Busy Busy!

It has been too long since I posted! I have had a tough time healthwise for the last couple weeks, and spent my time laying in bed moaning. Glad that's over! So I am just tossing up some of the things I have done this weekend. The first is my not yet done caravan for a swap with others in my Yahoo group, TravelersHart. I will finish up and mail them Tuesday. I also did some earrings, not this weekend, but at Pennsic. The applique is from Pennsic too, or at least started there. I am now working on a wave shaped piece to do both inside and outside curves. The wire is Viking wirework, well, pretty nearly every early community had wirework like this, not just the vikings. This is early on, and looks pretty rough and uneven, but most of that will get evened out in the drawing process.

The Weekend After

After a week of not feeling tops, this weekend was pretty much a bust. I unloaded more from my car, but am still not done. I washed many loads of laundry, and put away all my art stuff I took to Pennsic. I tried, operative word TRIED, to make a pair of earrings. I just couldn't make any I really liked. I think I need to go back to sewing for a while, my jewelry making needs a rest. I am posting a pic of my sister's sunflowers along with a few more pennsic pics. Kris's husband Don is amazing with anything plantlike. These flowers are typical of his prowess. The view of Pennsic with the sky turning from blue to black was on packout day, and indicative of why my sunshade was ripped out of the ground and broken across my tent ridgepole. High winds. Really strong gusts. Oh well, every year has its weather issues, and this was less bad than it could have been. Certainly not the worst I have seen. The 4th year I went (this was my 18th) I had a tent ripped to shreds, and the 2nd, the same tent had floated on a river of runnoff. One year it was so hot the battles were cancelled left and right, no one wanted roasted fighter brains, and one year was really cold at night, in the 40s. So why do I do this, you ask? Friends, fun, and SHOPPING! Okay, really the whole thing is fun, the weather issues just don't get to me. Somehow after doing geology in Nebraska with tornadoes and storms and snow, none of the Pennsic stuff bothers me too much. Well, maybe the year we sat in the courtyard watching the little green twisters forming and unforming above us...

Coming Back is Hard to Do!

Having been in the middle ages for a couple weeks, it is really hard to come back and return to "normal time"! I have to wear a watch again, and dress less comfortably (no, my personna does NOT wear a corset!) and be places not so fun as pennsic. Sigh. But the stuff that's no fun can stay behind, like the storms and low flying planes and politics. Is there anywhere that we can escape politics? I think not, unfortunately. But oh the stuff to be learned! I took an English country dasnce class, a bellydance class, 2 herbal medicine classes (history) and Viking wire jewelry, a couple costume classes, medieval beverages and 2 archaeology classes on viking clothing finds. A broad body of knowledge, and those are only a few of the available classes. And the SHOPPING! I didn't have a lot of disposable income this year, but there was so much to choose from... there was fabric and jewelry, sewing tools and books, honey, candles and weaving stuff, yarn, spindles and bone needles. You can buy herbs and spices from all over the world, armour, weapons, brass mirrors, shoes, clothing, bone, horn, and leather. You can find beads and cast pewter, buttons, pottery, tents, rugs and incense, there are vendors who specialize in a time or place, some who have baltic amber from Latvia, rosewood and mahogany from the Caribbean, drums from Africa and Ireland, zils from Egypt, handcarved lutes and ouds, handmade trebouchets, swords and crossbows and handthrown three-legged pots and castiron cauldrens. Oh the shopping!

Pennsic 37

Well I am back! I have had a wonderful time, the best in 4 or 5 years. I will put up a few picks for a few days, while I get resettled home, and can get back to making a little art. I am excited about the stuff I learned there, the biggest 2 are applique and wire weaving. The applique is not the needleturned contemporary style, or even the raw edged type, but the way applique was done 500 - 1000 yrs ago! A little glue (probably hide type) on the edges, and tiny little straight stitches around the perimetre and then 2 rounds of couching. I am working on a sampler, then will make a small bag, and then a nice big pennant for my tent... eehah!

The weather was good, mostly in the low 80s and nights in the 50s. Good sleeping weather. There was rain, only a couple of storms, a little high wind fun, but not much until my packout, then my sunshade flew through the air and broke its back. Drat. Oh well. So these are my campsite, the big white tent is mine, a saxon geteld, the pics of the inside are mine too. Comfy, eh? The Saxons would have made theirs of wool, mine is brushed twill. I made it 3 years ago, and love it. I didn't put anything on it to waterproof it, the fibers swell in the rain and there is no leakage UNLESS something touches it. Like a wrinkle. Over my bed. At 0230 in the blackness. Drat. Oh well, just an irritant, all better. Gosh some of the calligraphy and illumination was amazing. I only took one pic, but it was amazing. The battles were fun too, I will put up those pics on another day, but they were fun. Can't wait til next year. And Twelfth Night is close enough to go to, first time in several years.