one strawberry to knit the whole thing. Well, unless you need them laid out to see where to start the next one!

This wasn't the tragedy though. That was five minutes of figuring the same sort of thing I'm always figuring out. I had a little extra time at lunch today, so I was working on this then. After work, I decided to knit the next row just to make sure it was fine. And it was.

Except for the dropped stitch. The entirely unnecessary dropped stitch. You see, when figuring it out, I unknit a half a row. And I thought I had an extra stitch, you know, a piece of the previously knit row or something double wound, so I dropped it. Only, it was a real stitch.

Thankfully, I am good at picking stitches up. It only went down two or three rows. The only tricky part--and I didn't notice this until after the first time I fixed it--was the first stitch was pink, then the next brown. Not too difficult, and I think I got it looking about 95% right. Enough to not be noticeable!

There is a very slight hole though. This, however, just makes it so I will definitely line this in linen. My previous pinballs are unlined, but the inspiration for this one is. I wasn't sure about lining it, I mean, it's so easy not to, but now I think I will. Just a little added protection. I'll just use a very nice, lightweight linen.

And I think that's all for this novel of a post!

Pinball Beginnings!

And here we have supplies for my strawberry pinball.

The adorable bunny thread winders and the pretty other thread winder are new. I think these'll be so much nicer than the cardboard ones I've been using. The weight will be nice and hold the threads down so they don't flop around like they did on the cardboard winders.

And aren't those the cutest scissors? I had been using my blunt tipped safety scissors (they don't hurt when you sit on them, so I use them for most sewing--this is very good advice!), but the tiny size of these was just appealing, and perfect for my knitting bag.

And speaking of knitting bags, I have a completely awesome knitting bag that I bought at Claire's. No, really, there couldn't be a more perfect bag than this. Observe:



Seriously, could it be any cuter? The kitties! The rhinestones! The bow tie! I bought it during Costume College and it was just the kind of thing that made everyone who saw it smile.

But actually, it's a perfect knitting bag. It's thick enough so the needles don't poke through the way they did with my white tambour embroidered kitty (yes, kitty) reticule that I had been using. It's small enough to stick in my (admittedly oversized) purse so I can take it anywhere, and it's large enough to hold everything.

And it came with a ring. A little sparkly ring :)

In addition to the above supplies, I keep the pattern in there, a green mechanical pencil, spare lead that I figured I might as well take home after whichever student lost it didn't claim it for a year, a needle to weave in ends, my green pinball (for encouragement!) and a tambour hook for dropped stitches. I was so relieved to have that hook the first time (well, every time) I dropped a stitch. It's just too tiny for anything else!

So tonight I begin. Twenty rows of brown for the border, so not particularly exciting yet :)

Knitted Pinballs

About a year ago now, I found out about knitted pinballs--little round pincushions that 18th century women wore from their waists--and of course, had to have one. I had wanted a fabric one for years, ever since first seeing one in Fitting and Proper and later seeing my friend Sarah's on a lovely silver pinball ring from Williamsburg.

It wasn't until seeing the knitted version that that want became need. It helped that there were original knitted pinballs that used ribbon or the same thread as they were knit with instead of a silver ring. Not that I didn't want a silver ring, but rather I couldn't find one. I tried to buy one during Under the Redcoat, but they no longer had them. The following year though, I was able to buy a ring. It's been sitting in a drawer for almost a year now, with nothing in it. Isn't that sad?

Back to knitted pinballs though. I bought this book, Tokens of Love, which has images of knitted pinballs as well as charted designs. It's not clear if they're exact charts of 18c pinballs or if they're inspired by, but it's a lovely book and the charts fit my needs.

And so I knit a pinball! It's green soie d'alger embroidery thread knit on 000000 needles. I used pink ribbon to cover the join. These colors came directly from the pink and green court dress that I was working on when I bought the thread. Though I did choose a softer pink :)

And here's the pinball!



A public Ravelry link to the pinball.

Not to be stopped there, I decided to knit a pinball for Sarah. Hers was a copy of one in Williamsburg's collections.



I even posed it (hooray for bad photoshopping!) similarly to the original :)

A public Ravelry link to the Williamsburg pinball.

And now, with Costume Con sewing coming to a close, I decided to take things a little slowly, use that silver pinball ring, and make a copy of pinball 6974 on this page. Well, and wish I could get the original too!

So tonight I charted the pattern. I doubt it's exact, but it's as close as I could count, and I decided to not put initials on it this time. There is a place on the pinball ring for engraving though!



A public Ravelry link to the strawberry pinball.

So tomorrow, I'm going to buy more silk thread. Dark brown for the ground and pink for the strawberries and green for the leaves. I'm so excited to start this. I've been wanting to knit something for quite some time now, and this should satisfy that urge :)