For Dice and Coins with Knots and Eyelets

A while ago I mentioned a friend of mine, Constantine, going to Ireland for a year abroad. Back then my parting gift for him wasn’t ready yet, so it became a welcome back gift when he recently returned from Limerick.

I hit bullseye with this little bag, once because he loves knotwork motives, twice because he’s a gamer, soon to join one of our Pathfinder parties (to hold dice was the originally intended purpose for this gift), and a third time because a bag for his smaller belongings was exactly the thing he lacked for his first LARP attire. I love it when people actually have use for the things I make for them!

The bag is made of dark green broadcloth with a blue-ish grey wild silk lining, both things I already had here, and I had lots of fun doing the embroidery. Now I’m really looking forward to the embellishments for my new character’s garments!

10 Adorables in November

A whole week of not posting! That’s rather rare with me, isn’t it? University wanted most of my time, but now there’s only one more presentation and I’m done for 2011. The picture above was taken on my way to lunch break from uni, by the way, and I had to put it in in this size, to show you all the splendor.

1. Urban Threads. They have some awesome designs and I’m quite tempted to buy some of them for Jules (who actually has an embroidery machine) to bribe him into making me equally awesome patches.
2. Dry Leaves that rustle when I walk through my fairy tale town. They make rising early and going to uni so much more rewarding!
3. SketchUp! We are supposed to use this for university to display a 3D view of very early temples, but when Imp taught me how to work with it I used it to plan some changes for my room, too.
4. Clementines and Mandarines. I try to substitute most of my sweets with them at the moment.
5. Blythe. I always had a weak spot for dolls, an even weaker spot for posables and even thouh they are kind of creepy, I do develop one for Blythe, too.
6. Silhouettes and alike paper cuts. Miss Lumpy shared some fake lashes made of scherenschnitt paper lately, and I admire the artists that were or are able to producesuch wonderfully detailed pictures. Actually, I plan on making some silhouettes myself, but as many of my projekts, it’s just another part of the pile. *sigh*
7. The Cold. I love it when I can see my breath in the morning and snuggle up with woolen socks and Scoundrel’s hoodie and a book and hot cocoa in the evening.
8. The *Plopp* of the breaking vacuum seal when I open a new jar of my favourite pesto.
9. Fog. It’s hanging all over town, in hedges and trees and on the tips of the roof tops. Some mornings it’s so much that even the other side of the street seems a little blurry.
10. OMG that dress!, a wonderful tumblr showing the most beautiful, remarkable dresses from the last five centuries.

Welsh People’s Army Banner

I finally gave my last year’s (sic!) Christmas present to the Satyr some weeks ago, said banner of the (fictitious) Welsh People’s Army (WPA?). It descends from a joke of our Celtic Science tutor that developed to grow into a symbol derived from the IPA symbol for ll aka. ɬ.

I’m a little ashamed that it took me so long to finish that gift, and it was only the hangers and back lining that lacked. But enough with the words, here are the pictures:

Wool on, I suppose, Earl Grey-tinted linen

Celticist Trousers

… Or: Brightening up my closet, part 1.

As I joined the world of organised sports again with Savate and Canne de Combat I was in the urgent need of a nice pair of trousers that aren’t jeans nor made of corduroy. I found some with a high linen percentage at our local Hawkbit & Milkwhite (also known as H&M ;) ) and instantly wore them at training lessons but realised even before that the legs were far too long for me. It’s not always easy being smaller than the average German girl. Oh well.

Anyway, as I’m not completely lethargic I wanted to change this and therefore shortened the hems. I used red thread for two reasons: 1. I like the combination of dark red and toned-down green; 2. I didn’t want to spend too much time on searching for the perfect colour in the boxes where I keep my sewing threads, it would have ruined the spontaneous character of the whole situation.

I’m very fond of the idea of continuity, something that I was taught at my last school quite intensely. So, I decided to add a small embroidery at one of the pockets. The motive had to be something from the copies of Celtic and Irish ornaments I got recently but I went for LaTène style instead of the usual knots as I don’t need my sports trousers to shout out my field of study. The nice thing about LaTène is that resembles Art Nouveau a little (I’m pretty sure that I once read something about a kind of influence of the former to the latter somewhere, too).

Maybe I should have spent more time on the perfection of symmetry, but the whole idea was – as mentioned before – rather spontaneous, so I don’t cry too much about the little blemishes.

It’s supposed to stay like this, I don’t want it to be filled or too eye-catching and flamboyant. I don’t even really care much if it is noticed or not. These are the little things that I do only for my own delight, little instant-suns of my everyday life.

Just like the dandelion clocks by the side of the way to university.