Projects

Well, it's post festi, so it's time to revitalize the projects blog.

The first project? Well, now that I have an entire norse wardrobe, I'm moving to Tudor.

It makes perfect sense to me.

The 14th C Italian is coming, I swear.

Until then?

I'm going to attempt to make this.

Luckily I have some help, in the form of MissD.

Now, to get it done for baronial invest.

In June.

Totally feasible, right?

Mostly for my own reference

Canadians leave heavy ecological footprint: WWF

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/10/24/wwf.html

A new report by conservationists says Canadians rank fourth in the world in their consumption of the Earth's resources.

The World Wide Fund for Nature report on the state of the natural world measures the environmental impact or "ecological footprint" left by 150 countries.

The footprint of a country includes all the crop land, grazing land, forest and fishing grounds needed to produce the food, fibre and timber it consumes, to absorb the wastes in generating the energy it uses, and to provide space for its infrastructure.

The group says humans are stripping the Earth of its resources faster than at any other time in history and that we will need two planets' worth of natural resources by the middle of this century to support it if current trends continue.

WWF names the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Finland and Canada as the worst offenders, followed by Kuwait, Australia, Estonia, Sweden, New Zealand and Norway.

It says the carbon dioxide footprint, from the use of fossil fuels, was the fastest growing component of our global ecological footprint, increasing more than nine fold from 1961 to 2003.

'Dire consequences'

The report, released in Beijing on Tuesday, also says the number of species has declined significantly between 1970 and 2003. Land-based species declined by 31 per cent, freshwater species by 28 per cent, and marine species by 27 per cent.

"We are in serious ecological overshoot, consuming resources faster than the Earth can replace them," James Leape, the director general of WWF International, said in a news release. "The consequences of this are predictable and dire."

"It is time to make some vital choices," he added. "Change that improves living standards while reducing our impact on the natural world will not be easy. The cities, power plants and homes we build today will either lock society into damaging over-consumption beyond our lifetimes, or begin to propel this and future generations towards sustainable living."

The report singles out China for its potential to make a difference.

The country comes mid-way in world rankings, at No. 69, but its growing economy and rapid development mean it has a key role in keeping the world on the path to sustainability.

Leape told Reuters that China, home to a fifth of the world's population, was making the right move in pledging to reduce its energy consumption by 20 per cent over the next five years.

"Much will depend on the decisions made by China, India and other rapidly developing countries," he said.

To do list, nothing to see here

Rental inspection next week, and a heap of things to do around the house, plus a few projects I want to work on, so a to do list seems like a good idea. This is really for my own reference.

House
~Weeds at side of house
~Front flower bed, clean out
~Weeds at back of house
~Vacuum
~Mop kitchen and bathroom
~Clean bathroom
~Clean bedroom
~put up curtain in lounge room
~hang mirror in bedroom
~Sewing room- Keep up with transformation
~laundry

Books
~Pull RABCK books, address and stuff envies
~Label books for release saturday
~Free release pile of books on saturday

Sewing
~Pattern Hose
~Work on felling hood seams
~Bring material in to be washed
~Catalogue material

Other stuff
~See about donations for brunch
~Start putting together baskets for brunch
~Sewing with Miss D?
~Hanging out with Kazzia?

Why hello again!

Look, my blog is still here! Imagine that!

Well, work has been quiet for the first time today, and I after a bit of hectic lifeness and sick that I'm finally over, I feel that it's truly time to start building my 14th century wardrobe. First a few other things to finish...

1)Athol's other tunics. Really, about 30 minutes of machine sewing when I get the correct colour thread
2)My Bliaut and Chemise. About one night's work, maybe 1.5
3)German Dress. An ongoing project. Will also include shift, shoes and hat, but it's one of those things I want done for Yule, so really there's only two immediate things.

Oh, and then the organisation of the house/sewing room, but that also eludes me sometimes.

So, the 14th century wardrobe as I see it developing, considering the amount of fabric I currently own, it shouldn't require buying any new stuff, for a bit. (oh, how it hurts to say that)

Black wool underdress, and black linen underdress. Summer/winter thing here.
Green linen overdress, short sleeved, with tippets AND FICHETS! (there are nowhere near enough dresses with fichets around)
Blue short sleeved overdress with tippets and funny headdress (think duc de berry)
shifts x2
hose
shoes
surcote of some sort
Headress that isn't simply some veil/wimple combo
New girdle, and a pomander

Then, I have some burgundy wool I'd love to make a square necked more italian looking cote with. And I really want to make to make one of these, as I just love them.


So, I think that's a good start, and should keep me busy for a few months.

Keeping in mind I have a great dream of making this cool hoopy later italian dress too, and an early period surcote, more 13th century with dress... I'm a busy girl.


So, thoughts, comments, opinions?

Off and Away!

YAY! It's finally time. Time to fly home, and then, go to Pennsic! YAY!

/cheering

Kay, i'm all better now. See you when I get back. :)

Yikes i've been getting up to a lot

It's amazing sometimes, when I really stop and think about just how much i've done in the past few months, well, since February.

1) Wedding outfits. These were a combined effort, the lovely Anna did a lot of the sewing with me, and Sandra made my bodice/corset. Still, a lot of work

2) Garb to make it through festival. Note that festival was 2 weeks after my wedding, so I was trying to do these things at the same time. Then my sewing machine broke. So I spent a very long night (the first of may nights actually) at Miss D's using her machine. Hence, a friendship started to really happen :)

3) Running the gate at festival. What the heck was I thinking when I volunteered for this? Did I mention the two weeks after the wedding bit? Still, it was great. I met heaps of people, and got much more involved then I ever was before. Honestly, if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have spent so much time with the Atticans, gotten to be friends with Kazzia, and I wouldn't now be Mr B's protegee. So again, a good thing.

4) The re-starting of pewter casting. A slow process to be sure, but an ongoing one. Doing something other then costuming was also v.good.

5) Even more costuming. Early Italian I'm not entirely happy with (you'll begin to see this being a common theme. I need to teach myself to slow down and take my time, and do things properly, something i'm learning, again, slowly), almost 2 sets of Roman, another cotehardie (again, not entirely happy with it), Norse, the beginnings of a German dress, and more stuff in the planned stages. I'm learning things though, and that's much with the good.

6) Open House party where I cooked for two days for far too many people. But it was great fun. Honest. It really was, I love that sort of thing.

7) My first experience with leatherworking, a pair of Roman Calcei. Which are now done. And which I must get photos of.

8) Pewter casting class at cold war. I love teaching, I just wish I had a bit more confidence in things, but the teaching helps develop that. Oh, and part 1 of a cotehardie making class for the Ursulans, the second part which will be went through at Bunch o' Classes. PLUS more experiments in casting, which worked much better this time

9) A development of a like of handsewing (see above and the costuming). Plus, now I know how to make buttons! And I have made lots and lots of buttons. Not nearly as many button holes, Miss D has done those after my disasterous experience with lacing holes on the front of the cote.

10) Beadwork! Something i've never done, actually, correct, I've only done abysmally before this. Firstly for Miss D on her headpiece for step down, and now for a couple things for the Roman, a headpiece, and little bead and metal clips for the shoulders, of um, I think it's called a stola...

11) Organising bunch o'classes, and trying to get as much of it as possible set down in stone before I head off to Pennsic and Canada in two weeks. This is an ongoing thing.

Still, I'm always happiest when busy. I love being creative and doing and making things as well. So it's been a busy busy while recently, but a good busy past while. Also, all of this couldn't have been done without a lot of help from a lot of people. I have such lovely friends.

Productivity!

It just rocks. And I've been a very productive girl as of late. So here we have photos. Because everyone likes photos.
First we're starting with the beaded headpiece I've made to go with my Roman stuff. Based off Art's and Tyg's, I'm rather impressed at how well it turned out, because beads tend to not like me much.



Then we're on to the calcei, which are the cool Roman shoes they've found with little cutouts all around them. Mr B came up today and gave me a massive amount of help on these. Not only that, I got to spend the day hanging out with my favourite Pelican. Okay, I might be biased on that one just a wee bit. So we start with the basic shoe shape cut out of leather. Then we move onto the shoes with some holes punched (and me punching them), then B adding soles, and finally the shoes, about 1/2 done, if not 2/3....

I'm really impressed how well these are turning out, and how good they are looking, even if there were a few small errors on my part. Again, couldn't have been done without Art and Blayney's help.












Of course, I can't always make the photos go where I want them!

And, of course, there then was a bit of pewter casting, as one has to do. I attempted to recast my original pelican token that I made for B, this time with a loop on the top, and a different carving, a bit deeper overall. It worked out much better then the original one did, I'll have to clean them up and see how they go, but it should be really good. The first photo is of course me in my swish pewter casting setup. Aka, my kitchen. I know, you're awuflly jealous, aren't you?










So, that's part of my creativity for the last little while. Soon I'll get pictures of all the garb of been working on as well. You know, if I could keep this sort of pace up, i'd be a creating machine. But it's unlikely to happen really.