Sewing, and Dancing, and Friendship! Such Fun!

Friday was a full-on day. As I mentioned last month, I've been helping the band Harlequin make costumes to go with their Medieval instruments and repertoire. I met with most of the band five weekends ago to cut out their costumes and get them sewing, but their vocalist was out of the country at the time visiting family. She returned on Thursday, and came over here on Friday to start work on her costume. Over the course of 10 hours we managed to cut out both her under-dress and the over dress (bliaut) and get the pieces assembled. (This brings me to more than 28 hours towards earning the medieval style Hammer Dulcimer they will be making me in trade for the sewing help!) She's taken the dresses home to finish up the seams and hems that can be done by machine, and will meet up with me sometime this week for me to do the hand-finishing at the tops of the gores set into slits and help with the fitting and adding the side-lacing to the body of the gown. I am quite impressed that she was able to put in that long of a day after just having flown back from her holiday, during which she suffered a gastric illness that actually required a visit to the hospital. However, they've got a gig next weekend, and the other band members, having finished their costumes, want to wear them! I was a bit short of sleep myself on Friday morning, and really felt ready for a nap when she arrive at 10:00 am, but once we got to work the process was enjoyable enough to keep me going until we reached a breaking point and she went home. However, despite the best of intentions, I did not manage to do any uni work that evening after she left (other than reading my requisite 1000 words, of course.)

Saturday morning I had a very difficult time waking up between having been short of sleep, and just from my body being sore from the work the day before. I didn't notice it at the time, but it turns out that getting down on the floor to mark the next piece to cut out, and then getting up to do something else, and then getting back down on the floor for the next piece really does translate to the equivalent of doing several hours worth of squats, and my legs protested a bit when I bent my legs to pick up a few scraps of fabric/loose threads we'd missed in the quick clean up the night before. So I skipped the day-time tourney and spent Saturday morning taking it easy and recovering from the long day the day before, and managed a bit of uni work (the official reason to skip half of the event) before going for a walk and then getting ready to head to the Royal Visit evening feast. I had ever so much fun at the feast. I went off-board, of course--with my weird trait of not being interested in eating anything in the evenings, there really isn't much point in bringing feast gear and trying to eat, so I just went for the company. (The food *looked* great though, both pleasing to the eye, and plentiful--this being an island barony they had little boats made of bread, with the Baronial arms on the sails, full of cubes of butter or cheese (I didn't check) that were just darling.) We did much dancing over the course of the evening, which made me very happy! Although I dutifully brought along the Baronial CD player and CD's of dance music, we didn't need to unpack them once, as thisfox and the other musicians were there with their recorders. I so love live music! I am so going to miss her when she departs our shores in a few days.

Today I'd love to head to fighter practice to continue visiting with folk, and see if the delightful new people I met last night show up. I'd also love to accompany a number of folk in the Barony when they go see the latest Narinia movie in garb. But what I *should* do is many hours of uni work. I wonder if I can get enough done in the early afternoon to justify going out tonight if I give practice a miss?

Sewing, and Dancing, and Friendship! Such Fun!

Friday was a full-on day. As I mentioned last month, I've been helping the band Harlequin make costumes to go with their Medieval instruments and repertoire. I met with most of the band five weekends ago to cut out their costumes and get them sewing, but their vocalist was out of the country at the time visiting family. She returned on Thursday, and came over here on Friday to start work on her costume. Over the course of 10 hours we managed to cut out both her under-dress and the over dress (bliaut) and get the pieces assembled. (This brings me to more than 28 hours towards earning the medieval style Hammer Dulcimer they will be making me in trade for the sewing help!) She's taken the dresses home to finish up the seams and hems that can be done by machine, and will meet up with me sometime this week for me to do the hand-finishing at the tops of the gores set into slits and help with the fitting and adding the side-lacing to the body of the gown. I am quite impressed that she was able to put in that long of a day after just having flown back from her holiday, during which she suffered a gastric illness that actually required a visit to the hospital. However, they've got a gig next weekend, and the other band members, having finished their costumes, want to wear them! I was a bit short of sleep myself on Friday morning, and really felt ready for a nap when she arrive at 10:00 am, but once we got to work the process was enjoyable enough to keep me going until we reached a breaking point and she went home. However, despite the best of intentions, I did not manage to do any uni work that evening after she left (other than reading my requisite 1000 words, of course.)

Saturday morning I had a very difficult time waking up between having been short of sleep, and just from my body being sore from the work the day before. I didn't notice it at the time, but it turns out that getting down on the floor to mark the next piece to cut out, and then getting up to do something else, and then getting back down on the floor for the next piece really does translate to the equivalent of doing several hours worth of squats, and my legs protested a bit when I bent my legs to pick up a few scraps of fabric/loose threads we'd missed in the quick clean up the night before. So I skipped the day-time tourney and spent Saturday morning taking it easy and recovering from the long day the day before, and managed a bit of uni work (the official reason to skip half of the event) before going for a walk and then getting ready to head to the Royal Visit evening feast. I had ever so much fun at the feast. I went off-board, of course--with my weird trait of not being interested in eating anything in the evenings, there really isn't much point in bringing feast gear and trying to eat, so I just went for the company. (The food *looked* great though, both pleasing to the eye, and plentiful--this being an island barony they had little boats made of bread, with the Baronial arms on the sails, full of cubes of butter or cheese (I didn't check) that were just darling.) We did much dancing over the course of the evening, which made me very happy! Although I dutifully brought along the Baronial CD player and CD's of dance music, we didn't need to unpack them once, as thisfox and the other musicians were there with their recorders. I so love live music! I am so going to miss her when she departs our shores in a few days.

Today I'd love to head to fighter practice to continue visiting with folk, and see if the delightful new people I met last night show up. I'd also love to accompany a number of folk in the Barony when they go see the latest Narinia movie in garb. But what I *should* do is many hours of uni work. I wonder if I can get enough done in the early afternoon to justify going out tonight if I give practice a miss?