The weekend has ended and I think we are all in a sad with the family leaving for home but the eldest nephew had band camp as a freshman starting today so needs must. Saturday we did a bit of antiquing after they left. Benton had been dealing with a slight sore throat that has gotten worse and got so bad that we trundled up to town to get to urgent care. Its not strep but is like my issue a few months back with allergies getting past his meds. We also need to get the dehumidifiers running in the downstairs cause its musty and he may have an issue with any surface mold. But he's feeling better yesterday but was pretty chill watching tv all day after we got back to the house.

Sunday we managed to get to the local fighter practice in my original home shire of Border Downs. King Hans is a local now so Mel got to have a lot of good passes, including with pole arm (he borrowed gauntlets) and he had fun fighting other folks. I guess next year we will have to drag his C&T stuff. I spun on my drop spindle and did a good long bunch of fiber in the 2+ hours we were there. Benton was playing on the playground. I talked with a bunch of modern families that came to see and was a good peer even when I had a mom say her kiddo was non verbal, I still spoke with him to show him the fiber I was spinning and I could see he liked the texture and gave him a small sample to have. All of the kids were polite and when I redirected with if you want to touch something please ask they were really good. Two of the kids played with benton's boffers and when it was time to leave I asked them to please put them back how they found them and they did. Good parenting there which I appreciated. Another mom asked where we buy our costumes and I explained we made most everything and said I'm even making yarn right now and she went "go you!" which was hilarious. I was in shorts and tank top but still it was hilarious.

The mosquitos have been brutal with all of the flooding and rain here. Luckily the Off active dry works well but man they have been insane even in the day time. I'm looking at getting one of the mosquito thingys for the patio. Cause damn I want to sit out in the evenings. They were not this bad last year but boy howdy this year is nuts.

We got back from practice and had lunch and then I got a shower from the bug spray making my skin feel gross. I got a quick rinse off and then I took a 2 hour nap. Finally got up and worked on the pants. I did change out the needle and mucked with the thread a bit. I'm using brand new gutterman thread but the needle did most of the trick I also learned from this video how to do reverse and other things.

I finished the pants after dinner and then sat down at my wheel to spin the mohair and about an hour in my footman on teh left side snapped. This happened last year on the right side so now I need to wrangle with that today. It was late and dark and I needed tools from the big garage and I just sat down and worked on the emotional support chicken and finished its beak and now it looks like a flat chicken and is making me very happy. next up on it is the comb, then the wattle and then the underside before stuffing. I hopefully can get it done before we leave for WW and then just have some socks for mel on the needles. I will also pack my spinning since the polworth is spinning up quickly.

I'm about 50% through #24 for the year and the plot thickens. I'm not sure if this takes place in the almost timeline of now or not. There are references to the modern world and actors etc but I'm not sure that the "real" world knows that magic exists? Oh well reading I guess they don't. I'm interested in how this will go next.

So things are nice, its relaxing and the cats happy. Especially since I got a new cat tunnel that is an s-curve with extra cutouts that is making it hilarious with tails sticking out of weird spots. Happy kittens.

Friday I worked the POD and had a good time since it was Poe and I. It wasn't as warm as Easter Sunday where I got a very nasty sunburn on my shin.  Its still healing btw.  But it was nice and there was a breeze and it was great working with someone I really know.  I got a shower when I got home and relaxed in one of my new dresses from Target.  Saturday I had to get up early and get SCA dressed for me teaching at 8am. Ugh time zones.  Seriously...ugh. but I taught my beads of the North class and then I taught my top 10 books class.  It was nice and then I took classes on:
tidal water wheels in period
how to travel upon snow and ice the period way
a beginner's class on rectangular construction (yes I know this info but I wanted to see how someone would teach this and it was cool)
Making beads from birka and Ribe which I've taken at another collegium but that was cool to see if again as she's making beads in real time
Norse clothing and the lack of evidence in grave finds by my former BFF Cecilia

I then made a nice over baked porch chops dinner and relaxed with Benton while mel finished his shift at the POD.  He got his second vaccine which didn't really hit him until the next day.

It was a nice day though.  I knit and chatted with my SIL on text while we were in some of the same classes and got to chat with Cecilia on text as well catching up on things and chatting about the Pskov grave find.  It was a nice night.  We all went to bed early-ish and that was good.  I got up on Sunday and got coffee on a shake in me and then made sure Mel was taken care of...he was feeling fine but tired.  I gave blood, picked up breakfast burritos and then back to teh house.  Mel was still tired and I could see he was loosing steam, he napped off and on all afternoon in between video games and baking bread. He slept through time to put the roast on for dinner but it made great leftovers for Monday.  

Benton and I made necklaces since all of my bead stuff was out.  He looked at all of what I had and chose things he liked and played with the patterns and then he strung it up. The only thing I did was put the clasps on since that is fiddly and I use professional grade crimp stuff.   I made 1 period-ish necklace and then 2 modern ones and then laid out 2 more for myself to finish up on monday.  Which I did along with working on the scroll commission for about 20 mins. My motor control for that skill set was a bit weak though so I didn't get too far but far enough.

so I've been crafty and that has been super nice.  I'm glad to be back in a groove for a while.  Been trying to eat better, drink less booze, drink more water and just go to bed when tired.

I crafted. Friday was long and it was just a rough week with work and things. Performance reviews etc. I was just done by the time things were at 4pm. I wanted some sewing things on Youtube and knit. My brain was toast. I did make a really good dinner of bean and ham soup along with getting groceries (milk and veggies).


Saturday we didn't have HIIT so I slept in a bit and had the morning to myself with the boys at the dojo. Got my saturday ritual shower done and settled in for classes at Rhinebeck which was a heck of a lot of fun. I took two from Deborah Robson who was part of the team to write and edit the Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook. Her class on the odyssey of the book coming to being was amazing and the class I took on the structure of wool was really interesting as well. She got down to the biological level with the strands and it was neat. I then took a class with Alanna Wilcox who was fun to hear about drafting and why would or wouldn't do certain techniques. She had great visuals and multiple cameras to help see the fiber and the samples she showed for thing knitted up were cool. i learned a lot.

After my classes finished I headed to Paul's to meet his soon to be son. It was super nice minus other folks having just been to another party (ugh). We are staying home for a few weeks just to make sure things are okay. But Skylar is pretty cool and I think he will be a good fit for Paul.

Sunday I slept way in and then did some reading before working on the serk mockup. I'm still fighting with the neckline and I may call in Wander for some help over facetime. Its just weird with my shoulders and lats. Le sigh. I'm trying to figure out why they would do this for the neckline at all and can't quite figure it out. But its a mockup for reasons.



You can see it pulls on my neck at the back. Hmmmm.

I then made dinner of turkey sausage stuffed squash and you know you are doing things right when the kiddo sees whats on his plate and goes "oooh squash!" he didn't complain about the fact I used spicy sausage either...just got another glass of milk. Woot! After dinner I sat at my neglected spinning wheel and chain plied my yarn I spun in May. I over plied it so that will be interesting to see what it does in teh skein. I'm letting it rest and then will skein it up and wash it and thwack it a bunch. That will be tonights project along with some sewing and maybe some calligraphy. I have a few scrolls that need that.

Its finally starting to get below 70 at night which means by the weekend we should be at doors open at night. Its been cool enough in teh mornings to pull the bed spread up and use it. I am so glad I made that darn thing. I'm feeling better in the brain than last week. I had some good news finally at the end of the day on Thursday night and that was nice at least but still I think crafting was good for my soul this weekend. I knit on my hitchhiker which is turning out really nice. The colors are gradients and its now into the dark blackberry heading towards black. I'm going to knit until the last drop on this skein.



I also painted my toes in cute pinks and sparkles cause why the heck not!



And then to cap the weekend off I stayed up way too late to finish up book 43 of the year Clockwork Crown. It was really good.

I spent Friday doing school shopping with the boy. I was completely tuckered when we got home. I didn't craft on Thursday night or on Friday night for cosplay. I worked on the damnable scarf and am very close to finishing it. Mel has been decompressing from work stress and it has been nice to sit on the couch and watch the Olympics.

Saturday I did the grocery shopping and then worked on the lolita. Sunday AM was lolita in the AM/noon and the afternoon was working on the sarees at Ari's.

Benton had some rough spots this weekend. He did not listen well and did not get his reward for good behaviour (eegees) twice. I had to have him do pushups in the stores and he was annoying to the stylist who cut his hair. He did well at Ari's playing with Mason for hours and then he lost the groove. But he was tired and hungry so I can understand. I was tired and hungry too.

On the saree front I made the decision to add the pallau from the saree uaekiwi got me for my wedding and that I've already gotten trim and a skirt out of. I got the bottom trim all sewn on, the extra fabric and now just need to sew down the top trim and the edge of the extra fabric. The pallau piece has red on it which will go nice with Zatana's cape she wears at times off the back of her tuxedo jacket.



I still need to pattern the jacket/vest/chemise but I think that can be accomplished this week so that I can spend the following week working on SCA clothes for crown and then just working last minute items. Mel goes to Britain Sunday so I want things pretty settled and be at hand work so Ben and I can watch movies and color together etc versus me making yards and yards of trim in my studio.

The Loli is now getting very close to done.
Front:



Back:


I still need to put a bit of trim on the ends of the undersleeve, trim the bottom of the jacket, takeup the skirt piece and make the collar. The entire weekend it was "more floofy, if you think its too much, add more!" and I think I got the asthetic right on the butt bow. I still probably need bows in the front but now I'm thinking I'm going to bustle up the skirt on the jacket to show off all of my hard work on those damnable ruffles.


I sat down after dinner last night and finished up our hair bows for the Hydra Cheer squad, though I need to figure out how to use the cyber dreads I bought. I also cut out the fabric for the bun covers but I need to dig out my cotton batting to make them bigger and smoother, plus add more lace.

So, lots of progress and things are falling into place nicely. Just need to get through the next few days before school starts and then we can get back into a normal routine.

I also finished Venom in the same series I've been reading by Estep. Kev didn't give me the fourth book in the series so I started in on The Better Part of Darkness by Kelly Gay.

I slept like utter crap last night and its now been a monday with computers, late sleepers etc. Sighs.

( To Do List )

We had a very, very busy weekend. Thursday night after I picked Ben up from the dojo and got him fed, bathed and into bed I worked on my studio and got things more organized and started in on more repair work of things that have been sitting around. Mel got home and I headed out for drinks with a coirker who was leaving the company to other things. Finally realized that he's like Byron from college. Conspiracy theory but more hipster than Byron. He's tattoed all over and does his own 1 manned electronica band and puts his records out on tapes cause its cheap. I will miss Eric though...he was always good for a interesting convo.

Friday we got up and took the boy to his last day of Pre-K. We got some errands done and then headed back to school for the performance and potluck. We had a really nice time and Ben was uber cute. I made his teacher get a bit teary eyed at the gift we gave her (cute bin with cookies, coffee, yarn and pinwheels to celebrate summer).

Click Pic for the album:


The potluck was nice and we hung out with Matt, Jaylee, Mary and Andrew and all of our kids. Ben came home after that and then I ran errands for the car. Got it emissions tested and fully detailed and then hit Micheals for cosplay stuff. I got home and I think I worked on more mending and things. We had pasta for dinner and the squire/apprentice were over working on projects. Paul stopped by to drop off things and I did research after everyone left. I was pooped and I think we were in bed by 10pm.

Saturday Mel got up early to head to ed's to work on the MEGAPATIO and I got up with Benton and got him ready to go over there to spend time with Holly and Henry. Then I came home to most of the day to myself and my house. Things I accomplished:
1) restored the headlights on the car
2) removed the tape holding the bumper on the car and scraped off the gross stuff
3) Watered and fertilized the outside plants.
4) Sewed together 2 pair of pj pants for Ivan that have been cut out since xmas. (sighs).
5) Sewed his wool fighting tunic final seams finished which has been sitting since Janaury 2015 (sighs), it just needs a hem and is hanging now.
6) Got halfway through fixing a pair of capris with a hole where I had to remove the duct tape patch with goo gone and rewash and buy patch material.
7) Fixed all of the seams in a pair of my rus pants, if I'd done it right the first time I'd never had needed the repair. sighs
8) Double sewed all of the seams in a tunic which now may be too small for me but will fit Sam or Ari since the seams allowance now had to be eaten up by seams to fix material destruction on the points of my boobs etc.

Got done with all of that, showered and then headed to Christy's for a BBQ. Had a nice time there and knit on the shawl. Benton played with Christy's roommate for quite some time and also fell in love and out of a hammock. So now I need to get a hammock cause the porch requires it. Got home late and managed to get to bed relatively early.

Sunday I enjoyed coffee on the porch and read for a bit before slogging off to Costco and the grocery store before being home and working on t-shirt mods. I'd been reading lots of tutorials on how to do it and I mucked with my serger a lot and then modd'd 3 tshirts. The first was a bit tight since the fabric didn't have any stretch but the next 2 turned out cute. I will probably do rolled hems versus the serger though on the arms/neckline. I'm not great at serging where it needs to be pretty.

Before:


After:


I'm going to go through my tshirts and mod a few more for fun to wear. Though I do need to not get the neckline to bowl out as much. But they are cute. I made steaks for dinner (from Dickman's). Mel and Andrew were brewing beer all afternoon and I did make a beer run to AZ beer house since Drew had never had Dragoon Brewing Co before. I got a 4 pack of their IPA, A growler of teh double IPA from Bisbee and a Green Tea Saison from Thundercanyon. AFter dinner and Benton to bed I got my sewing mojo back on and cut out my skirt out of the galaxy fabric and sewed it. I put in my first zipper which was amazing to me. It took me an hour and only 1 tear out to get it to look nice.



The skirt came out long and the finishing instructions for the waist band were special if you've never sewn from a pattern before. Sighs. But its cute and it fit perfectly minus being way too long.


Went to bed at a good time feeling very accomplished and we slept in the morning. I was tired and had coffee, made steak/egg burritos and read. Managed to make a rhubarb cobbler for Paul's BBQ and we headed there about 1230pm. We had fun in the pool and playing games/chatting. Benton got cold in the pool and curled up under his towel on the hot concrete before getting into the hot tub to warm up. Such a child of summer.

Got home with a tired boy who ate some dinner, had a quick shower and went to bed. Mel finished up reading him Basil of Baker Street which is the first chapter book we are reading him. Not sure what we will start next.

Wander arrived just as I was packing for scriptorium and she was able to help me get my hem marked on the skirt, answered questions about the waistband finishing and helped me mark up the pattern for the next skirt. Which if I have time I will cut out and sew tonight. I have laundry to do and lots of things to prep for the convention. I am also going at Athena and need to make a spear (Have Mel make me one) and get my jewelry taken care of plus find my roman sandals. Ari will grab her medusa for fun.

So that brings me to thinking of what I want to wear. Thursday we arrive and I have a Supply pod shirt to wear that will get me a free prize. So I think it will be the skirt and top. Friday will be Star Wars or Medusa. Saturday will be Star Wars and Sunday will be the other geek skirt and a t-shirt. Its supposed to be 109°F Thursday and 117°F Saturday. UGH!!!! OMG. HOT!!!! Reasons we don't live there for over one hundred Alex! Bleah. Its supposed to be 111°F in Tucson Saturday but that is the highest I've ever seen it get while I've lived here.

Bleah.

Well, was good and got home with the Benton and had a nice dinner and snuggles. Then I made sure to get the dishwasher loaded and things settled before I hit the sewing. Benton was in bed when I got the sewing machine set up in the living room to watch Dirty Jobs and then he got up to go potty which ended up him using up about 1/4 roll of TP and stopping up the toilet. At least he pooped but I hate plunging toilets...ewww. Oh, well, got him back to bed and then on to ruched trim. I had serged the edges the previous night so I turned the edge to sew it down for pretty...(seriously, who is going to look at my trim and notice the serging but the laurel in me was screaming to not cut corners, so meh). If I had a rolled hem foot this would have been easier but I could just sit and let the machine pull in the fabric and held my hands just right to roll the edge over. The thing is the machine pedal started to overheat. So that was good for breaks. Then I had been talking with danabren and she gave me a huge tip for ruching that involved setting up the machine to baste and pins to hold onto the fabric to grab excess thread.
1) turn off your feed dogs
2) turn off the tension to the pressure foot
3) set stitches to the longest and then sew by pushing the fabric through by hand versus the machine doing it. Its free sewing like in quilting.
4) Every yard, place a pin and then pull some extra thread out to help later in the gathering
5) do this the whole length of trim
6), start gathering by pulling the bobbin thread and then wrap the excess as you go on the pins every yard.

So, here is the in progress and finished ruching.




So tonight when I get home I will be attaching ruffles to the underskirt and then the ruching to the overskirt which will then basically leave them with hooks and eyes to be done and the overskirt waistband. Friday will be working on the jacket completely.

My buttons came in and they are AWESOME!!!! OMG!!!!! SO SQUEEFUL!!!!!! And Epaul accidentally overcharged me so now I have $46 in credit with him. Woot!

The To Do List:
( Read more... )

The weekend was....okay I guess. Benton had come down with some sort of tummy bug on Wednesday so we had him home with us for the duration of the week and weekend. I don't think I changed that many diapers the first week we had him. Seriously. He was snuggly and cute though and only a bit cranky about not feeling good but he was getting up very early, probably from being hungry but not wanting to eat. He's almost better now but still a bit loose in the drawers so to speak.

I worked from home for as much as I could handle...thank you Cox for having Phineas and Ferb and Avengers On Demand. He sat quietly snacking and watching tv. I know...bad parenting by using the TV to soothe and babysit but I got work done and that was okay.

Mel has been very busy working on the baronial thrones. I managed to work on the first of 3 baby blankets some more and that was good. I read more fanfic (for those on that filter, I've done a data dump). I realized that I'd ready about 200k+ words in fan fic in the last few weeks. That is a lot of reading. Speaking of reading I had finished #16 a long while ago and then I read #17 The Secret History of Moscow which was quite entertaining...odd but entertaining. I'm now re-reading Changes by Jim Butcher so I can get caught back up on the universe before Cold Day when it arrives in October. So I will read though Changes and then re-read Ghost Story and be caught up. I need to pick up Iron Kissed to be able to keep reading in that series. I bought another copy of the book I already read...oops.

On Sunday we went to american_knight and duchess_asa's for Holly's 4th bday party. It was a nice time and Benton had a good time playing in the yard. I was having allergy issues and what had started as just my nose moved to all over itchies, swollen fingers and feet and general anaphylactic swelling. We got home and put the boyo to bed and I crocheted and finally almost fell asleep on benedryl as Benton woke up from his nap. I groggily got him up and changed and I read him a lot of books.

I was finally just loosing it and called mel in to watch him. I was getting really ditzy. We had a nice dinner, mel gave him a bath and then it was bedtime for the Benton. I probably should have gone to bed but I sat reading on the couch while mel played Borderlands.

I have to say I'm way groggy today. Focus is shot but I'm coping. Been reading reports and taking notes. Gonna be good to myself tonight and get my toes done and some other pampering before heading home. Long week ahead.

So, I'm not reading as much as I used to but I am driving a heck of a lot so I listen to lots of podcasts including:

With the trauma of last week I made the most of trying to be in a better place emotionally by following the fibergeek motto and "go forth and make stuff!"

Thursday night I snugged with the boy a lot and watched some tv. I think I crocheted but I snugged the boy a lot. Friday we all slept in a bit and then mel and I hit the farmer's market at Jesse Owen park and then hit costco. The farmer's market was nice but we aren't quite in the right season for veggies that I can eat. We did pick up non-sulfur coated dried fruit and some luscious tomatoes. I also tried the Planet of Crepes truck. Really good stuff there and not too bad prices. A bit more than Cupz n crepes in Auwatukee but bigger crepes.

Got home fed the boy and then I drove to work to workout. It was nice and there were like 5 people using the whole facility. The non gym bunny weight room was all for me and then I had a really nice run afterwards. Chatted up Bob about HIIT (High intensity Interval Training) and then came home. Mel and I cooked dinner together. He was my sous chef and we made a wonderful vegetable marinara that I then put shrimp into. So good. Mel also was awesome and processed all of the rhubarb I had gotten and I was able to make one pie, package up for two more pies and had a bit left over for something else. All good. The pie I made turned out okay...not my best but I think I rushed things a bit.

Saturday we got up and had a good morning. I managed to finish the cranky shawl and the pulled out the MIL scarf to take to the house meeting. The house meeting was good. duchess_asa made an awesome taco bar and we all got to work on list tiles for the tourney boards. They turned out really nice and there are more in work than what I have pictured. These were just the ones that I had top coated.



Benton did really good. Deb and Magdalen stole him for a while and he hung out outside while the kids splashed in the wading pool. He ate really good and then napped in his rocking chair as well. Such a good little guy.

Got home and it was almost the boys bedtime and that was also nice. Mel and I barely made it to 10pm we were so tired. I think part of mine was I wasn't feeling 100%...not sure what was up but I was feeling off all day. Probably hormone related I'm pretty sure.

Father's Day the boy was up early for a feed but was then back down for quite a long nap. Mel had pie for breakfast and was a happy camper working on a spinning wheel restoration for the fiber retreat. I headed out early to drop more books off at bookmans and managed to have them take a dozen more between two stores. Got home and worked on projects. I managed to get my shawl washed and blocked and have the MIL scraf knitting finished for the material I had. I've decided it will be a cowl instead since the yarn is now discontinued. So I will try to find some buttons to make a buttoned cowl. Mel is skeptical since its an odd colorway and pattern...he's not sure what he doesn't like about it. I think its neat and cast a scarf on for myself last night.

Here is the back of the shawl and then an front view picture...( Read more... )

I also managed to frog mel's socks. It took me 5 mins with the ball winder to make them go away into nice pretty cakes of yarn. The are getting sent to Mistress Gwen at Tangible Daydreams to be made into socks using her WWI sock knitting machine. They will be sox...just not by my hands. LOL. Very cathartic.

So, crafty weekend has gotten me jazzed for this week's trip to the Fiber Retreat. I will be very happy to be on the road on Thursday. Packing with the Benton in mind is going to make things interesting but I have projects that will all fit into one bag, though I will probably find a few more to take. All good though.

Here is to making this week at work and home really good.

I had a bit of energy on Wednesday. I managed to get all of the fabric ironed, made a little blankie and got started on the curtains. Course I made a wrong cut and will need to piece things in today but eh, not too bad. Course to get all of that going I had to clean up the studio and that took some time but it is now usable.

When mel got home he got right in to working on the nursery shelves. I helped a little bit with watching the level etc. They look great and then I got the shelves loaded up with books and toys. Its really neat looking. The only thing he has left is to work on getting the baby monitor set up. I headed off to knit night and finished up the baby sweater. Its really cute.

( So, pictures of the craftiness )

Got home and mel was very happy with the sweater and was playing more plants versus zombies. I seriously go to bed with that game's music in my head. I was supposed to get up early to watch the guys pour concrete but we got a call at 6am that we got rescheduled to friday morning at 730. I'm okay with that.

On the docket today is to work on cleaning up the bedroom, working on the curtains and working on mel's socks. I got the second one cast on at knit night. I also need to run a couple of errands for the nursery to get the curtain rods etc. So, nice day planned and not too stressful. But I will be getting naps today...my sleep has been light and Obsidian crying at the door is not helping.

So, have a good st. Pat's day! Have a pint for me!