Happy birthday, apprentice o' mine! 

I hope you had a good time with the 'rents and we'll celebrate properly next Wednesday!

Bright and early on Friday morning, cass_lee  showed up at my house to head to Minot for Crown Tourney. I was even mostly ready, save feeding the birdies and collecting my electronics that had been charging overnight. Sadly, I did NOT have the car packed to the gills with linen - the order never came! I contacted the warehouse today and should have an answer soon. Once hopes they do not simply misplace 500 yards of linen! I managed to be good company for a few hours before getting a little nap. I am not a morning person and early morning car ride = sleepy Eithni. The trip out was essentially unremarkable except for our stop at the Perkins of Fail. We stopped for dinner at Perkins in Jamestown, ND and discovered that their WiFi was defective, their ladies' room had plumbing issues, the waiter had SERIOUS B.O., and the roast beef was an iridescent green. Luckily, cass_lee  noticed before either of us had eaten much. (I'd had one piece, she'd had none.) The manager replaced the roast beef dinners with whatever we wanted - she ordered a pasta bowl, but they were temporarily out of the pot pies that were my second choice, so I ended up with a plate of fried mozzarella sticks for dinner. I figured something deep fried ought to be pretty safe and I'd been craving melty cheesy goodness anyway. We got into Minot around 9:30, got checked into the hotel, and then cass_lee  got ready for bed while I went to investigate whether there was any trouble to be gotten into. Sadly, we were at the Super 8 and most of the other folks were at the Holiday Inn, so there was no trouble to be had. My bedside lamp was bright enough cass_lee  could not sleep with it on, so I couldn't read in bed either, until I remembered that I had downloaded The Complete Works of William Shakespeare onto my dorkPhone. dorkPhone FTW! Somewhere around midnight I turned it off and went to sleep since we had to be up tragically early on Saturday.

Saturday indeed came early, but we had Perkins' muffins for breakfast and then headed out. Sadly, the MapQuest directions cass_lee  had downloaded bore no resemblance to reality and we ended up staring at some residential homes when it told us we were at our destination. dorkPhone again to the rescue! It got us to the site, but we did not immediately recognize it since, for some odd reason, the directions brought us to the back of the building. However, upon checking the name of the site, we quickly were able to recover and get inside. Then there was a flurry of prep work to complete, a run off-site for some essentials, and a quick polish of the crowns, which were in an appalling state. So, when morning court started, I was still in my mundanes, covered in metal polish and tarnish goo. Nummy. Oh well, His Majesty had been a big fat meanie and said I couldn't carry the axe anyway. ;P I quickly got cleaned up, dressed, and was on hand by the time any run-and-fetch-it services were needed, so we were just fine. I don't think I missed more than the Fealties, anyway. After the presentations, I spent a little time schmoozing with folks, delivering the items I had to give/return to folks, and apologizing to the folks who were expecting linen. Luckily, only one person from the West had ordered linen, so I'll send her share via SCA mail at some point (probably Rythym and Bruise) and the rest of the folks will be at or have representatives at Clothiers.

Then I checked in with cass_lee  and when she did not require any immediate assistance, set up my Evil Web. I was gratified to catch my first victi... er... student quite quickly and then spent the rest of the day teaching a series of people how to do whipcording. There were even a few people who asked about it after I had cut down my web and I simply sent home with a kit, but now there is an online tutorial for folks to use, even if they have not gotten an in-person lesson! Squee! Geekage! The rest of the day, except for an unfortunate interlude, was happily spent schmoozing, geeking, and trying to help out.

But, back to the purpose of the day! My attention was not on all of the bouts, especially the early ones or the ones when I had a shiny new student, but I did try to pay attention if Roisin or Stephen were fighting. As we got toward the end, I yielded to more geeky impulses and posted updates on the Northshield and Jara Halls from the dorkPhone. Therefore, I was able to announce the results of the finals before the crowns were on TRH's heads. :) Vivant to TRH Stephen and Ailleanne! It will be a busy year in Jara!

One of my most important tasks of the event was to make a presentation in Court. My lovely and wonderful foster-apprentice mightyjesse  had worked on a few projects for goldfrog  but could not be at the event and could not wait to have them presented. TRM's allowed me into court, giant grin and all, and I explained that as a Laurel, I felt I should teach my apprenti to support the Kingdom with their Arts - whereupon I happily presented goldfrog  with a bar of homemade soap that mightyjesse  made, including a wool baggie to be used as an abrasive scrubby. (The joke here being that goldfrog gets her own weight in soap over the course of a reign and really doesn't need another bar.) goldfrog  was gracious, but suspicious, since she knows that I am full aware of the volume of soap she recieves, so I continued to explain that, while a Queen is rarely stinky, she very often needs to be clothed, and presented the Viking gown I had concealed behind my back under my brat. *grin* The splendidness of mightyjesse 's work was displayed and I explained to the crowd that the dress was handsewn and hand embellished with linen, that that fabric itself was handwoven and the weft handspun. The crowd and HrRM were suitably impressed. :)




There are more photos of the presentation on the Northshield Gallery or at mightyjesse 's entry.

After all the meetings and court, the idea was that I would find some folks to go out to dinner with while feast went on, since I did not get feast. As it was, the couch in the Royalty Room was calling my name and I had a little nappy-nap instead. After feast, we packed up TRM's stuff, Roisin threw some of her stuff into my car, and I took cass_lee  back to the hotel. She was beat, but I, feeling better after my nap, went out to the Holiday Inn to postrevel. I had misunderstood the location of the hotel - I thought I had seen the State Fair Grounds on the way into town, but I had actually seen the State Fair OFFICES, with no Holiday Inn in sight. So I stopped by the site again to get better directions, which were indeed obtained, but then had the everliving crap scared out of me as I tried to leave. You know how when you reach for a door and it suddenly swings open just as your hand should hit it and you are surprised when there is someone there? Now imagine being a little on the tired side and it being a back-lit ingusmoen  on the other side of the door. Yipes! ;) It was funny as soon as my heart stopped going 4,000 beats per minute!

The Postrevel was good. Very good, actually. :) I had brought a bottle of good Scotch, I got to spend casual time with TRM, I got to hang out with a lot of my favorite people (including some I see quite rarely), I got to engage in some truly geeky conversations about the Picts and assorted other research topics, and otherwise had a jolly good time. There was a little bit of mystifying drama at the end of the night too, but overall, the postrevel was, I think, a splendid win. We'll see what comes of the various conversations and contacts, but - if nothing else - I think there will be good fun and geeking as a dividend.

Sunday came altogether too soon, even though I was in bed and sleep at a reasonably respectable hour, cass_lee  wanted to leave early and we did, but we fought snow and wind and other yuck for much of North Dakota. Minnesota was better and by the time we crossed the Wisconsin state border, the weather was downright lovely. The colors of the fall foliage and the nice warm breezes were a welcome change from the sleet and dark we left in Minot. :P

Monday, by some happy accident, I had off from work. I usually do not work Fridays, but my coworker needed this Friday off, so I offered to trade. I got a recovery day, she got her needed day off, we both got a four day weekend - wins all around! I spent the day sleeping in, reading in bed, taking an appallingly long shower, reading in bed, sewing my mom's Christmas present (which took entirely longer than it ought to have, ugh!), catching up on email, watching the Daily Show/Colbert Report, posting here, and soon I'll be to bed for one last round of reading in bed before going to sleep at a decent hour.

A very long, but lovely four days! 

Here's a photo of my garb for Coronation. If you look closely, the outer layer has green, red, and purple froggies! Squee!



So... I realized that this outfit made me a Japano-Scot.... Even worse, I may have been JaPictanese. ;)




( And photos of Katlyn's apprenticing under the cut! )

I'm a bit belated in making introductions, but I would like to introduce all of you on my friends list to my very first student of Pictish Studies! Welcome to judithsewstoo! She is a lady out of the Shire of Dernehealde in the Middle Kingdom, where she goes by  Fionnseach de Lochielle. She is interested in Pictish culture, in particular weaving and other arts associated with clothing.

Squee! I have a Pictish student! *happydance*   Don't worry, ilaifire, mightyjesse, and K, I still love all of you as well... I just am thrilled to actually have a student in my specific period and culture of interest.  (Even better, she follows what appears to be my "rule" for apprenti/fosters/students - they have to be bulletproof and willing to be fed rusty nails. I am not a gentle Mistress as far as feedback is concerned. ;P)

Anyway, since she lives on the other side of Oooooohhhhhhiiiiiioooooo, we will be mostly communicating electronically, so you may not see her at events, but I suspect you'll run into her commenting here on my journal. :) Welcome, Finch!

Please bear with me, this is a longish post... It has been a busy and difficult week with no posts, so now I have a bucket of little tidbits saved up that have been simmering for a few days - some brain stew, if you will. I likely will have one or two significant posts on specific topics in the coming days, but to get the little stuff out:


Linen
The first batch of linen came in. The good news? It will be $4/yard. The bad news? It is significantly lighter weight than the previous batches from this seller. I have some linen from other sources just arrived or enroute (from jtdiii and other dealers) so I should be able to fill all the orders for light-medium weight black linen, but I now have some excess 55" wide black handkerchief weight (~3.5 oz) linen for sale. I have about 60 yards, $4 a yard while it lasts - comment or email.  The gold linen is also in and cut, so orders for white, black, gold, and brocade linens will all be available for pickup at Coronation.


Birdies
Tweet and Derelei have pretty obviously decided to be a bonded pair and she has been making nesting-type gestures for a bit now, so I bought her a nesting box. However, this as brought issues with Astrid to a head - the boys were willing to accept the box as Tweet's and only Tweet's. They quickly clued in that they should not mess with it beyond the occasional nibble on a corner. Astrid is naughtier though. She was all interested in the box and, even after some pretty solid smack downs, insisted on messing with it. Nevermind that before this time she showed no interest in nesting and, even if she were interested, her potential partner options are... erm... poor. I lurves the boys, but they are somewhat lovably defective. I'm not even sure that they are clear that she's a girl. I eventually had to separate them so poor Astrid is spending some time in "birdie jail" - a smaller cage I keep for such eventualities. I'll give them a few days to cool down and then see if giving Astrid a box too will solve the problem. Keep your fingers crossed for me...


Work
Gods, work is eating my brainz. It is public enough now I can explain. Care Wisconsin is part of the Wisconsin Partnership Program (WPP) that serves at-risk populations of special needs patients. Care Wisconsin's population is almost 700 frail elderly patients. One of our sister WPP organizations, Community Living Alliance (CLA), serves Developmentally Disabled (DD) and Physically Disabled (PD)  populations. For a variety of reasons, they will be transferring all their Partnership patients to us as of May 1. That is nearly 400 extremely complicated patients suddenly joining our plan all at once, for a total census of 1,100 patients for whom I am responsible. Yoiks. This also means that since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services won't let the get rolled into our existing formulary, I have to maintain and report on two separate programs through the end of the year (read: gigantic headache). Plus, the Nurse Practitioners at CLA are not used to our model of practice, so there will be a huge amount of adjustment and hand-holding in the coming months as the new staff and patients are integrated. I will have some pharmacy help for the month of May and we are looking to hire someone ASAP, but with the pharmacist market being what it is, I'm not very hopeful. We have a great work environment, great benefits, and we are doing good work. However, it is hard work and the compensation is below average, even for Madison, so it is hard to attract people away from the "big guys" like the UW and Walgreens. Throw in the added fun of developing the 2009 formulary and my days are packed and often long.


Sewing
I am so inspired by the books I have been reading, the files I have been obtaining from museums, and the lectures I went to in Milwaukee. Now I just need 20 yards of a scrumptious white and gold brocade, 100 yards of matching narrow trim, 40 yards of matching wide trim, 15 yards of a scrumptious velvet, 50 yards of compatible trim, 500 pearls, 1000 free hours to work on it and a budget of $4000 to appropriately accessorize. :P The late period stuff is so pretty, but SO expensive. (Note to all y'all beginning sewers - more expensive to do it right, not actually and harder, however.) At least I have a giant stash of pearls... Anyway, dread_ex, ladyroisin, relativelylucid, casslee, corvusjoyous and likely others will hopefully benefit from my recent studies as they have clarified how to correct some issues I've seen in dresses and how to go about correctly drafting others... Now just to find at least some of that time and motivation...


Library Woes
Some of you heard me complaining last week that I needed to return one of the books in my "permanent collection" - books hardly anyone else ever needs or uses and so live on my bookshelf where I can refer to them at my leisure, as I use them regularly. (whymc refers to his as his "remote library storage facility" so I'm not the only one...) However, I have not been good about checking my UW email this semester and, to my horror, I discovered last week that not only did some wretched little undergrad RECALL my book, but I was a miserable library patron and it was now overdue. Now this did not present a financial problem - the UW does not charge overdue fines - it DID however pose a problem for using ILL (Inter Library Loan) services, which were the reason I was logging in at all. Blast and Damn. So, I swiftly returned the book so I could have my ILL rights reinstated.

Tonight, I discovered that the wretched little undergrad who recalled the book was none other than
jinglymushroom... who was recalling it forilaifire. ;P At least I know the boy is using good sources.


May Day/Jararvellir's 35th Anniversary
Jara's Anniversary event (May 3) is coming up quite rapidly. The theme this year is an educational symposium. While there are a fair number of classes already on the schedule, we could use more. Please contact me if you would be willing to teach! My "One Kingdom" track only has one opening left, but there are many throughout the day. Also, Jara folk in particular - get in your Baronial and AoA recommendations ASAP so I can start plotting to give people what they des... errr... to reward people appropriately. ;)


Quest
I am planning on attending Quest this year and just bought the airline ticket, so I am pretty firmly committed. (It falls in May when I will be having back-up at work, so by god I'm going...) Since I don't get out to that end of the Kingdom terribly often, I am thinking about offering a class or two. Last time I was out there (Crown Tourney, Fall 2007) I offered both Research and the Pictish Tunic classes. Both of those classes had only about a half dozen students each, so it probably would be OK to do either or both of them again, but I have many others in the repertoir, including Pictish history, Whipcording, 10 sewing tips in 5 minutes or less apiece, dyeing, misc sewing and embroidery techniques, autocratting, waterbearing,  rapier armor/garb, beginning illumination, surviving War, building a period/periodiod kit, etc. plus others that could be developed based on interests/needs. The dyeing and C&I ones would be harder to transport materials for and/or teach in uncertain outdoors conditions, but the rest are do-able. Any of you folks with more of a grasp on the interests and needs of the West end of the Kingdom want to chime in on what I should offer to teach (either from the list or as a wish-list?)? Conversely, anyone who has been to Quest, could you tell me what you most recommend about the event?


Yay! That's all for now! Watch tomorrow for either a report on inspirational research or a session on pharmaceutical education, depending on time and my whim. Maybe you'll be "lucky" and get both.

Monday was a Good Day.

* Just past midnight, I got the notice that some friends had welcomed their son into the world. Happiness and extreme cuteness!

* First thing this morning, I got an email that the wonderful and talented Edwin finished a cart for me and I may get it as soon as this weekend. (Minions, take note, this cart will be a factor in your education, I am certain. ;P)



* Then, I got positive confirmation that I will be getting the help I need in the Pharmacy department at work. I may need to cut my hours a but to make it work, but it is really going to happen!

*Oddly enough, my body is still not hating me. I need a prescription for twice a week hot tub and mudslide days, I guess. *grin*

* With a bit of a lead from damej, All Things Considered and Newsweek, I got the placebo article (see previous post).

* I made tasty dinner - a chicken dish that even kumakun would eat, despite its being covered in suspicious Greek seasoning. Yum! ;)

* I got some happy email and birdie time - one of the few (and minor) failures of the day was delaying the linen order AGAIN - the online shipping calculator won't work for the volume of linen I am ordering and then I got a last minute request from Toshikage and some CAM folks. Tomorrow, tomorrow we will have success and tasty linen, however!

* Then I had tea and talkies with a friend. It is nice to be useful and loved. :)

* And finally, I had a Shamrock Shake and Fries for a bedtime snack.

Life rarely gets better. :)

First of all, to everyone who came to Gulf Wars North, especially those who helped out with food prep or clean up - Thank You! Special kudos to ego_id_non_feci  for all her work!

Friday night fencingkitty and kumakun were still packing when ego_id_non_feci and iarroganti arrived. Noting his tragic lack of linen clothing, kumakun and I began working on a new pair of pants lateish in the evening. He was doing all of the pinning and sewing, I was just providing technical support, so I whipped out a shirt for him in between giving directions. We were up entirely too late getting it done, but the shirt was finished and the pants were at the hand sewing and buttons phase by the time fencingkitty and kumakun went to bed. I stayed up a bit later yet, prepping fabric for Sunday's dye-fest and baking bread to send as provisions to Gulf Wars South.

Saturday morning began entirely too early, but as soon as I was up we were off and running! Sol was our first arrival and right away pitched in to help with cooking, but she was very quickly followed by many others and the house was very soon filled with people and crafting on all floors. I am happy to say that the Home for Wayward Girls was able to provide all the materials and facilities the various crafters and cooks requested, save a flour sifter, but a suitable substitute was procured even for that. The crafts of the day included sewing, embroidery, knitting, research, martial arts of various sorts, fletching, armoring, cooking, and more. iarroganti and lrdfaelan brought me a fun mid-cooking surprise - they went out for some party supplies and came back with a great stuffed froggie! :)

The food supply could only have been called abundant all throughout the day. There were snacks and goodies available all day and at dinner time the kitchen was nearly completely covered in food! I sampled a little bit of everything and was just sorry I didn't have the capacity for more! I particularly liked the BBQ turkey damej brought and the lamb nuggets we made, even though they were nearly the death of relativelylucid and ego_id_non_feci who were unfortunate enough to inhale my pepper powder. arebekah, although she knows me to have a high tolerance for hot foods, failed to read the ingredients on the spice jar I identified as being my "hot pepper powder" and so applied it liberally to the meat, unintentionally unleashing a chemical weapon against the other fine ladies. Other than that incident and some minor messes, dinner went well. Afterwards, we indulged in fruity drinks, including margaritas, pear martinis, cosmos, and more. I failed to remember to bring out the Goldschlager, but we did enjoy some tasty Jello shots (thanks teffan!) and passed around shots of a Tobermory 10 year Scotch that Robert the Stout brought to share. I didn't take photos during the party because I was so busy with infrastructure procurement/cooking/research assistance/socialization, but I could not resist this one of my dear little apprentice working on his linen shirt.


Tasty linen!

Late in the night, after some of us had partially recovered from dinner, we capped off the over indulgence with a sundae bar. I think the party finally shut down around 4AM, but I stayed awake another hour, again prepping for the dyeing day on Sunday.

Today a smaller group of ladies assembled at the Home for Wayward Girls to work on dyeing while others went to the Stock Pavilion for practice. We got a slightly late start, in part due to the evils of Daylight Savings Time, but ego_id_non_feci, dread_ex, arebekah, Alissende, and I were productive enough over the course of the day to make up for it. Because the various dye shop orders were delayed, we decided to forgo working with the limited amounts of madder and cochineal that we had on hand and instead worked with onion skins and birch bark dyes. I DID receive my 50 pound bag of alum, however, so if we decided we wanted to pickle kids instead of just boiling them, that is an option. ;)



Dyeing uses a lot of alum as a mordant, but I generally would not have purchased quite this quantity, except that I found it at a food supply warehouse so inexpensively that, even after paying for shipping, it still was a quarter of the price as I would have paid for the stuff from a dye supply store.

Sadly, the birch bark dye was largely a failure, yielding only a tannish color, but perhaps the dyestuffs were of poor quality since I had skinned a downed and partially decomposed log for the bark. I'll have to try again with fresher ingredients sometime, but it can be difficult, since it is the inner skin that produces the dye, so the dyestuffs cannot be harvested from living trees. If anyone is cutting down a birch tree, let me know...

The onion skin dyeing went much better, producing a range of yellows and greens. We discovered through this process that the three-kindergartner pot is probably iron, not whatever metal the merchant told us, since the test samples from the red onions skins turned green, not red. Post-washing, the dyed fabrics turned green-gold, so any true greens will need additional iron assist, but a mordant may not be strictly necessary with this pot. Photos of the results will be forthcoming, as soon as the washing is done. The first finished samples washed up beautifully though - that particular batch of heavy, loose weave linen was just scrumptious. Tragically, I only have 10 yards or so left at this point...

Here are some preliminary pictures of the dyeing process:


Smile and say "Mordant!"


Mmmm... A beer, linen, and goose-shit green dye, what more do you need?


At Gulf Wars North, we even had a green lawn!

Special thanks to Alissende and goldfrog for the loan of their turkey fryers - I really need to get me one of those. More fire is always fun and these worked perfectly well, even with the ginormous pot.

So, now that everyone has gone, I did some cleaning, passed out for awhile, will do some more cleaning (but much of it will wait until tomorrow), and then be off to sleep for a week, I think. (My body feels like I really went to a War, at least!) I had a great time this weekend - thank you to all of you who came and made it so enjoyable!

Wow, what a weekend!

I spent last week sewing like a damned fool - half because I had not been able to do my Twelfth Night gifts until then and half because I took on an (at the time) last minute secret commission. Luckily, the stars aligned and I was feeling pretty good and was able to reschedule a few things to give me enough time to pull off most of my Twelfth Night plans...

The maniacal sewing was largely due to taking on a commission to do gflower's Laureling "cloak." I was so completely overjoyed to hear the news - within half an hour of her elevation being announced, I had volunteered to do sew the cloak. After evaluating my stash, however, I decided that a hood was more appropriate to her persona and the fabric I had on hand. The face fabric is a fine black lambswool and the lining a soft green linen. The embroidered leaves are done in Rainbow Linen (thanks, arebekah!) and the applique in silk floss  on a linen field. Unlike many of my recent projects, there are no in-process photos - there simply was not time! There was, however, time to make a tiny matching hood for Colleen. *grin* A girl must have priorities!

Congratulations to the lovely and most deserving gflower!

I had my own Laurel-ly happiness for the day - ilaifire became my apprentice. He is technically my second apprentice, but I share the lovely mightyjesse with an Eastern Laurel and ilaifire is mine, all MINE. Bwahahaha.... *cough* Erm. Yeah. ;) He has been a wonderful student thus far and I am looking forward to continuing to work with him. He is such a nice, energetic, and talented boy - I am very proud to have him as an apprentice.

(Photo here when the NS Gallery stops hating me!)
EDIT: It decided to love me at 2AM :P


The rest of the day was a blur of laughter and talking and munching... I got to spend some time with friends rarely seen and even got to hang out a bit with jtdiii, when he wasn't hiding outside in the subzero temperatures. :P

One of my favorite activities of Twelfth Night is the prezzies! I love to give gifts to people, especially when I know I have just the right thing for someone dear... To those of you who I told my Twelfth Night gifts would be bottle covers, my apologies - I am keeping that idea for next year. Instead, it was a hodge-podge of toys and treats - chocolate of several sorts, peppermint sticks (regular, giant, and with gummy creatures), thimbles, knitting needles, fighter bags, sewing kits, first aid kits, scissors, chess games, checker games, beeswax, books, boxes, and more... In other words, a great big toybox full of goodies for people to choose from. Then I had special gifts for a selection of folks, little treasures stowed away over the course of the year. (OK, over the course of the last three months. I'm terrible at holding onto a gift for someone - I'm just to eager to give it and see their face!)

In return, I got an amazing array of goodies - cookies that were quickly devoured, a little snowglobe that sadly did not make it home in one piece, TWO beautiful froggie ornaments, an awesome book on the Lewis Chessmen, a stick for beating apprent... er... porridge, and more. Yay, prezzies! Thanks to everyone who brought me toys! I was able to catch up with nearly everyone I needed to see and hope to catch the remaining few over the course of the next week or so. If I missed you at the event, Happy Twelfth Night!

Sunday was a trip to SR Harris (of course), dropping off jtdiii at the airport, a lovely tour of IKEA, a quick stop at valkyr8's house and a long, long drive home... I good, if exhausting weekend...

I would like to invite all of you who will be attending Nordskogen's Twelfth Night to join me after the morning court to witness as I take my student ilaifire as my apprentice. He has been a little lax as a student, so I have requested he become my apprentice so I may beat him properly. ;) Exact location will be determined on site once we see the layout of the site.

EDIT: I should think about making an order  from the campus shop of the Attack Laurel Academy. *grin* The Academy fully supports apprentice... correction. Well, at least they provide support groups.