Rowany Festival Recap

Rowany Festival has come and gone for another year. It has inspired me again to do stuff, and this year I'm hoping I can actually ride the wave of inspiration instead of going back to ordinary day to day life.

This year Lady Helen and I were privileged enough to be invited to camp with La Parentiara (or The Family). I really enjoyed being in a camp instead of staying in a dorm, it gave me a place to hang out and relax in company between doing things, and it was nice being part of a small group. We also got to borrow a period round tent, which was awesome. I don't think I could ever go back to camping in a dome tent! The camp setup has inspired me to work on my own setup here in Aneala.

The weather was pretty much perfect, not nearly as cold as I expected, and it only rained on the setup days. The days were sunny and warm enough for me to wear just my linen cotehardies without my wool overdresses (but with leggings and woolly socks and my hood!), and the nights were cold but not stupidly cold like the first year at the Mittagong site. This year I bought a pile of disposable hand warmers for $2 a pair from Priceline and they were pretty awesome. They stayed warm for at least 12 hours and I spent my evenings with one shoved down the back of my dress and another tucked into my shoulder. I was a very happy chappie.

I had a fairly relaxing festival, only made it to a few A&S classes. I did go to a class about period sewing kits which has left me with some things to ponder, and a class about how to sew fur which will be useful for when I make my gollar. I also went to the WCoB meeting which has inspired me to work on getting some of the things I've already made graded. Mostly I just sat and relaxed in good company and caught up with people I only see at Festival.

I've been thinking about going to Canterbury Faire next year instead of Rowany Festival, but ideally I'd like to go to both! I suppose it all depends on finances and whether or not I have a job or leave to take. At this stage my current contract has been extended to Jan 7 2018, so who knows what will happen after that! My wayfaring plans may have to wait until I have a more stable/permanent job, so hopefully that's not too far into the future!

I have lots of thoughts and plans for SCA things, but I'll leave them for my next post :)

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.

Rowany Festival AS49

This year I had my best Rowany Festival ever. I've always had a good time at Festival, but mostly I left having not really done much except hang out, and feeling a little bit like a nanna for struggling to stay awake at night and going to bed early. Not this year! I dormed instead of camping and ate at the Greesispoone which was completely different from previous years. This year was much warmer than last year (though still not actually warm), but a whole lot wetter. Going back to a warm, dry bed in a building made a wet festival a whole lot more comfortable. I slept awesomely which probably contributed to how productive I was during the day. 

I made it to SIX A&S classes, which is a record for me. Two of those were embroidery discussion classes with Ceara, one practical smocking class, one about cloth structures and weavy stuff, a really awesome medieval surgery class that I had to leave half way through to go to the WCoB meeting, which I had to leave halfway through to go to the most awesomest class ever, weave a napkin!

Photo by Lady Aleinya

I WEAVED A NAPKIN! :D Lady Aleinya Thrakesina warped up her two shaft looms and showed some random punters like me and Rosamond how to weave, and sat with us to fix up our mistakes and deal with the looms when they had tantrums. IT WAS SO AWESOME and now I want a loom so I can weave MOAR THINGS.

I also bought some things at the markets, it doesn't seem like much but I spent all my monies so it must've been a good haul. Ceara helped me find some gold thread that I can use for couching, because I think I wanna do some couching on my Saxony gown when I get around to making it. I've decided I can't afford to order the silk I need until I'm employed, so the whole project is probably going to be put aside for a while. I might still look into making the chemise, since I know how to smock now. I haven't decided if it's going to be smocked, but I mentioned I'd done a smocking class to my Mum and suddenly I have all of Gran's old smocking books and patterns and a pleating machine, so it's all very possible.

I watched a few tourneys and went to a lot of vigils. It seemed that every party was a vigil this year. I helped Katherne get dressed for her vigil and her Pelican ceremony, and I even did her HAIR. I'm so not a hair person, but her do worked out really well, and it helped that there was a hat to hide all the messy bits under :P She was so pretty!

My silly hood also acquired a bell. I did steal it from a Lindt bunny. I stitched it on for the last day, but it had to come off for my hood to go in the wash when I got home. It was kinda fun having it on there, so I might think about stitching it back on for special occasions.

Photo by Ceara

Before Festival, I managed to make all the warm things that I had planned. I made two flannel chemises, which only just squeeze under my cotehardies and are not very comfortable in the sleeves. Luckily I didn't end up having to wear them because it was so much warmer this year. I got by with just a linen chemise, a linen cotehardie, wool cotehardie, wool partlet, short wool circle cloak and my hood (and thermal leggings). The wool partlet made a huge difference, and mostly only got worn at night when it was really cold. I don't have any pictures of the partlet, probably because I always had my cloak and hood on over it, but here's me in my cloak.

Photo by Ceara, with Stanzi's camera

I bought that brooch holding it together at the markets. The cloak is wool lined in bright green linen, and it's really lightweight but warm. It comes to just below my elbows, so it doesn't get in the way like a full length cloak does. It also doesn't pull on my neck and shoulders like my heavy full length cloak does, so it's really comfy to wear. I didn't seem to have the problem I've had in the past of the hood not sitting on top of the cloak well, which was awesome. The hood itself doesn't really wanna cooperate, I think the wool I used for the tablet woven edges might be shrinking when I wash it or something because it doesn't wanna turn back at the front anymore.

I also bought some little ankle gumboots from ebay, which were totally awesome. I wore them for pretty much the whole of the event, and because it was so wet I was kirtling up my skirts in my belt so the boots ended up being on show. I got a few compliments on them, and they don't look overly obvious like proper size gumboots do.

Just as an extra note, the above photo was taken on the only day that I wore contacts instead of glasses. It was very wet that day so I was worried about having to constantly clean water of my glasses. Turns out I didn't need to worry, if I pull my hood far enough forward then my glasses don't get wet. Anyway, I ended up leaving my smocking class early because the contacts were feeling scratchy, and they don't quite correct my vision as well as my glasses. Mostly I wore my glasses during the day and ditched them at night because it's so dark and smokey with fires that it doesn't make any difference if my vision is corrected or not, I can't see much anyway. Anyway, I think I'm coming to terms with wearing modern glasses with my garb. I really dislike my contacts so I'll only put up with them when wearing glasses is weird and distracting, like at dancing.

I didn't end up finishing my embroidery. I'm almost half way now, when I get there I'll post a picture. I did bring it with me and cart it around for most of Festival though. I showed it to Mistress Acacia who said some really nice things about it, and Mistress Rowan who said I'm insane for doing something so small and tedious, but also said some nice things too. I'd like to start entering the WCoB competitions which will make me start tackling different styles of embroidery.

Also MOAR WEAVING is a thing that I want to do. Weaving is fun and awesome. Yay weaving.

New Hood

Happy New Year! I know I'm way late and I have no excuses for not updating this blog because I've been unemployed for the last 10 weeks. I got all excited about all the time I was going to have for SCA things after I finished uni, but then Christmas happened and I discovered I was seriously lacking motivation for SCA things. It's difficult to get back into the swing of projects and stuff when you've completely checked out for six months. So what have I been doing? Not much. I spent $70 on 1000 pearls from China and had some interesting conversations with the people from customs because apparently 'cultured pearl' is not enough of a description for them to know what was in my package. There were multiple emails and I ended up sending them the internet listing for what I had bought. But when I got the package they'd opened it anyway. Not that I mind, but what was the point of all the emails? Anyway, that was over a month ago and I haven't done anything with them since. They're for my Saxony Gown, in particular the goldhaube/hat dealie thing. I need to buy the silk for them to go on but then the US exchange rate turned to shit and I started procrastinating instead.

I made a hood! There was a open A&S competition at Midsummer feast a few weeks ago and I decided since I needed to make a hood anyway and I had all the materials I should enter it. I thought about it for two weeks and then freaked out and put the whole thing together in the two days before the feast. I scored 33/50 which isn't bad, but I think I could've made a better hood and written better documentation if I'd gotten my act into gear and given myself the time to actually do it properly.

I made it without the skirt that covers the shoulders because I had this idea that I'll wear it with a partlet and cloak at Rowany Festival. Whenever I wear a cloak and a skirted hood I have a lot of trouble keeping the hood from slipping off or twisting around. It's an absolute pain and I usually only resort to wearing both when I'm stupid cold so I'm already grumpy from being cold and it just makes me grumpier and more uncomfortable. Anyway, I made this hood from some blue wool that Lady Mery gave to me as a birthday present a few years ago, and some gold silk dupion I found in my stash. I tablet wove the edges like on my other hood. I had an idea that I'd wear this with my linen huva cap for extra warms and to grip the silk. As you can see from the pictures, the silk is really quite stiff. When I wore it to Midsummer it sort of wobbled around on my head and didn't change shape. I also had problems keeping my huva cap on my head because the string was too long, and I actually thing the cap itself is too big because the edge doesn't sit flat around my head, it's sort of wibbly. I might need to make a new one from my own pattern instead of just copying Mistress Catherine's pattern :P

I also did a big no-no and didn't pre-wash any of the fabric. Gasp! Horror! I know, I'm lazy. Anyway, I decided that I didn't like having such a stiff hood because it felt silly. I've heard that silk dupion gets softer the more you wash it, so I decided to give the hood a wash and if the colours ran or it shrank weirdly then I hadn't really lost anything because I was unlikely to wear the hood while it was all stiff anyway. I hand washed it in some lukewarm water with fabric softener, and nothing drastic happened. The colour didn't run at all which was awesome because I really wouldn't have been surprised if everything turned blue. I think the silk shrank slightly, but not enough for me to care. More importantly, I'm pretty sure it's less stiff than it was. Mistress Catherine suggested washing it in vinegar to soften it, so I might try that too. I do have an issue with wearing it with my huva cap though. It makes a lump at the back of my head because that's where my hair is, and it makes the back of the hood stick out. It's the right look for a veil and wimple, but looks a bit silly without. I might make a new huva cap that fits properly and experiment at Festival with wearing the hood with and without the huva cap to see which works better.

I've also been plodding away at my embroidery. I'd like to have it finished to take to the WCoB meeting at Festival to get graded, but I worked out that I need to finish half a motif every day, which is about five hours of embroidery. It's do-able but I'll be cramming it in around dance classes, job hunting, SCA training and all the other things I need to do for Project Warm for Festival. So far I've done nothing except the hood and I've bought some cotton flannel that I'm going to turn into long sleeved chemises to wear under my cotehardies. I need to rummage through my fabric stash because I want to make a wool half cloak lined with linen. It'll either be parti-coloured or I'll use some of the maroon wool that I have tonnes of. So far I've borrowed one pair of thermal leggings and a thermal shirt from my mum, I'll just sleep with the shirt under my fleecy tunic but I'm intending to wear leggings every day so I'll need at least another pair. I also need some more woolly socks.

I'm hoping this year will be better because Easter is a few weeks earlier than last year so it might not be quite as cold to start off with. I'm also coming so much more prepared with a thermal layer and more warm things, and I'm also sleeping in the dorms instead of a tent. So even if the evenings are still stupidly cold, I should at least be toasty warm at night. I'm bringing the same bedding I had in the tent, which had me almost warm enough, but the dorm rooms should be warmer since they have heaters and they're inside with beds raised off the floor.

Stay tuned for more updates on Project Warm for Festival :)

Rowany Festival

I have returned! Festival was lots of fun, the new site is nice except that it's so COLD. FREEZING COLD. COLD. SOOOO COOOOOLD. I didn't cope very well with the cold. Did I mention it was COLD?

I managed to get all the assignments that needed doing done, and most of my projects. I finished my garters, they're all twisty so when I tried to take a picture of them I could only get this:

And blogger turned the picture on its side. Well done blogger. Anyway, my garters are all twisty! The general consensus at the Laurel Prize was that the wire is holding the twist, since it's quite stiff. When I first pulled it off my loom, the second garter was 8cm longer than the first. I figured that since parts of the first garter had been off the loom for three weeks, it had had time to compress. Now the second garter is only 3cm longer than the first, so it seems I was at least partly correct. I wore them on one day at festival, and found that the wire makes them quite stiff, and the stiffness combined with the twistyness makes the tails stick out all funny. Oh well.

I entered the Laurel Prize! I had my awesome bag, needle book, my garters and my purple and green silk belt on display. I had a good afternoon parked next to Ceara, and I spoke to lots of people. Here's my loot!

I wasn't actually introduced to a lot of the laurels I spoke to, so I have no idea who most of the tokens came from. The piece of braid is from Amalie, it was nice to finally meet her, the coin is from Mistress Joan, the pottery spindle bit is from Alex the Potter, the green pins are from Mistress Rowan (yay she liked my embroidery!), and the bone lacing needle is from Mistress Acacia. I didn't actually get to see Acacia at the Laurel Prize, but she walked past where I was sitting in front of the tourney field a couple of days later. Ursula von Memmingen took a lovely photo:

But wait... what's that hanging from her belt? Let's take a closer look.

It's a little blurry, but it looks an awful lot like....

Awesome bag! Mistress Acacia has her own little mini awesome pouch! I got very excited and bounced up to her and she got all excited and gave me the lacing needle :)

I also managed to make new sleeves for my wooly man-cote and finish my maroon woolen surcote. I'm really pleased with how the maroon cote turned out, even if the hems are a little long and got all dirty on the first night.

I've been tagged in heaps of big group shots of various courts and parades, and here's the best view of the dress. I pretty much wore my new hood for the entirety of the event. It was warmer during the day, but there was only one day that I wore just my linen layer. I tried on a couple of the other days but ended up being too cold and throwing on a woolen layer. So I was really really glad I had two wooly dresses to alternate.

It was SO FREAKING COLD at night, and I was almost warm enough with my awesome new epic sleeping bag. I ended up sleeping in as many layers as I had with me, which was three layers of pants, my fleecy tunic, hoody and a beanie. If I make it to festival next year I will be making a new epic woolyfleecy tunic of warms, and I will be investing in some thermal underwear. I'm also pondering making up some sort of furry wooly partlet to wear under my hood, and some sort of mittens to keep my hands and forearms warm. Did I mention it was COLD at festival? It didn't rain though, which was awesome. I might have traded some light nighttime drizzle for extra warms though, it was as cold as it was partly because of the clear days and nights.

At the Laurel Prize I spotted a lady with a really nice gown made of the most beautiful fabric. It was green with big gold spots, and I did fall in love with it. I asked her where she got it, and the answer was www.puresilks.us. There's 1772 silk brocades listed on the site, and most of them are US$19 per yard. They're quite light fabrics, but Ursula had the great idea of lining her whole gown with that cheap cotten/linen blend from spotlight. I trawled through all 1772 fabrics trying to find the spotty one, and failed :( But I did find this one!

I figured out pretty early that anything labelled as a "vestment" design looks fairly gothic. I'm also pretty proud of myself for ignoring all the green ones, since I don't need anymore green dresses.

(Except this one, it's green AND purple though, and they're my colours so it doesn't count as green fabric)

Anyway, I think I'm going to buy the purple one. The really great thing about this website is that shipping is calculated per item, and it's only $12 per item! $12 shipping! I also want to look into buying an orange fabric suitable for the Saxon gown I wanna make, but I gotta figure out what sort of pattern they used.

Anyway, that's it from me. I'm going to crawl back into my hole and bury myself in more assignments. May Crown is literally only two weeks away, which is way too close.

PANIC

ONLY FIVE AND A HALF SLEEPS UNTIL FESTIVAL.

Uni Freak-out:
I have a ridiculous amount to do! Last night I got to 2500 words on my epic assignment, and freaked out because NONE of those words count towards my 3500 word count, which means I've still got 3500 words to write! THEN AFTER THAT I HAVE A WHOLE OTHER ASSIGNMENT TO GET DONE BEFORE FESTIVAL. Tomorrow I'm getting my hearing tested, and testing my mum's hearing. My plan of getting this mini-assignment over and done with early backfired because now that just makes assignment number three to get handed in before Festival. I COULD HAVE DONE THIS IN MAY.

Actual Festival Prep:
Yesterday someone posted the long range forecast for Mittagong on the Aneala facebook group. Holy crap I have never seen the words "torrential rain" before on a forecast. At this point it looks like the first couple of days will be sunny and cold, then after that it's going to rain. It's going to rain a stupid amount of rain. I think I might pack some sort of rope and attempt to rig up a clothesline in my tent to hang my garb over so it doesn't just end up being a wet puddle on the floor.

Last weekend I suddenly decided that it was going to be cold and one wooly surcote isn't enough. I Cut Out my maroon wool and I almost have another one! All that's left is to make sleeves. Then I need to look at taking up the hems of all my dresses because no matter how much this new site has been advertised as not being a muddy horse paddock, with that much rain it may as well be a muddy horse paddock.

Today I'm going to buy new gumboots, because my old ones just aren't the same after they went to German Sparkle Party. I've given up on the idea of wearing hose. I might bring a few of my linen pairs just in case, but I think I'll be wearing wooly socks the whole week. My epic sleeping bag arrived! I'm so excited to use it, it feels amazing and soft and warm and heavy. I had to store it somewhere so I put it in my suitcase along with my new airbed and pump. I've officially started packing! The cat was grumpy with me because I had to evacuate my self inflating mattress and tent poles and shove them under my bed too, so now his little Tory-sized spot behind my suitcase is no longer there. He tried to shove himself in anyway which really wasn't working for him.

I finished taking in my wooly man-cote a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't put it on until yesterday. Now, this man-cote was mark two. I made a whole different one that was entirely too small, including a pair of very tight sleeves. I remember needing to use the old tight sleeves on my new one temporarily, but I was under the impression that I made a new pair. WELL the sleeves I put on yesterday were stupid tight. I could barely get them on over the sleeves of my supportive man-shirt, and it took some effort to get them off again. As I was wearing it they warmed up and became a little more comfortable, but at the end of the day I need new sleeves. CRAP. That's just another thing to do, and I HATE making sleeves. These ones have buttonholes too. Mister Nathan suggested I sew them on the plane. I had intended to sleep most of the way to Sydney since we leave at 5:30am, hence the half sleep on my countdown, but I guess if I don't have time beforehand, then a five hour plane ride is prolly enough time to hand sew a pair of sleeves together.

I want to enter the Laurel's prize. I want to have my awesome bag, needle case & documentation, and my new garters. I have one more motif to weave until I've finished the first garter. Then there's another 18 motifs until I've finished the second garter. Each motif takes roughly an hour to complete. Hmmmm. I don't think I'm going to be able to finish it in time.

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.

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.

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!

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!