guenievre | Entries tagged with crown

So somehow I managed not to update this thing since before Crown. I am an awful, awful journaler. The problem, of course, being I don't write and then I psych myself out with having too much to talk about. I'm not going to try to catch up - everyone else has written about things like Crown already. (Which I was overwhelmed by, really - I'm absolutely astounded/thrilled b/c my friends made me a dress, when mine didn't get done, and that my husband was willing to go out and fight for me, and even win one!).

But on the astounding front, that's not the biggest thing that's happened to me this last month. You see, I wasn't even planning on GOING to University. But as it turned out,

kfitzwarin couldn't go to Sapphire, and we desperately needed a break that didn't involve camping, so we ended up deciding to do Uni instead of Sapphire.

I barely went to the event - as in, we got to site late because of traffic, went to the Oldcastle class (minus garb, because we thought it was going to be armored and... anyway), then started dithering about whether to put on armor or garb for the afternoon. Finally decided to go take classes, so went to get dressed in the bathroom. Now, this oufit takes 20 minutes from mundanes-to-done, even without the fake hair. Especially without the fake hair, as mine JUST BARELY is long enough for that sort of braid.Anyway, I end up talking to like 20 zillion people in the ladies room while fixing my hair, including my dear laurel, who I didn't realize I was making Very Nervous. See, I wasn't even really PLANNING on going to court...was just going to get dressed now and then go to lunch, and come back for class. In fact, I was fairly sure this was the plan...

So we (

soucyn,

catwhowalked,

fenrir1323,

kfitzwarin and I) start walking over to court. Which confused me, but it's a university, so I figured it was some laurel thing, or what not. The auditorium was VERY hot, and there was no real way to find a seat discreetly and things had already started. So I gave up on court and figured I'd wait in the hall till K was done with whatever she wanted to see. Didn't even pay any attention to the Pearls being in court, as they were giving one to Peronnelle (is she on LJ? she does fabulous things...) Anyway, I'm standing there, chatting with

puck_eater and

soucyn, about something... perhaps teasing them about being the orange brigade? when Keilyn comes over, completely beaming and offers me an arm, to join the ranks of the Pearls. I think I almost fainted, and I know that sounds melodramatic, but I was so far outside my barony, and had completely missed ANY hint of anything...well, yeah. I know I was shocked enough someone commented on the look on my face, I know I was visibly shaking kneeling in front of the Queen. Still haven't... quite... grokked it - I mean, when I first got in the SCA, Mistress Ysolt had JUST gotten hers, at least within a few months, and she's who got me in, and.... So it was always in my head as a Really Big Deal that happened to other people. So yeah...

Anyway, the rest of the weekend was a blur, though fun, and apparently involved much shopping (IKEA, Penzey's, Lush.... all those things we don't have here...) And now I've finally written, so

harleenquinzell can quit bugging me...

Current Mood: sleepy

So I went to Calontir this weekend, which was QUITE fun. The trip down was uneventful; TSA doesn't mind needles or small scissors, so I could work on the Embroidery Project of Doom; AirTran has XM radio on their planes now, which rocks; and a lovely man named Ulf met me at the gate with a sign (!!). Met

wombatgirl, and

valkyr8, and

antigonetheban; taught two classes, met an Oldcastle cousin (Taidhg), and got to have a long conversation with Duke Cariadoc (!!). I was surprised at the size of the event, only 90-something people, but there were still people from 7 kingdoms there (!!), and it was a Calontirii Royal Progress. There was lots of food-geeking, and not enough embroidery, and I got to have dinner with

intrepida. All in all, VERY much worth the plane ticket.

On the way back, I proceeded to prove I am in fact a ditz - Atlanta airport is huge, and one does NOT have time to mosey and/or stop for cheese fries on the way to your gate if your gates are in different terminals and there's only an hour between flights. Somehow, space kitten that I am, I managed to completely miss this fact, and missed my flight. Even more embarassing was that I sat there for a little while, calmly waiting for a flight that had already left and I didn't realize it... lucky for me, the next flight wasn't full. However, it did mean I got a new entry in the "It's a tiny world book", in that when walking back to the other gate to catch the "replacement" flight back to Durham, I ran into a chick from high school that I hadn't seen since we graduated. Go figure.

Since the pie class ran out of handouts, and I told people to check the website for it, I spent most of yesterday updating my website - look in the cooking and projects sections for updates. I'd love feedback, if anyone actually goes to see it. ::grin::

Tonight will be fun -

3_purple_irises and Lukas are coming over to help me get my underdress sewn for Crown, while I frantically finish embroidering the overgown. Meanwhile,

nikulai and

soucyn are in charge of dinner...

Current Mood: crazy
Current Location: spreadsheet hell, a division of cubeland
Current Music: some sort of office-politics-drama echoing in from the other half of the office...

Though in this case I DO know when I'll be back again. I'm off to the Calontir Cooks' Symposium this weekend, which I'm really looking forward to. I'm teaching two classes, one on Pies and one with the same info as the paper I did last year on Spices.

Not sure how many Calontiris, or other people who will be at the event (other than

wombatgirl!) I know on here, but if you see me there, *please* say hello - this is my first time going to a random event outkingdom just for the sake of going, and should be an adventure. I will look like the picture here (yes, wearing this exact outfit, after some consultation with

nikulai - can you tell I'm a BIT nervous about all this?)

Embroidery update - I'm 22 pearl clusters away from finishing the sleeves (!!!!!!), and plan to finish them, draw out the neckline tonight, clean out the sewing room a bit, and finish/ print out my handouts for the classes. Tomorrow,

3_purple_irises is coming over to help me with my undergown - I'm not QUITE agile enough to fit myself, and my husband tries REALLY hard (trust me, read this). But really, for those of you who have ever made gothic fitted gowns? male assistance on those doesn't REALLY count as assistance, am I wrong? ;-)

Current Mood: bored

So those of you who ARE embroidery geeks, feel free to laugh at this. I... am not. In fact, this is the first project I've really done anything that even counts. (Ok, 2nd - there was Girard's orle, which marginally counted, I suppose. Still, it was just beads and purchased trim, so yeah.)

Meanwhile, I've mentioned the dress I'm making for Crown. I decided to do some simple vinework in pearls, gold, and green silk along the sleeves and neckline - while I don't have any *pictures* of this, it seemed fairly common in an inventory I read recently (thanks

jillwheezul) and the pattern itself matches a fairly common illumination style. Anyway, when I started the project, I had lost one of the knobs that keeps my scroll frame together (mine's like this, but I bought it from the guy who sells mirror boxes @ Pennsic). "No worries", said I, "I'll just pick up a Q-Snap when I get the thread." So I did, and it was good... until I decided to work on the project at an event, at which point the ugly plastic frame made me twitch.

Fast-forward slightly, and I realize "I'll be going to another event! and a demo! and and and...." and meanwhile I have found the missing piece of the scroll frame. (Ok, so really

soucyn found it.) So I decided to try and mount the sleeves on said frame. There's just one catch... the "sleeves" are, at the moment, an approximately 60"x60" piece of silk, with a temporary seam down the center - the embroidery is about a 3-3.5" band on each side of the seam. So there's a LOT of excess fabric. (Yes, I could have just embroidered an applique strip, and I wouldn't be having this problem, but I didn't want the extra fabric to change the drape of the sleeves, because the fabric is REALLY luscious).

The thing I didn't realize before carefully bundling up the fabric, basting the rolls on either side so they'd stay and sewing it to the frame? All that excess fabric wreaked HAVOC on the tension on the embroidery - which given that this is couched gold braid, chain stitch and pearls, doesn't have to be *perfect*, in the same way it would were I doing stem-stitch needle-painting type work, but it does need to be reasonably predictable. GRR.

And google? NOT helpful in this case - there is absolutely NO information out there on the best way to mount whole garment pieces for embroidery in a period way - the closest I found was this article on the Florilegium. (And of course the husband cleaned off the table and threw away the most recent TI, which had an article on scroll frames... 'course, I haven't been keeping them recently, as there hasn't been much I've needed, so it's understandable, but still...)

So the final solution? I took some canvas stretcher bars (something like this, though mine aren't mitered, wish they were), stapled fabric tape to them, and whipstitched the relevant area of silk to them to work on it. A little unwieldy, but at least it's not ugly... (though we're not going to talk about how long figuring all this out took me... )

Exhibit 1 in why "Ne Rien de Moitié" is not ALWAYS a good motto...

Current Mood: amused at myself

Item the first:

I started a new garb project - as I mentioned in my last, incredibly boring post, I've been hoarding some purple silk twill for *years*. I finally figured out the dress it wants to be, and the event it wants to be made for. The dress is shown to the right, and the event will be for Crown. I'm adding some embroidery/pearls around the edges of the sleeves and neckline, though, just because I wanted a bit of "bling". (Thank you,

duchesspadr, for telling me where you found the picture...) Though I'm having a bit of problem finding an appropriate bright-red lining - why is it that one can see fabric, think "hmm, that's pretty and cheap, I should get some"; not do it, then end up starting a project that needs *exactly that fabric* and thus not be able to get it anymore? I *swear* I just saw dark-red (since my purple is slightly darker than the pic, I was also going to make the lining slightly darker) silk twill for a reasonable price at fashionfabricsclub, but it's not there now. They have a few other things, though, so all hope is not lost...

Item the second:
Fighter practice is better than pilates, at least if one counts exercise as being "better" the sorer you are. Though

soucyn's theory of sore-back=crap-mechanics is probably true...though I did pick up some pointers that'll help if I can manage to make them jump that brain-body barrier...

Item the third:
The all-LJ dinner @ Chamas was as usual pricy but wonderful. Though I was underimpressed with Sirens (a pity, since it's a cool building) - if I'm going to pay that for a martini, I'd like to be able to hear people talk. (Speaking of which, ARE there any good-but-a-bit-quieter bars in Durham/CH that I don't know about? Preferences are for interesting drinks...)

Item the fourth:
FYI, if you're ever offered a free trip to Italy, get passports well in advance. Ask my boss why this is important...

Item the fifth:
BoyG is still suffering from tree bukakke, so we aren't going to the Kberg meeting tonight. Leftover chinese and calligraphy, here I come!

Item the sixth:
The Brute Squad of Doom - that is, me,

soucyn; and

3_purple_irises didn't run fast enough - we are collectively the Pennsic Land Agent. More details to come...

Current Mood: time to go home!!!

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...