Monday, August 1, 2011

Weekend Progress

For the ACC, I decided to try my hand at making my own lucet cords to lace my Sottana. I thought I was doing pretty well until I made a mistake and attempted to correct it - but failed at in my attempt. It looked good at first, until I put pressure on it as though trying to pull it tight for lacing - portions of it stretched out.


Ah well, more learning to do, I suppose. This is my first attempt at lucet weaving longer than three inches. I understand that there are also issues with the document-ability of lucet in this period, so I may not go with this after all - but it's a nice skill to have even if it's not 100% accurate for my period.


In other news, I worked on Sven's brick red tunic! He chose and purchased the trim. I had some black linen left over from other projects, so I decided to do the neck facing in black for added interest and contrast.

I measured and cut (in most cases ripped, actually - I love rectangular construction done in fabrics you can rip), and began assembling the tunic. I attached the underarm gussets and then flat-felled the seams by hand.

I usually try to do this using an invisible stitch, but I back-stitched the flat fell instead, using threads of linen drawn from scraps of leftover fabric. I need to work on keeping my stitches a more even length, but I'm pretty pleased with how straight they are looking, on the whole.

I attached the sleeves, side gores, and neck facing, and am now in the process of felling all seams by hand. I will sew the trim down by hand around the neck facing. Then I'll have to sew the sides up, and hem the sleeves and bottom. I might do a guard in black linen around the bottom hem... maybe.

2 comments:

  1. I'm doing some lucet as well to lace my sottana. What type of string are you using? I'm using some super old (like retro old) linen crochet thread that I found in a box of "great grandmother passed away and this is some of her forgotten crafty stuff"
    So far mine hasn't stretched but I have to use thread heaven on it to keep it from fraying.

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  2. It's just some cotton embroidery junk from Michaels.  The above picture is my test on the twist, non ply stuff.  It is a bit rough on the fingers though - gave me a nasty hangnail.  

    I figure I'm just doing it wrong.  Like I made a mistake and turned the lucet so I missed a step.  I did it while watching TV, so it's very likely.  I'll watch more vids on the Youtube, and I ordered a book as well.  Wheee!

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