I live!

I don't really have any excuse for not posting for the last six months, except that not much has been happening. I'm still down in Albany and my contract has been extended until at least September, so I'll be here a little bit longer. I've been finding it difficult to keep inspired to do SCA stuff down here all on my lonesome. I'm connected by social media of course, but as everyone knows there's an awful lot of whining on the internet and it's difficult to keep enthused without the balance of seeing people regularly at training and A&S days and things like that.

Since I last posted I did connect with a couple of people interested in SCA down here, and discovered it's not a matter of supporting stuff that's already happening since there isn't actually anything happening. There's also a bit of a toxic vibe so to start a group down here would involve starting completely from scratch on my own and would be a long term investment. I'm not sure how long I'm going to be down here so I'm just laying low for the moment. I've been keeping busy with the choir I joined and my dance classes at the one and only local dance studio. Also Royalties for Regions is an awesome thing and the WA ballet came to visit for a day of FREE CLASSES which was all very exciting, except it was the week after festival and guess who got the festival lurgy! It was me, I got the festival lurgy.

Festival was pretty great again. I had the ultimate festival last year, what with awesome bunk mates (did not realise how awesome they were until this year) and learning to weave on a table loom for the first time and all the other great A&S classes. This year wasn't as good, but I guess you can't have two amazing years in a row :P. I didn't sleep very well because I was sharing with snorers and there was an extra person crammed into every room so it wasn't as comfortable space wise, but I acquired some ear plugs for the last few nights which were both weird yet awesome. There didn't seem to be as many A&S classes as last year either, or at least not ones that really interested me, like weaving :P.

But I still had a great time catching up with people and getting all enthusiastic again. At the WCoB meeting I picked up instructions and some red wool for a mouse pouch, and my very first patch for the Pelican Cloak.

Then I discovered that there is no embroidery shop down here in Albany. I'm not sure where all the crafty little old ladies who retired down here get there embroidery supplies from, but surely it can't be Spotlight. They only have the basics. Anyway, I already had black and white silk so I could get started, but the cost of postage costs more than the cost of a few packets of silk from all those online embroidery shops, so my lovely awesomest friend Spoh is picking some up for me from the Stitchers Corner, and I'll get it when I go up for Autumn Gathering next weekend. I'd like to actually enter some WCoB competitions this year, and the one for Midwinter is beadwork so hopefully I'll finally start working on that beaded goldhaube for my saxony gown (which WILL happen... eventually).

I found some spools of natural linen in the markets! It felt so fine and nice that I had to buy four of them, and I will use them for attempt #2 of the Double Weave Apron project.

I need to do some more research, Mistress Caristiona mentioned sometimes aprons had patterns woven into them which I would like to try. I need a mangler too, for mangling. Also I think it's time that I pulled apart my loom and gave it some much needed maintenance. Google tells me soaking my heddles in vinegar for a few days will be good for them, and I should get some pumice to scrub my reed but I need to be careful because reeds are precious, and maybe lemon oil is good for the wood bits. I'll do some more digging before I try anything, and I was thinking of even contacting the Spinners & Weavers guild down here for advice. I've not contacted them before because they meet on a weekday morning when I'm at work, so there wasn't much point. Also I now have a car in which I can transport my loom! That's right, I traded in poor old Nigel who I still love very much for a hatchback with cruise control for the long country drives I occasionally do. Then I discovered that the cruise control was broken, and I was Very Annoyed. After a millionty phone calls, John Hughes has organised for it to be fixed under warranty down here, but the place I took it needs to order in parts from over east, so it doesn't look like I'll have it fixed in time for my next drive up to Perth :(

I had great plans to make two new cotehardies for festival this year. I decided I need a purple cotehardie and a rusty orange brown cotehardie. When I visited fabric-store.com they had a colour called Purple Wine on sale, and it looked like it was just a bit lighter than the purple purple colour they have, so I thought I'd take advantage of the savings. Well. It arrived and it wasn't any sort of purple, it was PINK. I would've called it fuschia pink, and it was the exact colour of the PINK thread I used to sew the lining of my hood with, You know that obnoxious PINK lining? Anyway, now I have a pink cotehardie, and although it wasn't the purple that I wanted, it is a pretty garishly amazing colour and I got lots of compliments at festival.

I don't have a rusty orange brown cotehardie, because I had some small disasters in making the pink one. First of all, not sure if I've mentioned on here before, but I've put on some weight. It must've started during my last semester of uni in 2014, because at festival last year my cotehardies were a little tight, enough for me to be a little uncomfortable for the whole event, but not enough for me to abandon my cotehardies and wear my viking jammies instead. Anyway, then I went and lived for three months in Katanning where it was freezing and the only thing to do was cook delicious food and eat big servings because it's difficult cooking for one and there wasn't enough room for me to store leftovers in the fridge shared by five girls. Anyway, by the time I got down here to Albany I was about 10kg heavier than in 2013 when I made all my cotehardies. I'm not saying I'm an unhealthy weight, but my favourite jeans are a struggle to get on and uncomfortable to sit down in, and I can't actually get my arms into most of my cotehardies. I've had some comments about how I always wear the same thing to events, my gold cotehardie and red overdress, and it's mostly because it's the only outfit that still fits and is mostly comfy, if a little bit tight. Anyway, I thought I would make two new cotehardies for festival, and obviously I needed a new pattern to fit my new size.

I don't really wanna talk about what happened, but by the time I got to a week and a half out from festival, I had a pink cotehardie (minus sleeves) that was COMPLETELY WRONG. There was much swearing and throwing stuff. After stewing over it for a day or so, I abandoned the idea of making a second cotehardie (the original plan was to wiz up a second one in a week once I'd confirmed the pattern worked and remembered how to sew) and started making stupid fiddly adjustments to the stupid pink stupid cotehardie. I ended up with something that looked fine and although the neckline was not at all what I wanted and it wasn't nearly fitted enough to support my boobies, it was actually really comfortable. Comfortable ended up being a REALLY GOOD thing because along with the pink one, I'd packed my gold cotehardie, which is mostly comfortable, digs into my shoulders a bit and is a bit tight, and the only other cotehardie that I could actually get up over my arms, the teal green one. I wore that one for one day, and even though I didn't tighten the lacing all the way, by the end of the day my ribs felt all bruisy and tender, like when you have a crease in your sock, except all around your ribs. I was able to wear the nice loose pink cotehardie the next day to let my ribs recover.

ANYWAY I've started making some more adjustments to the pink one to make it just a bit more fitted, because I prefer the support, and to change the neckline a bit. I nearly cried last night when I unpicked the sleeves, because I sewed them on SO GOOD and I loathe sewing on sleeves and now I have to do it again :(

Autumn Gathering is next weekend, and I'm looking forward to it. Spoh is back in town and we sweet talked my dad into making us a new rope bed, since we broke the last one at Championship last year. And by sweet talked, I mean bribed with mango sorbet and cider.

So I've got a few different things up my sleeve to work on, we shall see if I keep up the motivation.

WAMA Fair and Other Things

I went to the Perth Medieval Fair on Sunday, and for once I wasn't invisible! Pictures of me have popped up all over the place, and I am very pleased :)

Here's a photo of me that Phil took, from his awesome photobucket album of awesome. As you can see, I wore my new gold cotehardie. This one isn't as booby as the green one. It's funny how they all come out a little bit different, but I use the same pattern and try to be consistent. But it fits and it's comfy. I had a good day at the fair. I spent the morning helping to set up, and then I had gate duty, but most of my afternoon was spent weaving as part of the SCA display. I only got about 2cm of actual weaving done, because I had an almost constant stream of interested people to chat to which was really nice. My weaving is actually working out wonderfully, which is unusual for string and the complete opposite to my last experience trying to work with the gold wire.

LOOKIT HOW MUCH IT WORKS! It's pattern 38 from Anna Neuper's Modelbuch, the version with 25 tablets across. The pattern repeat is 24 rows, and this picture is from the first day I started working on it. I got very excited because I could see the pattern and it was all working and stuff! Now I've done about 9 repeats of the pattern, which is just over half the length of one garter. Also, I'm hoping that once it's been off tension for a while it will compress together a bit more. I'm really happy with how it looks now, but it doesn't look anything close to the examples on the back of the book where there are no gaps between the bits of gold wire.

In other news, there's only three weeks left until Festival, and I managed to put my heel through the seam of one of my hose as I tried to put it on on Saturday. Dodgy machine stitching *shakes fist*. It should be repairable, but it highlights just how much maintenance my hose need. I don't know why I hate sewing hose so much, they're fairly quick and easy to make, I just LOATHE THEM. I'm almost ready to just wear explorer socks for the whole week. Festival has moved down near Canberra after all, where it gets stupid cold. The last time it was this late in April I was SO COLD that I crawled into bed with Mister Nathan in my desperation for warms, then I went and begged the combined colleges for extra blankets, not caring that they had already been rejected by collegians for reasons that are unknown and shall remain so. That Festival was up at Glenworth Valley, miles from the frozen reaches of Canberra.

In related news, I bought a new sleeping bag! I resorted to trawling the ebays for sub-zero sleeping bags that are only sold in the US because why would we need them in Australia? I have five pounds of non-allergenic Insul-Therma insulation wrapped in cosy flannel lining which is rated for 25F coming my way! It's gonna be massive and take up half my giant suitcase of bedding, but I'll be toasty warm at Festival!

Four Weeks!

Only four weeks and ten hours left until I leave for Rowany Festival, and I'm starting to feel slightly hysterical! Necessary projects are being downgraded to unnecessary, and unnecessary projects are moving off my list completely. I have four weeks to get two massive assignments completely finished and another one started, so SCA projects are starting to become those things I do to procrastinate. Also, I've almost completely given up napping during the week which makes me very sad.

So, what have I done in the two weeks since I last posted?

I made a cotehardie! It's not green! Yay! I haven't tried it on yet because I couldn't be bothered. I'll wear it on Saturday to the WAMA fair demo unless I put it on and something is horribly wrong with it. This is the third cotehardie I've made from my new awesome pattern, not counting my supportive man-shirt, so it should fit fine. I'm not sure what I'm going to use as a lacing cord because I forgot I needed one and didn't get any matching perle cotton from Spotlight while I was there for something else, and I'm not sure I can justify going all the way out there this week. I might just have to pick a random coloured lacing cord from one of my other cotes for this weekend :)

Today was one of those procrastinatey days, and my browser has decided all of a sudden that it doesn't like Facebook and kept freezing every time I logged in. What did I do instead? I warped my loom! I warped my loom for one of those unnecessary projects that has fallen off my Festival list, because I'm going to a demo on the weekend and tablet weaving is a cool thing for a demo. I'm turning one of Anna Neuper's brocade patterns into a pair of garters for my man outfit. I used some blue reeled silk that I bought off ebay before Christmas for really cheap. It's thinner than any silk I've used before, but is lovely and shiny. There are some flaws, some lumpy bits and the skein isn't one long piece, it's a bunch of fairly long pieces tied together. I only encountered one tie today, but could see some more in what was left. I got to use the yarn swift I got for Christmas!

Tory was very taken with the swift and felt the need to rub his face over every corner. He figured out fairly quickly that it turns and that seemed to delight him. Also, I think for the first time ever I'm going to have to guard my string, because apparently this yarn is tastier than any other yarn that has come before, even more tasty than the pegs of my warping board.

Here's the whole setup. The yarn swift is amazing! Best idea ever! That little wooden chair you can see in the top left of the photo is what I used to hang my skeins around, and it's very questionable as to whether some of them are still skeins or a tangled mess of string. Anyway, loom is warped! I intend to use the gold wire stuff I bought for the brocade weft of that belt that was going to be awesome, because hopefully it'll work better with a different warp and a more geometric pattern. I've got some top stitch thread and some upholstery thread to use as structural wefts, so hopefully I'll be able to find a way that it'll all work together nicely. Or there will be tantrums and I'll be going to Spotlight after all to find something else to use as brocade weft. Wish me luck!

Rowany Festival Project Update

I finished my hood! It only took two weeks to complete the tablet woven edging. Next time I think tablet woven edging is a good idea someone needs to remind me that it is seriously tedious. I am really happy with the finished result though.

Yay hood with silly hook! Here's a closeup of the top seam when it's turned back:

Yay for dodgy colours. The edging is dark purple, but the pink has managed to invade it in this photo. This is the first time I've woven with wool, and I found it really easy to work with. It's stretchy so every time I untied the warp for untwisting it was really easy to just re-tension again and I didn't end up with any lumpy bits. The braid just sorted itself out all nice and stuff. It'll be interesting to see what happens with a flat band with multiple colours. I'll have to give it a go one day.

In other news, I have Cut Out and stitched together the lining of a new cotehardie from the gold linen I bought. I haven't had time to Cut Out the outer layer yet, but I'm hoping to be able to do that sometime in the next few days. I've made pretty good progress on my list for Rowany Festival, but now there's only six weeks left and I went back to uni classes today, so time is becoming more and more expensive. AND it's now March, which means half price sale at Homecraft Textiles! I need to go out and buy another spool of gold sewing thread because I've completely run out, so I might just go there and see what sort of brocade selection they have.

Things I have left on my Rowany Festival list:
1. Man-cotes: I need to re-fit my red wool man-cote over my new supportive shirt. This involves taking in some seams. I also need to make a new one out of blue linen.
2. Finish the gold cotehardie: Involves Cutting Out and sewing together the outer layer, sewing it to my lining, then making and attaching sleeves. And a new lacing cord.
3. Audit hose: I need to have a look at the state of my current collection, possibly say goodbye to some, possible repairs on others, and most likely making some new ones. I definitely need a new wool one to replace the one that shrank.
4. Not-green woolen surcote: I have some maroon wool that would do nicely for a warm surcote that is not green. This project has been classes as non-essential, but would be really nice to have for Festival.
5. New garters to wear with man-outfit: Also non essential but I'd really like fancy new garters to show off :P
6. Embroidered pouch: Remember my embroidery? The embroidery that had a run-in with the cat and I completely lost all enthusiasm for because it needs fixing now? Yeah. It would be nice to have a new pouch for Festival for night time tavern shenanigans, but I do have a suitable pouch so this is also a non-essential project.

THE END. Except my beautiful Pennsic fob watch has stopped and I am sad. I can't see how to get into it to change the battery, but cobblers tend to know seekrity seekrits like that so I might go ask one of them to fix it for me.

Man things

Today I got a present from the postie!

Buttons! These are 2cm across, and were labelled as a Tibetan design on Aliexpress.com. I have no idea if the design is authentic or not, I think they're pretty and I got 40 of them for $10. They're a little darker than I expected, but they're the same zinc alloy as the little gold ones I got, so they're sturdy, cheap AND pretty. I think they'll do nicely for my linen man-cote.

Speaking of man-cotes, I finished my supportive shirt! I didn't think about how I don't have much arm movement in my cotehardies, and because that's due to the tightness around my torso rather than the actual sleeves themselves, I'll most likely have the same problem with this shirt. I haven't put it on yet because it's already 10:30pm and I still need to print of some stuff for clinic tomorrow. I'll most likely put it on later in the week to see how it fits and also to re-fit the red woolen man-cote over it, so I'll take photos and stuff then.

Midsummer Feast and Other Things

I finished the dress! I did wear it to the feast on the weekend and it fitted nicely and I got lots of comments from people asking if it was new because they weren't sure. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and it was comfortable all night. I wasn't invisible at this event this time! There are photos up on the Aneala facebook group, but none of them show the whole dress. The hall was also really dark, so by the time I'd thought about getting someone to take a photo of me it was too dark for it to work.

In other news from the weekend, I managed to put together some documentation for my needle case! It turns out that even though lots of other SCA people around the world think this sort of needle case is a good idea, it seems it's a TySCA thing and not actually period. Although I didn't spend much time hunting for sources, I did find a whole lot of information about medieval sewing kits and how they were transported, and could not find anything at all about this sort of needle book/case thingity. If anyone has come across anything that references these in period, I'd be happy to hear about it! Anyway, I lost marks for authenticity and ended up losing to Lady Ydeneye, who entered a hand sewn Italian partlet.

BUT I did get this:

It's the Baronial level award for service. I feel kinda bad because I haven't been doing much lately since I've been busy with uni. I used to arrive early to events and help set up and stuff, but now I'm more of a consumer and just turn up to have fun. Anyway, it's a really pretty scroll. I seem to be collecting scrolls with my name misspelled, and even though it'd be easy to get them fixed, I kinda wanna keep them just to see how many different ways they can misspell my name, because so far they're all completely different. It's not like spelling is a period thing, anyway :P

So I've crossed off one thing on my list. Actually, I've crossed off one big thing, and a couple of smaller sub-things. My linen arrived from fabric-store.com on Monday, so I just gotta wash it and then it'll be ready to turn into a not-green cotehardie! I also bought a yard of the new even-weave linen, and it's niiiiice. I don't think I'll use it for embroidery because there are still slubs and the weave is pretty tiny, but it feels lovely and soft so I might make a couple more little chemises out of it. I also bought some buttons! I went back to aliexpress.com because I was so pleased with the little gold buttons I bought last year, and found some nice cheap buttons I can use for the linen man-cote I wanna make. They haven't arrived yet, but hopefully when they do they'll be just as nice as the little gold ones.

This week I'm hoping to get my supportive shirt finished so I can re-fit my red wool man-cote to go over it, and start making the linen one. Also, I've been invited to teach some tablet weaving stuff down in the Canton of Dragon's Bay in a couple of weeks, so I should probably start thinking about what I'm going to do for that. I have a whole morning, so I might use the handout from my one hour class, and then set everyone up with a few cards and some yarn so they can have a go playing with some doubleface diamonds and stuff.

So once again my plans did not go according to plan. I went down south last weekend and had an awesome time fishing, but the rest of the time was spent very unproductively. On Saturday we went into town to run some errands and stopped at just one winery because we couldn't very well go down south and not visit a winery. That all took ages, and by the time we got back to the house it was time to get all the fishing stuff set up, and couldn't be bothered anything so I read some of my book. Then we went FISHING and it was all very exciting and I did catch TWO FISHES and we were out there until midnight. Sunday was a lazy day in which we took the puppy to the beach and watched her frolic in the water and then I got stuck in a hot nap. There was a bit of groggy happening. But I figured I'd dragged my sewing all the way down there, I better do some, so I stitched the front seam of my dress together. That's it. Buttons and buttonholes got done on Tuesday and Wednesday, and yesterday I fixed the sleeves. Then last night I unpicked the sleeves again, because the top of the sleeves have holes that are waaay too small. I don't remember the dress being tight around the armpits, I'd just assumed that the sleeves were fine except they cut in at my elbows. But when I tried the dress on the sleeves were stupidly tight around the armpits, which means I need to add some fabric into the sleeves to make the holes bigger. Stupid sleeves are stupid. Hopefully I'll get them done tonight, because the feast is tomorrow and I hate rushing to finish garb. Also I completely forgot that I was going to enter the A&S competition at the feast, so I haven't even looked at documentation. I suppose if everything else is done then I'll see if I can put some together tomorrow afternoon.

I also took my embroidery down south in case I felt like working on it. I didn't, so it stayed in its bag. When I got home I took it out, and found that it didn't survive the journey very well. It's as if something was catching on the threads and pulling at them. Sadfaaace. There's a good four or five spots that will need to be pulled out and redone, so all of a sudden I'm feeling less motivated to work on it. I foresee that it's gonna be put aside for a bit while I work on other stuff.

Well, what an exciting blog post. Hopefully I won't be invisible at this event, and I'll end up with some nice pictures of me in my fixed up dress that I can post here :)

Usefulness

LOOKIT WHAT I DID DO!

It's my brocade surcote all reshaped with lining and stuff! :D Now  just need to close up the front seam, sew the buttons and buttonholes, and fix up the sleeves. Yaaay I've finally done something useful. I should get it done this weekend, I'm going down south with Mister Nathan to do some fishing, and I intend to spend the rest of the time sewing. That means the dress will be finished in plenty of time for the Midsummer feast next weekend, I might even find the time to write up some documentation for my needle case and enter it in the A&S competition.

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is having a good holiday! I've been having quite a cruisy time just lazing about, eating and going to the beach. I got a pretty good Christmas haul this year too. Things that will appear in this blog at some point in the future include a yarn swift and a big wooden embroidery frame. Actually, it's a 40cm tapestry frame. The fancy embroidery frames that were adjustable were way expensive so I ended up with this one. But that's ok, I'm quite happy to work with it :)

My man-shirt is coming along slowly, I've not worked on it until I picked it up to start the lacing holes last night. This break in the project was brought to you by the New Year's Eve costume party theme!

The theme this year is Circus! I went to Spotlight and bought a proper commercial pattern and made a tail coat! I'm going as a ringmaster, and I still need to make a little black vest and work out what sort of pants I'm gonna wear. I'm thinking tights of some sort and a pair of shorts or a skirt, since it's gonna be fairly warm and I'm already wearing a coat. Commercial patterns are difficult and the instructions are confusing. I'm quite happy to stick with making my own calico patterns from now on :) Also I apologise once again for the awful photo. I think the blur is my dirty mirror, not my camera being crap.

I wrote a list of things I want to get done before Rowany Festival, but I'm running out of time! Once the silly season is over I'll only have a couple of solid weeks before Clinical Placement begins. I'm hoping to get everything at least started, so that I won't have to sit down and do anything big like Cutting Out, I'll just be able to pick up projects and sit in front of the tv for a bit, or bring them along with me wherever I'm going.

Holidays: Week 1

I've been on holidays for a week now. I have commandeered the couch and turned it into my own personal sewing nook, set up my laptop on the coffee table for Start Trek TNG and I am making progress! Also I think I've eaten an entire watermelon over the course of the week :P

Here is the fruit of my labours. I haven't exactly been working hard, just trundling along around my compulsory naptimes and various errands. What you see here is the makings of a supportive shirt for my man-cote. What's that you say? It looks a lot like the top part of one of my cotehardies? Well that's because it is :P. I cut it out on Monday night from my cotehardie pattern and since then I've hand sewn it together. I'm currently up to lacing holes, which has interrupted my momentum because I DUN WANNA. When I eventually get over my reluctance and get them done, all that will be left is to make and attach sleeves, and sew up the hem. I won't do my normal hinge sleeve with buttons because it's mostly going to be worn underneath hinge sleeves with buttons, and two layers of buttons would be a bit awkward. I'll probably make the sleeves as one piece each.

In the meantime while I'm procrastinating making lacing holes, I've been working on a TOP SEEKRITY SEEKRIT Christmas present for Mister Nathan. And by TOP SEEKRITY SEEKRIT I mean I'm making him some lucet cords to hold up his hose, and he knows all about them because I told him that's what I'm making and he's been providing me with preferences and specifications :P I'm still not gonna post pictures of them until after Christmas, because he really should see the finished product first.

In other news, you know how I said I'm not allowed to make any more green garb because everything I have is green? I'M MAKING A GREEN HOOD! My green oopsie wool goes really well with the hideous pink really well, and I have enough leftover for a hood. I still haven't decided which colour will be the lining and which will be the outside, but I can leave that decision until I've cut out the pieces. I'll pin them together and wear it both ways to decide which is best. I went to Joondalup Spotlight the other day and they had a whole bunch of different colours of the same wool for $20 per metre. I refrained from buying it and I hope you're proud of me. There was yellow and blue and bright green and booger green and a greyish colour and I really wanted it but I can't afford it all when I don't have a project for it :( What I did buy was a couple of balls of dark purple wool, for the tablet woven edges of my hood. I've never woven with wool before, so I guess we'll see how that goes.

Also ruminating over a new project, titled Awesome Bag the Sequel: Awesome Box. Stay tuned for more details.

ERMAGERD

Lookit what arrived in the post today!

THREE SKEINS OF SILK! I spent ages fiddling with my camera and lights and stuff, but I couldn't get the colours to come out right. The blue and the green are just as bright as the red, they look awesome! I ordered these weeks ago from ebay because they were $10 each plus $10 shipping each, but then because I ordered three the shipping was combined. I ended up paying $45 for three skeins of silk! It was advertised as reeled silk and each skein is about 470 yards. The skeins are smaller than I expected, probably because the yarn is a little finer than 20/2. It doesn't say what thickness it actually is, but I'd say it's about 30/2 or 40/2. It looks quite manageable, not silly like 60/2 :P. More to the point, it was cheap. It's not as tightly spun as the fine cord from Treenway Silks, and it doesn't look as good quality, but it's shiny and super soft. It's a bit fluffy, so I guess I'll see if it does the piling thing that spun silk does. Actually, for that price, if it behaves like the Treenway spun silk but is shiny like the reeled, I'll be ecstatic.

I have no idea what to make with it, but I wanna do some weaving now! I actually have no weaving projects in mind at the moment. I'm going to be booking for Rowany festival today, since tomorrow is the last day before the price rise, and this has been making me think about all the the things I want to have done by then. Mostly it's garb. Firstly, I WILL get around to fixing that green brocade surcote. I wore it at Championship and it was so uncomfortable! I had to squish myself into it because it didn't fit over my new cotehardies properly, and the sleeves were digging into my armpits and my elbows. It's going to be cold at Festival next year because it's late in April and the site is closer to Canberra, so I want to have more than one surcote for warms. I get sick of wearing my wool one all the time. I've also been pondering the fact that most of my garb is green. I am now putting a ban on making anything green. The two cotehardies that fit the best and are most comfortable are my green one and my sphinx one, which is almost green. My wool surcote is green. The brocade one is also green, but there's not much I can do about that and I'm going to be putting black all over it to make it fit better, so it should look quite striking. I think I need to start wearing my ginger cote again. Also, I think I'll remake my gold cote, and start wearing my green and purple linen surcote again. The gold cote I have looks awesome, but it's so uncomfortable. So I'm going to buy some more of the gold fabric and make it again using my new pattern. I think I need to look through my wool collection and make another surcote that isn't green. I think I have some maroon wool that should do nicely.

There's also a high chance that it'll be raining at Festival too, so I think I'll get on with making that linen man-cote and supportive shirt that I wanted to do before Pennsic. The fabric is all pre-washed and ready to go. Then I'll fix my red wool man-cote and hood, so I have a linen and wool option for rainy days when I don't want skirts dragging in the mud. I also need some more wool hose, since the pink one shrank in the wash. Only two more weeks until freedom!

One week!

One week until we leave for the US! Seven more sleeps! I'm getting really excited now :). I had my relaxing day on Monday, getting only about 20cm of weaving done. I made up for it yesterday though.

Here it is! I'm weaving with the black on top, but underneath is blue! I started with all my tablets threaded in the same direction, but I didn't really like the look of it, so I flipped every second card and I liked that way more betterer. The eight selvedge cards are still threaded in the same direction, so it gived it quite a nice border. The band is 2cm wide, and after weaving the bag strap which was 4cm it seems so tiny! It's coming up really nicely, but I'm not sure that I'll want to work with this silk again. It's spun silk so it's made up of shorter fibres, which means that I've got quite a problem with piling. The string is really fluffy, and mostly it gets stuck on the weft wrapped around my shuttlebeater. I get to a point where the weft won't unwind anymore and I have to pull all the fluff off. Every now and then it gets stuck in the band and I have to pull it out, but mostly the finished band is fine. I also get it all over my hands every time I untwist and shift the warp along the loom. The reeled silk from Treenway that I used for my fail belt was plied really tightly, and I'm wondering if that's what made it not compress at all. The reeled silk was a better quality and made from longer fibres, and it was shiny, which is nice in a silk. I may have to go hunting for a supplier that sells reeled silk that isn't so tightly plied, since Treenway only has four or five different varieties. Three of them are the tightly plied cord, and the other two aren't very fine. Although this spun silk may do really well as a weft for the reeled silk, since it compresses more.

Yesterday I also went on an adventure to buy a D-ring and some sheet brass for the buckle, AND while I was out I even went and bought a travel card for my US monies. Then I went to Nathan and Catherine's house to look at hotels for our one night in Pittsburgh, and I did some work on my oopsie surcote. I threw it on over a cotehardie yesterday and it was too small. I would have been able to button it closed, but it was a little tight over my boobs which I didn't like. Luckily I had stopped to check this before making the buttonholes, because I was able to take the front seams out half an inch each, and I also lowered the neckline a little bit. So last night was spent fixing that up, and then I closed up the skirt down the front. So now I has a dress shaped thing. All that's left to do is the buttons and buttonholes, the bottom hem and the sleeves.

Today I'm hoping to finish the last 50cm or so of my weaving, and get the buttonholes done on the dress. I should have both completely finished by the weekend, which gives me time to do the little fixes on a couple of things, and even maybe make a man-cote :)

Update

Good morning! Only nine more sleeps to go until we leave for the US! I found my sense of urgency last week and my productivity exploded over the weekend. On Friday after finishing my hose and awesome bag, I cut out my oopsie wool. Then I remembered that it will need lining, so I cut that out of some leftover white linen, AND I even sewed most of it up. I was handsewing in front of the tv, and I was all set to get it completely finished except that I started doing silly things like sewing panels on backwards and stuff, and it was after midnight so I decided to go to bed. After five hours sleep it was time to get up and go to the collegia! There was classes in one room all day, and the other room was for general arts and sciences. I spent my day in the other room, and completely warped my loom. Then I finished off my lining. I even got to see one class, because one session had two classes running concurrently, so my room was invaded by a class about veils, which was pretty interesting.

I spent my Saturday evening at Nathan and Catherine's house sewing up my oopsie wool. I got all the panels sewn up and finished. I used a sewing machine to sew the seams, then hand finished them, which is so much faster than handsewing everything. Once again I fell into bed after midnight and got up stupid early to go back to the collegia. I didn't get as much done on Sunday because I had to take time out to teach my tablet weaving class. It went well, there were quite a lot of people there and most of them seemed really interested. I was quite pleased with how it went anyway.

By about 3pm my sense of urgency had evaporated and turned into tired. I'd managed to get the lining hand sewn into the dress (had to do it twice, because I put it together inside out the first time, epic faaail) and I've finished the hems on the front two panels, ready to be joined. I'm housesitting again, I (hopefully) packed up all the things I need for my projects and moved in last night. Today I'm not aiming for anything ambitious, I have some errands to run and then I'll probably just sit on the couch and do some weaving. At some point this week I need to put on a cotehardie, because this time I intend to make sure the surcote fits before I go any further, because I don't have time to fix it after it's finished. It looks quite small to me, which could be a good thing since my last one ended up being gigantic. I added three inches to the pattern, which should hopefully be enough that it's still fitted but loose enough to hang smoothly over the supportive cotehardie.

ALSO I think I might be a little crazy, but I'm itching to start another embroidery. I've been idly looking at more German Brick Stitch patterns, and I've picked a couple I like from the Wymarc web page, but I've also found that there are MOAR patterns and I like them all. I've been pondering it for a couple of days, and my problem was that I don't have anything to make out of them. I don't want to just start an embroidery project without an idea of how I'm going to use it, but I had some ideas last night. I've got this vague idea of making a needle case with a little pocket in it for things like thread and a small pair of scissors. In my head it's a stiff case, but right now I'm not sure how to achieve that. I suppose I could line it in buckram or something like the girls do with their tudor bodices. Another vague idea I had was to make my basket a little cover. At the moment I've been using a piece of leftover white linen and tucking it around whatever's in the basket. This has two purposes, to hide mundane looking things like my water bottle, and to hide things that might be stolen like my phone and purse. That's another really big project though, and I want to move to 44 count evenweave. Another thing I saw on the internet was an extant box that was made out of wood and covered in embroidery. I immediately thought I'd like to reconstruct it, but the person who'd redacted it wrote that the embroidery was done on some weird fabric that had a thick weft and a really thin warp, so it was 44 count one way and 27 count the other way. I'd use normal evenweave, but that would mean the pattern will end up a different size, so I'd have to really think about how I would go about it. Another idea is to make a cushion. That would be cool but I'm not sure I'd actually use it :P.

Anyway, now I'm thinking that the problem with long flights is that I get bored. There's sleeping to do, but I can't sleep for 30 hours straight. I'll watch some movies on the entertainment system, but I still get bored doing that. Then I realised that it's not very often that I just sit still and watch tv or movies at home, I'm usually doing something like sewing or weaving at the same time. So maybe what I need to keep me entertained is some embroidery to do while I watch movies on the plane! This is a brilliant plan except that it requires me taking the time to plan a project, then go out to the Stitcher's Corner to buy the things and spend ages talking to the lady there because she's really nice and remembers me and my projects. The point is that I might not have the time. I think I'll keep pondering and see what happens. Only nine more sleeps!

Sleeves

I thought I'd do a step by step picture diary thing of The Making of the Hinge Sleeves. I finished hemming the green cote last week, so on Thursday I finally had no choice but to face Cutting Out my sleeves.

STEP 1:

Open a bottle of wine. Om nom nom. Tempranillo is my favourite at the moment.

STEP 2:

Lay out fabric and pattern pieces. The wonderful thing about linen is that you can fold it, so you can cut out both sleeves at once!

NOTE: Cats love linen, and I'm pretty sure they can smell it a mile away. At least Tory can. I was laying out my pattern pieces when I heard a loud roaring noise, and it was Tory gleefully making himself comfortable on my linen, purring loudly. Five minutes earlier my sister had gone looking for him, and do you think he could be found? Nope.

STEP 3:

The actual Cutting Out part. I did it. I survived. Sleeves aren't as bad as a whole dress. The only thing about sleeves and linen being double sided is that it's really easy to accidently make two left sleeves, which I have been known to do on occasion. The bits are laid out above as they will be sewn together. Once you join the two pieces, fold it into a tube and make sure it's different to the other one :P

STEP 4:
Completely lose interest in the documentation process. I'm pretty sure on Thursday night I had stitched the two parts of both sleeves together, and finished the seam. I also finished a couple of glasses of wine. For a more comprehensive look at the medieval hinge sleeve, have a look at the La Cotte Simple page, there's also heaps of stuff there about fourteenth century things. The only thing I don't do is put buttons over my elbow. I made my first cote like that, and used rabbit poo buttons. They were uncomfortable enough to lean on, I wouldn't want to try it with hard metal or plastic buttons. I also ended up with gappy bits when I straightened my elbow, because there's extra fabric there to accomodate a bent elbow, it just bags when your arms are straight. Besides, I have long arms and usually put nine or ten buttons along seven inches of sleeve, which is only just over half way up my forearm. If I went all the way up that would be more than twenty buttons on each sleeve, which means more than twenty buttonholes. No thanks. Maybe one day I'll put some fake buttons on one of my cotes, because you don't need to undo them to get your arm in. As it is I only undo the four or five bottom ones, except when I'm in the kitchen or something and need to roll up my sleeves.

Anyway, I finished the green dress tonight. I made minimal effort on it during the week, so tonight I had to sew the buttons and buttonholes on the last sleeve, then attach them both to the dress. Done! Two weeks until Pencampwr, where I wanted to wear it with my green brocade surcote, but I wanted to fix that up first. I still need to warp up both my looms and get started on the band for my awesome bag of awesome, and that's for the class I'm teaching so it's number one priority. If I have time when that's done then I'll make a start on the surcote, but I can't see myself having enough time. Only three more weeks of uni left, and I have assignments due for all the units again. Plus Hairspray opens in two and a half weeks, so I'm busy with rehearsals and stuff for that.

Right now it's my bedtime. Goodnight.

Boobies!

I have an assignment due tomorrow. It's the last of three that I had due this week on top of a mid-sem exam. Tomorrow's assignment is not finished yet. What is finished is THIRTY-FOUR PROCRASTINATION LACING HOLES!

This means my cotehardie can be laced up, which means BOOBIES! All is right with the world.

The end.

Things

I decided to make sleeves for my cote. They took me an entire week because uni started getting intense and I found myself with less time for sewing. I managed to finish the cote just after midnight last Friday night (or Saturday morning :P), then I got up early on Saturday to spend the day at Perth Medieval Fayre. Here's the one picture that has surfaced of me in the cote:

It's me and Mister Nathan! It's a lovely photo of the two of us looking very elegant and stuff. I stole it from Nancy's facebook album, thanks Nancy! Just ignore the soft drink can that I'm holding. We were waiting for our lunch kebabs to cook, and it was taking ages, and the weather was really hot and sticky, and we'd been there for HOURS and there was tired. But look, boobies! I was really happy with how the cote turned out, it looks good and it was comfortable. I think that may have been the very last outing for my gold ho, because the stitching has come apart in a couple of places and the seam allowance is all frayed as well, so it's not like I could just patch it up. It went through the wash again this week and I really think it's time to say goodbye, which is a shame because I only have four linen hose, so now I only have three. Not a very useful number. I really should dig out those two in the bottom of my basket that just need sewing up, no Cutting Out required.

I spent a little bit of time on my embroidery at the Fayre, because it was something to do, but also the colours and design make it really eye catching whilst still being simple enough to work on and talk to people at the same time. I got a lot of looks of amazement and awe, especially from the lady that asked who had taught me the technique. Mister Mitchell Wymarc taught me from the internet. Also Miss Wendy helped with the bgeinner's stuff like choosing how many plys to use and how to start and finish threads. But the rest of it is pretty much self taught, because it's such a simple technique. The trick is that it LOOKS complicated :P

I haven't done anything at all project-wise this week. Uni is keeping me fairly busy, and I feel like when I'm not in class, I'm either commuting, doing homework or I'm at rehearsal. I get Easter weekend off as well as the following week. I have a couple of assignments to get mostly finished, but the work won't be building up so I should have some downtime to warp up my loom and finish my embroidery or something. My aim for this semester is to have at least one project on the go and spend at least some time each week working on it, even if it's only an hour. That way I can make slow and steady progress on stuff for Pennsic, and hopefully when I get to the end of semester I won't have to cram too much stuff into the three weeks before flying out. I also get two study weeks! TWO! I'm hoping to use the second one to Cut Out my green linen into cotehardie shaped pieces.

Right now I think I deserve a night off, so I'm going to sit in front of the tv with my embroidery, then get an early night.

THOUGHTS

You guys! I finished ALL the lacing holes last night, and I put the cote on this morning AND THEN I HAD A THOUGHT! It's a thought that gives me OPTIONS and now I need to make a CHOICE and it's all so agonising D:

Anyway, here's me in the cote

Yay it fits all good and boobies and stuff :D So the thought that I had was about sleeves. What if I DIDN'T MAKE SLEEVES??? What if I just sew up the armscye and wear it with my chemise just like that? It will be cool and not making sleeves will be awesome because I hate making sleeves. Also I won't need to worry about buttons. But I DUNNO maybe this one should have sleeves and be a proper cotehardie because it's my favourite colour and maybe I want to wear it on not so hot days too. Maybe the green one can be sleeveless. As far as sleeveless being period goes, lookit this picture:

This is from something called the Birth of John The Baptists Turin-Milano prayer book from the early fifteenth century. Apparently there's a few fifteenth century examples of sleeveless kirtles that could still be made of long panels like a cotehardie, without a waist seam. I'm looking specifically at the lady in green at the foot of the bed. I've seen a lot of pictures of fifteenth century kirtles with a seperate skirt and bodice and a round neck and short sleeves that go about halfway to the elbow. This one definitely has no sleeves at all, and a short sleeved chemise underneath, or a chemise with the sleeves pushed up.

Anyway, now I have thoughts and I need to ponder them and make DECISIONS and stuff, which I'm not very good at. I have until I fix up the hem to decide what I'm doing, because sleeves are the next step. I have found some decent looking buttons on ebay that will cost me under $10 for a set of 20, and a mixed set of 30 small and 20 big that will also cost under $10. I think I'll buy both lots because they're cheap and versatile and I need buttons whether or not this particular cote has sleeves or not. I also found 18 more stag buttons which was very exciting, I'll have to put them on something too :)

Happening Things

This past week has been absolutely massive, I feel like it's been at least a month since I last posted. Ok. So. On Friday I fixed up my pattern, then spent ages unpicking the whole thing, ironing it all flat again then making sure all the rights and lefts matched. I tried to take a picture of me wearing the finished pattern, but I didn't try very hard. I ended up with pictures that didn't look much different to the ones of me wearing it before I fixed it. And they were all blurry and taken in a particularly dirty part of my mirror. ANYWAY no pictures. Once I had all the bits of my pattern flattened and matchened I cut two lengths of my linen that were as tall as my shoulder, found some calico and ironed it all. Then it took me an entire episode of Star Trek Voyager to trace the pattern onto calico and cut that out. It took another entire episode to trace the pattern onto my linen. I laid the two lengths of linen out flat, one on top of the other. That way I only have to trace and cut four panels instead of eight, since the right side is the same as the left. Still took me an entire episode of Star Trek just to trace it, and another episode to actually cut it out. It took this long mainly because I hate Cutting Out and I kept procrastinating with solitaire.

On Saturday I went to the Taylors' open house. Soon after arriving I went with Suzie to Lincraft and Spotlight to get matching thread and see if I could find any buttons. Lincraft had some awesome buttons, but didn't have twenty of the same designs. It didn't really matter because the ones I wanted were $2.86 each. EACH. Times twenty that makes $57.20. I can't afford to spend that much on buttons. I think what I'll do is take the awesome gold buttons off my twelve-panel red cote and put them on the sphinx one, because I don't like the red cote and it doesn't deserve such awesome buttons. Later I'll go looking for more buttons for the red cote and also the other cotes I wanna make. Anyway, by the time we got back from our expedition it was lunchtime. I spent the afternoon sewing, and left that evening with my lining completely sewn up and hemmed, and one long seam of the outer dress finished. Sunday after archery practice I spent the afternoon sewing some more at Nathan and Catherine's.

Monday was my first day of uni, even though everyone else got a public holiday. Uni is pretty epic and majorly contributed to the feeling of this week taking up a whole month. I seriously slowed down with the sewing, but I think I got the major stuff done on the weekend. Right now the lining is attached and the front seam is all neatly sewn up, and I've made three lacing holes. Only 31 ore lacing holes to go, then I need to hem the dress and cut out and sew up the sleeves. There's still a week to WAMA fair so I think I should have it finished in time without too much rushing. Although yesterday I started coming down with a cold, so right now I'm feeling groggy and miserable and I dun wanna anything *huff*

Another thing that happened this week is I graduated with a Bachelor from UWA! This is totally relevant to this blog because the robes are just like a houppelande and the whole ceremony is very traditional. Also there were academics wearing Tudor flat caps. Here's me:

Yay robes. UWA is very traditional so only Masters and PhDs get to wear mortar boards, but the people that did got to doff their hats at the cancellor which was awesome. I'm a little disappointed that Curtin lets everyone wear the mortar boards, so when I graduate with my Master degree I'll be one of many and won't get to do awesome things like doff my hat at other Masters and proper academics. It was really quite interesting watching the ceremony, the formality and awareness of rank was a lot like an SCA court. I enjoyed myself a lot more than I expected to at a boring graduation ceremony :P

In other news, I haven't looked at my embroidery since before my linen arrived, and I haven't warped my loom yet. I have a feeling that my SCA activities are going to be slowing down dramatically from now. I think I'll have to work out some sort of vague list of deadlines for my Pennsic projects, or I'll end up caught in that trap where I don't make any progress because I have ages, then all of a sudden there'll be two weeks left that I'll have a million things to cram into.

Linen!

My linen arrived this morning! I opened up the box, dug through it a bit, grabbed out the sphinx and chucked it straight into the washing machine. Then I came back to my room to find this:

Cat in the box! He clearly decided that the package was for him, and made himself at home. I evicted him, then when the washing machine finished I hung the linen out to dry and left to do the errands that I was supposed to do yesterday. I've not been feeling well for the last couple of days, so Tuesday was spent doing some embroidery and feeling sorry for myself. Yesterday I felt better except that I was exhausted, so I slept all day and didn't get anything done. So it didn't matter in the end that my linen only arrived today, because I'd probably only be where I'm up to now anyway.

Speaking of which, I have cut out my lining and sewed it up with my zip to refit my pattern. I was secretly hoping that my pattern was ok after all and I'd just ballsed something up with my ginger cote, but nope. Here's my pattern, the only changes I made was to add more around the sleeve seam, because that bit was never right and it's easier to cut down than add more.

Yay blurry picture! Still need to clean my mirror. Also need to practice holding the camera steady with one hand. Anyway, you get the idea. The shape is right, but it zipped up waaay too easily for cold linen, and the whole thing is loose. I'm estimating it needs to be taken in by at least two inches. Anyway, that's all for today. Tonight I'm going to visit Nathan and Catherine to talk about flights for PENNSIC. Tomorrow I'll fix up the pattern completely, and hopefully get the rest of the dress Cut Out. I hate Cutting Out. But if I get to that point by the end of tomorrow, then on Saturday I can spend all day at the Taylors' open house sewing it together.

I've just conveniently remembered that I don't have any buttons for the sleeve of this cote OR the green one I want to make for Pennsic. Ugh. I wish I had more of those little gold buttons that I put on my red cote, because they look so nice, but they came from All Buttons Great and Small in Sydney. I suppose I could email them with a picture and ask if they could post me some more, but that could take ages and end up being very expensive, and I would like to be able to wear this cote to WAMA fair in two weeks. I guess I'll just go to Spotlight or Lincraft and see what I can find. I could always find some cheap buttons and then when I'm buying ALL THE THINGS at Pennsic, I could buy awesome buttons to replace them :P

Nearly There

I've counted and recounted and checked the number of motifs multiple times, and I'm pretty confident that I just made it to the three quarter mark :)

I am so close! I've done a huge amount of work, but I can see the end now. I started this project eight weeks ago, and it should only take me a couple more weeks to finish.

My yarn arrived! I've decided to weave the motifs in red and gold, and have a border with a stripe of green and a stripe of purple. I managed to get the same gold, red and purple as the embroidery floss I used, but DMC doesn't make the same green in size 8 cotton. There wasn't much choice, so I just got the closest green that I could. It will still look fine, and I'm pretty happy I could get the rest of the colours. I'll try and warp up my loom at some point next week, but I don't want to start weaving until I have my new shuttlebeater. Mister Nathan offered to make me one for Christmas, and it was just up to me to decide what I wanted. I know I definitely want a beater that is a shuttle as well, and I want it to be made from a dark, hard wood. I really like the functionality of Catherine's, but I want it to be pretty as well as functional. Anyway, I've given him my specifications, and I guess I'll have to wait until he's got a bit of spare time. Hopefully that will be soon :). I don't want to swap beaters part way through the weaving because that could change the band. I definitely had a significant difference between weaving with my old school ruler and Catherine's beater when I was working on my belt.

My linen hasn't arrived yet. I suppose the days of six day shipping from fabric-store.com are long past, which is a shame. Hopefully this order doesn't go missing like the last one. My last day of work was today, and next week is orientation week at uni. I only have to go in on Monday, so I have the rest of the week off. I was hoping to start working on a new cotehardie, so hopefully the linen will arrive early next week. I've decided not to make one in white, because that will mean sewing three cotehardies in four months, and I don't think I want to do that to myself. If my linen doesn't arrive next week then I'll string up my loom and keep working on my embroidery. I might even start constructing the bag, as much as I can do without the front panel anyway. I can't imagine getting much done quickly once uni starts, but I'll try to allocate time every week for sewing. I will also have about four weeks between semester finishing and leaving for Pennsic, so I will have that time to work on last minute things. I don't want an epic rush to get things done though, but it is nice to have that buffer.