It feels appropriate, on the first of the SCA year (Welcome to AS LIV!) to have a moment of ‘what’s where’ and ‘you’re doing what!?’.

I eternally have lots of stuff on the go. Little stuff, big stuff, A&S stuff, modern stuff. I learned (the hard way) that too much focus makes me crazy, and drives my unreasonably fussy joints nuts. It takes me longer to get things done, but it suits my SQUIRREL! brain, and changing what I’m working on day to day, or even hour to hour keeps the stress injuries down. Even if I failed on that hardcore in the fall, and am still paying for it. (It’s healing! Slowly! I’ve never been so grateful to do a few minutes of mending in my life. Gratitude for mending will not happen again, I enjoyed it while it was there.)

That being said, there are a few projects that are in the current main rotation, and so I figured I’d share what’s on the worktable and in the project bag.

The Big Stupid Project: Ahh, scope creep is at me again. This is going to be, someday a Hedeby bag. (The Norse bag with the wooden handles, for those wondering what I’m on about). The warp weighted loom has been borrowed! The spinning for the wool has been completed! Next up is a sample warp on the loom to have some sense of what I’m doing, spinning the flax for the strap, and learning about warp sizing. There are many many steps after those ones, but let’s focus on the immediate ones, lest I fall over in a heap from my own crazy.

All 783 m skeined off.

My super fancy lazy kate and niddy noddy.

Pink Practice Lace: This bit of lace had exactly two purposes. To remind my hands that we still knew how to make bobbin lace, and to use up some pink tatting cotton that has been in my stash forever (and is probably easily 60 yrs old. Much of my cotton stash is vintage, that’s a whole conversation in an of itself. It’s a good thing I like stripes.) The plan was to just go ’til I ran out of cotton, there’s not THAT much on a tiny ball of tatting cotton, right? Well apparently I have an artifact of endless cotton or something, because while my bobbins are getting low, they aren’t out yet, and I’m 16″ + worth of lace done. And there’s more on the ball. So while my picots are still a dog’s breakfast, there should be at least 20″ in this (maybe more if my artifact theory pans out) and it’s been promised to a friend whose eyes lit up at the pink.

Random spinning: Now that the easy spinning for the BSP is over, and I still can’t reliably knit or use a needle (5 whole minutes! A /day/. But progress!) I still need something portable and moderately not obtrusive to work on at lunch hour at work, or when I’m sitting watching court, or just to keep the hands busy. I have some silk I’ve been spinning forever (It has a Plan!), but I also have been digging out the oddballs of dyed fleece I’ve accumulated over the years. Awesome dye jobs, totally not SCA period, but colourful and fun, generally not much more than 50g each. What I am going to do with not much colourful yarn? Excellent question. It’ll age in stash ’til needed or inspiration strikes.

Sheepy spindle!

Great colours in the roving

Trying to keep the colours together.

Wool done, silk forever.

Garb: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a few thousand more times. Garb is not my A&S. I can do it, sometimes its even not terrible when I’m done, but I drag my feet and grumble every moment of it. I do, however, like having new clothes for the weekend wardrobe. That last bit usually outweighs the bit that comes before it. The fact that I can’t hand sew more than mending at the moment is not helping, as I rather enjoy hand sewing, but the machine and I mostly tolerate each other. (The serger and I are not currently on speaking terms. There was an Incident involving polar fleece, and we both felt it better for everyone involved if the serger just went and lived in my husband’s workspace. It’s for the best.) There’s a few pieces I want for the coming camp season (wool coat, underdresses, chemises, new kirtle etc), and while the coat is mostly done. (see the aforementioned heel dragging), the rest are at the ‘gosh, I should probably do that, but oh look, a loom!’ stage.

That hits the highlights of what I’m working on.. there’s always more little projects here and there, and I reserve the right to Oooh Shiney! off to a new one at any moment. What are you doing at the start of AS LIV?