*Hysterical Laughter*

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

SUCCESS! I finally figured out the stupid pattern with the stupid threading and the stupid twining direction. It only took me two months to get to this point, with another seven metres worth of warp ahead of me. I'd just about given up on it and was just ignoring my loom sitting in the corner gathering dust because I didn't really want to waste that much silk warp, but someone else on the internet had the same problem as I did and I just kept an eye on the thread until the right bit of information popped up that inspired me to try something different. In this case it was a threading diagram that was different to all the others. Each pair of tabletsacts as one, with the same threading direction and all four holes threaded between them. So tablet 1 is threaded A and C, tablet 2 is threaded B and D. THEN HERE'S THE CRUCIAL BIT! THE NEXT PAIR IS THE OPPOSITE! So tablet 3 is threaded B and D, and tablet 4 is threaded A and C. None of the other threading diagrams I saw were laid out this way. Anyway, here's the entirety of the last two month's tears and tantrums:




I figured out the threading thing, but the pattern didn't come out (also I lost track of some tablets so the end of the motif is a complete mess), so I flipped all the tablets and realised the pattern was coming out wrong AGAIN and I needed to flip all of the tablets back, so I did that again but swapped which tablets had the threads at the top and then it finally worked. Also I've gone back to my usual double face two pack method, but I've stacked some books underneath my packs to support them so they don't flip onto the diagonal. It's still really easy for cards to turn without me realising, no matter how careful I am but I'm so familiar with how they're all threaded now that I can fix it. I still refuse to do any unweaving though, so any mistakes are staying. The band is exactly 18mm wide, which is too narrow, but it's unlikely I'll get it finished before the end of the reign. I might just gift it to Their Majesties when it's done. and they can do whatever they want with it.

Anyway, I'm off to Anealan Championship tomorrow where I'm going to have a nice relaxing weekend with naps and drinks around the fire and lots of yummy foods. The weaving is not coming with me because I'm not moving it from my kitchen table. This is not a transportable pattern.

A Story of Tantrums and Woe

I'm still finding it a bit difficult to find motivation for SCA things. So back in May when there was a call for people to help make ThrolfR and Halla a new wardrobe for their reign, I jumped at the chance to try some viking tablet weaving for one of His Majesty's coat. It took some time to figure out colours and what fibre to use, but eventually I got some 20/2 silk from Treenway in gold and white, to make a one inch wide Hochdorf band. Hochdorf #39 to be precise, using Amalie's pattern.

Two weeks ago I finally got around to making a warp. Since only two holes are threaded for this pattern, instead of the usual four, I had the BRILLIANT IDEA of putting both of my skeins on my yarn swift and making a continuous warp! The back of my mind was saying WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! because everyone knows string is evil, and string in skeins is exponentially more evil, so two skeins at once is a millionty times worse than the evil of just one skein.

Somehow, the string gods smiled on me and it worked! I have photographic evidence of two skeins on one yarn swift and a whole warp all neat and everything :D

That was two weeks ago. By now I should have finished the band, yes? Well, I think I'm paying my evil string debt or something, because it behaved during the warping process but as soon as I tried to move it to my loom it just tangled up into the most epic tangle ever tangled. So I have spent the last fortnight trying to untangle my 8m warp. There have been many tantrums, complete with swearing and throwing stuff. No photos because tantrum.

Yesterday I finally untangled my tangle, and I've used clothes pegs as bobbins to keep all the string separated and neat. So I tensioned the warp, wrote down the pattern and started weaving.

The first bit is where I tried to do the doubleface thing where one colour is on top and one on the bottom, because really this technique is the same as doubleface except there's just half the number of holes threaded. Obviously it wasn't working for me. After some searching on the internet I realised that every pair of tablets needs to have a thread in every hole. So it's like two tablets make a cord instead of one card making a cord. So I did some flipping and it started working! Kind of, my dimples are bigger than all the pictures of other bands and they're kind of in a line instead of being zig zaggy. Buuut I figured close enough, so I tried the pattern. The tablets are threaded alternating SS and ZZ, so I just guessed whether to start with S or Z. The first attempt of the pattern didn't have smooth lines, so I flipped all the tablets and tried again. STILL NO SMOOTH LINES AAAAAAAAAGH.

The other trouble I'm having is that since only two holes in each tablet are threaded, the tablets won't sit straight, they keep wanting to turn 45 degrees, which would be fine if they all wanted to turn the same way. But they don't so I've had to use one of my raddle clips to keep them all together, but I can't turn them while they're clipped, so I've been using the one pack method and turning my cards one by one, because I can hold them all together that way. It's very tedious. ALSO it's currently 2cm wide instead of 2.5cm because I didn't take into account the fact that I've only got half the amount of threads so of course the band will be narrower. DUH.

I'm not quite throwing another tantrum, I'm just taking a break because I'm on the verge of throwing stuff again. I have one more idea, and that is to swap which holes are threaded in each pair. At the moment the first card in the pair is threaded A and C, the second B and D so I'll try swapping them. Also I'm really hoping my calculations are correct and if I ever get this stupid thing figured out I'll still have enough warp left to get 6m of trim, because I refuse to do any unweaving with this. Unweaving will definitely lead to hulk smash and throwing stuff.

Honestly, this has just been a complete nightmare. I've never had this much trouble at every step of the process while tablet weaving, and usually if something goes wrong it kind of makes sense and I learn something. If anyone has any ideas of what I could be doing wrong and how to fix it, I'm all ears.

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.