kareina

Ok, we managed soemthing resembeling a photo tonight while at dance. Will try for a better one over the weekend (...am considering making some sort of stand to have it on display during the feast--that would make getting a photo *much* easier.)

Ok, so I am rounding by 1.5 years years yet, but the photo taken of me at the event this weekend doesn't look to my eyes that I am really as old as the calendar claims I am:



This, not surprisingly, pleases me.

I also like how the dress came out. Still needs a few more beads on the sleeves, but other than that it is done.

Photo credits: Uladzislau Iwanou, who bought a camera good enough to take photos of spiders, but it works well for people, too.

I think I have mentioned that I am the person running the Norrskensfest event in November. I decided early on that I wanted to run it much like Mist Bardic is run--with the feast during the day. Then, after so enjoying all of the singing at the Umamedeltids event earlier this month, I decided why not go all out and run a Bardic competition as well, with the rounds interspersed between the feast courses? So we will be doing a Norrskensbard competition, with the winner serving the four shires of northern Nordmark as their bard. And a bard needs regalia.

So now I am planning on making a cloak for the Norrskensbard, embellished with Norrsken (northern lights). I asked on the Drachenwald A&S group if anyone knew of a period depiction of the northern lights, and got a couple of suggestions from the 1500's. One involves candles in the sky, the other is a bit more useful.

When I saw that second link I realized that the sharp angles it involves would lend itself really well to tablet weaving, and a cloak with a nice wide tablet woven border with northern lights on it would make spiffy regalia. Therefore I asked on the Historic Tablet weaving group if anyone has seen a pattern with northern lights on it, or if anyone would be willing to design me one. I got a few suggestions as to how I might do my own design, but so far no one has pointed out any patterns that are ready to go for such a project.

However, going to that group reminded me that, back in November, a lady from that group had sent me an article she had written about an unusual tablet weaving technique. The lady is normally a Swedish speaker, and had written two versions of the article, one in each language. After I read the English version I asked her if she would like me to do some editing of that version of the article for her, and she replied yes. However, life has been so busy ever since I hadn't gotten to it. So, yesterday, I opened the articles again, and did the edits, in the process learning the theory of how the technique works (it involves turning the tablets onto their points, so that there are two sheds, then weaving from left to right through the upper shed, then, before turning the cards, going back from right to left through the lower shed (and, in the process, also going through a single shed made up of several border cards in the traditional horizontal position, but skipping the shed in the first and last cards on the left to right pass, so that when you do the right to left pass you can go through that shed without the work coming undone). As she explains it, with this technique the colour in the top point of the card is the one that is visible, so one can weave any pattern by simply turning the correct colour point uppermost.

It occurred to me that this technique might lend itself well to experiments for a northern lights motif, so I checked my yarn stash to see if we have anything useful. I don't have any weaving weight black, but we have a cotton yarn in very dark blue, some slightly thinner yarn in a really bright turquoise sort of colour, and some variegated red/pink in the same weight as the turquoise. I have no idea where these latter two came from, since they are not colours I would normally use, but they contrast well with the blue and are not too far off from colours the northern lights actually takes, so I will run with them.

I went to thread the yarn onto the cards, and remembered a friend showing me the continuous warp technique many years ago, wherein one takes four spools of yarn, shoves the end of each spool through the holes in the full stack of cards, then ties the end to one end of an inkle loom before drawing the first card in the pile through enough length of the yarn to thread that length onto the loom, then repeating the procedure for each card in turn, until the loom is fully warped. No tangles, no fuss. Works great if one uses the same threading pattern on every card.

There was only one problem with this idea. We didn't have an inkle loom. heck, lord_kjar had never even seen one before. So we consulted Google Image, found one we liked the look of, adapted the design to work with the materials we had on hand, and a faster sort of construction, and set to work. Four hours after deciding that I needed it, it was ready to go. However, it now being well after midnight, I decided that it would be smarter to record the adventure for posterity, do yoga, and go to bed, and try warping the loom tomorrow, when I am more rested.

One of my friends posted photos from last weekend's event on her blog. The writing is in Swedish, but there are lots of photos (mom--page down to the bottom--I am in some of the middle photos, and the one on the very bottom, too).

And I have a photo of the spoon I carved on site.

I finally saw a link to a photo of me in my new dress--a tad blurry, since we were dancing at the time, but it gives the general impression...

The following is from an email to Paul, the ex-boyfriend who provided much of the hair in my beard. Having typed it up, I thought I would repeat it here.

I think it will amuse you to hear that I now have a full, luxurious beard, thanks to you, and my other ex, Crian. I made it by sewing your hair to some silk that covers my chin, his hair to the part of the silk that covers my cheeks and the little bit just under my lip, and my own hair (collected from my comb, and rescued before it went down the shower drain), onto the silk for the mustache. It took only 44 hours sewing time to make. What do you think?




More photos here. These photos were taken by my friend Wilhelm. He also took some with his old fashioned film camera (like one puts a towel over one's head before looking through the view finder old-fashioned), but those haven't been developed yet.

In addition to the beard I also have a set of "man muscles".

All this is the fault of my friend, Kim, who last winter told me "We are going to start a new Viking "Lajv" (the Swedish term for LARP) campaign this summer". Since I had just finished a sexy viking man's tunic for myself out of a lovely fine blue/grey wool twill with blue silk embroidered seams, a wonderfully soft linen twill under tunic, and a heavier wool twill trousers with red embroidered seams, I said "count me in".

Then I decided that since my viking clothing was all designed for a man, I should play a man, but a proper viking man needs a beard. Now, I could have just gone on line and purchased a beard. But a store-bought beard, even if made of real hair, is likely to have a synthetic base. I don't want plastic against my face for two minutes, let alone a weekend-long event, so I decided to make one with a silk base.

Since I had your ponytail you sent me years ago, and Crian sent me his when he cut it off, I had way more hair to work with than needed for one beard. The technique is easy. For the mustache I worked with one strand of hair at a time--fold it in half, thread the loop through the needle, take a tiny stitch in the fabric and put the needle back through the loop of the hair. Tug the ends and you have two strands, each half the length of the original, attached to the beard. Repeat. Often. For the beard I switched to a faster technique--take more than one strand at a time, but space them further apart.

With experimentation I discovered that five strands at once is pretty much ideal. Three is too few, four, five, and six are all ok, seven and eight work, but not as well. Every time I used 10 or 12 or more at once I was unhappy with the way the loop failed to cinch up around the hair and took it out and divided the clump into more reasonable sized batches.

Ideally I would like to go back and fill in more hair, especially along the line where the beard touches my cheek, so that the fabric is less visible, but there wasn't time to do that before the event (which was this weekend).

Once I started working on the beard I decided that I also needed to do something about my girly figure, since my tunic doesn't look at all masculine when I wear it normally (even if I am wearing a sports bra). This promoted me to undertake a set of "man muscles". Step one was to sew a very fitted linen bodice. Then I added pieces of terrycloth towel in layers over my waist and shoulders to change my curves, and finally added an unbleached linen layer over the top of that to hold it all together. I had planned to quilt it all together in the lines of rippling muscles, but ran out of time before the event, so that
will have to happen later (and before I wash it the first time).

Everyone at the event tells me that they had no problems remembering to refer to my character as "he".

I hope that all is well with you, and that you have had some good adventures this summer. I also encourage you to come visit me in Sweden!

This morning I completed the last major task for my report: burning the dvd with the data, reports, 3D model, and geochem graphs, and packaged it up in a box along with the samples and paper copies of the reports--all ready to turn in to my colleagues at the mine. Yes, it would also be nice to do a paper for publication, but that doesn't need to happen this week. Yes, I should finish converting the spreadsheet full of sample collection information into the format it needs to become one with their database. But those are minor details compared to wrapping up the project itself, and I am very pleased to be done, and before the month is over, too.

To celebrate I came home at lunch time, and after eating I went out to the field and rescued some strawberry plants that had been growing too tightly entwined with other plants to have been moved to the new strawberry patch by the house (A. the new patch is full, and B. we took only those berries that had been growing in the part of the old patch that was still only berries and the black plasticy cloth that is meant to keep other plants from growing in between the berries). While that cloth worked well in the center of the patch, other plants had done a good job of colonizing the edges of the patch, and, of course, many strawberry plants had managed to take root outside of the patch proper (they do that). However, since I don't want them to all get plowed under when lord_kjar brings his dad's tractor and the (now repaired) rotating field-smoothing device, I have moved them all to a place at the bottom of the field, next to a nice large rock. That boulder will be just the thing to lay down on drape oneself over while eating strawberries, and I figure those berries that were thriving well despite being tangled up with other plants deserve to keep growing.

We can freeze most of the berries from the patch by the house, and the lower patch can just be for grazing while out enjoying the day. Many of the berries, both the ones I moved today, and in the new patch by the house, are now in flower, so it won't be too long before we have fresh strawberries again. Good thing too, since the last box of last year's frozen strawberries is now nearly empty.

I only spent about an hour rescuing berries before I was too hot and sweaty in the bright sun in the middle of the field, so I called it done for the day (after four wheelbarrows full of berries had been moved), and, after a short break for some quality time with a book and a snack, I went out to the alleyway leading to the earth cellar and begun the project of getting it smoothed out and sloping only the amount we wish it to slope and putting down the large paving stones we got from his uncle.

Another hour work there saw the first three paving stones set into place the way we want them to be--each one sloping just under 1 cm from the upper point to the lower point, and the next located ~10 cm away, with its upper point the right amount lower that the slope continues unchanged. (To accomplish this I have taped a small block of wood to one end of the level, so that if the bubble indicates that the level is level when it sits on the paving stone(s) then they are slopping the correct amount.) This task is much easier than it might have been, thanks to a bit of weaving I did:



We made this sifter to separate the rocks out of dirt last week, using some scrap wood, some tines from a cheap rake that didn't hold together after the first use, and some scrap metal from an old computer. It isn't large, but it is as big as we could make it using those rake tines (the handle we attached to a pitch fork head that the previous owners had left here, so while the rake turned out to have been useless as a rake, the parts have all come in handy for other things, so we haven't lost the cash we spent on it), and it turns out to be plenty big enough for this project.

I had tried a week or two ago to set the paving stones in without using the level to check my work, and as a result had gotten too enthusiastic in how much sloping was happening, and I wound up with a low spot in the walk way that, now that I am measuring, turns out to have been several centimeters deeper than it needs to have been. Therefore I am sifting dirt onto the low spot to build it back up to the appropriate height, but without those rocks that make it hard to get the paving stone to sit perfectly.

I am enjoying this project, though after an hour working on it I was quite ready for another break, so I came in a curled up with my book, and finished it. This makes 15 books read so far this year—still a very small number compared to before moving to Sweden, but it is the most books read in a single year since switching to reading fiction in Swedish, and the year is only half done. Granted, part of what helped that was this book and the last are both re-reads—the Swedish versions of The Little House in the Big Woods (Det lilla huset i stora skogen) and The Little House on the Prairie (Det lilla huset på prärien).

I have always loved those books—they are heavy on explaining how things were done and what everyday life was like in that time, with just enough story to hold it together, and they are great for someone who is trying to learn the language, because it is full of so many useful words.

This weekend (and the week before it, too), have been busy ones on the home improvment front. We have painted one of the walls in the downstairs room a lovely dark blue (and now need to find a source for some silver metalic paint to decorate it, so if you have any suggestions on that part please let me know--bonus points if the source is in Sweden). While at it we also painted the inside of the door to the downstairs water closet the same dark blue, and it looks MUCH better (it had been a dreadful shade of greenish brown before getting scratched up and dammaged looking, and I have been wanting to do something about it since we moved in). That tiny room had been painted a pale baby blue by some previous house owner, and the tiles behind the sink are a similar shade of dark blue, so the blue door looks like it was all meant to go together with a minium of effort on our part. (note: I wouldn't have chose the baby blue, but since the room is only large enough for a sink and a toilet it doesn't look so bad, and I can live with it for however many years elaspe between now and when that room makes it back to the top of the priority list.)

Then we painted the floor of the downstairs room a dark grey, nicely covering all of the white spots from where we had filled in the holes in the concrete where the raised floor (that we took out due to mold) had been attached. Once that dries we can put things back into the room and have it as a useable space again--and more useable than it was before we ripped the floor out, too, since there is no mold left in it.

But most of the weekend was spent outside, enjoying the nice weather and moving strawberries. When we bought the house one of our neighbous had some strawberry patches on our field, and when he heard that we had plans smooth out the field he moved most of them to another property, leaving behind two small patches he didn't want anymore. Since the large rotating tool that we had planed to use on the field was broken last summer those patches were left where they were, and I happily ate (and froze for later enjoyment) strawberries for much of the summer. But this year that tool has been repaired, so when we go fetch the tractor that will come along too, so the berries had to move. Therefore we made a new home for them up on the hill closer to the house, right behind the shed:



Some of the raspberries that surrived winter after their late-autum transplant from a friend's yard to ours are also visible. I suspect that I will like hanging out in this corner of the yard later this summer when the berries are ripe. Must put in a bench...

One can also see the stump of the tree that we had to cut down. Last summer we noticed that it had a few dead branches, which, when we cut them off saw that they were soft and rotted already. Therefore, when none of the branches put out leaves this summer we were not so surprised. When we cut it down we could see that the tree hadn't actually finished dying--there was still water in one small quadrant fo the trunk, but the rest of it was in bad shape. So it is better to have taken it down now, rather than leaving it to fall on its own, especially as it was growing quite close to the shed (which, as you can see, is rather in need of repair and paint, but there are so many other projects on the list we may not get to that this year).

Today and tomorrow lord_kjar is in Stockholm for a class for work, so I have been continuing making progress on the list on my own. Since dropping him off at the airport this morning I fueled the car, washed it and vacumed and cleaned out the interior, did the final coat of paint on the above mentioned floor, spent an hour working on the walkway to the earth cellar, harvested some nettles which were growning too near the smultrons, cooked them up and put them into silicon muffin cups to freeze so that I can add them to recipies later.

I have mentioned repeatedly how weird our winter was this year, and how little snow we got. I just found this photo from a year ago on 21 April, 2013, which shows how much snow was left at the time:



Coincidentally, the earliest walkway photo progress I took this year was also on 21 April, as you can see, not a drop of snow remained on the ground:



It truly was a weird, low-snow winter. Our next door neighbour normally has a big bonfire in his yard for Valborgsafton (31 April), but this year, while made ready the pile of logs weeks ago, he opted not to light it, because the field was naught but dry grass (last year the grass near the fire was still snow-covered), and he didn't want to risk starting a runaway fire.

Our choir normally performs traditional spring songs at the big Valborgasafton bonfire at the University, but this year, since we are such a small choir, we opted to instead go do two indoor performances at some old-folks homes, to bring spring to those who can't get out and see it for themselves. Afterwards half of us (which is to five--it is a SMALL choir this year) came over to our place and sang for the neighbours at their bbq--while they didn't have the bonfire lit, they did have a small fire for sausages etc.

I also found this photo, from March 2013, which shows why we still had a decent amount of snow left at the end of April last year:



This year the deepest bit of snow in the yard was only about 1/3 of what we had left in March last year...

One of the perks of living in Tasmania was getting to listen to the music of Harlequin and seeing the beautiful instruments that Harry made. I was especially enamored of his moraharpa:



It is as beautiful to look upon as to listen to--he used Tasmanian Blackwood for the back key chest and keys (my favourite wood, ever), King Billy Pine for the sound board, and Myrtle for the sides.

Needless to say, when I saw over on FB that he had decided to sell that moraharpa I wanted it. Initially I wrote to him and said "if I get that job I just applied for, I will buy it". However, the more lord_kjar thought about it, the more convinced that we wanted to get it no matter what happens with the job. This morning Harry happened to be on line at the same time as I was, so we worked out the details, I have made payment, and he will ship it on Monday (it is already after the close of business on Friday there). I am sad that he won't have it any more, but so excited that we will--it really is the most beautiful moraharpa ever made!