I have haversacks coming out my ears right now; I have three planned and one more needing repair. Criminey! The one I need to repair is Eyvandir's, as he seems intent on loving it to death. Ah, but that's a craftperson's dream, is it not? Better that that have it languish unused out of fear of ruining the work. Anyhoo.

The other three I'm planning out are 1) one for the West Kingdom Needleworker's Guild's donations to the kingdom Pennsic fund, 2) one for the La Prova Dura auction next Beltane, and 3) one for Eyvandir to either use as his own or give to someone special. For the latter, and in fact for all three, I am going to line it with trigger canvas so it won't fall apart, dangit!

So - I have the wool left over from when I originally bought a ton for what turned out to be one well-loved haversack, all the trigger in the world, and more wools and DMC cotton to couch with than I know what to do with. All I'm missing is a pattern! Since haversacks are a Viking-oid creature, I would like to once agains utilize some Viking-oid patterns. I have borrowed Baccus' Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga put out by the Smithsonian, and have picked up James Graham-Campbell's The Viking World at a used book store. I've scoured the Smithsonian book but not the J.G-C. one yet. There's only so much sketching and tracing I can cram into an evening!

I've also picked up a pattern from Mistress Tangwystyl's study on the 10th century Denmark Mammen grave embroideries. The viney border has caught my eye since I first picked up her handout all this time ago, and led to my decision to embroider the straps of at least two of the haversacks. I can't decide if I want to do stem stitch as in the original or couched yarn like I had originally planned. But I have plenty of time to figure it out . .

I have cut out the necessary pieces from the blue wool I have, drawn the viney pattern onto tracing paper, pinned the tracing paper onto the strap pieces, and am hammering away at stitching a tracing line.

Once I'm done with the stitching, I'll tear away the tracing paper, draw over the lines with a white ink pen (if I can find it . . urg) and only then be ready for the real stitching. I suppose I could do this thing by eye and cut out a lot of time spent on it, but I want this to actually look good.

My plans for the other ones include a design of multi-colored yarn couched down with a variety of colors on a medium gray wool, and a few earth-toned wools couched down on a nice chocolate brown wool. If the construction is lacking, at least the color scheme and the stitching will be pleasant to look at.

Alrightly - things are starting to move on this project, although it's taking a lot longer than I anticipated. I've finished the embroidery on one half of the strap and am working on the second half. I may or may not have this done by 12th Night; we'll see. My current focus is on Mari's Estrella gown trim, which is now going smoothly after some kerfuffle with the pattern placement.

It's reminded me quite a bit of Eliana's Viking trim, minus the ever-present panic. I'm rather enjoying this project.

Here are some shots of the finished half of the strap, both from the front and from the back. Once again, I am at a loss as to how to show such a long piece of embroidery! I am happy, however, that the pathways the yarn follows on the front lead to very short jumps on the back of the fabric. Score.

So - time keeps on slippin'. I am making progress, however; all the embroidery is done on the strap and flap, and I got the trigger sewed to the backs of the wool pieces. I was unable to find a friendly local serger, so I asked Baccus to sew the pieces together using a serge-like stitch on his sewing machine. He StitchWitched the pieces together and sewed them nice and tight, and now I'm trimming off the edges and stitching a blanket stitch all the way around all the pieces. Once I'm done, I'll get Baccus to sew all the pieces together. While I'm a fan of handsewing, this stuff is just way too thick for my fingers to force a needle through.

The picture on the left shows the rondel on the flap as of 1/30/08. I took Mistress Tangwystyl's vine pattern and made a wreath out of it.

The picture of the right shows where it is today, with the front piece done and the flap piece on its way to being done.

The haversack is officially done! I packed it up and mailed it out to Isela yesterday, and am actually sad to see it go. See, once I was done blanket-stitching the loose pieces, I gave them to Baccus and put it together using the instructions I had originally gotten from Catherine of Wessex. He called when he finished saying how awesome it looked, and when he gave it back to me I had to agree with him. The trigger *really* made it . . well, IT. It was stiffer and stronger, for sure, but it just looked neat! Neither of us wanted to part with it, and I made him promise not to bid on it at the auction.

Here are some pictures I took of the real deal. If you like what you see, find the Pennsic auction at this coming June Crown and bid early and often!

Here are the pieces as they stood on 3/19/08. I had finished blanket-stitching the edges and they are primed for assembly

And here's the finished product. Spiff!

Who is that mystery man modeling my haversack? We may never know . .

So - lessons learned: 1) Stitch Witch is our friend. 2) Next time I make a haversack with a running border along the strap, I'll make sure the pattern runs the correct way on both sides (see mystery man picture above). 3) A fighter with a sewing machine will always be a better seamster than me, but he may try to keep what I have him finish.

I'll let you know how much it goes for at the auction in a couple months.