Oh hi there! It's been ages *sheepish* But guess what! I'm officially on holidays! My exam for uni was on Friday, Hairspray closed on Saturday, then PAAARTAAAY, then I woke up on someone else's couch on Sunday morning with a cold. Gah. Once I found my way home I spent Sunday mostly sleeping, with some interruptions to blow my nose and generally feel miserable. Yesterday I had to go to uni (I know! On my holidays!) for a scary 5 hour lecture about clinical placement next semester and achieving competency for accreditation. All very scary stuff. But now I have exactly three weeks and one day to get ready for PENNSIC!
I've woven about half of the strap for my bag. I was gonna work on it on Sunday night but after two picks I'd had enough and put it away in favour of some lemony panadol drink and feeling miserable. Then I spilled the last of the lemony panadol drink on the couch which I quickly vacated and haven't gone back to look at the damage. Today I hope to get the strap mostly finished. I can only shift it down my loom another 5 inches or so, so I at least hope to do that and get it all tensioned for the last time, then power through the last of it :)
I need to dig through my fabric stash and find all the spare bits of linen I can use to make hose. I think I'll spend tomorrow washing my white chemise linen and Cutting Out hose. I use the sewing machine to sew up my hose, because it's quick and strong, so that shouldn't take too long. Then I'll bring them all to A&S to work on finishing off the seams. Hopefully by the end of this week I'll have a whole bunch of new hose, and that'll be one Very Important Pennsic Thing (VIPT) done. Another VIPT is chemises. I needs MOAR! I think I'll try sleeveless ones, because I've noticed my one that has sleeves to my elbow is a) kinda annoying to tuck into my cote sleeves, because the sleeves roll up and I end up with a lump and it's all uncomfortable, and b) the restriction I'm feeling at the back of my sleeve hole isn't actually from my cote sleeves, it was from my chemise all along! Ruuude. VIPT number three is to fix one of my surcotes so I can wear it on cold nights. I bought some black drill for the green brocade one because I liked that one better, but then Mum stole her basket back, the basket that's been my fix-it basket. So all the fix-it things from the fix-it basket are now in a pile on the floor, and somehow the blue wool surcote ended up on the top, and it looks really nice and warm. I think I've turned it into an ugly thing in my mind because of how much trouble I had making it, but I think I actually like it. It has potential. So I dunno. The wool one will definitely weigh more and take up more room in the suitcase, so that very well may decide things. The last VIPT is my awesome bag of awesome! Once the strap is finished and I dig out my linen, I can start putting it all together :)
Other things that are not so important is my plan to make a new man-cote. I'd like to have a man-cote to wear because I like wearing brais and hose, but it's quite an elaborate plan so if I don't end up with time, then meh. I'd really like to finish the double-sided black and blue belt that I started pondering ages ago and then ordered silk for it and then promptly forgot about. Btw, I ordered some silk! Once again I guessed with the colours, but I also ordered a colour card so there'll be no more guessing! I didn't end up with the blue that I wanted. I wanted a royal blue but I got more of a purpley blue, which was a bit disappointing, but totally my fault for trying to guess colours without a colour card. Never again! Anyway, I'll still use that blue for my belt. Because it's gonna be so plain I've decided I want to make a really nice buckle and point, which will take a bit of time I think. I'll just use a D-ring and fold some sheet brass over it and shape it all nice, and maybe do some etching. Anyway, once I've done the VIPT I have a feeling that the rest of my time will be taken up with this belt.
I ALSO HAVE ANOTHER BELT IDEA! My second ever tablet woven band was a 14 card leaf pattern which I used to make garters. Anyway, I was thinking I would use the leftover black silk and the leftover green silk cord from my brocaded belt to make a black belt edged with the leaf pattern! It will be nice as well as an experiment to see how I go with weaving with two different kinds of yarn. I've always used exactly the same size yarn for different colours in a band, so it'll be interesting to see how important it is to have yarn that behaves in exactly the same way. But I probably won't have time to make that one before Pennsic. But it's ok, because when I'm at Pennsic I'll buy a buckle for it!
