knitting

I've been working on some knitting projects but I can't post them as they are presents for this coming yule.  However, I've also just finished a baby hat for the charity I work with called LeeLee Hats.  I have a feeling I'll have to make a few of these due to the cuteness factor.

I don't have a baby to model it so this little guy will have to do.

this year's garden results

I'm rather disappointed with this year's garden.  It wasn't well organized, the weeds got away from me to the point of ridiculous.  I'm sure my neighbour with the perfect grass and robotic like garden has been cursing me.  I have a  plan for next year to downsize the garden in such a way to help with productivity and my management of it.  I'm going to try the "square-foot gardener method".  It should be less labour intensive.  I'd love to set up my gravity feed watering system but I'll have to see if I can afford it.

This year resulted in only two pumpkins, dried beans, some tomatoes and a handful of beets.  I did get a large batch of weld for dying.  Each year I learn what to change and  what works where.  Since this moving I've had to learn what works for our new location.

Sprang

So in  my travels I found that the local library has Collingwood's "The techniques of Sprang".  I began taking notes and it really helped me to get a clear image of technique.  A friend of mine showed interest in learning so I began trying to research more in depth to help her (and let's be honest I can let a fiber art alone to save me).

A year or two ago I took a class on basic sprang and another on circular warp sprang.  On the left is part of my circular warp from the class.  I still need to reach that part in the book to see what it can add to my understanding.  On the right is my playing with double intertwining at the top with single intertwining near the bottom.  It doesn't look much different when relaxed.  The difference shows when it's stretched making a hexagon as opposed to a diamond shape.  I think it would make a nice hair net.

Results of the Coif

So I found that the coif tended to slide back with the weight of my hair (no surprise there as I have a lot of it).  I used bobby pins to hold it on which seems to work well enough.  I meant to bring my hat pins but forgot them in the rush of packing for the day.  I was happy to find I still had a small black velvet cap, as I thought I had sold them all years ago.  It definitely can use the blackwork on the cap to tone down the white-ness.  Other than that I'm quite satisfied with the result.  Maybe I'll add it to the stash of merchant repertoire.

I didn't bring enough bobby pins to pin the coif, hat and my hair so you can see my braids pulling the coif back from the weight of it, but if I pin the braids up first it holds quite well.

Elizabethan Coif

This Saturday is our local event and I'm in charge of running the fencing for the day.  So I may or may not fence myself.  While I'm fencing I wear Elizabethan age clothing to suit the blade and fencing style we use in the SCA, even though my persona is 7th century Irish.  The thing I've been missing is headwear and if I don't feel like changing after fencing for court I didn't want my fuzzy hair to do it's "troll doll" impression.  So I looked up the Attack Laurel's recreation (http://www.extremecostuming.com/reproductions/vacoift281975.html), the Blackwork Guild (http://www.theblackworkguild.com/COSTUMES-MEMBERS%202.html) and this last site which gave me another reference for sizing (http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/00401/BBAB9B66128397DA499B1E6AF8A0DDEA5676ABD2.html).
There was no way I was embroidering a coif in time for this weekend, but I did see reference to plain coifs anyway.  That'll do for me to decide if I like them.  I tend to get headaches if my hair is too concentrated in one spot on my head (very thick hair).  It looks pretty good so here's to hoping.

Spinning history

So I taught a "how to spin with a drop spindle" class on the weekend and I kind of got my brain stuck on that path.  I bought a "Spin Off" magazine today and it had an article describing stone carvings clearly showing a spinning wheel in China maybe 2000 yrs old.  Cool, that would rewrite history a bit.  It's a rimless wheel with a treadle no less.  Normally, it's said that the invention of the wheel is from China or India 500 to 1000 yrs ago.

Now I'm collecting info about the history of spinning wheels in the hopes to have a clearer vision of how and where they developed.  I also took a class on "early medieval spinning wheels" at Pennsic.  Although not the best presentation, it did give me the bug to find out more.  I think that would be a fascinating addition to our medieval demos that we do every year.

Again, I stand at the edge of a cliff ready to take another step thinking "what am I getting into now?"
;-P

my first dress pants

So I bought a commercial pant pattern a few months back but didn't have the time to mess with it before the "Pennsic push".  It's a slow time of year for me minus the holiday stuff I'll have to start on, and I figured a good time to play.  I used some green linen I had in my stash to try out the pattern.  I made some adjustments to the pattern pieces based on Nancy Zieman's "Pattern Fitting with Confidence".  Mostly I just shortened some stuff.  Apparently this pattern is made for people over 6 feet tall, lol.  I'm still too long by about 4".  Based on what I wanted (pleated front, curved waistband with pockets) I purchased Simplicity pattern 2342.  It has three designs to choose from as well.  A slim fit, average and curvy.  I figured I had some good odds of finding the right one.  Wow, those are wide legs.  Let me just bring those in by another 4" around.  There, that's a little better.  I'm not quite sure what happened in the process but after following the pattern the pants could slide over my hips while done up.  Hmm.  Okay, this is either a case of people lying to themselves about their measurements and the company is placating them,  it's a crappy pattern, or its me.  Maybe a combo, but I'm not sure.  I don't tend to use as big of a seam allowance as it recommends, but this time I did it as it said so it wouldn't  be that.

I think they made it so huge to make sure that if the person screws up they have room to correct, but man that makes a lot of adjustment time for the rest of us.  I had to remove the top of the pockets to deepen the pleats.  I took in as much as I dared at the side seam until I was afraid of losing my pockets entirely!  Now there's too much fabric in the front but there isn't much I can do about it at this point.  I shortened the rise by a few more inches so I don't look like one of those teenagers with my pants fitting all funky.  It's hard to walk with the crotch length at your knees, lol.

I only need to add the inside layer to the waist band, hem the bottom (I'll get someone to measure that for me), and re finish the inside seams.  Voila!  Maybe I'll just reverse engineer these pants to make the next pair?  I do want to become better at using commercial patterns.  I think I'll play around some more with Nancy's methods.  I was afraid to make too many adjustments for fear of making them too small, but obviously I wasn't bold enough.