I can't believe it's August already! The time has just been flying past. I had planned to do a lot more SCA related stuff in July, but those plans sort of fell by the wayside.
First of all, I ran a feast! In the week leading up to it I felt a little bit like I was trying to herd cats, but in the end it turned out really well. I had a lot of positive comments about the food and the hall, and I thought it was really nice to go back to the kind of medieval feast we used to have, where we focused more on period recipes and ingredients rather than just having a roast dinner. I entered my tablet weaving in the A&S competition and it won! I was a little surprised because it wasn't my best band ever, but it was a bit of an experiment and I put a lot of work into documenting it really well.
Once the feast was over and my report was all finalised I'd planned to do a whole lot of weaving down here in Katanning on my weekends. My first problem with that was that my loom will not fit into my car. It's way too tall for the boot, and even though it will fit in the back seat, there was no way it would fit through the door and past the front seat. It was also too wide to fit in the front seat and still allow me to shut the door AND change gears as I drove. So my Mum and sister had a day trip down to Katanning and brought it with them the weekend after the feast. Then I had some problems getting some yarn to weave with. I'd ordered some Treenway silk and also some tencel from Webs, but the Treenway stuff takes about a month because they have to dye it and then ship it from the US, and some of the colours of tencel I ordered were out of stock so Webs is waiting until they come back in stock before they post the whole order together.
Anyway, I decided what I'd really like to do while I waited for the US stuff, was order some linen from Petlins and try my hand at doubleweave. I thought that it would take maybe a week at most to get across the country, since most things I order from over east arrive fairly quickly. Well. First of all even though they say on their website that they ship the same day or next day after payment clears, my order wasn't shipped until over a week after I paid. It does not take over a week for payments to clear. I also never got a receipt or confirmation of order, just an email to say my order had been posted. It did only take a week to get across the country, which would have been fine except the idiots posted it to my billing address instead of my postal address. So last Friday I got a text from my Mum to say that I had a package. In Perth. A three and a half hour drive from where the package should have been posted to. Not happy Jan. After spending the day pondering my weekend and rescheduling things, I ended up driving up to Perth and spending the whole weekend there. I emailed the Petlins people to voice my displeasure, and they've decided to ignore me. So I think I'll be finding another supplier for linen yarn, which is a shame because Petlins has a really good range.
When I got back to Katanning I did some calculations and realised that I need more linen for the plans I have in mind. I went searching online and found some linen of the same size at Glenora Weaving and Wool, which is another Australian supplier. I tried to order two cobs, but they only had one in stock, so the lady emailed to ask if I wanted natural or half bleached instead, and replied to say no, I'll just take one cob of bleached. Then she replied to ask if I wanted some 16/1 that I could use doubled, and I said no thanks, just one cob of 16/2 will do. Then she RANG me and left a voicemail message to ask if I wanted 16/1 that I could use doubled, so I emailed her AGAIN to say NO THANKS JUST SEND ME WHAT I BLOODY WELL ORDERED and was almost at the point of cancelling the order. Apparently she's posted it now with a seven day receipt (I have no idea what that means) and another receipt will be emailed to me. It hasn't been yet so I have no idea how or when I'm supposed to pay for it.
Meanwhile, good reliable old Treenway silks dyed and posted my order, and it arrived on Wednesday. I am now in the process of warping my loom to weave one of the Two Skeins, Two Scarves free patterns that Treenway sent me. Finally! I've been down here for five weeks and I'm only just warping up my loom.
So that's what's been happening. I also brought some fabric and my pearls down in the event that I somehow found the motivation to tackle a goldhaube for the Saxony gown I've been planning since forever. I also brought my embroidery down but I've completely lost enthusiasm for it, even though I'm over half way through it.
First of all, I ran a feast! In the week leading up to it I felt a little bit like I was trying to herd cats, but in the end it turned out really well. I had a lot of positive comments about the food and the hall, and I thought it was really nice to go back to the kind of medieval feast we used to have, where we focused more on period recipes and ingredients rather than just having a roast dinner. I entered my tablet weaving in the A&S competition and it won! I was a little surprised because it wasn't my best band ever, but it was a bit of an experiment and I put a lot of work into documenting it really well.
Once the feast was over and my report was all finalised I'd planned to do a whole lot of weaving down here in Katanning on my weekends. My first problem with that was that my loom will not fit into my car. It's way too tall for the boot, and even though it will fit in the back seat, there was no way it would fit through the door and past the front seat. It was also too wide to fit in the front seat and still allow me to shut the door AND change gears as I drove. So my Mum and sister had a day trip down to Katanning and brought it with them the weekend after the feast. Then I had some problems getting some yarn to weave with. I'd ordered some Treenway silk and also some tencel from Webs, but the Treenway stuff takes about a month because they have to dye it and then ship it from the US, and some of the colours of tencel I ordered were out of stock so Webs is waiting until they come back in stock before they post the whole order together.
Anyway, I decided what I'd really like to do while I waited for the US stuff, was order some linen from Petlins and try my hand at doubleweave. I thought that it would take maybe a week at most to get across the country, since most things I order from over east arrive fairly quickly. Well. First of all even though they say on their website that they ship the same day or next day after payment clears, my order wasn't shipped until over a week after I paid. It does not take over a week for payments to clear. I also never got a receipt or confirmation of order, just an email to say my order had been posted. It did only take a week to get across the country, which would have been fine except the idiots posted it to my billing address instead of my postal address. So last Friday I got a text from my Mum to say that I had a package. In Perth. A three and a half hour drive from where the package should have been posted to. Not happy Jan. After spending the day pondering my weekend and rescheduling things, I ended up driving up to Perth and spending the whole weekend there. I emailed the Petlins people to voice my displeasure, and they've decided to ignore me. So I think I'll be finding another supplier for linen yarn, which is a shame because Petlins has a really good range.
When I got back to Katanning I did some calculations and realised that I need more linen for the plans I have in mind. I went searching online and found some linen of the same size at Glenora Weaving and Wool, which is another Australian supplier. I tried to order two cobs, but they only had one in stock, so the lady emailed to ask if I wanted natural or half bleached instead, and replied to say no, I'll just take one cob of bleached. Then she replied to ask if I wanted some 16/1 that I could use doubled, and I said no thanks, just one cob of 16/2 will do. Then she RANG me and left a voicemail message to ask if I wanted 16/1 that I could use doubled, so I emailed her AGAIN to say NO THANKS JUST SEND ME WHAT I BLOODY WELL ORDERED and was almost at the point of cancelling the order. Apparently she's posted it now with a seven day receipt (I have no idea what that means) and another receipt will be emailed to me. It hasn't been yet so I have no idea how or when I'm supposed to pay for it.
Meanwhile, good reliable old Treenway silks dyed and posted my order, and it arrived on Wednesday. I am now in the process of warping my loom to weave one of the Two Skeins, Two Scarves free patterns that Treenway sent me. Finally! I've been down here for five weeks and I'm only just warping up my loom.
So that's what's been happening. I also brought some fabric and my pearls down in the event that I somehow found the motivation to tackle a goldhaube for the Saxony gown I've been planning since forever. I also brought my embroidery down but I've completely lost enthusiasm for it, even though I'm over half way through it.
