Now that she has seen it…
Aug. 11th, 2018 09:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaWhen I heard that the Crown had decided to elevate aryanhwy to the order of the Laurel at Ffair Raglan I wondered what gift I could send that could be accomplished and sent down in the very short amount of time available. Then I remembered that she had once commented to me that she wants my SCA wardrobe, and we have talked about the possibility of making her a bilaut one day. The embroidered belt I wear with mine didn’t take that long to make. Then again, there isn’t much embroidery on it. I always planned to do more stitching, but never got to it. That belt shows fairly well in this photo.
Luckily, that week my friend Villiam posted to the Phire text message group that he wanted some help with sewing his costumes to take to Visby Medieval Week. Several of us had time that Saturday, so we agreed to meet then. In the meantime I went back to look again at photos of the statue that inspired my bliaut. This time I noticed that the pattern appears to be an upright, a diagonal, an upright, another diagonal, with the same slope as the one before… (Mine, on the other hand I did diagonals pointing opposite directions, not in contact with one another, and no uprights, so more like the pattern in the borders of the Bayeux Tapestry than this statue. I don’t remember if that is because I didn’t have a high enough resolution to see the pattern of the belt, or I just didn’t look at it again before stitching, or what.)
Therefore on Saturday 28 July he and Sara came over. She worked on a bit of sewing for the Phire Pavilion that they also needed to take to Visby, and he first did some fitting on his new wool jester outfit, which had already been cut and assembled and just needed a little bit of taking in to fit, and then we cut out a pair of linen shorts for him to wear with his jester costume. Then I started embroidering laurel wreaths, uprights, and diagonals onto the belt fabric, while he sewed the shorts. Every so often I would pause, help him pin the next seam and return to my own stitching. Sara finished her task after a few hours and went home, while he and I kept working till almost midnight. Of course, I have no record of what % of that day was helping him with his project, and what % was working on my own. He returned the next morning and we spent another seven hours sewing (me on the belt, he on a linen under tunic this time). On Monday (30 July) I went to work in the day, and he came back over at 16:00 and we worked till 02:00, when he joined me for yoga before biking home.
I knew that I needed to get the belt sent off reasonably early on Tuesday in order for it to get there before the guy who agreed to take it to the event for me was leaving home, so despite my late night on Monday I got up early on Tuesday and spent a few more hours on the belt. I have no idea how many hours total it took, since I did alternate between stitching and helping him with pinning and cutting fabric for most of the project, but I did wind up doing way, way more stitching for her belt than for mine:

I managed to finish the stitching by 14:00 on Tuesday and went in to the grocery store by the uni to post it. The lady there said that while they accept DHL packages for shipping that one needs to go to a computer and fill in the DHL form and pay first, then print out the shipping paperwork and bring it back. She also said that she recommended this approach, since if I went regular Swedish express post the delivery would be “Thursday or Friday”, and my contact needed it by Thursday at the latest. So I went to my office across the street and filled out their form, and got stuck in a loop wherein the web page asked if I wanted someone to come pick up the package, but the drop down menu had only one possible answer (Ja), and didn’t want them to pick it up, I wanted to drop it off. I tired several times, but couldn’t get around that, so I called DHL, and they said just say yes, then in the “instructions to pick up person” box say that you will drop it off yourself. However, don’t take it to the post office at the grocery store by uni, bring it out to the main drop off point by the airport, it will get there much faster. So I called Villiam and asked if he wanted to see how the belt turned out and come along for the ride to the airport. He said yes, so I picked him up, and off we went.
After the package was sent he went back to my place with me and started working on his Visby sewing again, and I returned to my Viking coat in progress, this time working out how I wanted to attach the tablet weaving. It was another hot day, so we worked in the basement, where it was nice and cool, and I was willing to work with wool, and I made good progress in attaching the trim. We once again worked till about midnight, and before he went home.
Wednesday was another day wherein it was too hot to work at the computer, but Thursday I finally passed an intelligence test and moved my computer to the basement, where it is nice and cool. I did manage to pick some red currants on Tuesday and again on Wednesday evening, and put them into the dehydrator, so now I have lots of berries for adding to my muesli. On Friday evening Villiam came back for more sewing, and we had time to do some acroyoga too, since the projects were all getting close to done. He had a gaming convention on the weekend, but on Sunday it was finally cool enough to do some baking, so I baked a red currant cake so that I could re-stock the freezer with yummy snacks. I let him know that I had, and so on Sunday evening he came over after the convention, arriving at 22:00 just before it started raining. He stayed till midnight and then decided to bike home in the rain so that he could finish packing for his flight to Visby the next day. I offered him a ride, but he was happy to bike. Though he tells me that it rained heavy enough that he needed to put his shoes into the dryer for two hours to get them dry again afterwards.
On Monday I took the car to work so that I could take him and all of the Phire equipment (including the new pavilion, juggling clubs, staffs, poi, etc.) to the airport. He had four bags to check, so we went nice and early, dropped them off, then went for a half an hour walk in the forest near the airport before taking him back for the flight. This week my feed has been full of photos from Visby, and from Raglan (and, to a lesser extent, from Pennsic), and I am kinda envious of everyone who is at these events. I have seen one photo of a Phire workshop at Visby which shows Villiam’s new costume (the tall, thin, guy in orange and bright green, wearing the hood).
However, I am making progress on catching on on the work hours I got behind due to the heat (and so glad that the heat has finally eased off here—it is actually cool enough today that I can wear sleeves).
So far the best story I have heard from any of the events that are happening this week is Aryanhwy description of how they surprised her with her laurel. I wish I could have been there to see it myself. However, I suspect that even though express shipping to get that belt there on time was expensive, I would have spent way, way more than that to attend Raglan, and I just don’t have that kind of leeway in my budget right now—I need to save it for trips related to my research.
Speaking of research, it looks like I may get to do my sample collecting trip in September with my cousin Carola, who lives in southern Sweden. I hope that works out, she is delightful, and it would be fun to get to know her better.
aryanhwy to the order of the Laurel at Ffair Raglan I wondered what gift I could send that could be accomplished and sent down in the very short amount of time available. Then I remembered that she had once commented to me that she wants my SCA wardrobe, and we have talked about the possibility of making her a bilaut one day. The embroidered belt I wear with mine didn’t take that long to make. Then again, there isn’t much embroidery on it. I always planned to do more stitching, but never got to it. That belt shows fairly well in this photo. Luckily, that week my friend Villiam posted to the Phire text message group that he wanted some help with sewing his costumes to take to Visby Medieval Week. Several of us had time that Saturday, so we agreed to meet then. In the meantime I went back to look again at photos of the statue that inspired my bliaut. This time I noticed that the pattern appears to be an upright, a diagonal, an upright, another diagonal, with the same slope as the one before… (Mine, on the other hand I did diagonals pointing opposite directions, not in contact with one another, and no uprights, so more like the pattern in the borders of the Bayeux Tapestry than this statue. I don’t remember if that is because I didn’t have a high enough resolution to see the pattern of the belt, or I just didn’t look at it again before stitching, or what.)
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Therefore on Saturday 28 July he and Sara came over. She worked on a bit of sewing for the Phire Pavilion that they also needed to take to Visby, and he first did some fitting on his new wool jester outfit, which had already been cut and assembled and just needed a little bit of taking in to fit, and then we cut out a pair of linen shorts for him to wear with his jester costume. Then I started embroidering laurel wreaths, uprights, and diagonals onto the belt fabric, while he sewed the shorts. Every so often I would pause, help him pin the next seam and return to my own stitching. Sara finished her task after a few hours and went home, while he and I kept working till almost midnight. Of course, I have no record of what % of that day was helping him with his project, and what % was working on my own. He returned the next morning and we spent another seven hours sewing (me on the belt, he on a linen under tunic this time). On Monday (30 July) I went to work in the day, and he came back over at 16:00 and we worked till 02:00, when he joined me for yoga before biking home.
I knew that I needed to get the belt sent off reasonably early on Tuesday in order for it to get there before the guy who agreed to take it to the event for me was leaving home, so despite my late night on Monday I got up early on Tuesday and spent a few more hours on the belt. I have no idea how many hours total it took, since I did alternate between stitching and helping him with pinning and cutting fabric for most of the project, but I did wind up doing way, way more stitching for her belt than for mine:
I managed to finish the stitching by 14:00 on Tuesday and went in to the grocery store by the uni to post it. The lady there said that while they accept DHL packages for shipping that one needs to go to a computer and fill in the DHL form and pay first, then print out the shipping paperwork and bring it back. She also said that she recommended this approach, since if I went regular Swedish express post the delivery would be “Thursday or Friday”, and my contact needed it by Thursday at the latest. So I went to my office across the street and filled out their form, and got stuck in a loop wherein the web page asked if I wanted someone to come pick up the package, but the drop down menu had only one possible answer (Ja), and didn’t want them to pick it up, I wanted to drop it off. I tired several times, but couldn’t get around that, so I called DHL, and they said just say yes, then in the “instructions to pick up person” box say that you will drop it off yourself. However, don’t take it to the post office at the grocery store by uni, bring it out to the main drop off point by the airport, it will get there much faster. So I called Villiam and asked if he wanted to see how the belt turned out and come along for the ride to the airport. He said yes, so I picked him up, and off we went.
After the package was sent he went back to my place with me and started working on his Visby sewing again, and I returned to my Viking coat in progress, this time working out how I wanted to attach the tablet weaving. It was another hot day, so we worked in the basement, where it was nice and cool, and I was willing to work with wool, and I made good progress in attaching the trim. We once again worked till about midnight, and before he went home.
Wednesday was another day wherein it was too hot to work at the computer, but Thursday I finally passed an intelligence test and moved my computer to the basement, where it is nice and cool. I did manage to pick some red currants on Tuesday and again on Wednesday evening, and put them into the dehydrator, so now I have lots of berries for adding to my muesli. On Friday evening Villiam came back for more sewing, and we had time to do some acroyoga too, since the projects were all getting close to done. He had a gaming convention on the weekend, but on Sunday it was finally cool enough to do some baking, so I baked a red currant cake so that I could re-stock the freezer with yummy snacks. I let him know that I had, and so on Sunday evening he came over after the convention, arriving at 22:00 just before it started raining. He stayed till midnight and then decided to bike home in the rain so that he could finish packing for his flight to Visby the next day. I offered him a ride, but he was happy to bike. Though he tells me that it rained heavy enough that he needed to put his shoes into the dryer for two hours to get them dry again afterwards.
On Monday I took the car to work so that I could take him and all of the Phire equipment (including the new pavilion, juggling clubs, staffs, poi, etc.) to the airport. He had four bags to check, so we went nice and early, dropped them off, then went for a half an hour walk in the forest near the airport before taking him back for the flight. This week my feed has been full of photos from Visby, and from Raglan (and, to a lesser extent, from Pennsic), and I am kinda envious of everyone who is at these events. I have seen one photo of a Phire workshop at Visby which shows Villiam’s new costume (the tall, thin, guy in orange and bright green, wearing the hood).
However, I am making progress on catching on on the work hours I got behind due to the heat (and so glad that the heat has finally eased off here—it is actually cool enough today that I can wear sleeves).
So far the best story I have heard from any of the events that are happening this week is Aryanhwy description of how they surprised her with her laurel. I wish I could have been there to see it myself. However, I suspect that even though express shipping to get that belt there on time was expensive, I would have spent way, way more than that to attend Raglan, and I just don’t have that kind of leeway in my budget right now—I need to save it for trips related to my research.
Speaking of research, it looks like I may get to do my sample collecting trip in September with my cousin Carola, who lives in southern Sweden. I hope that works out, she is delightful, and it would be fun to get to know her better.