Back Early From War

There will be war updates. There'll be a couple of pictures, but not many.  While my allergies virtually disappear every time I leave central Texas (thank goodness), the humidity in Mississippi kept my asthma topped out so badly that I could barely leave camp by Wednesday morning/Tuesday evening. I also dislocated my right collarbone early in the week.

While I was gone, my elderly dog, Raven, was suddenly hit by all of his health issues (some known, mostly unknown) exploded all at once.  He spent two days in the hospital.  I packed up camp Wednesday night and hit the road Thursday morning, driving straight from Gulf Wars to the emergency vet clinic, where I spent a last couple of hours with him before he went to sleep for the last time.

Between dog issues and health issues, please excuse my absence from this blog for a while while I spend some time on both emotional and physical healing.

Raven
August 2001 - March 19th, 2015

Plastic No More: Priceless

How does one turn this....

encampment of Le Chateau Rose,
of theWest Kingdom, via Pinterest

Into this? 

Well, for starters, we get rid of the blue plastic cover on that EZ-Up shade canopy.  It makes a great gathering space at events for me and my

friends, but it was awfully...well...plastic. 

This is a 9x12' untreated canvas painters' tarp.   In this picture, Daisy is helping me cut out the side pieces, by folding one corner of the tarp over to make a 9' square, and cutting it into triangles.  The leftovers were divided into 8" strips to use as the apron/sides of the cover.  

I sewed the four triangles together, then flipped over the resulting square, and sewed the apron pieces on, so that the raw seam edges were on the opposite side from the raw seams that attach the triangles.

Note:  all of your cats and dogs will think you're insane for setting up an 8' pavilion in your living room.    

This is my first attempt at doing this, so it took a little adjustment; the biggest being un-sewing all four corners and adding a 4x18" gusset to each one to widen the fit around the sides.  The legs go out an an angle, they're not 90º!  Derp. 

The next time I make one of these, I'll use this cover as my pattern, and hopefully I'll have large enough fabric that I can cut the triangular pieces and the apron pieces all as one piece each, instead of attaching the apron separately as I did this time. 

I finished the edges of the seams inside, then wrapped the outside seams with red bias tape  to add a bit of bling, and to help protect the seams.

It's ready for use, although in the future I'll be doing more to it - waterproofing it, for one thing, which I'll do at the event in Bjornsborg this coming weekend.  Eventually I'd like to make side walls for it, a second apron to attach with red dags, and something decorative to hide the legs as well. 

9x12' untreated canvas painters' tarp:  $25

8 3y packages of red bias tape (extra wide, double fold;  I used a total of aout 22y):  $10

1y package white velcro: $2

1 spool white heavy upholstery thread: $3

Total:  $40, and two days' sewing. 

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Four-Hundredth Verse: Same As the First

Well, I spent the middle of the week sick.  Again.  Food poisoning this time.  Did I break a mirror and forget or something?  Not throw spilled salt over my left shoulder?  SHEESH.  This year can die in a fire.

No, wait - no fires.  *knocks wood*

And now you all think I'm superstitious, lol.

I DO actually have another project-in-progress to show you, not that I have pictures yet.  But soon.

In the meantime, let me share with you some of the fuzzier aspects of my morning routine:

This is how I wake up every morning.   Daisy's very polite, quiet, and gentle;
and she waits for the alarm to go off first.  (Her brother, on the other hand,
has, at this point, been jumping up and down and panting as loud as he can
for like half an hour.  I ignore him).  

Evie (our smartest cat, I say with great sarcasm), gets stuck in the sheers...
again...while trying to get from the windowsill to the nightstand to walk on
my hair, first thing in the morning...

...and then gives up and sits down, to wait for me to help her.  She's an awfully
sweet cat.  Not too bright, though. 

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[My Own] History of the Veil, Part I

I'm sure there'll be a million of these posts.  For a woman who swore in January that I'd never cover my head or - god forbid! - wear a hat...I sure have a lot of veils. (Six at last count, not that I know where they all are).  And I just made my first hat.

I experimented with a frillion ways of pinning my veil directly to my hair, at first.  All kinds of fancy braids, with and without hair taping for support, hidden hair bands and barettes, all to no end. Everything just slid off.

At a demo in Salado, TX, in March.
There's an elastic band around my head, and the veil's draped over the top, pinned in place, and then folded back.  Slid off. Repeatedly.

 A turban-y sort of situation at a demo in Hellsgate.
VERY comfortable.  Bad photo, but it's basically one of these.

Lately I've taken to wearing a it as a foundation onto which to pin a veil, and it works REALLY well.  The trade-off is that the extra layer is kinda hot, although I can soak it in water to cool off, or roll ice cubes into the brim.

And then there was this business ("silk" veil and wimple), for our Fall Championships, which was *AWESOME*.  Still no finished pics, though.  Soon.






I'd been thinking lately, though, of trying out a couple of things:  a barbette and headband, and a hat.  So last night, I ...

Made what I thought was going to be a "quick" little linen barbette (chin strap) and head band.  It actually took me like an hour, since I mis-measured...twice.  D'oh.

For some reason I couldn't find my box-o-headgear last night while I was taking pictures, but I scrounged a square of fabric from my craft room to test-drive the barbette situation:  here's a "veil" pinned onto it.  SO COMFY!  Doesn't move, either.
Sold!

And I found my headgear box like five minutes later.

I swear, if 1 more person asks me if nose rings are period...

And then I made a hat - a plain, 13th-early 14thC toque.  I'm not completely sold.  I like the hat itself, and I love the the fabric (which is a scrap of an old shower curtain - and yes, it's kinda paisley-ish, which is not period for Medieval Europe, but it was what I had, and it's a first draft).

Honestly, I think my face is tall enough already without the extra emphasis; and this oddly-angled picture doesn't really help. Stupid phone camera.

So I'll wear it this weekend to the event I'm going to in Bjornsborg, and wait for the Facebook pics to start showing up.  Either I'll love it or I'll never go out in public again without a bag over my head.

Hilariously enough--I thought--I used my dog's e-collar to come up with the angle and size and curve for the hat pattern, LOL.  Much easier than taking fifteen head measurements and doing a bunch of algebra.  ;)

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