Thursday, September 29, 2011

Or Nue Glove Cuff

After working on the Noblesse Largess project, yesterday, I gave some thought to the glove cuff I've been working on for my Guy.  I had hoped to have it finished as a thank you to him for all of his help with my challenge, a year ago at Harvest Raid.  However, I ran into a bit of a block, trying to lay the wings on my device.  The tower was pretty simple; I couched the silver horizontally and vertically, to help with the illusion of a three dimensional image.  However, wings are a different creature, altogether.  I tried a few different orientations for the silver, but none really looked right.

I did not have this problem with the or nue dragon's wings, as they are more angular and were mostly comprised of bones, with shaded webs between.  The wings on my device, however, are feathered wings.  As I played with them, today, I think I have settled on following the pattern of each, individual feather, shading them from top to bottom, as the top of each feather is overlapped by the feather above.

I have seen two types of shading in or nue; monochromatic and polychromatic.  Shading can be acheived by using grades of a color, which is polychromatic, or by using one color and adjusting the closeness of the couching stitches to obtain "darker" color.  On the following picture, you can see that I have used monochromatic shading on the tower, by stitching the couching stitches closer together at the edges, so that the tower appears more rounded.  I had thought of using polychromatic shading on the wings, but ultimately decided that would look funny, since the rest of the device is shaded using one color.  Hopefully, I now have the wings figured out and I can get cracking on finishing this glove cuff!

Current progress:

Earlier today, I sank all of the metal edges that can be seen in yesterday's post.  Cleaning up the ends, I can better see what I am doing ; )

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Knots

We seem to have been innundated with The Sick this past week.  The two asthmatic chilluns were taken right to the Dr., while the rest of us were told to treat the symptoms, rest, hydrate, rest, and recouperate.  Did I mention rest?

Rest was not completely an option for me, because we had Harvest Raid this past weekend, and I was set to teach a course on basic, pre-Elizabethan embroidery.  The class went well, though only one student was in attendance.  That actually meant that I was able to better tailor things to her needs, so it was a positive!

On the project lists, I am still working away on the nightcap, and have a new project to frame up.  I joined the Noblesse Largess project, which is similiar to a secret santa...you answer a few questions about your SCAdian interests, then they match you up with a secret recipient.  You make them something of your own hands, tailored to their likes, and whomever has you as a secret recipient, does the same.  The down side is, I can't post pictures until its done and mailed to the recipient.  I can say that I have settled on a pair of gloves, using or nue for the cuff, similiar to the glove I embroidered for a past reign, and the one I am working on for The Guy:


I love or nue...well, working with metal threads in any style, really.  Metal just makes things *pop*!