Completed Ornamental Designs

Naiya finds a difficult task to complete on the day the slaves arrive

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Not found on any map, Endrykas is a large migrating tent city wherein the horseclans of Cyphrus gather to trade and exchange information. [Lore]

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Ornamental Designs

Postby Naiya on April 23rd, 2015, 1:58 am

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30th Day of Spring 515 AV

Naiya faced a new challenge today, a man had wandered in asking if Naiya could make a hairpiece for his daughter. He wanted bows, and lace, and flowers on a band that she could tie around her head. It was a request that Naiya had never faced before, and it would require her to put much more attention into planning the piece than she had ever before.

It was a daunting task. So she started with what she imagined would be the least difficult part, the band.

It would need to be wide enough to be noticed, but not so wide that the tie would be bulky and cumbersome. It would need a sturdy fabric, to hold up to being tied and untied numerous times, as well as to hold the bulk of flowers and bows that the man had requested.

To further the difficulty of the task, he wanted to add lace, an expensive and altogether more fragile material. It certainly could not hold the weight of ornamental flowers, it was likely that even the tying of the lace ends together would cause the delicate material to unravel.

She needed to use something other than lace for the band. Linen perhaps, would survive the tying and retying, but would likely set deeply with wrinkles. Her next thought was cotton, the material was sturdy, and did not wrinkle as deeply or as easily as the linen would.

The band needed to be a decent width, to accommodate the additions, but would also need to taper off into ends that would tie together neatly. She considered just cutting the cloth into an appropriate shape, but it would leave the band thin, and wouldn’t allow for a way to stabilize the accessoires. She would instead, she decided, cut a double width of the fabric and fold it over, creating a band twice as thick in material, and additionally creating a stabilizing under layer to attach the pieces to.

What was a double width, though? What was a reasonable width to hold back the fall of hair without creating an odd look in the style? Not to mention, how the flowers and bows would need to be arranged not only to fit, but also to be aesthetically pleasing.

She was becoming bogged down in details. First, how wide did the band need to be?
She grabbed a square of fabric, folding it until she had a band about a hand wide, hopefully a size that would accommodate the tentative design plan that was slowly forming in her mind. She hovered near the large mirror the shop owned, painstaking as it was to pack away for travel, it was often the selling point on items in the shop. Once someone saw herself in the brightly polished glass, it was often that much more difficult to leave without the item. As that was the case, Naiya found herself waiting for just such a customer, the woman, who was in a beautiful longsleeve dress, was twisting and turning before the mirror, trying to see herself from every possible angle. She seemed concerned, perhaps not feeling sure of the fit or the style.

No one was helping the woman, seeming content to wait forever for the woman to decide alone, a poor sales tactic since most women were more critical of themselves than anyone else would even dream of being.

When the concerned pondering of the woman turned to frustrated defeat, Naiya had to step in. She quickly tucked the band of cloth into her belt and came around the mirror, appearing in the woman’s line of sight for the first time.

Greetings, concern, Naiya complimented her arrival with the signs, before offering her vocal reassurance. “I was just admiring your dress when I noticed you looked upset. Is something wrong with the feel of the dress?” Naiya questioned, stepping up for whoever it was that should have been helping the woman.

Before the woman really had a chance to respond, Naiya jumped back in continuing what seemed to be questioning of the woman’s trouble with the dress. “I know that a lot of women dislike the height of the waist here,” She gestured emphasizing the spot she was referring to, “I think, though, that it suits you particularly well, the lower line really lets the skirt flow nicely around the soft curve of your hip.”

The woman seemed unconvinced, but returned her attention to the image reflected back at her. She seemed fixed on the fall of the fabric at her hip, fiddling and pressing at the fabric where the gathering of the skirt raised the skirt’s height.

“It’s just this, here.” The woman informed her discontent shaping her hands, “I think it makes my hips look wider.” Naiya nodded, agreement on her hands, and for a moment the woman seemed shocked.

“Imagine how jealous everyone will be. So many women try on similar styles and still look as thin as the grass that surrounds us. Who wants to look just the same as that? So common.” Gently, she lead the woman into a partial turn, so that she was at a slight angle to the mirror. “Instead, you’ll have curves that even men will envy.” Naiya teased gently. “Not to mention how the fit of the top slims you, even the sleeves compliment how fit you are.”

She stepped back, allowing the woman another moment to admire herself. Her posture had changed, she looked more confident, happier. Perhaps, now, she would buy the dress.

Naiya hoped she would, it would be a shame for her to leave without the dress when it complimented her so well. All the same, when she turned to put her own clothing back on, Naiya did not hover to offer to sell the dress to her. She was not Naiya’s customer, and if the woman needed her to sell the dress to her, she would seek Naiya out.

Until then, if that time was to come, Naiya had other things to take care of. Namely, the ornament for the daughter of her own customer. She pulled the cloth from her belt, reshaping the folding until it resembled a hand’s width once more. She placed the cloth across her own hair, leaving a breath of hair showing at her forehead so that she could gauge how the band would look as it slipped into place. It was quickly apparent that the band was too wide. Far too wide.

She shook out the cloth and folded it smaller, closer to a half hand instead. She held it to her hair once more. This was a more reasonable size for a band, but she wasn’t sure she could manage both flowers, and bows in that space. Not to mention that she needed to work lace into the mix somehow.

Once more she shook out the folds of cloth and folded it again, a happy medium between the two sizes. This was more like something she could work her plan into, however, when she held the band against her hair it appeared far too wide, too bulky, to work. She would have to go with the half hand size and replan her design around the size of the band, rather than sizing the band according to the design in her mind.

So with her new size in mind, she moved away to work on the design. She considered cutting the band and designing off that, but after a few ticks of thought she decided a better method would be to draw the band first, and design on paper, that way if nothing worked out just right at first, she didn’t have cloth that was cut too small, or even too large, not when she’d had to change her tentative plan once already.
Last edited by Naiya on May 21st, 2015, 4:51 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Ornamental Designs

Postby Naiya on May 20th, 2015, 3:33 pm

The man wanted bows, and flowers to ornament the band, so she started on the left most edge and began to draw them in. She began with bows, sketched softly where the taper of the band grew widest, and followed it with flowers, trying to gather a sense of how they would look on the band, rather than finding exactly how they would go.

It was not really a good drawing, the bows were two three-sided shapes bound together by a circle. Some had the added benefit of the rectangular strips of ribbon that were for untying the bow. The flowers had started as the large round shape of sunflowers, but quickly Naiya realized she didn’t know how she would make those out of cloth. A real flower might work, but would quickly wilt and brown. Though, if it had gone to seed first, the girl might get a snack out of it.

No, sunflowers were too great of a staple in their diets to waste on a hair ornament. She would have to pick something she could make with cloth or ribbon. Perhaps a rose, those were reasonable, and likely easy enough to make. She could fiddle with other flowers as well, she knew what they looked like, surely there was some way to make them just by mimicking their appearance.

With that in mind she returned to her drawing, circles of varying sizes for flowers, and triangles for her bows. The drawing quickly grew too cluttered, but she did get a sense of what might be a better layout for the pieces.

She redrew the outline of the band, ignoring the slight curve in what was supposed to be a straight line, and instead focusing on the new idea she had.

She started with a rather large bow, trailing ends hanging back to fall with the hair behind the band. She followed it with a spiraled circle, what she would call a rose, nestled up against the central circle of the bow. The rose shape curved to follow the bow, and then when it was large enough to comfortably fit in the embrace of the bow, she began the next flower, tucked slightly beneath the bow’s corner, a wide flat shape that would hang over the temple of the wearer. Two more roses, both smaller than the first drew the decoration up along the band. She considered adding a lace veil, but discarded the thought as too much decoration for daily wear.

She continued on, adding a second bow, another flat flower, and more spiraled roses, not quite covering the band. This was less crowded, but still, it was too busy. She erased the rough shapes, finding that her hand had been heavy on the paper and the lines would not go away entirely.

It didn’t matter though, because she had her plan.
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Ornamental Designs

Postby Naiya on May 21st, 2015, 4:35 am


“Pardon me,” seeking help, “Miss?” Naiya fought the urge to correct him, a title was a little thing, not worth potentially embarrassing the man. She looked up from her drawing, the man who had called to her stood, waiting patiently with a young child beside him. The man was not striking in his appearance, not among the Drykas, tan, muscled, and tatooed, he looked like most Drykas men. It was the child who caught Naiya’s attention. He was freshly scrubbed clean, his skin still pink from washing and his shorn hair flopping about his forehead. His clean appearance was a strong contrast to the overly large travel worn clothing he wore, the sleeves and legs rolled so many times that the fabric nearly buried the child. He was a slave, then.

Or perhaps a child taken in. Naiya hoped it was the latter, the boy was so young, she couldn’t imagine him finding anything other than a family. He couldn’t have been more than four years. She gave herself a mental shake. They slaves that had been recaptured would do better in the city than wherever they had been headed in the first place.

“What can I do for you?” Naiya questioned, willingness in the shape of her body. The boy showed no recognition of the words, but the man of course did, stepping forward with more confidence than in his initial contact.

“We need some clothing for the boy. Something that fits.” Naiya nodded, rising from her seat to lead the man to a selection of clothing, light for the coming summer, and of sizes that would be more likely to fit the child.

“A little large is probably better,” Naiya began, looking from the man to the boy, “He will likely grow quickly, I don’t want you to be back in a week because he has outgrown his clothing.”

“No.” The man was resolute, “He already has clothing that is too big. We need something that fits.” Naiya wanted to argue that children, especially boys grew too quickly for clothing that fit just right, but the firm lines of the man’s hands turned her away silent.

“These should have something that will work, please let me know if you find something, or if you need more help.” Naiya presented the space to them, and then left, leaving the man to find what he wanted alone. She would not help him make a decision that he would be angry about later, this way she was not to blame when he returned because the child’s clothes no longer fit. She stopped to gather some cloth, trying to recall the color the man had said his daughter’s hair was. She wanted colors that complimented her… had he said it was blonde? Maybe golden brown. She was so much better with the colors of horses.

She picked out a few shades of cloth, and then grabbed ribbon too, colors ranging from cream to gold. She would make these into flowers. She hoped.

She sat back at her workbench, trying to decide which color to make the bow. Since it was the furthest back, she thought it was better to be a middling tone. She estimated that the bow would be half the length of the ribbon she cut, so if she wanted a five inch bow, she needed about - she checked her math by counting on her fingers - ten inches of the amber colored ribbon.

She looped the ribbon around one finger on each hand, creating a space between the loops with the fourth finger of respective hands. She crossed the loops, maintaining the space, and tucked one of her loops through the hole formed. There. She had a bow.

She tugged at the loops, widening and flattening the shape so that the edges of the ribbon fell in the same directions, and tightened the knot so it wouldn’t come loose. She noticed the loose ends of the ribbon, hanging down from the knot were not as neat as the rest of the bow, one falling in a way that she was unable to fix just by tugging at the ends.

She undid the bow, and retied it. Watching more carefully how the dangling ends fell. It wasn’t until the third try that she realized there was a moment between tucking the loop, and pulling the knot tight where the opportunity to fix the straying end arrived. Now it was neat, the ears of the bow wide and smooth, and the trailing ends only slightly mismatched. It was good enough, she thought, to go on the band.

A small hand tugged on the hem of her shirt, interrupting her work. She turned toward the source to find the child from before. He was wearing a new tunic, and breeches that were just the right length for his little frame.

If the boy spoke Pavi, she imagined from the look on his face and the shaping of his body, he would have been seeking her approval. She smiled kindly, the child’s innocence stirring an unfamiliar feeling in her, and nodded to him. Very good she signed to him, her hands moving slowly and carefully. He would learn soon enough what the signs meant, children always learned languages quickly.

“I hope the clothing will serve you well, Sir.” Naiya told the Drykas man as he handed her a small sack of coin. She could only hope the boy would be treated so well for the duration of his time among his new family.
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Ornamental Designs

Postby Dravite on June 21st, 2015, 10:58 am

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Naiya Dawnwhisper

XP Award:

  • Sewing: 1
  • Planning: 2
  • Mathematics: 2
  • Organisation: 2
  • Intelligence: 3
  • Flirting: 1
  • Business, Retail: 1
  • Observation: 2
  • Persuasion: 2
  • Rhetoric: 2
  • Diplomacy: 1
  • Drawing: 1
  • Socialisation: 1
  • Botany: 1
  • Weaving: 1


Lore:

  • Sewing: Start with what you know
  • Sewing: Lace, a delicate material to work will
  • Socialisation: Start with a compliment
  • Flirting: Flattery
  • Mathematics: Hand width
  • Using yourself to model new designs
  • Drawing: Sketching a line to follow
  • Mathematics: Big and small
  • Planning: Distinguishing good designs from bad ones
  • Flora: A rose
  • Mathematics: Shapes
  • Drykas: Tanned and tattooed
  • Observation: Confidence
  • Sewing: Room to grow
  • Sewing: The perfect fit
  • Children grow quickly, especially boys
  • Mathematics: Using fingers to count
  • Observation: Complementing colours
  • Weaving: A bow
  • The innocence of a child
  • Knot Tying: Using intrical knots in weaving designs


Notes: Hello Naiya, it’s nice to be able to reward you for a change! Great little thread you've got here! I was able to easily spot lots of different skills Naiya covered while working and interacting with NPCs. Unfortunately I wasn't able to award you with much Botany or Herbalism, as one is the study of understanding plants (which I gave her for knowing a rose), and the other is using them for medicine. Perhaps something to think about for next time, if Naiya had counted the money the customer gave her I could have awarded another point for mathematics. I'm having trouble finding your seasonal expenses for spring, though everything else checks out on your ledger. Let me know if you think I have missed anything here and be sure to edit your grading request!

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Dravite
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