#calontir

THE TWILLING SAGA COMES TO A CONCLUSION

After spinning the rest of the yarn, I wove as far as the warp would let me. Minus unavoidable loom waste and the odd scraps from spinning, this is ALL of the remaining wool. I was playing yarn chicken hard:

Tomorrow I shall begin the process of sewing! Then, the book report where I pull together everything.

VERY chaotic to start, but I bought some yarn (tan) that was way less sticky than the crochet thread (blue) of my practice piece, and added Bobbins. BIG difference. Plus, the yarn is a more natural texture and a more period choice, so it's really helped me get a feel for the process!

Got my steel authorization!

Immediately fought in my first tournament

Did not win (of course) but did not place last (hell yeah)

Went down to the pier and took turns:

A) learning to use an ancient style sling to throw rocks

B) Hiding behind some borrowed heavy shields while the other guys learned to throw stones with a sling

Saw one of my friends get her Pelican in court

GOT CALLED UP TO COURT TO GET MY TORSE??!! Was not expecting that

Had a great BLT dinner with tons of extras

Went to a vigil that was serving AMAZING mead and they gave me SO MUCH of it (I did not drink the whole Literal Twenty Ounces I was given)(a friend got about half)

Watched the stars come out and talked with tons of friends

Actually got real sleep!!! All my prep paid off I SLEPT!!!

Fought in another tournament the next morning (similar showing: nowhere near first but also nowhere near last!)

Bopped around the merchants and bought a nice mug

Had a nice nap in the shade

Did some weaving before going home

Admittedly not the most period fabric choice, but sometimes we get to put the "creative" in SCA :P I debuted this at the Blue Feather social at Lilies a couple of weeks ago.

The tunica is a linen gauze and the beads on the sleeves are little moonstone clouds, for maximum cuteness.

The belt was brand new and made for me by a talented and awesome friend.

[ Image descriptions: the first image is of a snowy yard and street.  An oak tree spreads its branches over the sidewalk, which has been cleared of snow.  There are lumps of snow on either side of the road, left by the plow, that reach approximately 2ft (.6m) in places.  The snow has been cleanly shoveled in the immediate foreground and shows how it drifted up there: it’s probably up to almost a meter (3 ft).  The second image is of several items on a green-patterend background: a very small seax (a straight blade with a drop/clipped point), its handle wrapped in brown leather, resting against a brown leather holster that’s been stitched with thick tan sinew.  Next to it are two pottery cups, one in a dark greenish-gray clay incised with geometric patterns that have been glazed white, its inside glazed with purple glaze.  The other cup is a simpler tan clay cup, undecorated, with its interior glazed in dark maroon glaze. Lastly, a shawl pin in copper wire that has been arranged in stacked figure-eights to form a diamond shape, and then hammered flat.  It’s secured by a straight pin made out of copper with the end fashioned into a coil and hammered flat. End ID. ]

Recent doings

First image: We had snow where I’m at yesterday.  I wanted to call it “a blizzard” but I realize that’s my San Diego self talking.  It is icy on the roads, though.

Second: I’m working on developing a set of implements and belongings for my SCA persona, and to my delight my mini-seax arrived yesterday. It’s all of about 6″ (~15.5cm) long, and I’m going to dangle it from my belt for use at meals.  I’ve been trying to find hand-made things for this, and things that are realistically period for my persona (who is late 900s Anglo-Saxon) -- given that things are justifiably higher-priced because they are made by actual craftspeople, building up the kit will take some time (for the things I don’t make myself).  But I think it’s worthwhile to do so, whenever I can actually afford it.  There’s been regular discussion here about the impact that mass manufacturing has had on our general ideas about what things should be worth, a generally negative impact, since the stuff you can find on the shelves at your local BoxMart carry no information about what it took to make them, their components, the time it took, etc.

For more on that, let me link to a delightful video by Bernadette Banner in which she’d found that one of the zillions of CHICV or CHICV-inspired “stores”* was using a photograph of her, wearing her own hand-made, hand-stitched, bespoke-tailored dress, to sell something that was, as it turned out, not her dress.  I’ve posted about this before, but it’s so wonderful, it bears repeating.

* CHICV International is a company that specializes in creating a Web presence for a whole host of “clothing” “stores”, and you’ll see them all over Facebook (I always report them when I see them).  Their photos are of absolutely amazing clothes -- this is because they’ve searched the Internet for actual craftspeople’s photos of things they’ve made (they’ve stolen plenty of photos from people on Ravelry, for example) -- sometimes photoshopped to show the clothes in different colors, and the prices are suspiciously low.  It’s because here’s how it works: they put up the photos.  If you purchase an item, they then send the photo to a garment factory.  It is now up to the clothiers in that factory to Figure It Out from the photo.  Something like upwards to 4 months later (if you’ve purchased something that was, say, bespoke-made by hand by an incredibly talented Bernadette Banner), you will get a mostly-polyester knock-off in the mail, constructed as inexpensively and as swiftly as possible, because the person at the sewing machine probably has another stack of photos to Figure Out.

Anyway, here are the sources for the stuff I bought:

 Mini-Seax: Olde Town Smithy, on Etsy

 Pottery: Lobster Rose Pottery, on Facebook

 Shawl Pin: Nicholas & Felice, also on Etsy

Not pictured: my bone nålbinding needle, which I promptly misplaced upon its arrival. I’m sure I’ll find it when I’m tearing the house apart looking for something else.