A weekend!... or two!

I promised pics and here they are!!

The floor is all insulated and absolutely fantastic to walk on.

I even put a new strop in under the main beam of the lounge room floor to take out the boom of heavy footfalls on the floor.

Here's Stella carrying a very full belly.

This morning she was behaving oddly, I reckon she's about ready to pop.

Here's the sequence of the peacock shelter, Walls! and Roof!

And a very frozen pond, rather funny to hear a clatter instead of a plop of a dropped nail.

The old and the new in curtains.

Yes, they really were as horrible as I thought.

New ones!

Tonight's learning experience:

When you see the element of the stove melting... TURN IT OFF.

I now need a new pan, and my 12 year old polarfleece is a little more singed.

Not so good.

Where's that nappy?

The cure for distraction is.... work

What a big weekend, I'm just taking a little break, while the iron heats up again to press the bottom of yet another curtain.

Pix to follow, but it's all looking good!

This weekend I have:
Stacked the friewood
Walked 20km
Made most of my lounge room curtains (not long now!).
Insulated the floor of the lounge and bedroom (It's always a nice feeling when you realise that you've over estimated your materials, and you're Still under budget!). R3.8 BTW
Washed all the clothes.
Put the roof on the peacock shelter (I still need to russick up some scrap ridge capping for the top... and for the barn now that I think of it). I even fixed up the door frame tomake it betterer.

I took an hour or two out this afternoon to check out an auction, which didn't have a great deal of interest, but on the way back I found a basic book on enameling (sp?).

A handy side benefit, is that I've gotten rid of most of the pile of manky timber that has been cursing my bottom driveway for the longest time.

Enough break! Back to work!

Froggy!!

With the three inches of rain we had over the last fortnight, I had some visitors.

These guys turn up every year about this time, they tend to squeal a bit when the cats play with them.

Devest Garb - Part 1

So, for my devest, which I'd originally planned to be sometime in 2009, I wanted to do a reproduction of the coronation robes of Roger the 1st of Sicily, like this;

There is also a pair of gloves and a pair of hose;

However, with the reduction in time for the devest held last weekend the time frame to produce this went from two years to less than six months, including festival, may crown and other joys. As a result of this the finished product for devest looked like this;
You can't see it, but as well as the dalmatic in blue, there is a white silk under tunic, which has a hem about 5 inches higher than the dalmatic.

Materials;

Under tunic - White german duppion silk

Dalmatic - Blue german duppion silk

Hose, cuffs, and hem - Raspberry raw silk

Hose Soles - 12 Oz. Scour canvas

Thread - Guterman silk

Every stitch is hand sewn, by myself, Sabine and Angharad (Thank you both).

Patterning for the undertunic and the dalmatic was by Miss D, with the dalmatic sleeve pattern being an excercise of over-the-net patterning.

Patterning of the hose was by Sabine using MTA as a base resource.

Glove patterning is still a work in progress

There will be more to follow, but you get the idea.

I'm free! and I was relevant

Last weekend I stepped down as Baron of Ynys Fawr. It was an interesting 96 hours, there was laughter, theatre, tears and joy, so all in all, a stock standard step-down, including the required bitchy comment from at least one tool.

Now I can focus on all the stuff I want to be and do when I joined the SCA, like fighting and A&S and events and stuff!

The devest garb post is to follow! Soon even! I promise!

It's a interesting to note that I originally joined the society so that "I could have a hobby where I wasn't in charge". No, really, I'm serious!
I still remember when Miriam, the previous Baroness said to me, after Aine and I were announced as the new B&B "Wow! You really got the wrong job for that one!"

Some of the things I am particularly proud of about our reign;
- Ynys Fawr is no longer regarded as a 'poor country cousin' around the kingdom, we're known for who we are and what we're capable of producing.

- The Barony has at last check 48 members, nearly half the way to principality.

- No event has run at a loss, at least to my knowledge, in the entire reign.

- Consequently the coffers are full and The Barony can seriously consider some larger projects like pavilions, and land grants and halls etc.

- Baronial Meetings are an efficient, well organised affair, which generally tackle the issues at hand in an intelligent analytical way.

- The college is flying along.

- The tourney on Saturday had 18 combatants on the field, only 4 of which were from outside the Barony.

- Ynys Fawr has held it's first Crown Tourney. Which was well regarded around The Kingdom.

- People talk to each other, in a civil manner, and settle their differences without shredding each other. Yes, there are exceptions, myself included, but generally The Barony is a happy place.

- The coronet was shiny when I handed it back.

When I looked around the room at the investiture feast, and assessed each person who played regularly, I was able to say, more often than not 'I honestly believe We have made your game better, during Our reign", which is about as good as I think can be expected. And really, if I was going to summarise Our reign in one sentence, that is honestly how I would do it.