Oh, fail.

Buckets and piles of fail.

I have A LOT to get done this week, and I just woke out of a sound sleep with the realization that I entirely screwed up the project I worked on all day.

*facepalm*

it's recoverable, but has made an already tight week really very, very difficult. :/

This weekend we held the Griffin Needle Challenge in Jararvellir and, now that I have slept a bit, I would like to offer a report and thanks. Apologies for any inaccuracies or omissions – some details doubtless have escaped me from tiredness…

 

We had nine teams compete in the Challenge. In the Intermediate category, we had the Handmaidens (and Huscarl) of Doom created a reproduction of the Skjoldeham find,the Flying Monkeys created an Italian gown, and the Byzantine Bobbins created their interpretation of Theodora’s outfit from the mosaic at Ravenna. In the Advanced category, Their Royal Highnesses’ Pleasure took on TWO outfits, making a gown and sideless surcoat for Her Highness and matching outfit for His Highness, and the House of Thornes sewed a German woman’s outfit. Lastly, in the Pyxis Division, Oni-Saru made a man’s Japanese outfit, G Force: Death, Dark, Blood made outfit including a coat and jupon _also_ for His Highness, Equestrians and Company created a Middle Eastern woman’s outfit, and Rusty Nails and Regular Beatings created a Pictish woman’s outfit.

 

There are already pictures up on Facebook and I am sure Shava will have hers up shortly.

 

First, I would like to thank my staff. Thanks to Shava and her staff who manned the gate and to the gate staff, Greta, Josceline and the others who acted as chatelaines as our presence garnered attention from all the hotel guests who came to Madison for the Badger’s Homecoming game and were surprised to find a sewing competition. Greatest thanks to Iohanna and her food-prep helpers - we were well fed all night and all day with tasty, nutritious, low-stain potential options and lots of munchies. Special thanks to the Judges – Ivan Matfeevich Rezansky, Robert the Stout, Roxelana Bramante, Cassandra of the Western Green, Marwen, and Niccolo Falconetto. In many ways, I think your jobs were the hardest! Lastly, thank you to all the competitors! This event, by definition, cannot happen without you. It was an exhausting, insane, AMAZING time and I hope you all had as good a time as I did!  

 

Oh, and while winning is not the point of the Challenge, the winner in each division is listed last in the above list. There were small prizes for the winners, but the real prize is the bragging rights, so congrats to Byzantine Bobbins, House of Thornes, and Rusty Nails and Regular Beatings!

 

For those of you who were unable to make it, you missed a wonderful event and a great display of the talents we have among us. Take a look at the pictures, talk to the folks who competed, and consider joining us next year!

 

Once again, thank you all… Now I’m off to sleep…

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It’s been a fortnight or more since I posted anything of consequence, so this is a general update-y post because it has been a busy few weeks.

 

On the last weekend of August, I traveled up to Windhaven with roxelana0com . They were hosting an Arts and Sciences Day - she was asked to teach C&I and I was asked to teach Research and Documentation. The class ran somewhat longer than it usually does, but there were a lot of questions and a lot of newer folks with a genuine interest in research. Squee!

 

When I got home, my mom came to visit, sadly not for a joyful reason. One of her best friends from college, the lady I was named after, in fact, had died rather suddenly. She had lived in McFarland, so my place was a good place to crash for the night before going to the funeral Monday morning. Unfortunately, I had a down-to-the-wire report to do at work, so I was not able to attend with her.

 

At the very end of the month, I found out at a particular Viking from Border Downs lost his job and so resolved to move to Madison. The loss of the job does not precisely please me, but I am looking forward to the relocation.

 

I am a spoiled girl and I have a ton of vacation, so when I realized that I could use 16 hours of PTO to avoid 18 hours of driving, I decided to go to Gimli, but then stay out in the West until Coronation. The original plan was to go out with TRM and return with TRM, but not the same people. ;) For a variety of reasons, I ended up coming back with cass_lee , though.

TRM dropped me off in Fargo and I joined missdoom and Mr S for the rest of the trip north. We stopped at the Hjemkomst Center since I’d never been there. It was neat to see the reconstruction of a Viking Ship that sailed to Norway in the 80’s but it was sort of disappointing to see all the modern stuff they left on the decks. And of course they wouldn’t let you get on board either. :P I actually liked the Viking Stave Church even better, I think. It was just gorgeous and I really wish we had geekage like that in Madison. Thanks in part to a fellow we met over the weekend, we are probably going to go up for the Viking weekend at the museum next June. Mmmmm… geeking en masse.

 

This was my first Gimli and it was a very good time… except for the mosquitos! Yipes! I swear they were swarming in the thousands! I didn’t really do much at the event other than hang out with folks and socialize and drink and sew. Granted, I did a lot of each of those! In all, a nice long weekend.

 

The week between Gimli and Coronation passed quickly, with sewing, a trip to Vermillion to pester Count Hagan for part of a project, sewing, a day up in Aberdeen, and more sewing. However, on the drive up to Fargo I discovered that even I have a limit and deciding to add 40’ of last-minute extra sewing was just too much for my shoulder. Hurray for back squishes, vitamin I, hot tubs, and Scotch!

 

Coronation went well and smoothly, at least as far as I could tell. sirzig and mightyjesse were safely installed as our next King and Queen and they were predictably adorable and squishy. The garb was done and looked pretty good. (All wool, silk, or linen, handsewn, hand embroidered, blah, blah, blah...) Thanks to the folks from Korsvag who wove all the trim on short notice! The weather was beautiful, if a tad too warm, but there was fighting to be had outdoors and all sorts of crafts indoors. I was a good little muffin and didn’t sew anything, but I did work a bit on an illumination that mysie drew and let me color. Yay! Coloring!

 

Saturday night there was much merrymaking and talking well into the night. It was a hard, hard thing to get up and leave early Sunday morning. cass_lee was merciful enough to allow me a waking-up waffle, but then we were on the road. I didn’t stay awake as much as I should have, largely due to the late night and the lack of homecoming project. Once back in Madison, we made a quick stop at my place, pitched out my stuff from the weekend, and then proceeded to Don G’s birthday party. Ooof. It was fun, but I didn’t even last until 10PM before I needed to bail and get to bed.

 

Luckily, I still had Monday off to recover. I also did a ton of laundry, cleaned the garage with devikat , had the Sears contractors over for an estimate and a guy over to tune the piano, so it was not a complete slacker day, but it was relaxing and ended with a lovely dinner with Blue.

 

Whew! Busy, but happy!

There really is just too much over Pennsic to do more than summarize the best parts of it.

We arrived very late on Friday night. It was dark and cold and wet. I made the executive decision that I would rather pay for a hotel room than try to set up in that. Hurray for one last night in a real bed!

I took two classes from Ragnveig Snorradottir - Viking Domestic Architecture and Denmark before Jellinge - they were both wonderful and I can highly recommend her as a teacher if you ever get out to Pennsic.

My classes were a smashing success! I had about 35-40 in my Pictish World class. The real winner was the Beautiful Rolled Hems class, though! I literally had eighty or more people show up! When I did the "magic" part of the stitch, the class went wild. The last row actually stood up and applauded... and the class next door came over to find out what the hell was going on. *grin* Since it was such a fast class, though, I snuck in a second class on whipcording for those that wanted to stay. (Spread the disease, spread the disease!) Even better, for the rest of the event,  I had random people scurry up to me to show me their just-completed projects. :) Happiness.

Revelation: People are willing to pay a reasonable amount for extensive handouts, provided they are quality handouts. Resolution: Must revise handouts so the Pictish World can have a freebie basic handout and an optional for-sale nice, fat illustrated packet . Nummy.

I finally got to meet judithsewstoo  in person. We geeked, the apprenti and I took her class, she gave me some tasty silk string and I gave her some feedback on her class.

Tuesday rocked. Waterbearing, classes, hanging out with the apprenti, fun in camp, the Northshield party, and a tipsy stumble home under starry skies. Splendid.

Apparently, I can corrupt people by osmosis - I got one of the Greyfox boys to start handsewing a linen tunic in camp. :) For some crazy reason, he wanted more than 3 shirts and asked for help picking out fabric, which I did... He looked disappointed that he would need to wash and dry it before he could do anything with it, but I then helpfully offered that I could show him how to cut it out of a piece of washed and dried linen that I just happened to have on site... I explained the stitches and the construction steps and offered to help him sew it, but by then he wanted to do it all himself. Hurray!

Further geeky fun - Bardic Bread around the fire and the "Greyfox A&S Pavilion" on our porch. :) It was too cold Wednesday night toget the bread to rise, but I baked over the fire on Thursday and Friday nights. Friday night I even got to try out a new yeast starter that was sent to me by one of the mercenary households. I only used about half, so now I have a little zoo on my countertop at home.

I took a very interesting and useful class about working on parchment and bought some calligraphy toys. I must talk to Gustov about some of what I learned/remembered.

The courts were full of twelve kinds of goodness. Congrats to everyone, especially our Draco Incarnates Leif and Astrid and to the geek-boys Duncan and Svein! :)

We made good time on the road home, got only moderately lost in Chicago, stayed mostly awake on I-90 (hurray for paying missed tolls online), and my traveling companion and I still liked each other when we got home. :)

Cool purchases: forged nails, pumice stones, soapstone for a viking lamp, jet beads, bone dice with ring-and-dot pips, and a giant silver button.

Best thing I learned: a completely stoopidly easy way of making circle/dot marks like are seen on so many early period artifacts. I can't believe it didn't ever occur to me, it was so obvious... Sometimes it's the simple things...

Best acquisition: A very nice mirror from Northstar Armories. I've wanted a period mirror for a long time but the ones I found were either ugly or not up to my standards in some way. This one is delicious in all ways and has a really spectacularly clear reflective side - most ot the metal mirors are a little on the fun-house mirror side. The mirror is modeled on the Trelan Bahow mirror, which is early even for me, but is essentially the same as those seen on the Pictish Symbol Stones. I found it after I spent my war budget, though, so I was foolishly waffling about it... but then Mr. Svein bought it for me as a War Prezzie. The first thing I did that night was sew a linen baggie to protect it. :)



See info on the mirror here and on general bronze age mirrors here.

Yay, War! Its good to be home, but I already miss it...

It has been a rough weekend on my hands...

All weekend long, and most of the next week I'll wager, I've been cutting and sewing and embroidering like a mad woman.

Saturday, I was picking up some last minute shower supplies when the wind caught the door and slammed it on my right hand. Then, later on, I accidentally grabbed the edge of the grill lid instead of the handle with my left hand. Ugh. Dual owies. Luckily, neither seemed to impart permanent damage beyond a few scrapes (right) and a shiny spot of just-melted skin (left). *sigh* Clumsy girl.

Today, I had more pleasant things in my hands -



Currants! Tart and nummy! I never see them for sale and love them SO much, so I finally broke down and planted some. I just planted the currant bushes this June, but one of them decided to put forth a little mini crop. I scarfed down a few yesterday, but otherwise, this is the full yield for this batch. Apparently there is usually a fall crop, so perhaps I'll get more in a few months and perhaps a few of the other plants will produce by then as well.

The rest of the week my hands will be busy too... Monday and Tuesday will be sewing like a crazed maniac, working on my class handouts, and packing. Wednesday will be fighters practice. Hopefully, Thursday will be the last bits of packing and early to bed to hit the road early on Friday!

( To Do List )

Where, oh where, has the summer gone?

I mean, looking at my calendar, it's pretty clear, but it's still hard to believe I have only a week before Pennsic and soooo much left to do in that time, not all of it War-related.

Mostly for my own benefit:
( Thursday through Sunday Schedule )

Now, to a certain extent, this is my own fault for procrastinating and for having an improbably long to-do list. I almost have enough garb for the week, definitely enough if I give up on being all-linen, all-handsewn all the time. However, I need some stuff to lend to other folks, I want to make some stuff for other folks, and there are a few items I really need/want. I don't think I'll get it all, but my ideal list is:

( To Do List )

Seventeen things... seven days... 2.4 items/day... you know, and work and a party and stuff...
   (Thurs - 1, Fri - 2, Sat - 2, Sun - 0 completed, but several started, Mon- , Tues- , Wed- , Thurs- )

Originally posted Thursday afternoon, updates as we go. ;)

Ladies, are you tired of those unsightly unfinished veil edges?    Yuck!
     Gentlemen, have you had trouble turning annoying narrow neckline hems?     Ooops!
           Have you made this disaster worse with horrifying serging?     Ugh!
                Have you tried to do the right thing only to have your fingers cramp and scream in protest?     Ouch!

Now you need not suffer one moment longer!


Here's how it works - using the easy-to-follow instructions and high-quality materials in this beautiful kit, even beginning sewers can master these simple but useful stitches and create hundreds of fabulous projects! Beautiful Tunics! Stunning Shirts! Perfect Pants! and more can be yours! Best of all, all the supplies needed to be a successful hand sewer are collected in a ready-to-use kit!

In addition to several classic stitches, Eithni's Magic Veil Stitch(tm) is included at NO CHARGE TO YOU (just pay separate postage and handling)! Use Eithni's Magic Veil Stitch to finish the edges of fine silk and linen veils! Never have to endure that awful serging again! Turn a tiny hem when you cut that sleeve just a bit too short! No more sleeves and hems just a *bit* too short and awkward!

Eithni's Handsewing Kit includes:
    * Beeswax                                 * Needlebook
    * 10 glass headed pins          * Two needles
    * Steel lacing bodkin               * Wood needle case
    * Brass thimble                        * Thread snips and case
    * Stiletto                                     * Linen thread
    * Silk thread


Kits come in "early-look" (black snips and cream/brown or black/cream stiletto) or "later-look" (gold snips and brown or black stiletto)

PLUS!
    * Directions and Instructions - Including Eithni's Magic Veil Stitch!

But WAIT! There's MORE! If you order RIGHT NOW, two projects will be included with your order!
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Yes, that's right! In a special offer for new handsewers, this kit is available for only $15!
Simply contact Eithni to pick one up at your next event!

It was a nice, quiet weekend after several weeks on the go. Friday, I actually had to work since I had traded for a Monday off a few weeks ago but it was pretty quiet as many people were out for Good Friday. That evening, I stayed home, got caught up on reading, sewed, and stayed up entirely too late. Saturday, I slept in, alternately reading in bed and dozing until folks came over for a little crafting day. relativelylucid  knit, leleth_faery  darned socks, S worked on her research, and mightyjesse  and I warped my loom. Well, partially warped my loom. We got about 3/5 of the way through before our shoulders gave out. That sounds pathetic until you know that 3/5 of the way is still about 300 strings - each through the reed and a heddle. Ooof. When it hit dinnertime, mightyjesse , S, and I went to pester sirzig  at work and make him make us a pub-a-licious dinner. Once home again, I had yet another late night of sewing and miscellenous research, topped off by going to bed with my new copy of Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd. Nummy. Sunday started much as Saturday did, with QEWU alternating with the Dublin Headcoverings book. I had a series of nice conversations with S, then my dad, then my mom, which alternately improved and exacerbated brain weasels. The rest of the day should have included yardwork but instead was filled with sewing and research.

The coming week will be busier, though. Monday is gardening with devikat , Tuesday is date night with mightyjesse , Wednesday is fighter practice, Thursday I have a hot date with gflower and may go to choir, and Friday, Saturday, Sunday I'll be in Montana, meeting my new nephew! Whew! 

I'm working on a project for my April Thing-a-Day and a thought has occurred to me. I am going to be attending Silks, Needles, and More and the sewing skill I most want to teach is something best taught in 1-4 people groups and generally can be taught in 5-10 minutes. Therefore, it is not necessarily a particularly good normal class. What do people think about my offering to hold a "wandering class" where people could catch me in the hall between classes, during lunch, etc and learn in small groups. I'd have kits and instructions, but then people would not have to waste a class period on a simple, but I think important, skill.

So... thoughts? comments?