a very productive Sunday

Yesterday some of our friends from choir came over for home made pizza and movie night. They left right after the movie, which meant that I was able to go to bed around 21:30 and sleep for more than nine hours, which I needed after a busy week of not quite enough sleep each night.

This morning I woke up inspired to actually start working on the new gambeson I have been thinking of making. This one will be done much like a Viking or Rus kaftan, but made from a couple of layers of modern terrycloth towel, covered inside and out with linen (or, more probably, a linen-cotton blend--it has been years since that fabric was purchased, so I can't swear to which it is, but I have my suspicions based on the budget that would have applied then).

I am, of course, sewing it by hand, and have chosen to do it ( the slow, methodical way )

I managed to accomplish steps 1 & 2 in the 1 hr 40 minutes I worked on this before lord_kjar, who had stayed up late making a wall-mounted knife block for the little knife I want within reach of the stove, got up.

Once he was awake I took a break from sewing so that we could discuss our plans for changes to the pantry in the kitchen, and we looked at the 3D model he has made on the computer for what he has been thinking. This got us to debating exactly how big the pantry area needs to be, and how big the open area on that side of the kitchen should be, so, of course, we left the computer and walked into the kitchen to point, discuss, and re-measure.

The plan involves moving the cabinet with glass doors that came with the house from the corner to the middle of that wall, raising the upper part of that cabinet till the top touches the ceiling so that there is room for the microwave to stand on the cabinet base, then building a set of pantry shelves wrapping from the light switch to that cabinet. The question we were debating is exactly where the cabinet should sit when the work is done, and whether it is more important to have a larger pantry, or more open space on the right side of the cabinet.

Therefore I suggested that we give it a try--take down the wall-mounted shelves in the middle of the wall, move the cabinet to approximately where it will be after building the real pantry, take off the upper part and make it ready for the extension, and move the bookshelves that we have been using as a "temporary" pantry into the corner where we want the real pantry.

He was ok with this, so we did. The "nice" dishes that live in that cabinet are now in two banana boxes in the storage area downstairs, the wider bookshelf has been moved into the corner to the left of the cabinet base, the microwave, toaster, etc. now sits on the cabinet base, and the narrower bookshelf (which didn't fit on the other wall) has been brought downstairs, while the even narrower shelf that used to be downstairs has been brought upstairs to act as a temporary pantry shelf.

The verdict is that I really look forward to finishing the real pantry, as we currently have too many things standing behind of or stacked on top of other things, but that, overall, the idea looks like it will work.

Once we got that done he went out to the forge shed, where he is working on building a ventilation hood over the forge, and I returned to the gambeson in progress. I managed to get it far enough along that one sleeve is 90% done--the underarm square is totally attached to one side of the sleeve, and the sleeve has had its lining sewn shut and the tablet woven band has started to be attached. I might have finished it, but it was nearly 21:00 at that point, so I put the project down, satisfied now that my idea for doing the seams will work, and did my workout.

Then I turned in my Chatelaine's report and typed up this. Now it is nearly midnight, and time for me to do yoga and get some sleep before work tomorrow.