Stupid weight loss (and the lack thereof)

I'm at a totally irritating weight plateau. I've lost and gained the same 5 lbs for the last 2 months. It makes me grumpy about weighing in. I have sworn I'm gonna redouble my loss efforts over the holiday season. I know I can do it. When I started Weight Watchers back in 2013, Mom & I started the first weekend in December. And I lost 8 pounds between then and Valentine's Day. So I know it's possible to lose over the holiday season. So, plan is now work really hard at making good food choices and getting exercise for the next 5 weeks (just starting right after I finish this cookie dough while sitting on the couch and blogging about how annoying not losing weight when I'm half-assing it is).
Another thing that's making me really grumpy about weight loss and going to meetings is not getting any props at my WW meetings. I lost almost 15 lbs between the beginning of August and mid-October. Did I get any 5 lb star stickers? NO! Not a stupid single sticker. Meanwhile there's a couple of women who get a ribbon's worth of 5 lb stickers every time they weigh in because they've lost "yet another 5 lbs" so our leader starts counting off 5, 10, 15, 20 . . . up to 60. UGH! Why is my little accumulated 14 lbs (a whole STONE I might add - I've lost an entire unit of weight measurement in England) not worth 2 stickers? This makes me grumpy. Why are my milestones not as important just because I haven't lost 60 lbs yet? Ya know, I think a big part of it is my leader and then staff at this particular WW. No one even made a big deal when I got through my booklet (and only missed 1 week out of the 16). I went to a meeting every single week for 4 months straight and no one noticed. Kind of like how I'm feeling about a lot of things in my life right now.
Now I'm sad. Stupid weight loss.

The napkins for the King & Queen

Finally getting around to posting on this. Previous mention of the napkins here. I had the napkins ready to go by the time of the Coronation at Purgatorio. However, I didn't get them into anyone's hands soon enough to get to the site in time (in my defense, school had just started about 2 weeks earlier). I was able to bring them to the October Crown tournament and deliver them in person.
So for my napkins for Alfar & Eilis, I took elements from their personal devices and embroidered them onto the blocks. I also learned a couple of new stitches for them. I mentioned this to Her Majesty when I presented them, but she seems to not really care very much about them. I got a brief "thank you" and I think I saw the napkins get put aside rather quickly. She gave me a rose for the effort though. That's nice.

His Majesty's device: for this a put one portcullis in the corner of the napkin. I worked it in Bayeux stitch with chain stitch for the chains. After finishing it, I fully realize that Bayeux stitch was the wrong one. The lines are just not big enough. I learned that Bayeux is better for covering larger areas. I also put the cross-gurgity in the other three corners, one in each color from his device. For these, I learned ladder stitch. This was nice because the ladders make a nice border edge that you don't need to do a stem or outline stitch for.

Unfortunately I can't find my pics of the crosses at this moment.

Her Majesty's device: for this I did the knot-work in the Hungarian braid stitch. It takes forever because it's fiddly, but I like the slightly raised line it makes. I put one of these in every corner of the napkin. Then I took her purple rose and worked that in Bayeux stitch. This looked a lot better than the portcullis on Alfar's napkin.

I entered the napkins in the Wreath of Athena competition at Crown. I have no idea how well I did. It's a populace vote competition and I find embroidery often doesn't "cut the mustard" since I think a lot of people think "oh I can do that." But the truth is, they don't and they won't put the time into it either. So meh. Sometimes people suck when it comes to crafting.

Here's a couple more pictures of me from the event. I spent the majority of the day hanging out in the salon with the needleworkers guild. it was nice to have an on the eric view of the tournament but stay in the shade. At one point the Youth Point kids came through. They were "pillaging" the different camps as part of their studies on the Vikings that weekend.

Heidi working on some gorgeous blacckwork.

Don't let that last pic fool you. I spent the day of Crown busily working on my own emboidery. I was working on blackwork sampler and some Hungarian braid stitch for the great game board project.

Dress for Dickens Faire (unders)

Dickens Fair is set in the early years of the reign of Queen Victoria. The fair specifically focuses on 1840s - 1860s. Last year I decided I would try to dress up and go for a day, but alas. There were a few issues with the underpinnings that put a halt to things (and then I went on to work on the Magpie Dress for last year's 12th Night Coronation).
I spent hours working on a new corset. I bought this sweet charming nursery print calico from JoAnn Fabrics and tirelessly pieced the whole thing together so that it was carrying the motif around the body of the corset. I was actually very pleased with the results. This is it just before binding the edges (with satin bias binding).

Then I started researching corded petticoats for the support structure of the skirt. After looking at several people's work on the Internet I decided to do the method of sandwiching the cording between two layers of muslin and spiral the cording up and around. This method was tiresome and infuriating. I promptly put the corded petticoat into the UFO pile to think about what it had done wrong. It sat in the corner for a very long time. In fact, I didn't get it out again until about 3 weeks ago and even then I took the whole damn thing apart. I decided to not do the spiral and instead did straight lines across the two panels (that I then sewed together with the serger because...workhorse). Even this took flippin' forever and I still had to do a lot of fiddly working to get the cotton cording to nestle up against the previous row of stitching. I was just about ready to die of frustration and embarrassment when I thought I'd give the double needle a try. This went so quickly that I declared loudly on Facebook "I HATE LEARNING" because [sigh]. Then I starched it with Sta-Flo and made a quick petticoat out of a full sheet.

Just prior to starting the petticoat this year, I made a new chemise. I bought some of the lightest weight sheer cotton tissue this summer with the exact purpose of either a new chemise or a new veil. Or maybe both. I think there might be enough. And while the chemise pattern is not the most accurate for 19th century (I used the free pattern generator from Elizabethan Costume Net), it works just fine. That pattern goes together super quickly and is sized for your measurements. I just put in a shorter sleeve length into the generator. I chose to flat fell all the seams to both enclose the raw edges and to give them a little bit more strength. When I say sheer, this fabric is SHEER!!! No shots of the front unless I'm in my corset...it's that sheer.

I taught a class (yeah yeah, I know I do that all the time)

I'm back. I've been focused on doing several things lately that have kept me from posting on the blog. Mainly, I've been adjusting to the new school site and teaching 3 classes I've never taught before. It's a bit terrifying to teach English when you've never taught it before and there's no real curriculum for you to go by. The drama class is going well. The ancient history class is what it is. 6th grade is the first time most students get any kind of history at all and I can teach my way out of a history curriculum wet paper bag in my sleep backwards (confident in that one). Must be doing something right though because I got my employment status changed from "temporary" to "permanent" last week. Oh yeah, I accepted that offer.

So back to the subject of the post. I've been continuing to do medievally things all these months. I even have a couple of posts partially written. Couldn't post them right when I began typing them up because they're for "sooper seekrit" projects that I was waiting to post to the general public until gifts were given to their recipients. Then I just stopped posting. But last weekend, I taught a class! Should be no big deal, right. It's what I do for a living. But this was at Collegium. It's an SCA event where we get together for a day and do lots and lots and lots of learning. I've been to a couple of them before (also the Arts & Sciences Tournament in the early summer which is a similar type of event) and I LOVE THIS EVENT. I love it because it's full of the people who I feel are serious about recreating the past. And since I'm an apprentice to a Laurel and part of that perrage's job is to teach and educate the populace about medieval stuff, I need to start thinking about these things - this teaching to other medievally people is real.

I was pretty much required to teach at this event. Now, first off, know that the SCA is a volunteer organization. No one was actually forcing me to teach at Collegium. But I'm a Princess's artisan to Her Highness of Cynagua and one of the things she asked us to do was to teach a class at an event and then discuss it with the other artisans afterward. Another reason was my Laurel basically gave me the imperative. I seem to remember the words falling from her mouth being "so collegium...we're not going to be at the event but you are teaching something." This was very matter-of-fact. The sky is blue, you are 37 years old, you are teaching at Collegium this year.

I taught the latchet shoe class. In fact, my handout was just a slightly less snarky version of the blog post. I wanted the class to be a make-and-take though so that people could leave with a pair of practical and fake footwear that give an illusion of the Renaissance. Too many times I see folks walking around in their running sneakers under their beautiful garb. While I was setting up, a couple of gentlemen came. I missed their names, but I gathered one was already an experienced leather-worker. They mentioned that they were interested in putting shoes on the feet of children. This is such a great idea! I even bought a couple of smallish sized shoes for the class (although not quite small enough - next year when we're at the height of summer season there will be more sizes available). Then as I was beginning, in walked a few of my friends from the Mists. I know that Cyn came because she had already expressed that she wasn't really into any of the classes happening that afternoon. I was grateful for the friendly face. Also, two more friendly faces, Elena and Cathyn tagged along. Now, Elena is already well-known for her gorgeous work in 16th century costuming. She already has gorgeous shoes. She doesn't need my fake latchet shoes made from canvas sneakers. And then Cilean came in too. So I had lots of people who are very 16th century enthusiasts enjoying the class and kibitzing with me. (I think one or two may have come as spies as well, but I'm glad for it - they're friendly spies so I hope they saw good things in my class). My points that I couldn't stress enough:

1. the practicality of the shoes in the types of terrain we often find ourselves at for events (come to think about it, I didn't even mention the new permanent site but I bet it's muddy, lumpy ground too) 
2.  the ease of how fast and inexpensive you can put someone into a period-esque shoe and ease the problem of bad footwear
3. that it's a modern shoe and therefore supports your body in a way you're more comfortable with and can handle things like orthopedic insoles for better comfort
4. more people need to wear 16th century garb

The best part. . . ! Elena, Cynthia, and Cathyn all made shoes!!! Cilean tried, but due to recent foot injury, my shoes didn't quite fit her comfortably on Saturday but she's excited to do so for this spring when we get back to tourney season again. (I will also point out that while I've seen gorgeous appropriate shoes on their feet before, both Cyn and Elena were wearing modern "period-looking" shoes because the weather was crappy and wet on Saturday and they didn't want to ruin their very expensive shoes - see PRACTICAL APPLICATION!). Then another gentleman came in while we were making shoes and he was wearing knee-breeches, hosen, and a nice pair of suede Vans shoes just like the ones we were converting. I convinced him to take scissors and seam ripper to his shoes and he left with a much more appropriate-looking shoe on his feet. See, a random guy came into my class and left looking more medievally than when he arrived. I've done a small favor for the kingdom I guess.

I still feel inadequacies when it comes to sharing my studies of costuming (and embroidery for that matter). I feel like there's nothing innovative or new that I can bring to the table. I'm learning, just like everyone else. There are so many more who know so much more than I. I'm not specialized. I'm not special. I've been reminded by many that everyone starts somewhere new; that I am probably "amazing and know so much" to someone who doesn't know at all. But why would those folks come to me when there are many more better sewists and costumers than I wandering about the kingdom. This is a hill I'm going to have to get over. Sooner rather than later I hope.

Coming up...the chat I had with two laurels about the path to the peerage.

Napkins for Royals

The West Kingdom Needle Workers' Guild has members embroider a set of napkins to give each set of napkins (one for each) when they step up to reign as king & queen. The napkins can't have crowns on them but can have the kingdom populace badge or something reminiscent of the personae of the royals. I took up the responsibility back at October Crown tournament last year but I waited to start planning them until I learned who won in June (to step up at Purgatorio coronation later this month).

The victor was Count Sir Alfar Utherson for Duchess Eilis O'Boirne. I decided to try a bit from both of their personal devices to decorate the corners of the napkins.

Another little monogrammed handerchief

I was supposed to be getting started on the napkins for Kingdom of the West's Purgatory coronation event that's coming up later this month. I stepped up to design the work for the napkins and realized I wasn't very inspired at the moment to make napkins. I was, however, inspired to make a surprise handkerchief for a friend of a friend. Viscountess Syele, aka Songbird, of the West Kingdom is probably the bestest friend of my Laurel and (well, honestly I'm a little jealous of their friendship because damn I wish I had a bestest friend at all) she's had a rather difficult year. I was at the heralds' meeting when we approved her badge of a songbird standing on top of a cage (not inside it, which actually brought up a lot of discussion about "is it really a birdcage if the bird isn't IN the cage as they appeared in historic examples?). Her badge was approved not just by the kingdom heralds but also by the Laurel College and as such is an official badge of hers now.

I like to monogram hankies for people, especially for shits & giggles. I did the same thing the day Tullia asked me to be her apprentice (had it ready to go and gift to her, wasn't expecting to even be asked something so awesome by a person I idolize). Last summer I embroidered hankies on Vittorio (my fighter), Vyncent, and Violet (notice something. . . I was practicing the letter V). I made one as a thank you for autocratting this year's Crosston Ball for Jacques de Sion. Last year, when Miles & Ariela stepped up as King and Queen of the West, Ariela had requested handkerchiefs with the letter A on them to give to the weepers in court. I completed two of those. Man, I wish I knew who had gotten them.

For Syele's handkerchief, I drew up a pretty little S in one corner. It's about the size of a quarter coin. I did it in my favorite scarlet red and trimmed it in a little silver thread. Split stitch and stem stitch to outline.

For the opposite corner, I simply copied the badge as it was submitted to the college of heralds. A gold cage worked in harvest gold thread with the Hungarian braid stitch and the outlined in that silver thread done in stem stitch. Atop the cage is a little songbird in the same scarlet color with silver outline as the S on the opposite corner; split stitch and stem.

I was so excited to give it to her when I finished that dropped it off with Tullia to give to her. I was also so excited that in my rush to drop it off in the South Bay, I completely forgot to snap pics of my work for my portfolio work. Syele got it today and it made her super happy. She also took photos and posted one on Facebook and tagged me in it so all the SCA world got to see a bit of my work. Yay!

She graciously included her engagement ring for scale. 

Selfie of the lovely Songbird with her badge.

Sewing for Royalty

Saturday was the Investiture ceremony for the newest Prince and Princess of Cynagua (the area of the Society for Creative Anachronisms that encompasses interior Northern California and most of Nevada). My new friend Sylvie became our princess and last month she asked me to make her coat for her stepping-up!!! Wha?! A new laurel and now royalty asked ME to sew something for her!!! I'm shocked and tickled pink. This was the first time I've sewn for royalty that have actually enlisted my services. Last year's summer investiture featured the stepping down prince and princess in garb sewn by me, but I was helping with the task as people had had sudden cases of life and I was available to tap in and help out. But this. . . this was the first time the royalty asked me to do something and I'm very very honored.


***
Here's Sylvie's write up on her own blog of the whole ensemble. She looked so great! Research Dumping Grounds - Kentish Step Up

The Great Game Board Project

Plan: Create a set of fabric napkin game boards for my dear friend (and laurel's fiance) Master Vyncent who generally runs the West Kingdom Publick House as a birthday present. The game boards will be on heavy linen fabric, made up into napkins/table cloths and will be embroidered by me using period stitches. This should be simple enough because most of the game boards are just lines that one uses markers for.

Some planned games:
Nine Mans Morris - completed
Glukhaus (added) - completed
Checkerboard (in blackwork) - in progress
Game of Goose - still in planning stages

12/31/16 ETA: I finally gifted 2 of the game boards to Master Vyncent as a Christmas gift. I gave him the Nine Mans Morris board and Glukhaus.

4/1/2017 ETA: still woring on the damned chessboard. I'm almost done. Almost. This will be the death of me.

Meeting neighbors

We officially funded the loan on our house and the title got transferred last Wednesday. Granted, we've been living here since the 1st of the month, but it's really and truly ours. And we've already started to put our stamp on it.
The first couple of days we were here, I met our neighbor to the south, Jennifer, who is a widow and has lived in her house for a little over 20 years. She's in real estate I think. I have also seen some 20-somethings at her place recently. I think it might be her son home from college (I'm only assuming). Later in the first week, I met Jeanine who lives across the street. She's been in her house since it was built in the 1960s. About 2 weeks ago, I met Jeanine's husband (but his name is totally escaping me right now) when he came over to help Hubster and I with my mom's car.

Well, I just met our next door neighbor to the north. Sandy's been here since '66. "I've known all 4 owners of your house. It's a good house." And she brought us grapes from her own vines and apologized for potentially waking us up because she and her husband get up around 3am. So now I've met everyone except the guy who lives behind us (who I've heard is pretty nice too).

It's a nice sense of pride when we move into a neighborhood like this. When these people hear that our kids are going to the local school, that husband works there and I am teaching at the junior high up the street, you can see in their eyes and smiles that they know we're bringing goodness back into the neighborhood; not that it's bad, but that there has been a transition in the neighborhood in the last few years. All these people have had their kids grow up and move away. There are not a lot of children in the actual neighborhood around the elementary school here anymore. In fact, on our street, I think there is only our family and the single-mom with her kids about 3 houses up the street. Everyone else is grandparents. You can see it in their smiles though; they're happy to have us here.

Helping others make patterns

Several weeks ago, I was asked to help Safiya do a toile so that she can make a pattern for a kirtle and then a pattern for her Burgundian dress. Part of me was really wanting to help her because I love the idea of bringing people into wearing later period garb in the SCA. But a very large part of me was terrified at the idea because I feel like I'm not very good at patterning for myself and helping someone else is SCARY! So I was honestly looking for plenty of excuses to get out of it. I also was down at the weekly Crosston dance practice in San Jose and staying overnight at my laurel's. So honestly, because Safiya lives in Vacaville (on my way home), I should not have been trying to get out of it.

Ok, so I sucked it up and showed up at her house at the appointed time. I didn't have any of my sewing stuff with me (that was another one of my potential excuses) but she had more than enough of what she needed. I followed the steps for patterning that I learned at a recent class taught by Master Charles de Bourbon from up in An Tir. (clicky linky). I draped her toile, explained to her how this was going to be a copy of her body that we will make future patterns out of. We drafted a sleeve that didn't turn out too bad either. (sleeves are evil) Had to message for help from my laurel when I was drapping the armscye, but it came out great.It took about 5 hours but we were chatting and dealing with her kids and husband (oh poor guy came back from the dentist with a bad wisdom tooth and lots of pain meds - suck!). I felt pretty good with how it went. Honestly, I did almost all of the work (it's pretty darn hard, afterall, to dape yourself). But our other friend Edith will probably be wanting to drape a toile soon and that time I think I'll take the teaching to the next level, making Safiya do the work on Edith while I walk her through it.

Quiet sewing in the midst of chaos

I've gotten to spend some time sewing for Sylvie's step-up coat. I went to her house last Tuesday and got the main body of the coat lining and one sleeve sewn together. She's concerned that I won't have enough time finish it because of the move and all the packing. Well, our paperwork is still stalled out and the escrow stretches onward. Hubster has taken the majority of our things movable to storage or the garage of the new house. I went to weekly dance practice in San Jose on Wednesday evening. It's a long drive and I took the coat pieces to work on in my laurel's basement if there was a chance. The chance did present itself. She had writing to do for one of her blogs. The fiance hadn't been feeling well and so stayed home but was working from the dining table. I holed up in the basement sweat shop and sewed for three uninterrupted hours in silence (only because I had forgotten my charger for my phone and couldn't stream music). It was very pleasant regardless of the headache I started to develop from an allergy/cold I felt coming on. I don't often get a chance to sew so completely left alone. And when I do usually hide away in my sewing room, I'm often made to feel guilty like I'm abandoning my family when I really am quite available to help out. But I managed to finish the rest of the lining and sew the coat together. I even got two hours into the work before I needed a seam ripper (which is A) nearly unheard of and B) something I had to scrounge for because I apparently packed all of mine and not a single one made it into my bag of stuff*).

I am very grateful I got the chance to sew last week and very sad that my sewing room is mostly packed. I have for decades now used sewing as my escape from responsibility. With the house buying process going so utterly sideways, there are many things I should be doing, but all I really want to do sew.

* - I did have to go buy a seam ripper yesterday morning in a fit of frustration with a sewing mistake, frustration with children already crabby at 10 am, and an odyssey of traffic in town and F-ed up Walmart-ness that would try a saint's patience. But I conquered an oddity of sewing/lining garments that I'll post on later. Just know that I should have gotten a cookie for the damned getting a seam ripper sojourn I went on yesterday. 

Extroversion?

Had a very introverted reaction to today. Was helping "sew all the things" at a Sylvie's house but there were just so. many. people.

Normally I love a busy household and the chance to have multiple opportunities to converse with a variety of folks. But the crowd, the noise (made a gazillion times worse by my own squealing serger in want of oiling again), trying to process cutting diagrams in the busy atmosphere (when I want to do a really really really good job and not f*** it up since it's for royalty so I'm under pressure). . . it all just led me to feeling completely mentally exhausted. Drained. So strange for me when I'm normally energized by the opportunity.

I guess my mind was just on other things today; honestly there was someplace else I would rather have been. When I think about it, spending the day in bed feels like it would have been the most enjoyable activity I could have chosen. Like I said, a very introverted reaction which I'm not used to. And I'm not sad I went. I'm just overwhelmed I think. Need a bit of quiet reflection time (which is also not happening because I got home to one grumpy child and then my mom coming over to help pack/toss stuff for the upcoming move.

And the house? Still haven't gotten word on closing status yet. Lender mentioned on Friday we wouldn't hear anything until Monday (tomorrow). Job interview from Friday? Went pretty good and the principal really liked me (I left feeling like they would be a great group to work with), but he can't actually give me the job. HR has to do their work and then offer me employment. What were they doing on Friday? Oh the district office is closed on Fridays so I won't here anything until at least tomorrow.

See, my mind is definitely other places and being around so many people was exhausting.

Because...love (or how we combat hurt feelings by being kind to others)

On Monday night, I got out of the shower after driving for hours to take care of loan stuff. The Hubster was awesome. He's been so positive about the house purchase and staying optimistic. Me? Not so much. Anyway, he had packed several boxes while I was gone and had made a delicious dinner, had wine ready, and even bought me a pint of ice cream. But while getting showered off last night I had a distinct sadness come over me.

quick mid-June update

And this is how I find myself a bad blogger who doesn't regularly update. I haven't been doing any projects and I feel like no one really wants to hear about other events so I haven't posted since the 6th.

The house purchasing problems continue to plague us. We're at 2 weeks until we have to be out of our current home and we still haven't closed escrow on the home we're buying. Argh. That being said, a lot of my sewing room has been packed away. No progress on the list. Progress on the house purchase is that yesterday I made an unscheduled drive to Santa Rose to get signatures on the initial loan disclosures from our cosigners (my brother-in-law and his wife). They hadn't consented to e-sign documents and so that meant all the docs have to be signed the old-fashioned way and we were looking at maybe only getting keys on the 27th of this month. But Haley, you said you had to be out in two weeks. Yes, I did. You see the dilemma. That literally gives us 2 days to move out and turn around on the house. So driving out and getting their signatures so I could drop the loan paperwork off to my loan officer in hand yesterday evening? Well that moves the timeline up to the 23rd for keys. That gives us a week (including a weekend so we might get some moving help from friends).

It was suggested that my $10 Latchet shoes might make a good class (thank you Hubster - you're smart and encouraging). I like the idea of teaching a class that is very hands on and that you can leave with something period-oid for SCA as soon as you leave the class. I will definitely consider it.

The fabric for Hubster's doublet arrived this morning in the mail. Part of me wants to dive dive dive into this project immediately. See aforementioned issue with having half of my sewing packed for move. Frankly it should all be packed at this point.2 WEEKS PEOPLE!!! We have to be gone in two weeks!!! But it's a 7.1 oz linen from Fabrics Store in cobalt which is a lovely dark, but not quite navy, blue. He loves blue. It will be very nice for the doublet. Yes I know there are no real examples of linen doublets. But I'm gambling with my husband even wanting to wear it. And it gets hot here in the Sacramento/Nor Cal events. He's one of those guys that thinks one must wash every article of clothing after a single use (which to be honest is kinda necessary because boys are cute - but smelly) and I just can't do that with wool. So this will be a very simple, very "easy-going" doublet. And I'll feel better about doing it in linen anyway as it's my first time and if I royally screw up, well I didn't spend $20+ per yard on it. Plus, he's getting the striped mock-up as the lining and that just rocks.

We made a snap decision to go to June Crown tournament in Tres Pinos. It was our first time at that site. I had a really great time. I wasn't committed to doing anything "responsible" except for one shift of trotting along behind the Lady of the Swan (our soon to be Princess of Cynagua) and attending to her needs. I didn't go to any meetings. I didn't take any classes. Vittorio wasn't fighting for me so I didn't need to consort for him. I actually spent a large part of my time in the Publick House gambling with borrowed monies and drinking. And it was relaxing and fun to be so low-key. Shhhh I didn't even go to Court in the evening. And I never skip court. By the way, the awesome news is that my new friend Sylvie (go check out her blog - she's one of the ones I follow along with) is the Lady of the Swan. Her husband, Fearghus, and she will be stepping up as Prince and Princess of our area in July and they've asked me to be on their court. I am very excited. I like to be on court a lot. I declined the offer during this most recent reign for two reasons; I was worn out after serving on the last 3 consecutive courts and the most recent one I had been on had felt very stressful and socially awkward. But that worked well because I instead got to know the current Princess, Katherine, socially and in a crafting way. I got to just hang out with her. That was nice.

Okay, now I'm totally digressing on the point about Sylvie and Fearghus...this weekend at Crown, Her Excellency asked if I would serve as a Princesses Artisan! What?! Holycow!!! And she totally did it in the best way too. She's already cleared it with my Laurel (and my grand-Laurel happened to be standing right there waiting to talk to her about artisans too) AND she told me to only consider it if I didn't have too much on my plate with the house-moving and the no job thing. I've asked to at least wait until I've signed my home loan paperwork to consider, but I'm totally totally honored. This is the first time anyone in Cynagua has considered me worthy of being an artisan. Dah schucks [scrapes toe in the dirt]. I still have to think long and hard about it though because there are a lot of steps/tasks that we are being asked to do as part of the position and I know me. . . I want to do them perfectly and completely. And I don't want to take on a job that I know I'm only gonna half-ass.

Anyway, tonight is business meeting for my Shire and since I'm the one in charge of that circus, I better have some notes to talk to my monkeys about. Right now, the Shire is a huge source of anxiety with me. More on that later (or not at all because I don't know how comfortable you are with hearing about my mental issues). The quick update ended up being a little longer than I expected. But that's a good thing I guess.

$10 latchet shoes

Yes, period-oid passable 16th century shoes for $10 (or less!).

So, in case you haven't noticed, in the SCA I tend to hang with the late-period folks. Some of them are particular sticklers for HA (historical accuracy)*. One of them is a stickler for shoes. I knew he was a shoe guy before I really got to know him, because that's what he was laureled for. (In the SCA a Laurel is a person who has done tremendous work in the arts and sciences of medieval studies. It's an equivalent learning/study/teaching level to being a Knight. In the modern world, have you ever heard the phrase "rest on one's laurels"? Yeah, some people have put in near PhD level work on their medieval studies so they're really good and knowledgeable on this stuff...bu I'm digressing from my point about the shoes).

I know that a particular peeve for many reenactors can be the wrong shoes. This doesn't just hold to SCA folks. It can be the CivWar folks, the living history museums, lots of folks really. But I'm not a leather worker and I don't have gobs of cash to spend on accurate footwear made by someone else. This also makes me sad because who wouldn't like to have gobs of cash to spend on fabulous shoes. Have you seen my shoes in real life? I'm not a purse gal, I'm a shoe gal. But I also have to be practical when it comes to buying shoes. I wear mine to work. I have to get MILEAGE out of them. (funfact - my first year of teaching I was voted "teacher with the best shoes")

The patent leather candy corn heels. Because...candy corn. 

Last May, I decided I needed to make something more appropriate. Here's some examples:

From a Holbein sketch.

Cows Mouth shoe and last from https://northamptonmuseums.wordpress.com/category/shoes/shoe-history/

a sketch by Lucas de Heere

 

The "Virginia" shoe available for purchase at American Duchess

Actually, American Duchess has a gorgeous raised heel shoe that is de rigeur in footwear for 16th century reenactors. I don't have the $200 to drop on a shoe I will only wear to a few occasions each year. I know the designer. I have seen the prototype in person. But alas, it just wasn't meant to be last May (or right now for that matter). So I got crafty.

See the photo journey after the jump...

the boy in the striped pajamas?

I didn't get around to cutting out the mock-up of the husband's doublet the night of my last post. But I did get to it yesterday morning. I found a great striped sheet at Goodwill and decided that I would do the doublet out of it because it would help me visualize the straight grain and get the fit better.

So rather than start packing, I cut out the doublet and put it together. It took about 4.5 hours (judged by episodes of Downton Abbey) and a couple of fittings to see how it's coming together on the husband. But I'm really impressed with the Modern Maker's drafting up of the doublet.

Unintentional pattern matching. I impress myself.

Don't part with your partlet

The wise words of my Uncle G - "don't part with your partlet" followed by other sage advice "don't discount your family" when I offered to sell him my over-partlet at a discount.

One of the items on the to-do list was partlets. I made an overpartlet out of black velvet an black linen back in December to practice sewing in velvet before I tackled actually sewing the Magpie Dress for 12th Night. I used Margo Anderson's pattern because I as using it for the Henrician dress. I was a stupid idiot did not pay attention to the fact that I'm "man sized" (as I've taken to styling myself lately) and didn't lengthen the pieces. So it's just a smidgen too short. It works with a bunch of fussing and fiddling and many many pins. It does keep the chesticles warm. I learned to sew velvet with it before I cut into my $300 worth of black-as-midnight super plush dress fabric. Lessons learned. BTW, if you're interested in buying a gorgeous black on black velvet overpartlet, let me know. I'm selling it for $50.

Me, Jorgen, and Vittorio - you can see the partlet is a too short and doesn't come to the edge of the kirtle

For West-An Tir War this year (and garb in general), I decided that I need more underwear (please read this as underpinnings, when I talk garb I never mean mundane underthings like panties). When I was washing up the wool for the EFG, I had also come across about a yard of forgotten linen/rayon blend. Plenty to make an underpartlet. This time I didn't use a commercial pattern but I decided to my recent body toile that Treasach helped me to draft up during Master Charles de Bourbon's class back at the beginning of March.

I dropped the armscye about 1 cm, added about 1" of ease to the back panel, and took the side seams straight down rather than follow the contour of the body block.

Patterning took about 30 minutes. Then I was off to the sewing room (that I've carefully avoided packing up in the home buying/losing our lease disaster). Yes, I did the whole thing by machine. My seams are over locked. What? It took me 90 minutes total. Just know that I can hand sew, I have hand sewn, and I'll choose to do it when I want to, but right now the accumulation of underwear is important. Layers people!!!

Of course, the serger was threaded with black which necessitated a change

Boom. Just like that, I have a new underpartlet.

Now all that's left is to loop up a tie for the bottom channel and a couple of laces for the collar. I think next time I'll add just a little more ease (I hadn't done any for the front) and drop the armscye a bit more because I'll be wearing my smocks under this. Also, please note that it's still not freaking long enough because I'm a stupid idiot I apparently do not believe in measuring twice/cutting once (or measuring at all and just winging it). But I'm not wearing any historical support structure, just modern bra (which I was not wearing at the time of pattern drafting). Also, my boobs are bigger than I think they are. Having two kids will do that to ya I guess but in my mind I'm still that barely B-cup gal I was when I met Hubster.

Me and the Modern Maker

Another project that I'm starting, sort of today, sort of 3 months ago when I originally began the pattern draft is . . . a doublet for Hubster. Jorgen normally wears a lot of Rus/Norse tunic-y stuff. He likes it because it's comfortable and easily made from linen to combat the heat of California summers. Well, for Christmas I got The Modern Maker by fellow bee Matthew Gnagy. I started drafting Jorgen's custom pattern back in February and then put it aside because I had to get the war pouch embroidered and finished (plus we did this whole trying failing to buy a house thing from March-last Monday). Well, as I listed out my projects of wants and needs to do, I decided I need to get around to trying to make a doublet for him. (He owns a shirt which was one of my first "getting back in the swing of costuming after 15 years" projects, a pair of wool Venetian pants that I bought him for Christmas which he hasn't worn, and another shirt in the works). I will probably make him this doublet and he'll probably never wear it. But I'm following my laurel's orders for projects to work on this year.

Today I needed to finish the sleeve pattern and the front & side-front collar pieces. Everything else was already done. I'd like to get the mock-up cut out and serged up tonight.

Starting the EFG

I've been obsessing over a particular costumer on the Facebook Elizabethan Costuming board and I follow her blog. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Jennifer Kluska's soft kit. She just has an aesthetic and great sense of the Elizabethan merchant/middle class that I strive to achieve. Don't get me wrong, I love to dress up all fancy-like (think of my last two 12th Nights) but a lot of the events in the West are outdoorsy affairs and I'd frankly feel a little better about dressing "down" in the dirt and weeds and [shudder] ticks. Recently, I have been spotted several times in the red linen kirtle made from the pattern that Margo Anderson drafted up especially for me. I've worn it, a lot. But it is essentially just an underwear layer when you ponder more about these things. So, it's not really appropriate for me to be wearing seulement.
Ex.

This collage represents the last 6 months of event attending and doesn't include ALL the events I wore the red kirtle to. [hot off the machine, debut at Cynagua Fall Coronet ASL, Collegium Occidentalis ASL - with slight change to the jacket, another shot from Collegium but taken at dancing,*** March Crown ASL - my first time consorting (and I'm particularly in love with this shot because it makes me look slim), Danegeld Tor Heavy Championship ASL, Mists-Cyn War ASLI]
***not shown Duchesses' Ball at 12th Night ASL, Cynagua Winter Invesiture/Crosston Ball ASL

You can see that I have a little more than  just the red kirtle in my soft kit. The Elizabethan jacket was my winning entry into an A&S competition for coats, I added an apron, I have the high necked pomegranate smock, a set of gray wool sleeves and a black velvet over partlet neither of which is actually big enough and are totally for sale if you're interested [wink wink], my cap, and a veil/headrail combo. So I can passably get along. But I want to mix it up too.

Now the idea of the English Fitted Dress...

No projects to keep my mind off of things

Things in the actual real-world part of my life got pretty bad on Monday. I'm still reeling from the news and I will post about it soon. Until then, I'm stuck going to my job that I'm soon to be unemployed from and feeling miserable about our home purchase falling apart. And I would normally turn to some kind of project for SCA to keep my mind off of things, but that's not happening right now because I don't have any small projects, just big things to think of. So instead, I'll make a list.

• needle books
• the squid collar and cuffs for Jorgen's shirt
• the rest of Jorgen's 16th c. shirt (not hand sewing this one like I did for Vittorio)
• learn to make hose
• at least a couple more changes of under things
• under partlet (5/28/16) Post Here
• over partlet that actually is long enough
• RUFFS! (full set, nothing too big)
• new $10 latchet shoes  (6/5/16) Tutorial here!
• embroider the sparkles on the snowflake corset
• mock-up of my new self-supporting cotehardie (patterned last week by Mistress Sylvie)
• mock-up English fitted gown (I just bought a great remnant of camel colored wool for this and I NEED to be conservative on the fabric use)
• do a body toile for Jorgen  (5/26/16)
• do a body toile for Vittorio
• plan the Burgundians! (for me, Jorgen, and Vittorio)
• Purgatorio Napkins - just waiting to find out who wins June Crown It will be Alfar & Eilis Post Here
• plan to teach a class  Post Here (this is a serious issue for me right now, what do I teach? to whom? why does this part of my apprentice path seem so daunting?! I'm a teacher by profession FFS!!!)
• think of little gifties to make for people (more hankies? ooh embroidered game boards!!!)
• 16th c. doublet for Jorgen (5/29/16 - finished patterning, mock up completed, 6/14/16- fabic purchased)
• sleeves - I forgot that I need to make sleeves and to put eyelets into my kirtles for said sleeves
• do a body toile for Safiya  (7/14/16)
• help Safiya pattern a kirtle

* stuff promised to folks that I actually should do 'cuz - promises

Mists Cynagua War Pouch - AS LI

It was the Cynagua Needle Workers Guild's turn to present the pouch for the war between the principalities of the Mists and Cynagua at our semi-annual war. When Michaela put out the call for a volunteer to make the pouch, I jumped on the chance. I've been getting a lot better with my embroidery and am eager to get my work out there to be seen on a greater scale than the occasional person who walks up to one of my costume pieces and admires the needlework. So I had a couple of projects to finish up first (Vittorio's shirt and belt favors for Jorgen and Vittorio) both of whih were due by March Crown and then it was on to the pouch.

I didn't want to go with a typical haversack, as I kind of feel like those have been done to death lately. And I knew that I wanted a very large embroidery piece. And I wanted something in a substantial fabric.

 I asked the Hubster's opinion and he suggested a bag based on the styles from the Hedeby finds. I did a quick Google and Pinterest search and decided it was the perfect idea. I also asked him to sketch me a battle scene between the two healdic animals on the arms of both principalities (especially because the Mists just finally passed their populace badge earlier this year). He set to work researching some jelling beasts (the norse knotwork animals) for inspiration. While he didn't come up with a knotted style so much, the black swan and the seawolf locked in battle with the kingdom populace badge won out as favorite from his drafts.

I found a large enough scrap of dark green melton wool that Michaela had given us last year and bought up a skein of the "team colors" acrylic yarn at Joann Fabric & Crafts (in the Green Bay Packers - I mean West Kingdom - colors) to weave a strap on the inkle loom I transferred the design onto a piece of heavy white linen and set to work. I also practiced a new stitch I recently learned, long and short (aka brick stitch).

The medallion is roughly 10" round. I worked it in DMC cotton embroidery floss and metallic braid threads. Mostly it's worked in REALLY TIGHT split stitch (the Princess of Cynagua kept commenting that she thought the swan looked like he actually velvet) and stem stitch for outlining. For the tail of the seawolf I did the long & short stitch to emulate scales. On the knotwork, I decided to try a new stitch, Hungarian braid, and to use the metallic to give the braid a bit of beefiness. Overall, I think I spent about 200 (+/- a few) hours on the embroidery alone. The inkle woven strap took about 2 hours total. The medallion was appliqued onto one piece of the green wool and the whole bag serged together in just about an hour. Lastly I attached the bag to the wooden handles that Hubster made out of 1/2" maple planks and added the strap which I'd fringed a bit)

I am BEYOND impressed with how my work turned out (my Facebook status used certain explatives about its prettiness). Her Highness, Princess Catherine (Cyn) was giddy and decided it needed to be displayed for the duration of the war rather than just be a surprise at the afternoon court. I also was super pleased with the recipient that their Highnesses Eibhear (Cyn) and Kean (Mists) chose to give the pouch to - Helga Skjaldmaer (I will correct spelling later, my herald-foo is failing me right now and it's the kids' bedtime). They chose her as an exemplar of chivalry and prowess on the field of battle that day. I am honored by their choice because she's a brilliantly talented artist in her own right and I know she'll really appreciate the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the war pouch (well, there was only a little bit of blood and I don't think I cried, definitely no sweat). The look on her face was priceless, filled with surprise and pride all at the same time. She even fell over (she'd been leaning on her elbow and it slipped out from under her) when their Highnesses called her up.

All the crullers in the world will not get me back to Ed Levin Park

Mists Cynagua War - AS 51
I went to war last Saturday. I'm not the biggest fan of SCA wars since I'm not all that enthused by fighting, especially war fighting where there isn't a crown or coronet on the line. However I had my reasons for going this time (but more on that later).
Jorgen went with me at the last minute thanks to a generous offer from Mannam to babysit the kids. Vittorio was also fighting and Jorgen is really the only one who actually knows how (and has the brute strength) to get him into his armor. We also picked up a hitch hiker in the form of Edmund who was marshaling.

Edmund's wife, Katrina, showed up later in the afternoon with a surprise for me! PINK CRULLERS! The rare and elusive. Oh what sweet heaven.

The post where I might actually try to get back to blogging

In my much younger days (back in college), I was pretty consistent with my blogging. I used my Livejournal much like a digital diary. I was good at keeping a diary; it was an activity I picked up in junior high and carried on through high school.
But about the same time that my life picked up, got my "adult" and busy, there was a general shift in the culture of blogging. The influence of "tutorials" and photo essays started to change the blogs I came across. There was less of a general glimpse into people's lives. Also, there was the great Facebook migration from Myspace and social media became more like the blogs of old. I felt inadequate in my abilities to keep up with blogs. In fact, I revamped my old Blogger blog (that I began when my oldest was a baby) when we moved back home to the Sacramento area, keeping the old title which is totally and completely irrelevant to our lives as we've lived in 3 different houses since College Street, and managed to get one whole entry in before I completely forgot about it.
But a lot of really cool things have happened in my life since then, especially involving the Society for Creative Anachronisms and my costuming endeavors. And part of the things I'm trying to do more of is research and teach others about the things I'm learning. Sometimes it's best to put that kind of stuff on the Internet. And a lot of my friends and costuming idols keep stuff on blogs about their research and I want a convenient place to keep up with all that they're posting. So I'm back to my blog. Again. Hopefully.
Wish me luck.