Plodding Along

I don't like the new blogger interface. I. Don't. Like it *huff* Why does google feel the need to fix things that aren't broken? Hopefully I'll get used to it soon, like all the other changes to various things :P

Anyway, I just handed in the last assignment of the four I had in due the two weeks after festival, and I've caught up on all the lectures and stuff I missed in the couple of weeks before festival :P I've also been plodding along with SCA related stuff. In my last post I made a list of things I wanted to do for the Anealan 25th birthday camping weekend, which starts tomorrow. Number one was fix my shoes. I only had to fix one shoe actually, since there was only one hole. Thank goodness.

Here's a picture that Lady Celestria sneakily took while I wasn't looking. I fixed my shoe at the pas d'arms tourney I went to on Sunday. As Mister Nathan commented on facebook, the caption should read "stitch, whaa, stitch, whaa" because that's what I was doing. There was a lot of whining, and I don't apologise, because leatherwork is a tedious bitch and I don't like it *huff*

As a side note, notice the garb I'm wearing? Yes indeed, that is my gold cote under my parti-coloured surcote. I managed to fix one of the sleeves before festival, but I never ended up wearing it at festival. Lemme tell you, that cote is so much more comfortable now that only one sleeve pinches a bit. Now I just gotta fix the other one and it'll be all good! I also took the tippets off the surcote during the Anealan council meeting on Friday night, made them bigger, and reattached them, so now they actually fit around my arm instead of being too tight :) I do need to do a bit more work on that dress though, the opening at the front under the buttons needs some reinforcing, and I have no idea what I did wrong, but my stitching around all the buttonholes is coming undone too. How annoying.

Ok, number two on the list was to make new man-hose. I did that on Saturday. I had a very productive day in which I finished researching for my presentation on Monday, then cut out and machine sewed up a pair of man-hose, all before noon! Then I went to the Taylor's open-house day and finished all the seams and stuff. All that's left to do is a couple of lacing holes on each one so I can tie them to my belt...

Which was number three on the list! So. Belt. I've done this much:

That's about a foot of weaving there. I may be really skinny, but there's no way that's gonna fit around my hips. You can see I've been playing with changing the threading direction and stuff. I just wanted to see what would happen and how the band behaves. Now my cards are all jumbled up instead of all sitting neatly together with the A hole at the top. My slight obsessive compulsiveness is quite bothered by this :P I've also been a bit uninspired with this one, especially since the forecast is for relatively warm weather on the weekend, so I probably won't end up wearing my man-cote anyway. I toyed with the idea of whacking up a linen one out of whatever spare linen I could find lying around, but that idea only lasted about two minutes before I realised that I only had about four hours in total to finish the entire thing.

I might get my embroidery out to work on over the weekend. It's been rather neglected since uni started and I had festival projects to do. The next couple of weeks are pretty quiet assessment-wise, so I should have time to start another project, and do some mending of old things. This should mean more blog posts! Then more assessments will happen, then exams, then holidays! I have big plans for the holidays, plans which include dying more fabric and making wool cotehardies, and finally starting the patterning process for epic German gown of epicness :)

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!

THREE MORE SLEEPS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Things

I meant to update about this sooner but things happened and I didn't get a chance. Good news! My shoes are fixed! I talked to some people on Tuesday night through my tears, and the general consensus was that the cobbler is an idiot and should never have put rubber on my shoes. So I plucked up my courage and decided to go back on Wednesday morning. I thought I was very reasonable in saying that I expected leather, and thought he'd at least understand why it never crossed my mind to specify leather. Apparently not. Apparently it's completely unreasonable to expect leather soles on handmade leather shoes. These days everyone gets rubber, and anyway they're all just shoes to him, handmade or not. Well. Clearly he's very good at his job and can appreciate the hard work that went into my shoes. We ended up coming to an agreement, which meant that I ended up with leather soles on my shoes for $80 all together. He quoted me leather soles at $70, so I only paid $10 more. If the quote was correct. I have a feeling I paid a bit more, but it still ended up cheaper than taking my shoes elsewhere to get them fixed. I'm so glad they're fixed, but I feel like I went through an Ordeal to get them there. I will never be going back to that cobbler, and I will be seriously recommending that no one else ever goes there. He was a mean little man. I'm quite happy to take on some of the blame, because I made a wrong assumption. But he also made a wrong assumption, and how is a customer supposed to know what goes on in the industry? Just because most people get rubber on their shoes, doesn't mean that everyone wants rubber. If the default is rubber, fine, but I really think that being given a pair of handmade leather shoes should prompt you to at least clarify that rubber is the default. I never said leather, but he never said rubber.

Moving on. On Friday I came home to find a package! In it were these:

Nancy Spies is selling off all her books, and I got these for $65 including postage :D I am very pleased. She was very sweet and they came wrapped in nice tissue paper, and...

She signed them! I felt all warm and fuzzy when I saw that. I've had a quick flick through them, but I probably won't get a chance for a proper look until after I get back from Festival. OMG eight days until I leave for Festival! I am nowhere near ready. I've finished my man underwear and cut out my man-cote, but I still need to sew it all up, make buttons, cut out and put together a hood, and make a cloak, AND deal with uni things. Stupid uni getting in the way of fun stuff.

There was a feast on Saturday. It was the college's newcomers feast. Remember the brocaded tower belt I made a while ago? That was for the A&S competition at this feast. At about 4pm on Saturday I was racing around printing indemnities and sewing and packing things because I really needed to be leaving very soon, and Mister Nathan happened to mention the A&S on facebook chat. I had totally forgotten all about it, I hadn't put a buckle on the belt or finished my documentation. I had a mini panic attack, then whacked on a D-ring with the sewing machine, and typed up a page of something that passed as documentation all in about 20 minutes. I was a bit angry at myself for forgetting, but I'm so glad I didn't just give up, because my entry was the third entry which meant the actual competition could run, and I won it! Yay! I think I won because I had documentation, even if it wasn't exactly great, because Edmund's pewter towers scored one point less than I did, and he didn't have any documentation at all. So it just goes to show, any documentation is good documentation :P

This morning I skipped my lectures in favour of productive things, like writing up my constable's report from the feast and washing my garb. I just chucked in a few things that needed washing from last week and this week, which included a chemise, my old white cotehardie and my partlet. WELL, those things came out pink. I'd chucked my red cote in too, because I'd prewashed the fabric and I've never had any problem with fabric-store.com linen colours running in the wash. NOT THIS TIME. That stupid red cote not only turned all my white things pink, including my new chemise and the partlet that Mistress Catherine made, but the lining also ripped out from the sleeves, and frayed all over the place. Now I have extra mending to do. Anyway, I saw the pink things and panicked, filled a bucket up with bleach and shoved them in. I left them for about half an hour before rinsing them in the wash, and they're mostly white now. Once I've posted this I will be hanging them out in the sun to bleach some more. I think the crisis has been averted. I really hate that stupid red cote now. Stupid malicious red cote *glares*

I will leave you now with a picture of me in my underwear:

Stupidity

A year ago I suddenly decided that I desperately needed period turnshoes for Rowany Festival. With something stupid like three weeks until Festival, my only option was to make them myself. I thought this was a good option since it would get me shoes on time, and it is significantly cheaper to buy the leather than to buy already made shoes. So I spent two entire weekends with Mister Nathan, who walked me through the entire process and listened to my constant whining because it turns out that making shoes is a tedious and painful business. My poor hands were sore for weeks afterwards. But I ended up with my very own pair of 14th century turnshoes which I had completely made from scratch.

The only problem was that the soles were too thin. I plastered a ridiculous amount of scotch guard and dubbin on them, but the damp just leaked straight through. With two weeks to go until Rowany Festival again, and with my man-cote outfit planned and the underwear almost finished, there's no way I can wear my gumboots. Gumboots under a skirt is one thing, or with a crappy viking tunic worn over a jumper and leggings, but not with hose and brais and a nice wool cote. But seeing as it's so wet in NSW at the moment, even more than usual, my thin little soles don't stand a chance. So I decided to take my shoes to a shoe repair place and get them to nail on a nice new thick sole.

I dropped them off today before work, and after work I picked them up. My medieval turnshoes now have rubber soles on them. Rubber. On my MEDIEVAL shoes. RUBBER. [Insert obscenities here]. I am completely aware that it is my own extreme stupidity that let this happen, because somehow I neglected to mention that I wanted leather soles on my medieval shoes. The thought didn't even cross my mind that they would use something other than leather. So I just paid for my rubber soles and headed straight for my car, where my stupidity started sinking in. I bawled my eyes out the whole way home, because all my hours of hard work have been wasted, because my medieval shoes now have rubber soles. I just want to bury them in the bottom of my closet and forget that they ever existed, but that will have to wait until after Festival. My feet may have a chance at staying dry this Festival, but I would much rather they got soaked.

I might just curl up in the corner and wallow in self misery for the rest of the evening.

Dyeing Adventures

I treid my hand at dyeing fabric for the very first time today. It was a very nerve wracking process. I wanted the wool I bought from Homecraft Textiles to be green, so I can have a cloak which is purple on the outside and green on the inside, since they are my heraldic colours.

Materials:

Blue-ish coloured wool, a packet of dye and some vinegar! IDye is a popular brand here in Aneala, I've heard good things about it, so I thought I may as well give it a try. The outside of the packet makes it all seem so simple, so I got a bit of a shock when I opened the packet and found a whole bunch of detailed instructions for different methods. There's two different kinds of iDye, one group for natural fabrics, and one for polyester. I had no idea what sort of blend my wool is, but it felt like mostly wool so I thought I'd just get the natural dye and if there was some poly in there that didn't take the dye it wouldn't really matter because most of it would be green and it's only for a lining anyway. The packet recommends buying one of each and putting them both in for blends.

Anyway, after dropping into the local supermarket for white vinegar, I started filling up the washing machine with hot water. The hot water thing worried me a bit, since fabric tends to shrink in hot water, but the dye needed hot so I suppose there was no other way. It was very exciting when the packet burst open and the water all turned green, and then the fabric went in:

Hot water with green and fabric! The fabric didn't want to get wet, so I spent a bit of time trying to dunk it all under and get rid of air bubbles. My fingers have a slight green tinge now :P. I let the machine do it's thing until it started thinking about draining the water, then I quickly reset the cycle to start from the beginning so there would be more time for the dye to soak in. There was a lot of flailing around and staring anxiously at the closed machine as it did it's thing.

When it had finished I was left with this! I then put it through another normal cycle with some detergent, because the instructions said so. I knew it was going to shrink, but when I pulled it out of the machine I realised that the selvedge didn't shrink. It's all wibbly. I hung it out and measured the length to see how much I'd lost. I started with 4 metres, and now I have 3.4 metres. I lost 60 centimetres! I think that is rather a lot to lose. I wasn't expecting it to shrink quite that much. Anyway, I should still have enough for a cloak, although there will be some epic pondering about how to cut it out and whether I need to piece it together.

The finished product, with some more of the same wool that I didn't dye. A before and after shot. The packet of dye was meant for only about 1kg of fabric. I suspect I had more than 1kg of fabric and it could possibly have done with two packets, but all the colours on the packet are a guide for fabric being dyed from white, rather than from this random bluish colour. Basically I had no idea how this would turn out, but I'm quite happy with the end result even though I would have preferred a darker green. Also, the whole thing seems to have taken the dye, so it must consist of mostly natural fibres. Stay tuned for turning it into a cloak!

I also managed to cut out some brais and a shirt and do all the machine stitching. Tonight I'm going to the Achenfeld A&S meeting, and hopefully I shall at least mostly finish the hand sewing. Tomorrow I need to pay some attention to my uni work. I tried working on my external unit while the wool was in the machine, but I couldn't concentrate, so now I have more that I need to do tomorrow :(