Monday 8 August 2011

Embroidered cloak


I've finished the embroidery on Lutr's cloak. I think I started this 3.5 years ago, but it has had times where I haven't worked on it, like when it was in our shipment of stuff from the UK and more recently when I was waiting for the green silk to arrive. I do need to line it now and who knows how long it will take me to get around to that right now. It's a bit daunting as I'm sure the linen isn't wide enough to line the cloak without piecing it. It has been long enough since cutting out the cloak that I'll have to re-figure out how to fold the fabric to cut half circles.
Here are some pictures.
For those who care about details, I used a relatively heavy wool bought in London. The embroidery was done with 2/12 Gemstone Silk from Halcyon yarn. I had help projecting the image onto the wool and drawing it on with chalk (Thanks J!) Since the chalk didn't seem like it would hold up long, I basically basted along the lines with red sewing thread so I could go back and embroider without worrying about the lines. I used yellow to do the outlines and then all I had to do was fill in. I filled in by starting along the outline and working my way toward the center in a circle. This led to some interesting patterns when the light hits just right. That might not be visible in the pictures. I liked the effect. We decided to give the dragons blue eyes and a green nose...just to spice it up a bit.

I've gotten lots of comments over the years on this cloak, usually along the lines of "you must really love your husband".

The project started when Lutr asked me to make him a new cloak and to put embroidery on it. I was thinking something relatively small on the front so I said "sure!". Then he explained what he wanted. I sighed and said, not as enthusiastically, "OK".

Even though I have been tempted to add a small X on one of the pieces with small text that says "you are here", because of how it kind of looks like a crazy road map, I haven't done it...yet.
The current plan is to line the cloak in blue linen. Because it is linen and not silk, the color isn't a jewel tone like the silk of the embroidery. I hope it will look OK. I plan on hemming the two layers separately along the bottom of the cloak so that if one or the other stretches, it won't hang funny. The wool layer has already been worn many times...often with the needle still in it wherever I was currently working.

9 comments:

MeganH said...

*What* a wonderful cloak!

IRIS ROGUE AND THE FREAK FLAGS said...

way wicked

pompom said...

You have got a nice blog site. Congratulations!

MrZakPK said...

Whoa that looks really wicked :P

Mathieu Hachey said...

I've been watching "Naruto" a lot lately and this reminds me of something I've seen on there.

That looks awesome! :)

Henrik Falk said...

That's really cool looking.

Kim said...

Wow! Fabulous! I have been looking for just this kind of inspiration.... you make my applique seem easy!

Anonymous said...

Oh! Such stunning work!

The Whispering Path Tarot Readers said...

Fabulous! What a lot of work!