Adelheid in the SCA

I haven't had the headspace to work on any big projects lately. However, I have been making HUGE strides on my physical space. For several years, I feel like I have been holding on to stuff. Now the baby birds have flown and it's time to let go. All I want to do is to organize my home and spaces. I started with what I'll lovingly call "the green room", which was one of my children's bedrooms. All three slept in there at various points and it was filled with furniture, lego, clothes, musical instruments, books, water bottles, school supplies... Just filled.  I had made an agreement with my workplace to work from home one day per week and I wanted this to start as of October. I was motivated to create this space. It started with clearing the room and painting the walls cream. Where did all that stuff go? Garbage and obvious donations were sorted and hauled to the appropriate places. I put the bunks, bedside table, and a bureau up on freecycle, and most of the ot...

At the last event, St. Crispin's hosted by the Shire of Lionsdale, I got a chance to see it a little more up close when my wire weaving class teacher walked another student through fingerknüpfen. I've seen the lovely Duchess M of Insula Magna doing this technique, but until tonight I've never tried it. I will definitely use this again. It engages the brain (no muscle memory yet) but it's simple and satisfying. Practice will fix the tension, right? Otherwise, I am working hard on digging out my craft room, which is taking up a lot of my time. It's going well, and I'm also working on a secret project. Oooohhh 🥰

Long time since my last post, but I have kept busy with things that are hard to photograph!  I put in an emergency bid for August Investiture, which was approved 5 months out. I expected maybe 100-120 people, until the King and Queen of An Tir decided to attend!! All of a sudden my little event ended up being higher profile, and luckily for me I had a team of people who had a better idea of what to do than I did ha! We had 221 people through gate at a very rustic but charming site. There seemed to be non-stop issues to contend with, some site related, some situational, and some due to my inexperience. However, as with all events I've planned in my modern life role, eventually the momentum takes over and things run themselves. The photos of the day were gorgeous because the beauty of the Sunshine Coast is unparalleled. Did that mitigate the pain of sore feet for attendees? I hope so.  Event Stewarding under non ideal circumstances seems to have a lot of "staying calm and trying...

I made this lovely creation. I'm determined to start making "things" instead of just practicing techniques on swatches. My confidence is a bit low on sewing upv side seams but some practice will help. This little pouch is made from chunky acrylic, 38 wraps, as long as my frame could accommodate. I thought it would end up longer but there was a lot of take up.  I did a 4 row repeat of S then Z, which makes a cool pattern. Here's a swatch that shows it a little better as the variegated yarn is busier: I chained across the middle, successfully, and did up the sides, less successfully.  I thought this might be enough to make a little hood, however once off the loom the dimensions were off. I'm looking forward to trying again. As I had zero expectations, I'm happy enough with the result. I think my little water bottle will fit in here.  YIS Adelheid 

To be of use   By Marge Piercy  The people I love the best  jump into work head first  without dallying in the shallows  and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.  They seem to become natives of that element,  the black sleek heads of seals  bouncing like half-submerged balls.  I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,  who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,  who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,  who do what has to be done, again and again.  I want to be with people who submerge  in the task, who go into the fields to harvest  and work in a row and pass the bags along,  who are not parlor generals and field deserters  but move in a common rhythm  when the food must come in or the fire be put out.  The work of the world is common as mud.  Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.  But the thing worth doing well done...

I officially became a student of Mu'allima Halima al-Rakkasa last weekend at an event hosted by the Shire of Hartwood. This marks the end of a long process, and the start of a new journey. In the SCA, a "student" is someone engaged in a structured learning relationship with a teacher, who may or may not be a Laurel, for mentorship. It allows for teaching with expectation of feedback to promote the growth of the student. When I joined the SCA, I wanted to learn the art of språng. I found someone selling pre-warp språng frames at an event, although the person who created the frames wasn't at the booth. It wasn't until a later event that I meant that person, Halima, who took time to walk me through pretty much every item on her table as I asked question after question about the nalbound and språng items she had created. She was the person who challenged me to create anything, didn't matter what it was, but create it and sent her a picture by December ...