Travelling Time and Space

There is a mailinglist for apprentices from all over the Known Wolrd where we get to vent, ask questions and discuss the toils of an apprentice's life, the hope for elevation and the rantings and ravings about Masters and Mistresses and their shortfalls. Once in a while somebody from that list is being elevated and after lots of cheer and rapt listening to the story of their dream coming true sharing all the details of their elevation they unsubscribe. Sometime last year Halima unsubscribed after she was being elevated to the Order of the Laurel.

Yesterday her name found its way back onto the apprentice list. She had died sometime at the beginning of the week when her car had swerved off the road and fallen into a deep ravine. She wasn't found in time to save her ...

May she rest in peace. 

I can't believe it's almost the end of the month again. Next month I've already start to collect information and complile lists again for a quarterly officer's report. Amazing how time zaps by these days. My sister-in-law's wedding dates is getting closer and closer and so are birthdays and of course summer art-sci, my girl's weekend off weekend :o)

The two projects I'm working on for this purpose are coming along and in each case the documentation is almost written up completely, almost ready for editing by hubby. I've also managed to squeeze in quite a bunch of little projects here and there and will probably soon dive head first into a garb project for my 15th century alter ego and a little ittibitty dayshade for the squirrels so we have a fancy place to hang out and enjoy the show while sitting in the shade :o) 

I've sent in articles to the KWHSS and I've been busy typing in old articles that the laptop ate for good and burning the files to cd-roms as well. See, lords and ladies, she can be taught ! It also allowed me to edit myself a bit and make the articles sound a lot better. 

Today Tim and I are supposed to be at a Shire officers meeting for a couple of hours and tomorrow the scribes are getting together at our place for a nifty little scribal sweatshop gathering with the traditional potluck. I'm all set with blanks and ink and paints and brushes and dip pens so God and scribes willing we might be able to send off yet another nice and good-sized package to our Lady Signet. I'm very proud of the scribes in my shire because they will happily come to the rescue and do really neat work.

-Next- weekend, however, it's all about my little family :o) 

That's the title of half a class of my evergrowing repertoire of slightly funny classes. "Doodling through the ages" and "You can draw too !" are the two parts that belong together showing that in fact I can make pretty much anybody draw and it gives you a brief overview on some of the most common and simple design elements of medieval illumination such as leaves and flowers and human faces.

Doodling is very much part of human life. Think of all the sketches and scribbles you left on sidewalks, tons of paper, your school notebooks. Heck, I've collected a lot of artwork drawn on notepads and into the inside of bottle caps after many a convention in my early days of my career as a hotel professional.

Medieval people did doodle too and I'm not talking about the beautiful manuscript illuminations. There're graffiti and tourist carvings [Vikings, anyone ?] very reminiscent of today's "I was here" scribbles people leave on lavatory doors.

Not searching for anything but a picture of a medieval child for one of my latest articles I came across this awesome link and I just have to share it

http://www.goldschp.net/archive/childart.html" title="http://www.goldschp.net/archive/childart.html" target="_blank"http://www.goldschp.net/archi...

http://slavic.freeservers.com/onfim.html" title="http://slavic.freeservers.com/onfim.html" target="_blank"http://slavic.freeservers.com...

Guess some things just never change :o)

When I joined the SCA a mere 4 years ago a nice lady in my then Shire offered to help me sew my first garb. After making me browse through a book on historical fashion she made me choose an ensemble and kept her company trying my hand at embroidering trim for the next 6 saturdays - available for impromptu fittings - until my outfit was ready for its first outing at "Feast of Fools". I was then the proud owner of a pseudo-cotehardie and a surcoate, a veil and a pouch and a skirt and shirt outfit in case I needed more than one outfit for the weekend.

I kid you not. I remember a time when all you had was two, mmmmmmaybe three outfits total  and this was all you brought to a weekend event 

After this weekend that I spend mostly freezing my behootchie off because it was cold and rainy and my pretty dress came with a @#$%% train that soaked up all the mud and wetness it could get ahold off quite eagerly I decided to go viking and stitched up my first smock and apron-dress outfit. I still have it and frankly, it's horrible in an adorable way. The fabric is horrible [ an old wool blanket, well, kind of. There are some fibres in it when you pull the seam a bit that don't strike me as sheep-made], the cut is not even remotely related to anything the vikings caulked their ships with and the fit .... well, it's suffice to say I'd never sewn anything before this and this was done the "throw fitting shirt on doublefolded fabric and cut around it" way.

I loved it. It was light, looked cute [no kidding, it did, I even embroidered it with a detail of my brooches] and it was oh so comfortable. Nothing dragged through the mud, I was warm and still had all the range of movement I could ask for. Later that year I bought 'real' fabric for a real outfit and funny enough, except for a new smock, I haven't added anything to my norse wardrobe in the past couple of years.

Instead, I've been straying off the viking path and dabbled in german renaissance fashion and lately with 15th century style clothing. There something about the simple chic of kirtles and Housemaster dresses that appeals to me and once again I find myself torn and totally without a focus.

15th century german is a cool period for any kind of research. I really like the fashion and by now it is well within my meager sewing skills to recreate those dresses and it would definitely go very well with my calligraphy and illumination preferences. And yet, I still love the viking stuff. I love my simple aprondress and the bling of festoons strung between my tortoise brooches. I really enjoy making glassbeads viking-style and I've begun to dabble with wire a bit more since there appears to be a whole lotta wire-stuff goin' on that I didn't know about.

Gnnnph ... if I only could make up my mind :o) 

It is so easy to forget that the neighbourhood we live in is still on the mend changing day by day from a crack housed, crime-ridden area with decrepit houses to a family friendly one with beautifully restored houses and all its historical charme.

Our little corner here is better off than others and except for the raving block vagabond you hardly ever see anybody who does not belong here. The neighbours are friendly, know eachother and there's much waving and talking across the street when you meet. The kids living down the block in one of the older duplexes are sweet even if their taste in music leaves something to desire :o)

But the bad stuff isn't too far away either. Last night at around 2am I woke to the sound of a police helicopter making the house tremble and shake and the windows clirr in sleepy protest. It sounded like the helicopter was flying past our bedroom windows and occasionally the headlight's blinding shine would flash across the blinds searching for the suspect in the tiny overgrown backalleys that connect the many smaller streets in this area. If there is a good area to run away and escape it certainly is this neighbourhood due to aforementioned pathways [formerly used to pick up trash on the backside of the houses]. Guess that's why the police used the 'copter on their hunt. About 10 minutes later and a good 2 or 3 blocks away judging from the volume level there were a couple of shots and then the spook was over and everything was quiet again.

Did we check the windows ? No way. If there's an evil guy out there who warrants being chased by a police helicopter you should really stay away from the windows -and- better yet, not even leave the house. Stray bullets are so not fun. One of our neighbours at least poked his head out of the door because I heard him talking to somebody else. Maybe I should check with him to find out what's been going on because unfortunately there's nothing in the newspaper yet to satisfy my curiosity :o(

Of course, Finndragon slept through the 'copter noise only to wake up after it had quieted down again. I swear, kids do that on purpose. We ended up playing with blocks and reading a book for about half an hour before our munchkin was ready for bed again. He is actually napping right now; looks like interrupted nights backfire on him just as much as they do for me.

If there's nothing about last night's disturbance on the news with the next update I'll definitely call hubby and ask him to ping the cop reporter for me :o)~ So far the big thing on the Metro news is that the husband who accidentally killed his wife with 43 stab wounds was found guilty. D'uh !

That's where you can usually find me. Turns out the "quick" translation has a total of 33 pages and so I did not finish it last night. Heh :o) I did manage to check everything else on my to-do list and so I'll just transfer the translation job to today's to-do list.

- continue work on translation

- do yet another load of laundry

- tidy up porch and prune plants

- take Finndragon out for a walk 

- compile papers and photos for immigration interview 

- and of course, lunch and dinner

Doable, definitely doable. Maybe tonight I'll actually find time to assemble the Bia-dress bodice. We'll see. A lot of that depends on how cooperative the Finndragon is today. 

- take Finndragon to Zoo or playground

- finish translation

- try to log on to twoday.net to update A&S blog

- do one load of laundry 

- arrange for meals

Not too bad, really :o) It could be lots worse. Oh, byt the by, over the weekend I got started on the little princess' dress for the daughter of a friend of mine. I don't get to do any frilly girly stuff for my child nor for myself so this is a great opportunity to put some of the frilly stuff I found in my fabric bin to good use. I have some pastel lilac watermark silk and some pink satin along with matching trim and I"m trying to go for something similar to this :

 This is a painting of Bia de Medici who unfortunately died shortly after this painting was finished. I just love her dress :o) and so Kate's dress si going to be similar with the bodyy of the dress in lilac and the lower sleeve part in pink satin :o) I'm done pleating the skirt and I have lined the bodice and only need to assemble the two, then it's on to the decorating with trim and adding the sleeves. However, now it's off to the Zoo !

Tata ! 

This past weekend Finndragon suffered from nightmares. He occasionally does that and keeps waking up calling for me, sniffeling and whimpering.

Before long I found myself snuggled up into the big bed with a spooked Finndragon who calmed down slowly comforted by mommy's presence and the collection of familiar plushpets tucked under the blanket with him in his parents' bed.

His all encompassing trust in my keeping him safe, his little soft body spooned against mine and his smell did wonders to quiet down my own still busy brain and it was only much later that I woke and realized I'd fallen asleep, fully clothed, next to our munchkin. Hubby had quietly sneaked into bed with us later not waking anybody in the process and hovered precariously close to the edge with a teenyweeny bit of the blanket secured for himself. I'm surprised he managed to claim a pillow since both Finndragon and I are very capable pillow [and blanket] hogs *G*

After changing from jeans and sweatshirts into pyjamas I snuggled back between my men. There is no place closer to paradise than being sandwiched between the two of them :o) 

 Yesterday, 21 scrolls went into the mail to our signet and should hopefully do a good job at filling some of the gaps. They all come with my calligraphy which I enjoyed adding a lot. Somehow, my whole focus has shifted more towards the writing than the painting during the past year. Odd considering I only started learning calligraphy so it would be me leaving ink stains on lovingly painted scrolls *L*

Now it's back to translating the Ribe article, making beads, finishing my next scribal tea class, and, and, and :o) No rest for the wicked !

On the other hand, it's so nice outside I think I'll take Finndragon on a trip to the zoo.

Laters ! 

2006 doesn't seem to want to be the bext year of them all or if it does, well, let's say it's off to a really bad start.

Pretty much from the beginning of the year it's been screwy, to say the least, with all kinds of accidents, emergencies, deaths of friends and family and a lot of little impleasantries. With the prospect of my Laurel being deployed to Iraq and the forecast for this year's hurricane season this trend doesn't seem to change anytime soon :o/

Anyways, off to another A&S Night ! People should be arriving soon and the Finndragon needs to be sacked and send to bed ! 

If all goes well and we manage to get the rest of linedrawing painted then we'll be able to send our Signet a nice solid acre package of 19 scrolls on friday :o)

Feeling very accomplished :o)

After our Signet's call for help to fill up the shrinking stock of scrolls for Kingdom use went out I managed to finish up 13 scrolls with the missing calligraphy. I have two more scroll blanks that need painting and another one that needs some finishing touches on the paint job and calligraphy.

Thanks to my initial mad training with Bridget Greywolf I'll probably be able to crank out a few more until friday when I promised to send out the scroll package :o) That'll help a bit. I feel almost guilty that I don't feel inspired to do more right now but celtic or rather "insular" art with its knotwork and all that stuff just isn't my thing. Having to do -that- and not even having some inspiration coming from a recipient's name gives me more than just writer's block. It makes me run right for my torch or the sewing machine. Sowwy *sheepish apologetic grin*

Since I hit a productive streak yesterday [even with Finndragon carooming around me and going wild in his kiddie pool all day without a nap] I tried my hand at a couple of illustrations for the children's book as well and absolutely love how the first three of them turned out. Hopefully the author will like them as much as I do :o)  Since it is more of a young reader book than a child's picture book I'm thinking of skipping every other chapter and creating a single illustration as introduction to a key moment, so to speak. Anyways, it was a lot of fun trying my hand again at this totally different artform and I was somewhat surprised how well it turned out after a more than 4 years break [I used to do a lot of fantasy artwork before joining the SCA]. Maybe I can get around to uploading some of my old artwork for you to look at later :o)

Off to a cup of tea on the porch for now ! It's a beautiful morning with a soft yet somewhat nippy breeze and it'll certainly get very warm again later in the day. Better get some household chores taken care of early so  I can slack with Finn in the afternoon.

And no, I can do neither calligraphy nor illumination when the little dragon is awake because he'd want to help ;o) 

This is pretty much sums up my attendance at Coronation this spring :o)

Finndragon and I left friday early afternoon and got on site when it was still light which was great. We plopped down tent and stuff, got all set up and dressed and met people, old and new, and managed to put some more faces to names which is always great when you can't attend many events and especially when your attention is always divided between everybody else and your maniac toddler taking off to check out yet another campfire. He's a little pyromaniac and utterly fascinated by fire and of course he gets his fix at events :o)

We only had three arguements this weekend which was great. The first one happened when he decided he wanted to go to bed in the tent at around 8:30pm. He crawled into the sleeping bag and waved good night only to be utterly confused and slightly upset when mommy refused to sleep outside the tent ! Despite the noise ooutside of people arriving and setting up their camps he was out in seconds after that though, heh *G* I woke up a couple of times to the all too familiar sounds of a certain couple and the accompanying cheers of a small crowd somewhere nearby but there's alsways earplugs, you know ? Yay for earplugs !

At 4am when everybody had decided to call the night a night Finndragon decided to wake up. Gnnph. Somebody tenting across from us had left their torches burning so for 2 hours we snuggled in the nippy early morning breeze in the tentdoor watching the fire flicker and the stars twinkle. By 6am there was no more keeping Finndragon in the tent and so we got up and ready and washed and dressed and started wandering around watching the mist rise from the field and slowly unveil pavilions and tents and banners waving in a soft breeze. It was a gorgeous morning :o)

Thanks to the Cat & Badger tavern we had sweet hot chocolate, french toast and breakfast patties for breakfast.

I missed court pretty much completely because it's probably the most boring thing to a toddler. We dropped in at the children's activities which was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for offering our children a place to hang out and play. I also really loved the kids' breakfast idea !

The MoAS meeting was sweet and fairly short and we got to see pictures of the Gulf wars entries. More about what was being discussed can be found here http://castlemere.twoday.net

Finndragon and I left fairly early, but frankly, I wouldn't have lasted much longer and still been able to drive to Jacksonville. The last 30 miles were the hardest I've ever driven and I had to pull over for a brief stop at one point to keep me from falling asleep while driving. Finn slept through all of this. He didn't even make it out of the 4H camp awake *L* and woke up just before we crossed the bridge into Jacksonville.

Daddy happily welcomed us home and a shower and a nice dinner changed us from zombies to quite happy and relaxed munchkins with slightly sunburned noses :o)