THREE MORE SLEEPS

Last Monday I wrote a list entitled "FESTIVAL: OMG ONE WEEK TO GO!!!!". Today is Saturday and there are now only three more sleeps until I fly out. I just crossed one thing off the list. ONE THING. In all fairness, I have made progress on everything on the list, I just haven't finished any of them except one. I made a man-hood to go with my man-cote. Except I've just realised why it doesn't sit properly. I forgot to snip the seam allowance of the curved bit that goes under the chin. Gah. It's bag-lined, so that means I need to unpick some of the stitching so I can get to the seam allowance, then stitch it all back up again from the outside. So really it's not finished yet and I shouldn't have crossed it off the list. Waaaaaah.

Anyway, today was the most productive day of all the days this week. It was the first day I could devote completely to projects and not have to do things like go to work or do uni things. I'm completely up to date with uni now, everything else can be left to catch up on when I get back from Sydney :). Today I did a lot of Cutting Out. An obscene amount actually. Remember that wool that I dyed? I cut it into cloak shaped pieces today. I had a bit of trouble because when I dyed it the fabric shrunk but the selvedge didn't, so it was all wibbly like this:

I ended up cutting it all off so I could lay the fabric down flat. Then I discovered I had some weird stretching issues, the middle was shorter than the outsides of the fabric. I think that may have something to do with our washing line though, it sags in the middle under the verandah, but I didn't want to dry it in the sun. Anyway, I persevered and now I have this:

Here it is, hanging on the end of my garb rack. I have a cloak shaped thing! I hacked at the hem for a bit trying to make it straight before sewing it up, then realised that it will probably drop anyway, since I have diagonal pieces sewn together. On Monday I'll hack at the hem a bit more, sew up the bottom and then turn it the right way out. I was going to say that this will be an entirely machine-sewn piece of garb, but then I'll have to hand sew the hole where I pull the whole thing through to turn it the right way out, so not quite :P. I'm looking forward to being super warm! My current cloak is a loaner, and it is made from two layers of the thinnest possible wool-blend fabric you can find. It's really quite light, whereas this cloak is heavy. I may have to carry it in my hand luggage. I used the loaner cloak as a template for cutting out this one, because I like the way it sits on my shoulders without a clasp of any sort, and it won't move unless I make sudden flaily movements with my arms, which I tend to do a lot. If I had a cloak with a clasp I think I would accidently strangle myself.

Here is an awesome paint drawing of the shape of the pieces of the cloak:

Four of these, the straight edge is the front edge on both sides, and the middle back seam. The curved edges get sewn together to make shoulder shapes. The middle two have little neck hole bits cut out of the top corner for comfort. I have no idea if this is period, but I don't care because it is very functional and comfy :)

So that's what I did today. I have also almost finished my man-cote. All that needs to be done is all the buttons, buttonholes and attaching the sleeves. I decided to make rabbit poo buttons for the front, because I can't afford to go buy 20 buttons. It took me all of Friday evening to make seven buttons, because the wool is very uncooperative. It doesn't want to be made round shaped, instead I have little domes with flat bottoms. It's a very frustrating process, but they at least still look like buttons. I'll get there in the end. I'm using some leftover stag buttons for the sleeves, thank goodness, I think I would go mad if I had to make twenty small rabbit poo buttons with that stupid wool. I pondered using my black gabardine wool instead, but I dun wanna. I want red buttons!

I don't see myself doing much tomorrow, I have archery training in the morning, then I'm off to the cinema to see Company with friends, then we'll probably have dinner. I should hopefully have plenty of time on Monday and Tuesday to finish off all the things.

This is going to be another post with no pictures because I've been slowly working on stuff but there's nothing yet to show for it :( This week's been pretty hectic, since it's the first week of uni so I've had to sort all that stuff out, but we also had a stocktake at work which was epic.

I shot an IKAC on Sunday and scored 101. My personal best is 105, so that's not too shabby for the first IKAC of the season. I managed to hit my elbow with my string though, which is bad, but this time the bruise actually showed up, which is good :P On Sunday afternoon Mister Nathan and I went to Hoddywell Archery Park to check it out as a potential site for Championship. I like it, it will mean roughing it a bit since there's no kitchen as such, but there are showers. Mordenvale manages to cook a pretty awesome spread at Festival with no kitchen, so why can't we do that too? The owners are semi-retired, and they're pondering whether they want us there or not, and how much to charge us.

On Monday I washed my wool. I have decided on the purple for my new cloak, so I treated it how I'm gonna treat it when it's a cloak (since Mistress Rowan told us to and she's awesome and knows Things) and I washed it on the regular cycle. I ended up with purple fluff EVERYWHERE. I almost chucked the purple and red in together, but didn't because it weighs a bit and the machine might not be able to cope, and I'm so glad I didn't. As it was I had to scrape purple fluff off the inside of the washing machine before I put the red in on gentle cycle. That seemed to work a bit better, there wasn't nearly so much red fluff as purple fluff. You should see our verandah, I tried to do most of the shaking out there and there is so much fluff everywhere. It was also really dusty when I bought it, so there was dust and fluff flying around everywhere. Now it is folded up and sitting on my desk chair, because I don't have anywhere else to put it :(

Tuesday and Wednesday was craft/party stocktake at work. We started at 7am each day, and we didn't finish so I was there until 7pm last night. So much tired in my faaaaaace. Anyway, I did some sewing on Tuesday night, but I was so exhausted last night that I came home, ate my dinner and then fell into bed at 8pm. Anyway, my cotehardie is in six pieces at the moment. I'm hoping to get it all finished and sewn together with the lining by tomorrow night.

Tomorrow is my very last Friday off work, since I've been moved to part time at work and the new roster starts next week, which includes Fridays. I am going to run errands! I shall go to uni and pick up some textbooks and hopefully find Dress Accessories in the library, then go past Stitcher's Corner for more floss for my embroidery on my way to the annual 50% off sale at Homecraft Textiles! It's moved to March, people! This means enough time to buy cheap fabric and make things for Festival! I'm intending to buy something green to line my cloak with. If I can't find any suitable wool, then I think I'll go for some flannel since it's only $1.99 per metre during the sale and it should be nice and soft and warm :D

Hopefully on Saturday I'll be able to post pictures of my cotehardie all in one piece! Next week I'll have to actually go to uni, but my schedule should start working itself out and we'll see how much time I actually have to do SCA stuff.