Well I finished it tonight! :D William's baby blanket is actually one of the projects I'm the most proud of. It wasn't particularly difficult or tricky compared to some of my others, but I think it's definitely one of the most meaningful. I love the pink baby blanket mom made for me and I used it until I was worn practically see through. Now it's zipped up in plastic and tucked away. Though I'd like to get a shadowbox frame eventually and put it up on the wall eventually
For William's blanket I kinda geeked out because, well, I'm a geek and so is Seth. And we first met at BYU's HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) club. There's a store online where you can print your own designs onto fabric so I busted out my mad image editing skills and dug up some high quality PDFs of some of the prettier primary source manuals. For the main part I extracted some of the figures, cleaned them up, and paired them with the original text describing the guard as well as the name of the guard in fancy letters.
Pulled out the seven guards for sword and buckler for the border around the entire blanket. :)
All in all it was a lot of fun to do. I really love Spoonflower's service and the quality of fabric and printing was really high. I've got some other fabric on order from them right now too for a few other projects. Seth got me a serger that arrived today too so I'm looking forward to busting it out and doing some really cool projects with it. Working with knits is infinitely easier with a serger than just with a sewing machine and finishing interior seams will be a breeze now... *sighs happily*
Anyways, William's doing well. We had a little scare this past month when a little hiccup was heard listening to his heartbeat during a checkup. My OB sent me over to get it checked out further just in case and we got another ultrasound to make sure it wasn't a structural problem. Thankfully it wasn't and the ultrasound specialist doctor guy (real specific, I know) told me that it wasn't anything to really worry about. It will probably go away on its own when he's born and completely on his own circulatory system if not before. Though I am banned from all caffeine now, including chocolate. :( Lucky I'm not a coffee drinker though eh!
I go in for another checkup tomorrow. We're getting close now and I'm ready for him to come now! I feel like a beached whale, particularly when trying to get up. I've also got an eye exam tomorrow to get a new contacts prescription and really need to set up a routine dental appointment for later this week too. Should have done an annual cleaning months ago but at that point I was still puking whenever I brushed my teeth. (Glad
that symptom is gone now!) Best to squeeze as much of these sorts of things in before I have an infant in tow!
This pregnancy has been pretty draining all throughout and I was bleh for so much of it that I'm really glad I'm finally getting my energy back as I get everything ready for William's arrival and do a few things just for me that might not get to happen as much after he arrives! My 18th century costuming plans got put on hold the week I found out I was pregnant (and I had just barely finished patterning the corset and was literally about to buy the boning for it that week too!). But I'm easing back into the swing of things sewing-wise. Seth finally agreed to let me make a costume for him :D so I'm starting with an 18th century outfit for him and already got the fabric for his waistcoat. That should go together pretty quickly this week or early next since it's very simple. For my own I'm still planning on making the piemontaise but can't do
too much there until after William's born and I lose this baby weight and get back into shape! In the meantime there are a few accessories that don't require sizing.
Right now I'm working on the pockets. In this time period the pockets weren't sewn into the clothing but rather tied around the waist and accessed through slits in the sides of the skirt. They were also often elaborately embroidered with flowers or other motifs. This is the design for one of the pockets, based on a surviving example from Williamsburg, but a friend who can draw turned the leafy flowers into thorny vines for me and I added the pomegranate design into it. I'll post up pictures of it when I'm done! I've got about 1/4 of it done so far. The vines go pretty quickly.
