In the last couple days, I've been sort of motivated to sew. Of course, not on any projects that are already in progress.
Yesterday I started the fuzzy hat that I promised The Boy long ago when we first started dating. Once upon a time, I purchased an electric blue silk dupioni pencil skirt that would in no way ever fit me. I had always intended for it to be made into a hat for The Boy. I have a Tried and True (TnT) six panel hat pattern that I love. I cut out the silk, and flat lined them in some thick brown wool for extra warmth. After assembling the panels, I dithered a bit about whether to embroider along the seams or to do something more complicated like a Norse animal or something. I realized that the largest part of the panel would be folded up behind the fur band, and went ahead with a seam embellishment. I used the last of my card of yellow silk from The Overly Ambitious Embroidery of Doom! to do a closed feather stitch. It kind of looks like steel girders over each seam.
This afternoon I put together the lining. I always line my hats in silver silk, because I like the little bit of amusement I get from having a silver lining. The TnT pattern has a fold line on it where I trace out the lining that accommodates the band of fur. I'm so proud of this fur. I was determined to make a hat a few years ago, and to save myself some cash, I decided to purchase a fur coat at the thrift store. I wanted black fur, but couldn't find anything I liked that didn't look cheap. So I switched my desire to white fur. I found a gorgeous coat for $25 that fit my needs. It turned out to be more than I'd asked for. The coat was Blue Fox fur, cut into thin strips, about a 1/4 inch wide. These were separated by strips of soft leather about an inch wide. I allow three strips of fur, and cut down the center of the leather strip to give myself a nice fur band. The bands of fur around the head fold down for extra warmth. This means that I'm making headway on Cold Weather gear for The Boy.
Eventually I'll get the lining attached to the shell, and I need to purchase more thread to make a tassel for the top.
Today, The Boy was working really late, so I decided to try out draping hose. I love the way sewn hose look, and believe that I should have them, but I've never had much luck with the ankle part of the hose. I've decided to just suck it up and try them in some crappy cotton broadcloth scraps I've had for years. I pinned the seam, the pulled it off and did a quick running stitch down the seam to keep from stabbing myself with the pins. I then futzed with the foot slit on either side. I finally had to draw it on and hope. I've got the patterns drawn out now on paper, and perhaps some day I'll actually make up the next mock up.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
New Office...
I was voted in as the Baronial Chamberlain last night. I get to be the keeper of the stuff! I even have a fancy keyring with keys and everything! Owning keys is how you know that you're a real adult, because real adults have responsibilities that come with keys.
When The Boy and I were moving up to Oregon, I had to turn over the key to my apartment, and the key to my car, and for a week, I had no keys to anything. I felt extremely displaced then, and not tied to anything, but certainly not in a good way. I found myself not attached to things, sort of drifting, and I found I didn't have a place to call mine. Once we moved, I had the key to The Boy's van, and now have the key to the apartment, the garage and the mailbox. I've come to belong someplace again.
And back to the Chamberlain. I now have keys to the storage unit. My first goal is to take an inventory of all the items owned by the Barony, and check it against the items on the previous inventory. I'd like to be able to weigh the items we own, since the weight our trailer can hold is rather small, I'd like to know whether or not we can pack things in the trailer.
I'm looking forward to serving our group, and becoming more involved with the running of things locally.
When The Boy and I were moving up to Oregon, I had to turn over the key to my apartment, and the key to my car, and for a week, I had no keys to anything. I felt extremely displaced then, and not tied to anything, but certainly not in a good way. I found myself not attached to things, sort of drifting, and I found I didn't have a place to call mine. Once we moved, I had the key to The Boy's van, and now have the key to the apartment, the garage and the mailbox. I've come to belong someplace again.
And back to the Chamberlain. I now have keys to the storage unit. My first goal is to take an inventory of all the items owned by the Barony, and check it against the items on the previous inventory. I'd like to be able to weigh the items we own, since the weight our trailer can hold is rather small, I'd like to know whether or not we can pack things in the trailer.
I'm looking forward to serving our group, and becoming more involved with the running of things locally.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Dance Practice!
I get to lead tomorrow night's Dance Practice, so I thought I'd squee a little over how much I enjoy dance practice, and post the list of dances that we'll be working on.
Nika Nika Bransle
Half Hannikin
Petit Riens
Black Nag
Heart's Ease
Rufty Tufty
Parson's Farewell
This is pretty much just what we did last month, but some of it is new to this group, so we should go through it again, especially since we only met once a month.
I'm willing to take requests, should they arise, and I've promised Idonia, that should we have an inordinately large number of people, we will do Trenchmore.
Nika Nika Bransle
Half Hannikin
Petit Riens
Black Nag
Heart's Ease
Rufty Tufty
Parson's Farewell
This is pretty much just what we did last month, but some of it is new to this group, so we should go through it again, especially since we only met once a month.
I'm willing to take requests, should they arise, and I've promised Idonia, that should we have an inordinately large number of people, we will do Trenchmore.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
I have a new present!
I got a "new" iron today! The Boy and I were putzing around in the Goodwills, looking for a large glass pitcher for iced tea or lemonade, and I found a really nice Shark, with auto turn off and vertical steam for $5! I'm so thrilled. Shark is a brand I love, and it has all the features I want in an iron, but I don't have to pay $30-50 for a new one!
So I have even less of an excuse to not accomplish things now.... oops.
So I have even less of an excuse to not accomplish things now.... oops.
Pondering Future Projects...
So I now have five yards of a lovely cream colored wool coating. I'd like to make it into a 15th Cent German dress to match my lovely fringe-y hat which is full of awesome because I don't think I've seen anyone else with one. Have I ever posted a picture of my hat? I don't think I did. Let me do that now, because the hat is so cute! Anyway, back to the dress. |
| My primary inspiration for both hat and dress |
But in the meantime, I was a moron who left her giant dye pot in Houston, thinking that it for some reason wasn't a good idea to bring it. Alas. My father is contemplating a road trip to visit sometime next month, maybe I can get him to bring it then. Otherwise, I've been told that there is a place in town that will let you rent the space to dye fabric, so I looked into it today. The Eugene Textile Center rents out the dye kitchen for $10 a half day. I think that should be long enough to dye the two large pieces of fabric I have. I'm not usually concerned with achieving a specific color, so long as the color is relatively uniform and in the range of what I wanted.
So I'm thinking of finding out if there are any equipment fees I'm missing, and if not, I might go over and dye some fabric. Anyone wanna go with me?
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
I survived An Tir/West War (and long post is long)...
It is of course a couple days after returning home, but the photos are still popping up on Facebook.
The site for war is gorgeous and awful at the same time. Vast fields that usually support hay and animals, the grounds were covered with hay that had been mown only a few days prior to the event. The soil was incredibly uneven, making it hard to walk without twisting ankles. I'm surprised no one broke an ankle, though I guess that's only because people were walking more carefully than they would normally.
It was hot and sunny, with deliciously cool breezes, and everyone in our camp got a little sunburned.
Our friend Aoife had been put in charge of Waterbearing at the last minute (well technically two weeks before the event, but in planning that's totally last minute) so The Boy and I brought the coolers and bottles down to the event Thursday night. We arrived around 10:30/11 and drove around site trying to understand the map at gate when we found Chris and Andrew who we were camping with. They guided us to the roads we should have been on (Chris by hopping in my lap in the front seat of our packed minivan), and we set up the pavillion by the headlights of the car. We collapsed into bed, and didn't know anything till morning.
Friday was pretty much a bachelor's camp for the four of us. Andrew made eggs and bacon and eventually The Boy and I tried to figure out where to deliver the waterbearing equipment. Wow was that painful. This was the first time at this war for the two of us, and we didn't even know where the battle field was. There wasn't a large fake castle or anything obvious. We made our way to parking, asked the sweet young lady working the gate where the field was, which was right next to us. We then went in search of the tent that had been promised us, and more specific directions on where to set up waterbearing point. It was at this moment that I became more annoyed with the people that were supposedly in charge. I ask a simple question, "where should we set things up?" and they dither on and on about not being the person in charge, and not knowing where we should put things until I wanted to shake them. A simple I don't know, this is whom you should talk to would have sufficed. I asked Lucius if the tent we were borrowing from the Prinicpality was available, and I got a more direct answer of "the person with the trailer isn't on site yet, we'll set it up when she gets here." Thank goodness for frank gentlemen.
We left the table and coolers on the point above the field that we finally deduced as right from talking to the autocrat (after driving around looking lost by the field again) and I went to water the Rapier fighters that had a list field set up in the middle of the merchants. After the short "early bird" tourney was over The Boy came to collect me and we went to find someone that The Boy could borrow a gauntlet from for the Unbelted Tourney, since he doesn't own one, and his shield is still busted. Chris, Aoife's Boy, lugged water for me in five gallon coolers from the pump that was a long way away. A trip took at least ten minutes, and he brought me twenty gallons easily. Between his trips to the hose, he helped me to distribute water to the field of 60 some odd fighters for the tournament, which lasted three and a half hours in the baking sun. We ended up gaining a couple more volunteers during, but it wasn't easy.
Not a whole lot happened that evening, the rest of our crew arrived, we talked for a bit and The Boy and I headed to bed early.
We got up on Saturday and after breakfast and a bit of early morning hair braiding, we lugged all the stuff back to the overlook where Waterbearing was set up, and there was an Easy-Up set up for us to start. After Aoife got things in hand, I wandered back to camp to get dressed, (I'd been wandering around in my "big brother's tunic" and plaid jammie pants) and the Baroness wandered into camp for a visit. I finished braiding my hair, and braided hers, then took myself back down to the warfield for more waterbearing in my new tunica. We were adaptive and made use of the volunteers we got by sending one of the water coolers to the opposite side of the field as our "mobile watering unit". We were given the use of a period wheelbarrow and two smaller 5 gallon jugs by one of our lovely waterbearing volunteers, and a dolley from our camp neighbors so that we didn't completely wear out the boys in our camp from hauling water. It was a lot of up the hill, down the hill, water the fighters, get halfway across the field and run out of water, go back up the hill to refill and run out again halfway across. Trying to carry my parasol at the same time was ridiculous. I eventually went to refill one of the jugs with the use of the wheelbarrow, and as I was returning the iron tire on the wooden wheel fell off.
That's right, I got a flat on an iron tire. Or I suppose I should say I got an oblong? Anyway the tire wasn't going to be shoved back onto the wheel. Someone from our camp happened along on another water refilling mission, carried the water back to the point and helped me carry the wheelbarrow to the camp next to ours, Rampant Squirrels, where Brezio helped to repair a wheelbarrow for someone he'd never met before using his own supplies. He punched holes in the iron tire, banged it a little more into shape so it would fit again, and pounded nails through the holes to hold it all together. I returned it to the field, and carried more water. Eventually the battles ended, and we returned everything to camp. The "fee" for the use of the wheelbarrow and extra jugs was that I would fill both jugs and return them to the camp they belonged to. I was exhausted, but must have whined a little too much, because The Boy forcefully took the wheelbarrow from my hands and we walked together to the camp where they belonged. The lady that owned them had just stepped out of her camp to look for her things when we arrived. As we were walking away we heard her loudly exclaim "You fixed my wheelbarrow!" Evidently the tire had been falling off for quite some time.
We went to court, watched a local be Knighted, came back to camp and ate dinner, and sat around talking for a bit. The Boy and I were exhausted once again, so we went to sleep Saturday night and knew nothing again till the next morning.
Sunday I was forbidden to go down to waterbear. Probably because I was complaining about how tired I was, how much my feet hurt and were swollen, and a goodly portion because The Boy loves me. So I spent the morning helping the ladies of my camp get all Roman-ified, since they'd all decided to make a roman dress of some kind before war. I promise it was only at gentle urging on my part. We got all decked out, played with the various jewelry collections to see who's what went with which outfit. Everyone got their hair braided and sewn up for the day save myself, since I couldn't seem to find the time to do anything but pin up my braids. Aoife went to waterbearing, Rose went off to A&S for something and Idonia, Kelly and I wandered through merchants. Kelly is not a full time SCAdian, so she borrowed an old wool tunica that Idonia had made years back so she could play along with our Roman silliness. I braided her hair in a completely made up roman-esque fashion, since she didn't believe I could braid hair as short as hers. Idonia and I joked with her that because she was blonde and less elaborately dressed, she must have been our serving girl.
After lunch I mostly hung around camp while Aoife and The Boy worked on their Seige Cooking Competition entry. I putzed around a bit went to find something down at waterbearing, couldn't find it, came back, it had already been brought back. Idonia came back to camp a bit before court that evening, and since she'd have to go up for a presentation, I decided to do her hair in a much fancier and more Roman style than it had been.
We were only a little late to court, where Idonia got to hand out prizes for Sock Wars, and evidently her hair impressed the Royals. Aoife got her AoA, which is well deserved though a little surprising, since none of us had put in our recommendations yet! She was told that it was an onsite rec, and the Princess of the Summits was a little sad, because she had wanted to be the one to give Aoife her award. After court we took some pictures of our Roman Day outfits, which were colorful and looked really great together.
After court I went down the road a bit to visit with Egan and Matea, when The Boy came to fetch me for dinner. We made plans to do a bit of wandering that evening with them, since we were all a teensy bit less exhausted than we'd been the previous days. We met up at the West encampment, drank some lovely raspberry mead, and then they had something that needed attending to, so we went to see if we couldn't find our other camp mates for some wanderings. When Matea returned to the West camp later, we found out that her wedding band had disappeared. That mostly called a halt to the evenings festivities as The Boy went with Egan to see if there was anything to be seen where the dishwater had been dumped in camp, and I stayed to comfort Matea. After a long walk back to her camp, we waited for the boys who we'd probably missed in passing, and chatted and joked a bit to try to cheer her. Egan returned without her band, but oh-so-sweetly handed his to her, with all the attendant gallantry and love. It was disgustingly sweet, and made me happy to be friends with such a loving couple. I suggested that they could have a party when she got a new ring, which means that The Boy and I can celebrate with them, since we didn't know them when they got married.
Eventually we wandered back to our own beds.
Monday we woke up, The Boy made omelettes for breakfast and we eventually packed up. We left site around oneish, took the wrongish turn back to Eugene and I slept most of the way back.
Last night at A&S night, I let Idonia out of her braids, and she presented me with a lovely piece of wool as a thank you present for braiding hair all weekend! It was startling, because I've never been thanked that way before. Braiding is fun, and being the "authority" on hair is a good stroke to my ego. But now I have some lovely wool to work on a 15th century german dress to go with my fringey hat! I just have to find a time and place to dye it.
And I know I left out a good bit of the enjoyable conversations that were had, the laughter, and the merkin game! Alas, there is always too much to tell.
The site for war is gorgeous and awful at the same time. Vast fields that usually support hay and animals, the grounds were covered with hay that had been mown only a few days prior to the event. The soil was incredibly uneven, making it hard to walk without twisting ankles. I'm surprised no one broke an ankle, though I guess that's only because people were walking more carefully than they would normally.
It was hot and sunny, with deliciously cool breezes, and everyone in our camp got a little sunburned.
Our friend Aoife had been put in charge of Waterbearing at the last minute (well technically two weeks before the event, but in planning that's totally last minute) so The Boy and I brought the coolers and bottles down to the event Thursday night. We arrived around 10:30/11 and drove around site trying to understand the map at gate when we found Chris and Andrew who we were camping with. They guided us to the roads we should have been on (Chris by hopping in my lap in the front seat of our packed minivan), and we set up the pavillion by the headlights of the car. We collapsed into bed, and didn't know anything till morning.
Friday was pretty much a bachelor's camp for the four of us. Andrew made eggs and bacon and eventually The Boy and I tried to figure out where to deliver the waterbearing equipment. Wow was that painful. This was the first time at this war for the two of us, and we didn't even know where the battle field was. There wasn't a large fake castle or anything obvious. We made our way to parking, asked the sweet young lady working the gate where the field was, which was right next to us. We then went in search of the tent that had been promised us, and more specific directions on where to set up waterbearing point. It was at this moment that I became more annoyed with the people that were supposedly in charge. I ask a simple question, "where should we set things up?" and they dither on and on about not being the person in charge, and not knowing where we should put things until I wanted to shake them. A simple I don't know, this is whom you should talk to would have sufficed. I asked Lucius if the tent we were borrowing from the Prinicpality was available, and I got a more direct answer of "the person with the trailer isn't on site yet, we'll set it up when she gets here." Thank goodness for frank gentlemen.
We left the table and coolers on the point above the field that we finally deduced as right from talking to the autocrat (after driving around looking lost by the field again) and I went to water the Rapier fighters that had a list field set up in the middle of the merchants. After the short "early bird" tourney was over The Boy came to collect me and we went to find someone that The Boy could borrow a gauntlet from for the Unbelted Tourney, since he doesn't own one, and his shield is still busted. Chris, Aoife's Boy, lugged water for me in five gallon coolers from the pump that was a long way away. A trip took at least ten minutes, and he brought me twenty gallons easily. Between his trips to the hose, he helped me to distribute water to the field of 60 some odd fighters for the tournament, which lasted three and a half hours in the baking sun. We ended up gaining a couple more volunteers during, but it wasn't easy.
Not a whole lot happened that evening, the rest of our crew arrived, we talked for a bit and The Boy and I headed to bed early.
We got up on Saturday and after breakfast and a bit of early morning hair braiding, we lugged all the stuff back to the overlook where Waterbearing was set up, and there was an Easy-Up set up for us to start. After Aoife got things in hand, I wandered back to camp to get dressed, (I'd been wandering around in my "big brother's tunic" and plaid jammie pants) and the Baroness wandered into camp for a visit. I finished braiding my hair, and braided hers, then took myself back down to the warfield for more waterbearing in my new tunica. We were adaptive and made use of the volunteers we got by sending one of the water coolers to the opposite side of the field as our "mobile watering unit". We were given the use of a period wheelbarrow and two smaller 5 gallon jugs by one of our lovely waterbearing volunteers, and a dolley from our camp neighbors so that we didn't completely wear out the boys in our camp from hauling water. It was a lot of up the hill, down the hill, water the fighters, get halfway across the field and run out of water, go back up the hill to refill and run out again halfway across. Trying to carry my parasol at the same time was ridiculous. I eventually went to refill one of the jugs with the use of the wheelbarrow, and as I was returning the iron tire on the wooden wheel fell off.
That's right, I got a flat on an iron tire. Or I suppose I should say I got an oblong? Anyway the tire wasn't going to be shoved back onto the wheel. Someone from our camp happened along on another water refilling mission, carried the water back to the point and helped me carry the wheelbarrow to the camp next to ours, Rampant Squirrels, where Brezio helped to repair a wheelbarrow for someone he'd never met before using his own supplies. He punched holes in the iron tire, banged it a little more into shape so it would fit again, and pounded nails through the holes to hold it all together. I returned it to the field, and carried more water. Eventually the battles ended, and we returned everything to camp. The "fee" for the use of the wheelbarrow and extra jugs was that I would fill both jugs and return them to the camp they belonged to. I was exhausted, but must have whined a little too much, because The Boy forcefully took the wheelbarrow from my hands and we walked together to the camp where they belonged. The lady that owned them had just stepped out of her camp to look for her things when we arrived. As we were walking away we heard her loudly exclaim "You fixed my wheelbarrow!" Evidently the tire had been falling off for quite some time.
We went to court, watched a local be Knighted, came back to camp and ate dinner, and sat around talking for a bit. The Boy and I were exhausted once again, so we went to sleep Saturday night and knew nothing again till the next morning.
Sunday I was forbidden to go down to waterbear. Probably because I was complaining about how tired I was, how much my feet hurt and were swollen, and a goodly portion because The Boy loves me. So I spent the morning helping the ladies of my camp get all Roman-ified, since they'd all decided to make a roman dress of some kind before war. I promise it was only at gentle urging on my part. We got all decked out, played with the various jewelry collections to see who's what went with which outfit. Everyone got their hair braided and sewn up for the day save myself, since I couldn't seem to find the time to do anything but pin up my braids. Aoife went to waterbearing, Rose went off to A&S for something and Idonia, Kelly and I wandered through merchants. Kelly is not a full time SCAdian, so she borrowed an old wool tunica that Idonia had made years back so she could play along with our Roman silliness. I braided her hair in a completely made up roman-esque fashion, since she didn't believe I could braid hair as short as hers. Idonia and I joked with her that because she was blonde and less elaborately dressed, she must have been our serving girl.
After lunch I mostly hung around camp while Aoife and The Boy worked on their Seige Cooking Competition entry. I putzed around a bit went to find something down at waterbearing, couldn't find it, came back, it had already been brought back. Idonia came back to camp a bit before court that evening, and since she'd have to go up for a presentation, I decided to do her hair in a much fancier and more Roman style than it had been.
 |
| Sewing the braids together |
 |
| The finished front |
 |
| The finished back |
 |
| l-r: Idonia, Rose, Aoife, Petra |
Eventually we wandered back to our own beds.
Monday we woke up, The Boy made omelettes for breakfast and we eventually packed up. We left site around oneish, took the wrongish turn back to Eugene and I slept most of the way back.
Last night at A&S night, I let Idonia out of her braids, and she presented me with a lovely piece of wool as a thank you present for braiding hair all weekend! It was startling, because I've never been thanked that way before. Braiding is fun, and being the "authority" on hair is a good stroke to my ego. But now I have some lovely wool to work on a 15th century german dress to go with my fringey hat! I just have to find a time and place to dye it.
And I know I left out a good bit of the enjoyable conversations that were had, the laughter, and the merkin game! Alas, there is always too much to tell.
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