making remaking

I’ve started work on my frog needle case.

I am pretty sure that is actually a contraction of needle worked, referring to the technique to cover the body, but I am using some left over green velveteen.

I resized it, lined it in shot silk taffeta (beige crossed with maroon) with little red patches of wool and a tongue of wool. It’s less hamburger like now 😉 I’ve sewn up one side vent, but I think I want to undo the bottom piece to lie a bit flatter and to sew the little leggies between the lining and shell fabrics. That will mean having to undo all of that piece as the padding is quite heavy.

I have re-threaded the ties for my purse, so yay. And I am going to copy the pattern for my antique brass frame, I got rid of the rivets a few weeks ago so I’ll also need to create a matching plate for the inside.

The current purse really needs little flower shaped tie controls, that may have to be laminated russet then dyed black. They will also need beads. I’m trying to work out if they need tassels as well as that could be be able to finally use a laurel gift to make them. Okay, so tassels for fabric bags yes, also the ties need to be tidied a bit, and maybe I’ll need to double the ties to make them use friction to stay tied as I think is part of the original design.

My knife case I think can be covered in the brass stampings from the brass daisies I’m using for my jewelry- the petals are actually petal shaped foliates that look like laurel leaves. So that works very nicely.

Finally I am also reshaping the.. well I’m calling them “latzen” though it’s not entirely easy to know if that is correct. Most Cologne “mutzger” sit on top of a cap with a decorative strip at the front sitting on top of that. But in a few examples of the highly decorative kinds, and nearly all linen, there is a shaped piece between cap and the distinctive arched hat.

I have an idea of how they were made, but I need to be a bit bolder in the curve I have cut that frames the face and around the ears. I have one set on my head cast right now, and I can see where I need to clip a bit more so that the piece sits right where I need it.

My gold brocade covered “mutzger” also needs the cover re centered at the front as it’s about 7mm off which makes it look very off centre.

And my linen one. Well I have realised how hard it is to keep linen clean while working on it, so I think I will need to remove the linen shell, stitch it to shape, and then make it possible to take off and wash it.

So while the linen headgear really does look quite austere and fits in our idea of modestly, they actually are much harder to keep that pristine unless the linen is separate and able to be washed. The veils are a lot easier to see, but they can also obscure what is happening on the solid pieces.

And then there is the distinctive strip of sheer linen at the front. It is indeed a strip, not the front edge of a veil. The ends can be seen pinned to the back of the caps in nearly every depiction of them. I need to make a couple of them. I wound up buying organdy instead of sheer linen as it is much closer to the effect seen in art.

And I also am going to remove the decorative strip on my fitted cap so that I can wash the cap/alternate between several as that also makes sense in terms of maintenance of the pieces.

Today is also lovely and sunny so I will be able to get enameling again today to bake all my pieces in a day or so. We had to replace the bench top oven, so I’m also getting familiar with the temperature.

Comments Off on making remaking

Filed under Uncategorized

Comments are closed.