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kareinaFriday night's choir party was canceled at the last minute due to scheduling issues, but that turned out to be a good thing, as we were able to make time to get to the big grocery store and restock on frozen veg and stuff. We also stopped at another store while out and picked up an immersion blender. I really like the fact that these days one doesn't have to decide between an immersion blender and a food processor--we bought both in one box. A single motor which runs either the food processor or the blender. After shopping we went home and I baked some veggie pasties (using non-frozen veg, which we also purchased while out) and then cooked up a yummy green sauce using fresh spinach, silver beet, avocado, and yogurt. I ran out of pie crust dough before I ran out of filling (I used only one leek, one turnip, two small carrots, some garlic, one zucchini, and some broccoli, but it adds up fast), so I put the rest in the fridge and started a bread sponge. In the morning I kneaded bread dough and baked calazones with the rest of the filling (and added green sauce to some of them). That gave us food to go to take with us to Saturday's and Sunday's entertainment.
This weekend the local SCA group had time booked at the forge in Gammelstad; project time for whatever people wanted to work on. Since I had never worked with hot metal before I just did a bit of a learning piece. Took a rod of iron and heated and hammered it through some shapes that got sort of spoon like before ceasing to be spoon like and eventually ended up as more of a small s-hook. Nothing worth keeping, but interesting to see how the metal reacts. By the time I finished with that my holding arm was getting tired so I took a break, and watched what the others were doing. A couple of them were working on candle holders, and another made some really pretty twisted metal belt buckles for his late period (Crusader era) armour (he already has a good Viking kit that he made). Then the conversation turned to nålbinding, and I realized that I could make an iron nålbinding needle, so I did. I dug in the scrap bin and found a chunk that was already mostly the right shape and only did the hot working on it enough to round the corners a bit and flatten the part where the eye goes.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
archinonlive, on the other hand, took a bit of square rod and spent enough time hammering it to make a needle of that. Much harder work, but it made a prettier needle. Mine is the one on the left in
Mine is a joy to work with, but it is flatter, so not as nice to look upon (not that you can really tell how thick they are from this top view).
After getting home from the forge we made up a a yummy ice cream.
Vanilla Ice Cream #2
3 egg yolks (+ a bit of white, oops)
0.5 dl sugar
Seeds scraped from 1/3 of a Vanilla Bean
2.5 dl milk
2.5 dl cream
Combine the vanilla seeds with the sugar, beat in the egg yolks (plus part of one white, oops) with an electric mixer till light and fluffy. Beat in the milk. Whip the cream till stiff, beat into the egg mixture, letting it get nice and fluffy. Freeze.
This batch is much better than our first batch; this one isn't as sweet, and froze up to a much thicker texture while still in the ice cream maker. Alas, it is so good that when eating a small serving my mouth and tum both think I should have more. My food log, on the other hand, thinks that I should stop at single servings at a time.
After enjoying the ice cream we polished up the iron needles and decided that since Sunday was planned for casting that we'd see if we could cast some bronze ones, too. We opted to use his as the casting model, since it is thicker (and so would be better for casting, and because its eye wound up closer to center (the clamp for holding things at the drill press at the forge is not really suitable for things as tiny as my needle; it probably would have been smarter to wait to do that drilling till we got home and just used the hand-held drill).
This morning the casting of the needles went well. The buttons we tried, on the other hand, not so well. We tried the buttons twice, and then gave up, but we did one needle in each of those attempts, and both worked perfectly, so we cleaned them up, and on the final cast of the day we did three more needles.
I am happy with how they all came out, though, of course, they will all need to be polished. However, these will be much harder to break than the wooden ones I have been using.
I made time for a nap after casting and before heading out to the afternoon folk music session, which was followed by a session at a restaurant in town. This is the same monthly session we went to my first week in town that I loved so much. It was just as much fun this time. Perhaps even more so, since I recognized many faces from the weekly folk music and folk dance things we do. This time there was a band there playing when we arrived, soarchinonlive and I danced till they ended and the floor opened up for any musicians who wanted to play to do so, and he picked up his violin and joined them. I, of course, continued to dance on my own, it is against my religion to sit out when there is dancing to be had.
After a nice long set the random mix of musicians yielded the floor to the band again, and so I danced witharchinonlive again till the next break, when the random mix took over, but many of the band members stayed and kept playing with them. I danced on my own for a bit, and then archinonlive came out, still holding his violin in one hand and waltzed with me. Then, at the end of the set, while the others were packing away their instruments he wrapped his arms around me and played the violin while we danced. It was much fun!
The only uni work progress I have to report for the weekend was submitting the answers to the questions which were due tomorrow. I also managed to pay for my stuff to be shipped here from Scotland. However, I expect to get lots done this week...
This weekend the local SCA group had time booked at the forge in Gammelstad; project time for whatever people wanted to work on. Since I had never worked with hot metal before I just did a bit of a learning piece. Took a rod of iron and heated and hammered it through some shapes that got sort of spoon like before ceasing to be spoon like and eventually ended up as more of a small s-hook. Nothing worth keeping, but interesting to see how the metal reacts. By the time I finished with that my holding arm was getting tired so I took a break, and watched what the others were doing. A couple of them were working on candle holders, and another made some really pretty twisted metal belt buckles for his late period (Crusader era) armour (he already has a good Viking kit that he made). Then the conversation turned to nålbinding, and I realized that I could make an iron nålbinding needle, so I did. I dug in the scrap bin and found a chunk that was already mostly the right shape and only did the hot working on it enough to round the corners a bit and flatten the part where the eye goes.
archinonlive, on the other hand, took a bit of square rod and spent enough time hammering it to make a needle of that. Much harder work, but it made a prettier needle. Mine is the one on the left in Mine is a joy to work with, but it is flatter, so not as nice to look upon (not that you can really tell how thick they are from this top view).
After getting home from the forge we made up a a yummy ice cream.
Vanilla Ice Cream #2
3 egg yolks (+ a bit of white, oops)
0.5 dl sugar
Seeds scraped from 1/3 of a Vanilla Bean
2.5 dl milk
2.5 dl cream
Combine the vanilla seeds with the sugar, beat in the egg yolks (plus part of one white, oops) with an electric mixer till light and fluffy. Beat in the milk. Whip the cream till stiff, beat into the egg mixture, letting it get nice and fluffy. Freeze.
This batch is much better than our first batch; this one isn't as sweet, and froze up to a much thicker texture while still in the ice cream maker. Alas, it is so good that when eating a small serving my mouth and tum both think I should have more. My food log, on the other hand, thinks that I should stop at single servings at a time.
After enjoying the ice cream we polished up the iron needles and decided that since Sunday was planned for casting that we'd see if we could cast some bronze ones, too. We opted to use his as the casting model, since it is thicker (and so would be better for casting, and because its eye wound up closer to center (the clamp for holding things at the drill press at the forge is not really suitable for things as tiny as my needle; it probably would have been smarter to wait to do that drilling till we got home and just used the hand-held drill).
This morning the casting of the needles went well. The buttons we tried, on the other hand, not so well. We tried the buttons twice, and then gave up, but we did one needle in each of those attempts, and both worked perfectly, so we cleaned them up, and on the final cast of the day we did three more needles.
I am happy with how they all came out, though, of course, they will all need to be polished. However, these will be much harder to break than the wooden ones I have been using.
I made time for a nap after casting and before heading out to the afternoon folk music session, which was followed by a session at a restaurant in town. This is the same monthly session we went to my first week in town that I loved so much. It was just as much fun this time. Perhaps even more so, since I recognized many faces from the weekly folk music and folk dance things we do. This time there was a band there playing when we arrived, so
archinonlive and I danced till they ended and the floor opened up for any musicians who wanted to play to do so, and he picked up his violin and joined them. I, of course, continued to dance on my own, it is against my religion to sit out when there is dancing to be had. After a nice long set the random mix of musicians yielded the floor to the band again, and so I danced with
archinonlive again till the next break, when the random mix took over, but many of the band members stayed and kept playing with them. I danced on my own for a bit, and then archinonlive came out, still holding his violin in one hand and waltzed with me. Then, at the end of the set, while the others were packing away their instruments he wrapped his arms around me and played the violin while we danced. It was much fun!The only uni work progress I have to report for the weekend was submitting the answers to the questions which were due tomorrow. I also managed to pay for my stuff to be shipped here from Scotland. However, I expect to get lots done this week...
