Month: May 2017

Fool 2017

/ Jazmin / 1 Comment

This probably should have been a Tuesday post, but clearly I haven’t quite gotten to that whole ‘twice a week’ posting thing yet. Granted, this week is not the best week to try that sort of thing in.

Anyhow! Fool 2017. Fruits of our Labours, an all weekend A&S practicum camping event and basically my idea of amazing all in one cold and wet package. (cold and wet optional, but we had both this year.) There’s teaching and learning and early morning coffee (when the stove isn’t protesting the temperature and we notice that the coffee has actually brewed) and sleepy late night ramblings, singing in the tavern when its too cold and wet outside (complete with construction paper campfire). There’s creativity EVERYWHERE and you come home with a sense of:

all-the-things-meme-15-maker-300x212

Which is a pretty awesome place to be, all things considered. I didn’t get to embrace the classes and teaching as much as I’d like this year, there was a lot of mental space being taken up with court and plans and a new position and Crown Tourney this weekend. I did manage to teach a class on painted floor cloths, and take a spinning class (Scottish spindles, and I sucked at it. My spindle went home with someone else, and good riddance), and do some drop in classes, and take a bread class. (Must feed Fred, come to think of it. Must FIND Fred hiding in a fridge full of Crown dinner prep). A group of people took rock and smelted iron out of it over the course of two days, which basically means I hang out with alchemists. Damn.

It certainly made doing my 100 Days of A&S really easy for that weekend, that’s for certain! Now I’m back to stretching skills (but it’s a surprise for someone, so no preview pictures).

Fian and Fool and habits, oh my!

/ Jazmin / Leave a comment

I’m still toddling along on my 100 days of A&S (Yes, the hashtag looks like 100 days of sofas which makes everyone happy #100daysofAS ), but as it reads like an ongoing battle between shirt sewing, eyelet making  and knitting, it’s not that exciting to report.

More interesting is that it’s purpose is to build habits. Little bit a day, gets it into the routine and makes it automatic. A small group of us decided that A&S is already solidly in our habits (seriously? 100 days of A&S is still like telling me I need to breathe for 100 days in a row. Well /duh/), but we could all use a little less chaos in our homes and decided on 100 Days of Home. Same rules (10 mins is the baseline, a little is better than none), although as one’s home is not generally quite as portable as A&S is, use your judgement on camping weekends.

14333171686

Gratuitous cute cat photo

Of which this coming weekend is the first! (Look at that smooth segue. XD) Fruits of Our Labour is this weekend. It’s a weekend of camping and practicum and while I know that I say all the A&S focused events are ‘one of my favourites’, I think Fool might be my favourite. It’s relaxed, there’s classes, there’s camping and time to sit and talk and everyone is a buzz with learning new things and you get to watch the Ah ha! moments spark all /over/ the place. I love every bit of it. I’m leading a discussion on painted floor cloths, and hoping to drop in to a few classes (I’m not signed up for anything, I learned early that I love the casual roaming and talking too much to overcommit) and of course bringing enough projects with me that we could be stranded there for a month and I wouldn’t make much of a dent in what I have with me. Still, one needs options! (Specifically weaving, knitting, embroidery, and whatever other random crap is in my basket)

My garb challenge was accepted by the Fian (see earlier post for a description of what that is), so after we survive Crown (stewarding the event) this blog might well become all garb, all the time. (possibly with a whole lot of hate for eyelets. I hope to come to terms with them eventually, but this is not that time.) I have no illusions that I am going to have garb I’m happy with on the first attempt. It’s iterative progress, and I’ve got a few more chunks of crappy clothing to work through before I start being happy. (happier). Crappy garb, ahoy!

2017-05-17 07.11.05

Messy, but functional.

100 Days of A&S: Days 9 – 12

/ Jazmin / 1 Comment

The 100 Days of A&S challenge has been toddling along. I haven’t been updating you guys with a post a day because… well, this is what it’s looked like:

Day 9: Knitting and sewing on lace

Day 10: Knitting and sewing on lace

Day 11: Tablet weaving and knitting and a return to the sewing mines.

Day 12: Sewing and knitting. (Alright, that’s today and I haven’t knit yet, but I will soon.)

You can see that there’s a whole lot of knitting in there. It’s my portable project, so it’s what comes with me to work for lunch hour handwork. (What? You don’t have a lunch hour project?) As it’s the small gauge stocking project that only gets worked on at lunch hours, there could be something said for how long it’s going to take.

2017-05-11 14.07.39

Cuff turned! Only forever yet to go!

The sewing has transitioned from my camica (done! Even the lace! Not perfect, but for my second attempt, it’s better than the first one, which is the important thing!) to Penn’s shirt. I’m still on a high of ‘I didn’t screw it up!’ from my camica project, so even faced with confusing directions I’m still on a ‘yeah! I got this!’. Which is good, cause there’s new stuff in here. Hopefully Penn wont’ hate it when I’m done. (Sorry, forgot to get a picture of the shirt. Picture a pile of white linen. There ya go.)

2017-05-10 07.00.14

See? Lace on a finished camica!

100 Days of A&S: Days 6 – 8

/ Jazmin / Leave a comment

Which, to be fair, I should have been updating since day one, but my last post was up to Day 5, so you’ve only missed the weekend.

The weekend looked like a heap of white fabric, as I attempted to hand sew a camica in a week. (NB: That’s a dumb idea, don’t do it. My hands aren’t really speaking to me.) As I started it last Sunday, in theory a week would have been yesterday. That didn’t happen. I should finish it today (possibly tomorrow, depending.)

received_10154868022501886

Unending sea of white

As I downright pined for something with colour, and as a giant foofy camica for someone of my size is entirely not portable, I also managed to get some knitting in. I figure I should have lovely knee high Eleanora stockings for sometime in the 2020s at this rate.  (So once the unending sea of white is done, I should have an unending sea of green.)

2017-05-07-14-37-30.jpg

Forever stocking

100 days

/ Jazmin / 2 Comments

I came across this notion a couple days ago, and knew what I was going to write about for my Friday blog post. Baroness Ameline of Rowany in the Kingdom of Lochac has set out a challenge. It’s a challenge to her barony, presumably, and her kingdom, and but in the era of social media, these things sometimes go rather further afield and catch the attention of the Knowne World.

2017-04-21 08.47.32

Gratuitous weaving photo

Her challenge is 100 days of A&S, and it’s based off the notion of a century drill as a combatant might do. At least 10 minutes a day of A&S, for 100 days. She suggests starting over if you miss a day. There’s a hashtag for it (#100daysofAS), and of course, now there’s a FB group for it too.

When a friend from Aethelmearc mentioned it to me, her words went something like ‘of course this would be like telling you to try and remember to breathe every day for 100 days in a row’.. and she’s not wrong.  I’ve been trying to get in the habit of not sitting down at the computer with my morning coffee, but sitting down at something creative. Sometimes it’s the lace pillow, sometimes the inkle loom, sometimes its sewing. Me and a podcast (or two) start the day. (Current projects are largely fueled by the History of Rome podcast)

I’m on day 5 (yes, I did backdate a smidge, but I’ve done A&S every day since March, and I wanted to start on May 1, cause it sounded nice!), and every day so far has been chemise sewing. Close your eyes, picture a big pile of white fabric with little white stitches. There. That’s been my five days of A&S so far. (I am so sick of white.)

Care to join me in the challenge?