Holiday Faire has come and gone and finally I can talk about what has taken up my time and brain space lately. Miguel's cloak is done. Hooray. It was a fun project, I wish I had had time to do more decoration to the cloak, but I am glad it came out well and complete. I tried to use as many of Miguel's wonderful fiber tools to work on the cloak as possible. The blue wool from B Black & Sons arrived on Monday, so I tried to work on the decorations first. I made a ~40" silk lucet cord from some 2/30 gemstone silver silk from Halcyon to use for the laurel wreath. The wreath was couched down in place with some of the same silk using one of Miguel's fine bone needles. I also used some Splendor silks laying around in white and blue to make the edge trim out of whipcording. Otherwise it was a simple half circle cloak, inspiration taken from the mantle of Roger II of Sicily, to show the world that 

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Had a grand time at KA&SFest last weekend, which was largely due to the fabulous company of  attack_laurel.  While I personally displayed nothing, I took a few pictures of some of the displays, for your enjoyment:


Isobel and I got on the road shortly after 7pm (after I ran Belle through a car wash, since it was desperately needed) and we got to the hotel around 11ish. The room was nice at the Comfort Suites, even if the beds were a bit firm and the pillows insanely soft. We got to sleep nice and late, tumble down stairs for breakfast to bring back to the room, and take our time getting ready. Of my two packed outfits (green viking or red italian) I choose to wear my red (not pink!) Italian. I got to thinking back, and that dress is at least 7-8 years old, if not older. It hasn't gotten much wear lately, and ideally I would have put more fabric in the skirt if I had it, but on the whole, I don't think it looked that bad. And I was comfy all day. Isobel, of course, always looks fabulous, even bleary eyed and just woken up, but especially at the event on Sat. She also took pictures of me at the end of the day, so I've added them to the bottom of my 15th Cent. Middle Class Italian Renaissance Gown handout from 2000.

I talked to a bunch of folks, watched the fashion show (loved azpapillion 15th disrobing, especially the explanation of the hat layers!), delivered a blue mouse to melaniesuzanne , had a few meetings, attended both courts, got roped into some last minute judging, realized at the end of the day that I'd only eaten cookies since breakfast (missing lunch seems a bit of a theme for the event), and not gone to the ladies room all day. It was inspiring to see some of the many varied displays. Almost makes me want to do the Pent next year, except my pity for judges and my inherent laziness will likely stay my hand. But I do like the well-roundedness and further research it inspires. Congrats to belfebe  on winning overall. There were many really good entries, so tough group to compete against. I actually had on my calendar "KAS&Fest- be prepared for more reminders of your artistic failures", which luckily with Jamestown prep isn't entirely true, but serious research hasn't happened by me recently, and in that I feel I am letting my pearl down. Where's that wagon to get back on?

But on the plus side, I did finally sit down and update my webpage with some new articles based on the pictures of projects I've taken recently. So there is a new page on Elizabethan shirt construction, and on my 16th Century Working Woman's Elizabethan outfit, in addition to the new pictures on the Italian page. That makes me feel somewhat productive. I've also updated my Calendar, good through Sept. 15th, with a few unknowns/breaks worked in.

But enough about the arts, onto the drinking. After the wonderful court, and the last minute chats about this and that, we boogied on back to the hotel to change out of costume, and into civies for dinner out. We hedged our best with Eat at Joe's Crab Shack, being so close to water and all. We started off with a couple of drinks at the bar, and moved on to some pretty tasty appetizers and entrees (Isobel's food curse held fast and ruined both her first drink, and her entree twice, and her dessert, whereas the rest of us had lovely drinks and food.) Got to hang out with Drea, Calli and Lynena and chat until way too late, and finally left as some of the last patrons to exit the restaurant. It was a grand time, and we crashed when we got back to our hotel room.

Sunday was a lovely late sleep in, interesting experiment with sausage and syrup in the microwave on styrofoam plates, and a nice relaxing drive home chit-chatting about everything, and singing along to the music. I returned the Angel of Death to her Bob after 1pm, and then scurried home to unpack, tell my Alan all about the weekend, and snuggle watching lots of ROME (heh, On Demand r0x0r) on the big screen in the basement. Random comments about bloody-minded Romans were elicited, as well as the "Oh, I love this line" for Pullo's explanation of who he'd save first if found drowning in a river. So practical that Pullo. Love the clothes, so jazzed for Coronation. But first is Gulf Wars, and I think I need to paint my toes if I plan to wear any Roman and sandals at the war.

Okay, enough whining. Last week was packed. Monday found me abusing Theo's embroidery machine for Livia's cloak, and the embroidery on a new scarf for the Alan. While not done, I finally packed it in around 11pm to head home for bed. Tuesday night would have been laundry, but I was back at Theo's and the machine's finishing up the machine done details on said cloak. Wednesday was a lovely dinner out but a disappointing play with incapable understudy in lead role. Thursday I called to check on practice and it was called off, which was wonderful so I could do more work on the cloak assembly. Friday night was also final cloak assembly including whipcording 3.5 yards of silk trim for the edging, I was only up until 3am. Insert random pauses for heating pad usage and better living through chemistry.

As promised, pictures!


wool doublet
 
petticoat seaming
 
knit pouch and pin cushion
 
petticoat bodies