Pennsic

I'm back! I've been home for a week, but I haven't had the time or the energy to post about Pennsic yet :P SO the flights were stupid long. We left Perth at 12:05am on Thursday, and arrived in New York something like 30 hours later at 5pm Thursday. THEN FIVE DAYS IN NEW YORK HAPPENED AND IT WAS AMAZEBALLS :D :D :D I saw a squorl in Central Park

Lookit it's so cute! Anyway, after two hours sleep we got up stupid early on Wednesday morning to catch our plane to Pittsburgh. We arrived at Pennsic at about lunchtime and it was all very exciting. We dumped our stuff in the communal pavillion thing, then I got to go to Walmart to pick up all our camping gear. The day worked out pretty damn awesomely, our tents and everything were all set up by about 4pm, and then we got into garb and wandered around some of the merchant stalls as they were shutting up for the day. Then we had dinner and went back to camp to sit under the magic tree and listen to stories until the sun went down and I went to bed because I was SO TIRED.

Our campsite was awesome. It's close to all the important things like the markets and the war field. Also there's this awesome shady tree with amazing recliner chairs underneath it for nap time in the afternoon. I had a pretty cruisy Pennsic. I spent all my monies filling up my awesome bag of awesome with THINGS from the markets. I went to a few A&S classes. The only tablet weaving thing I made it to was a class on doubleface letters, which ended up just being a class on basic doubleface technique. But I got the name of an awesome book which I then went and bought at the markets. I also went to a class for people who were at their first Pennsic, one about bead weaving with a simple heddle loom, and a really awesome class about a lady's Cranach gown and what she did and why. I was quite disappointed that the Tablet Weaver's Tea was moved from Thursday to Tuesday, and somehow everyone seemed to just know even though there was no advertising at all. So I rocked up on Thursday only to be told I'd missed it. It was the one A&S thing I had really really wanted to go to because I'd wanted to talk to people about tablet weaving and make some contacts and stuff, and I didn't get to do that.

On Sunday I went to the big A&S display and got to see Lady Oda's awesome german brick stitch book cushion that she's been blogging about here. AND AND AND she was sitting next to Mitchell Wymarc and I got to talk to him and stuff! MITCHELL WYMARC!!! I was very excited :D. I also got to talk to the lady who was presenting the Cranach gown class the next day, and see her gown and take pictures and stuff.

I watched some of the fighting too. The field battle was the first big fighty thing, and it was pretty impressive. Nearly 2,000 fighters on the field at once is a real sight to see. I took a lot of pictures but none of them really capture the scope of what was actually there. I also got to go to ba ba, which is the negotiations between a group of merceneries and their potential employers. It was the most amazing piece of theatre I have ever seen in the SCA. Everyone was dressed up and only said "ba ba" and there were people that 'translated' into english for us. There was a witch doctor and a ritual with breaking an egg on some standing stones, and then there was a lot of shots of bourbon :P

I had a pretty quiet night life too. The second night we were there Sir Brusi took a bunch of us Lochacians to a party at Gabriel's Landing and set us free. I had an awesome time, meeting lots of people and starting great conversations on the merit that we were Australian. Mister Nathan and I stumbled home at around 4am, and that was my latest night. One night Mister Nathan and I were attempting to explore the Bog and find the Galatians campsite, but then Sir Gregory appeared in a golf cart and took us up to the other end of the site. Then I did my laundry at 1am. There was a night of Kingdom parties in which shenanigans involving pinning mini Lochac devices all over other Kingdoms' stuff occurred. One night I came home to find a whole bunch of pointy hats in our campsite. Our Queen had spent her day inviting other Crowns over, which was a bit of a surprise :P

All in all I'm pretty happy with my Pennsic experience. I didn't go crazy with the parties and the drinking, but I was pretty social. I did something awesome every day, but I also managed to have a lot of relaxing time under the magic tree. Also, spending our last night at the Hyatt at Pittsburgh Airport was the best decision ever. After spending the day packing up and saying goodbyes, having a very civilised dinner in a restaurant and then spending an hour sitting in a hot tub was amazing. The flights home were long and awful and tedious, but we finally made it. I spent last week fighting the jet lag and cleaning out my bedroom. It was a mess before I left, so it took me ages. Plus I had to organise myself for uni because it went back while I was still in transit.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the way of SCA projects now. I have a pretty good wardrobe now that I'm quite happy with, so there's no urgent garb project on the cards. I have the fabric ready to make my man-cote, so I might start working on that. I'd also like to start looking at the Cranach gown that I've been planning for ages, now that I have some fresh ideas. I started the embroidery for a needle case while I was on the plane, so I think I'll just toil away at that until I settle into this semester at uni and feel the urge to sew again. I bought a whole bunch of buckles and things at Pennsic, and I'd eventually like to weave some new garters and a belt or two as well.

Here's a picture that Ceara took of me all ready to venture out to the markets :)

Just Quickly...

I know I blogged last night, but then afterwards I got out my embroidery stuff and made little samples of both of the patterns I wanna try.

All I had was leftover DMC embroidery floss from my awesome bag, and 28 thread count evenweave. The top one is most of the top left edge of the motif, and the bottom one is one whole motif of the other pattern. Clearly the bottom one is tiny and will go better on the smaller needle case. The top pattern is quite large, even when it'll be on 44 count. I still don't know which one I want to do first. My other problem is smuggling a needle and scissors onto the plane. I'm pretty sure the Stitcher's Corner sells those tiny plastic scissors with the rounded point that are supposedly allowed on planes, but Tex has said that she's had them taken off her before. Maybe I'll also get one of those round cutter pendant dealies that you can hang around your neck. I've got three embroidery needles and I think I'll stick them in three different places in my bag. I've heard that you can stick one in your clothing and the scanner thingy won't pick it up.

Anyway, enough about embroidery. Today I need to Cut Out Mister Nathan's chausses and go visit my Gran in the hospital. And maybe while I'm out I'll go to the Stitcher's Corner too :P

Three More Sleeps!

Only three sleeps to go! I have now finished all my VIPT, but I'm not going to have time to make a man-cote. I have two whole days, then Wednesday is packing day, which would be a bit of a stretch to get a man-cote and supportive undergarment completely finished. It would involve forty buttonholes, and that's because I only have twenty buttons to go down the front, which really isn't enough. So I'll get some awesome buttons at Pennsic and make it when I get back. I also have another VIPT to get finished. I made a deal with Mister Nathan. I'm gonna make him a pair of chausses and he is going to make me an awesome belt buckle and tip for my plain belt. I am armed with his pattern, some drill, some wadding and some blankety stuff, and I'm gonna try my hand at quilting for the first time!

On Saturday I finished my oopsie surcote. I took an awful picture and did some things to it to try and make it less awful, but it's still awful and the colour is not right. But I'll post it anyway for illustrative purposes.

It looks less awful when it's small, so here's a small picture of me wearing the surcote. Yay! I'm quite pleased with how it came out, it is so much better than my last wool one. I lined the sleeves and tippets with some royal purple silky satiny stuff, and I think they look pretty awesome :)

I had planned to knock out the sleeves on Saturday morning, then spend the rest of the day Cutting Out Nathan's chausses and my man-cote, but my Gran went to hospital on Friday night so I spent most of the day fretting talking to various family members. Saturday night was when I decided I need to take the pressure off myself for these last few days. I'd also like to go to the Stitcher's Corner and get some materials for embroidery. I'm itching to do some more. I reallyreally wanna make this pattern:

It looks so pretty! I was thinking about making a needle case, but there are four different motifs in this pattern and they're quite large, so I probably won't end up finishing more than one whole motif. I really like the pattern so I'd prefer to be able to use the whole thing, so I was thinking of making another pouch, this one can be normal sized. I might even look at doing another tablet woven edge, AND weave a little narrow hanging strap. But I'd still really like a cool needle case, so I might use this pattern:

The colours are pretty awful, so I'll definitely be changing them to something brighter and less brown. I really like how there are motifs that are the same colour as the background, it's just the longer stitches that make them stand out. Wymarc recommends 72 count evenweave for this pattern, and 44 count for the other, but I think I'll use 44 count for both of them. Both of these pattern are a little different to what I've done before. The first is a bunch of little squares making up the motifs, the second doesn't have tesselating motifs. There's motifs but there's a whole bunch of plain background around them, which could be a little boring to stitch.

I'm starting to get REALLY REALLY EXCITED. I went shopping the other day for things like undies and socks and little bottles of shampoo. I bought myself a new reasonably sized toiletries bag, and I've decided that if it doesn't fit in the bag, it's not coming with me. I'm sick of carting around a massive toiletries bag. I always pack my suitcase, then have to squeeze in this giant weirdly shaped bag. No more! Anyway, apart from the actual packing part, I'm pretty much ready for this trip!

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!

Progress

I've been very busy these last couple of days, and I am pleased to announce that I have finished some Very Important Things!

Tada! That pile includes two new chemises and three new hose. I now have four chemises and eight hose. That's enough underwear for four outfits, so I should be ok at Pennsic with just one trip to the laundry :) I also decided that today was the day to finally finish the project that's probably taken more work that any other project I've ever done.

It's my awesome bag of awesome! I started the embroidery just after Christmas last year, so it's taken just over six months to get to this point. Not that I've been working on it especially hard, just plodding away for six months. Yay! I ended up using my last little bit of gold linen for the back panel, and I lined it in white linen. I might still do some decorative stitching around the top and also the back where you can see the machine stitching where I sewed the strap on. But that might all depend on whether I have time :)

Tonight I'm hoping to cut out my oopsie wool and start sewing together a new surcote. I think I'll machine stitch and hand finish it to speed things up a bit. This weekend is collegia weekend, and I'm intending to spend most of my time in the other room working on my own projects. Not sure if I'll work on the surcote or start warping up my loom for my plain belt. I can't use a continuous warp because I only have two giant skeins, and it's fine yarn so it'll probably take somewhere between 40-50 cards, which is an awful lot of tedious to thread individually. I remember my other belt taking the best part of three days to warp, just because it was so tedious and I kept taking long breaks. I don't exactly have a spare three days, so maybe spending a couple of days with company with productive breaks involving A&S classes is the way to go. I might even be able to recruit some help :P On Sunday night I'll be moving to the girls' house to look after their cat while they're in New Zealand, and I'll be there right up until I leave for Pennsic. Hopefully I'll get everything I wanted done :). The pressure is off once the new surcote is finished, because everything else is just extra things.

Funny Story

So, a funny thing happened yesterday. On Sunday I ran out of weft for my weaving about 40cm before the end of the bag, so I decided I would see if Spotlight had anything. They do sell size 8 DMC cotton after all, and if they didn't have the right purple then maybe they'd have one close enough. Yesterday morning I woke up to find an email about a 30% off sale they were having, which was funny since I was going there already. When I got there I found they had the exact right thread! Yay! Then I made an oops.

You can tell it's an expensive oops because the cat likes it even more than my linen. I may have accidently bought 5 metres of wool flannel suiting. It was originally $39.99 per metre, but after the 30% off and the $40 voucher I got given as my going away gift, it only cost me $100! I couldn't resist, it's so pretty! It's quite a bit greener than in the picture, and maybe I might be pondering giving up on the idea of fixing one of my already existing surcotes for Pennsic, and just make a whole new one out of this fabric! It goes with my underdresses, and it's significantly lighter than the wool I made the blue one out of. Hmmm. I also have some really nice deep purple miscellaneous satiny silky stuff that  could use to line the tippets and bind the edges.

In other news, Mister Nathan fixed my shuttlebeater! Yaaay! I still feel a bit guilty, but I've been very careful using it and it hasn't broken again. My weaving is not as tight as it was, so the motif has stretched out an extra centimetre in length. I'm not very happy with that but I can't seem to beat it as tight when I'm making sure not to pull on the edges of the beater. Oh well. I'm a little sick of the motif but I've only got about 25cm left to do before I'm finished! I'll finish that today. I've also been procrastinating Cutting Out my hose and chemises. I washed my chemise linen on Friday and then it stayed on the line for the whole weekend because I was busy doing other things, like looking at visa stuff for the US and researching money things for storing my US monies. Hopefully today will be productive and I'll get the hose and chemises mostly out of the way so I can start working on more ambitious projects like my plain belt and this new surcote :)