guenievre

So I'm literally counting the seconds till I get out of work - I probably SHOULD do something more useful, but I have a feeling if I do it'll be working on the website or messing with illustrator (a program which at the moment I both love and hate - I have a feeling I'd like it better if I had a graphics tablet but anyway) rather than anything useful - I only have 2 work-related things to mess with at the moment; one of which I'm stuck on and the other I *really* don't want to play with till Monday. Bleh.

I ordered the materials for the standards today - I hope I don't hate doing this, if I *do* it'll suck as I bought enough for 12 standards. (I think - I know I have the fabric for 12, and I'm fairly sure the dye will go that far.) Anyway, I only have 3 I'm definitely doing, and a few more that I'm thinking of doing either as gifts or for cost-of-materials, if I enjoy the process - I certainly enjoy the digital part of designing them, so if the painting isn't awful, then it's all cool. Just for reference, I think it averages out to about $10/banner, not counting the tools - it may be less depending on how much dye/paint gets used per banner. I kind of wussed out, a little - there are two ways of painting the banners, "dyes" and "dye-like paints". The former gives slightly better color, supposedly, but then has to be steamed for hours in order to set the dye to the fabric. During the process, however, it can't get wet, and so doing this part effectively involves building a fairly complicated steamer. So I went with the paint, which can be set with an iron. Cop-out, I suppose, but neither version is period (that I know of, though this is NOT a project I've researched extensively) so I'm not terribly worried.

Meanwhile, tomorrow's the baronial project day - I'm going, and bringing handouts for 3_purple_irises, but I'm *really* not sure what project I'm bringing. I had thought about making either Roman or "allegorical" garb for Coronation, but I think I'm going to hang out in the kitchen with my Oldcastle cousins, and I just *can't* bring myself to make garb that I don't think I'll wear again, nifty as the whole "theme" thing is. And yes, Roman is good for Pennsic, but I tend to consider it a point of pride to not go farther outside my actual persona than "14th cent boy garb". So I may work on the sky-blue GFD I started a while back, so I can wear it as an underdress for Crown. Still deciding what I want the overgown to look like - I *think* I might use the purple silk twill I've been hoarding for something "special" for years; it's gorgeous and deserves to be something. Probably, at my husband's request ::evil grin:: it'll be of the cleavagey variety of interesting-sleeved GFD rather than a houppelande... have to inspire him somehow, right? Also pondering embroidery for that... and some sort of favor for the tourney. (The orle died at Ymir, it's prob. fixable but it had issues anyway - the proportions were slightly off and it wouldn't stay on the helm particularly well - if I make another one, which I think I'm planning on, it'll include integrated ties to attach to the helm...)

Speaking of boy garb, I wear it often enough I'm considering picking a second name (perhaps Jehan de Monmarché, my "brother") for when I do so.... comments? I don't really want to *confuse* people, but being "Guenièvre" in boy garb is... weird. My mannerisms change *significantly* when I'm in garb, or at least they feel like they do. In fact, I accidentally curtsied to a coworker at the demo last weekend in Atillium. And I'm fine with this, but I need to build a second set for when wearing pants hosen. Because curtsying in hosen looks... odd, and trying it in armor would just get me laughed at. So I think a second name might help...