Plodding Along

I don't like the new blogger interface. I. Don't. Like it *huff* Why does google feel the need to fix things that aren't broken? Hopefully I'll get used to it soon, like all the other changes to various things :P

Anyway, I just handed in the last assignment of the four I had in due the two weeks after festival, and I've caught up on all the lectures and stuff I missed in the couple of weeks before festival :P I've also been plodding along with SCA related stuff. In my last post I made a list of things I wanted to do for the Anealan 25th birthday camping weekend, which starts tomorrow. Number one was fix my shoes. I only had to fix one shoe actually, since there was only one hole. Thank goodness.

Here's a picture that Lady Celestria sneakily took while I wasn't looking. I fixed my shoe at the pas d'arms tourney I went to on Sunday. As Mister Nathan commented on facebook, the caption should read "stitch, whaa, stitch, whaa" because that's what I was doing. There was a lot of whining, and I don't apologise, because leatherwork is a tedious bitch and I don't like it *huff*

As a side note, notice the garb I'm wearing? Yes indeed, that is my gold cote under my parti-coloured surcote. I managed to fix one of the sleeves before festival, but I never ended up wearing it at festival. Lemme tell you, that cote is so much more comfortable now that only one sleeve pinches a bit. Now I just gotta fix the other one and it'll be all good! I also took the tippets off the surcote during the Anealan council meeting on Friday night, made them bigger, and reattached them, so now they actually fit around my arm instead of being too tight :) I do need to do a bit more work on that dress though, the opening at the front under the buttons needs some reinforcing, and I have no idea what I did wrong, but my stitching around all the buttonholes is coming undone too. How annoying.

Ok, number two on the list was to make new man-hose. I did that on Saturday. I had a very productive day in which I finished researching for my presentation on Monday, then cut out and machine sewed up a pair of man-hose, all before noon! Then I went to the Taylor's open-house day and finished all the seams and stuff. All that's left to do is a couple of lacing holes on each one so I can tie them to my belt...

Which was number three on the list! So. Belt. I've done this much:

That's about a foot of weaving there. I may be really skinny, but there's no way that's gonna fit around my hips. You can see I've been playing with changing the threading direction and stuff. I just wanted to see what would happen and how the band behaves. Now my cards are all jumbled up instead of all sitting neatly together with the A hole at the top. My slight obsessive compulsiveness is quite bothered by this :P I've also been a bit uninspired with this one, especially since the forecast is for relatively warm weather on the weekend, so I probably won't end up wearing my man-cote anyway. I toyed with the idea of whacking up a linen one out of whatever spare linen I could find lying around, but that idea only lasted about two minutes before I realised that I only had about four hours in total to finish the entire thing.

I might get my embroidery out to work on over the weekend. It's been rather neglected since uni started and I had festival projects to do. The next couple of weeks are pretty quiet assessment-wise, so I should have time to start another project, and do some mending of old things. This should mean more blog posts! Then more assessments will happen, then exams, then holidays! I have big plans for the holidays, plans which include dying more fabric and making wool cotehardies, and finally starting the patterning process for epic German gown of epicness :)

I'm Still Alive!

Festival was awesome! I had so much fun, and it hardly rained at all! When I look back on the things that I did, I realised that I didn't actually do much of anything. I went to a fibreguild meeting, half an A&S class on French Hoods, lots of court, I finally got my very own Salty Bint mug, and I drank a bit. This year I wasn't a nanna and went to bed after midnight every night, except for my one night off when I fell into bed at 11pm from exhaustion.

Mistress Catherine and I went to Bubbles and Beauteé, which was like a medieval nutrimetics party with champagne. We put lots of salad dressing on our faces, then sat with an oatmeal mask for a while, then got sprayed with Hungary water and dusted with crushed pearls. It was all very civilised and fun.

I bought a fighter for the very first time! The big tournament at festival is the fighter auction tourney, and I ended up buying an Anealan by accident. What can I say, the tavern is dark and he was going cheap. He made it to the fourth round, and my prize was an agate ring which is really rather nice and I will make an effort to remember to wear.

I didn't make it to any dance classes or balls. It's funny how before the event you start looking at timetables and planning the whole week, then once you get there none of it seems important any more and you just sort of float around and accidently make it to some of the things. I would've gone to the Caroso ball, which is the most fun in my opinion, but I was on kitchen duty for the feast that night. I have no regrets.

I did, however, make it to the IKAC. I almost didn't because I couldn't be bothered, but I'd gone to such an effort to get my arrows to site and used up Nathan and Catherine's valuable luggage space that I felt that I really should get my bow out at least once. Anyway, it was a really nice afternoon, there were four targets this year and overall it was better organised. I scored 96, which is not bad.

I met lots and lots of people which I think was the best thing about this festival. There are so many cool people in Lochac and I only get to see most of them once a year when I go to festival. I'd love to go to more east coast events, but I just can't afford it.

Since I got back I've been drowning in uni work, AND I've been sick as well, hence why I haven't posted in the last week. I'm on antibiotics which is making me feel weird, and I have no energy for anything whatsoever. But things have to be done, like going to uni and work.

PLANS:
Anealan 25th year camping event is on next weekend, and I have to do some small things in preparation for it:
1. Fix my shoes. Some of the stitching has come undone, so I need to sew it back up again.
2. Make new man-hose. I made them too short, need new ones. I also need to add a couple of little gores to my man-cote, but that can be done later.
3. Weave a little belt dealie for my brais. It will be an experiment in twist-patterning. Doesn't matter what it looks like, I just want to fiddle around for a metre or so of braid and see what happens when I flip cards and change threading directions and stuff.

Meanwhile I've just handed in an assignment, I have a mid-sem exam on Thursday, a presentation on Monday and another assignment due next Thursday. Aaaaargh!

Here's a cute picture of me at Festival, in my comfy cote which I ended up wearing almost for the whole thing :P I stole the picture from Lady Elizabeth.

It's finally here!

Only three more hours until I fly to Sydney! *flail* I even managed to finish everything I needed to :D

A blurry picture of me in my man outfit! I think I'm mostly happy with how it turned out. The hood is super bulky and the seam under the chin is doing funny things, the cote is a bit too short and needs to flare out a whole lot more than it does, and my hose ended up a bit too short too. But overall, not bad for my first effort in the time I did it in. It's super warm, so I'm definitely not going to freeze this year, especially combined with my brand new woolly cloak that I finished yesterday as well.

I also managed to find time for some small mending projects as well, although what I didn't end up having time for was reattaching the lining to the sleeve of that stupid red cote. I also remembered last night that I wanted to buy a fighter at the fighter auction tourney, but I have nothing I can use as a favour. No scarf, nothing. I might end up making a fingerloop braid in my colours or something at the event.

I'm not even properly packed yet. I packed my tent bag with my tent, mattress, sleeping bag and cloak and it weighs 22.5kg. I might need to relocate my cloak for the trip home, since I'll most likely be bringing home a couple of kilos of wet. I suppose we'll see how much my main bag ends up weighing. It should only be about 18kg, because I don't have any really heavy stuff, it's mostly just garb.

I better get packing, only an hour to sort myself out before leaving for the airport! I'm a little bit excited because Rowany Festival is always awesome fun, AND I get to see Sophie again!