elegentry

Should have written this earlier. My focus is shifting away, to house cleaning, deep tidy, rearranging furniture. All that.

Went to festi, came home. Did lots of fun stuff during.

On the way there
-foot complained lots. Needed painkillers and lots of breaks
-visited several good friends, one that I had not seen in about a year and has a new 3wk old daughter. So good to see her. Great to spend time with R&J (even if J says rude things about blogs) and Quatrefoil in her lovely little flat.

While there
-met the new site, very pretty! Did I take pics? sadly no. It is a valley surrounded by tree covered hills, very green and lush... because it is very damp. Also warmer and more humid than I like for much of the time. My big coat did not get worn at all and much sweating was done.
-managed not to get eaten by leeches unlike most of my household
-loved seeing everyone and catching up
-sang, sewed, cooked, drank some
-loved my new black frock and bright underskirt! Really works. Yellow Durer - convinced the neckline is wrong, bother, how to fix? The revamped button frock was most useful as cool working frock.
-loved living in my little tent
-for a change was not terrified that the big feasting tent would fall down- no high winds. What a relief.
-did three stints on troll gate- rather fun. Friday was too busy to do anything but sign people in. Other two days had time for sewing and chat. Very pleasant that the two quieter days had friends of mine on duty with me, quite by accident.
-went to my first L meet in years- actually useful, productive and well run. Encouraging.
-participated in the making of two new Ls! Both also friends, one ex apprentice. Very pleased.
-Enjoyed the household children. Seemed like 16 of them but there was really only 4.
-the kitchen sink! We kept a tidier camp this year than ever before in my memory. Much nicer.

On the way home
-packed up damp tents etc.  No choice, Monday was VERY wet and the humidity was so high that everything was damp even when the sky was fine.
-raced off to see Miss A who lives locally and I have not seen in 4-5yrs? Found her, spent half an hour or so until she had to race off to work. Sad to lose connections, great to have them reformed.
-Foot was vastly better, only a few twinges and no painkillers taken
-stayed with A&P, what a pleasant evening!
-experienced a dust storm on the road- thick orange clouds, had to slow to a crawl, could not see the road let alone vehicles! Put both headlights and hazard lights on in case another driver was more brave about speed than I. Very glad it did not last long.

After
-vast amounts of laundry, dishes, tidying, nearly done now.
-tent walls have gone really mouldy. No suprise but I need to figure how to deal with them. Has anyone got tips? I am thinking spray bottle of bleach or somesuch. Rest of tent is fine. Maybe this is where I finally need to remake the walls?

Interestingly I have arrived home wanting to make the house nice, rather than wanting to frock. Probably because I have been frocking for months and doing almost no housework. I want a deep tidy, furniture moved, painting and decorating plans finished. Spent much of the trip home planning this in my head. I'll spend a bit of time on this before I need to frock for midwinter.

Right. Decision made. 2hrs later and very much distracted by sewing type things. I want to be in Sydney on Monday but need to be here Sunday. These two things are not compatible. So only one night as first discussed thanks Quatrefoil.

The green button frock will have to have a new name. It no longer has buttons. It will change marginally to become dress #3 this year.  Sort of a replacement for the tired old cook's wife frock.

Must actually do some packing.

I've been back a couple of hours from the Surveying Expedition.
-Had a good time in lovely company. Ate very well-hoorah for the cooks! drank enough but not too much, tasted a brilliant mead made from 25yr old honey,  helped out some.
-Taught a formal class- (fibre identification) and at least one informal (hem stitching).
-Did hand finishing on a dress for Rose made by hometime , wove 3/4 of a pair of garters (partly warp weighted by Rauf)
-Got 4 bullant bites(hand and back)- OUCH and multiple less exciting bites around my ankles. I'll itch for a while.
-Slept in my little pavilion, always fun. Even after the half centre pole snapped during set up (fixed with tent peg splints and the traditional duct tape)

Now I am clean-Yay! the car is unpacked, dresses shaken free of dust, baronial T towels all washed and fluttering on the line.

Still have to unpack properly, do my laundry and put everything away. Time now though for a glass of wine and a bit of a sit down.

Oh- the gold Durer frock got finished prior and  worn on the Sat. I'm almost completely happy with it though I will shift one pair of buttons for a more secure closure.  I failed to take my camera so there is no pic yet. Maybe I can beg one from someone else or you will have to wait for it's next wearing. I was delighted with how many compliments I received on it, most gratifying. Even better, it fits well and is nicely comfy. I am thinking of making another similar frock but really should work on a few more nice linen chemises to replace my old daggy, worn-out cotton voile ones.

I just wrote this as a comment on Celsa's post about lack of time. I am posting it on it's own because I think the section underlined really is a problem for me. I need to think about that and what I might do about it:


"personally I have less time for SCA projects than I did a few years ago. I blame 4 things
- LJ and email at home
- work being more hours and more exhausting
- buying a house and getting into gardening.
- um, and being a costume laurel.

I too get a lot of sewing etc done on trains and at events. I just haven't been travelling on trains or going to many events lately. Well I did in the UK recently but I was patchworking rather than doing SCA stuff. La.

The big problem is as a costume laurel, I feel that every single thing I produce for the SCA has to be as perfectly authentic as possible. This is really exhausting and does not allow for much in the way of pure creativity. Hence my drift into patchwork, quilting and back to street clothes. So I still make things that take ages but they are not SCA relevant. For example, the star quilt (was posted if you remember) I finished about 6mths ago that took around a year of my creative output. I do second the notion that really intense/complex/lengthy things can get done if you do 20min of it every day or so."

later:
-hmm. Does this translate as nothing I do can realistically be good enough and is therefore pointless? or that I make too many decisions at work and have too few decisions left for costuming? Or that I need more creative outlets more than I need costumes? Or that I am sick of changing shape so nothing fits? or that I miss the game how I/we used to play it? Or that other stuff is more important right now?

Way too much self analysis for a Monday night. My head hurts and I'm going to bed. Probably the most sensible thing I have written all night.