I’m participating this year. I’m so excited. I feel it will really give my sewing direction and purpose, not that it lacked that in the past, but knowing that a project I started before Christmas fit one of the challenges and then putting in that last stitch and getting to photograph myself was very rewarding!
I wrote about this project before while it was in process, but now it is all finished! As of now, I don’t have an event to wear my new mitts to, but I don’t care. I will find one!! I do have a worsted wool gown in rose that will go nicely with the embroidery pattern on the mitts, but I would like a nice fancy jacket to go with the mitts as well.
Me modeling my new mitts (in the back staircase of the 1843 log cabin part of our house)
The mitts
And now a silly picture…..
Twiggy was intrigued as to why we were posing on the stairs
Here are the details of the project:
The Challenge: #1 – Make do and mend
Fabric: Cream (or ivory) colored wool
Pattern: my arm (I looked at a few examples online for the embroidery pattern and noticed it was a herringbone/X style with a little flourish at the end. I need my mitts to come over my elbow I realized. Otherwise they don’t keep me warm at all.
Year: 18th century……ummmm…
Notions: linen thread for sewing the new width and tacking down the raw edges; pink silk died with cochineal bugs!
Accuracy: Fairly, though I didn’t have enough left over fabric to construct thumb pieces and not many of the pictures I’ve seen online are without thumb pieces, so I’m not really sure. (If anyone cares to weigh in on this, I’d be curious and welcome any suggestions).
First worn: taking pictures! But not to an event yet
Total cost: I don’t remember how much the sweater cost back 10 years ago, so I’m not counting it and only counting the cost of the notions which was $5.00 total (3 for the linen thread and 2 for silk embroidery thread). Yay!
Wee Needle 