It has been a ridiculously intense month; I'm finished on the shirt (post on that soon), and on to the ruffs that are due June 15th or so.

Here's the link to our Gardiner's weblog that has pictures of the suits being made by Eleanor and Olivia, pictures of the embroidered shirt being made by Esther, and rather boring pictures of me doing endless drawn-work.  Yes, I designed the embroidery for the cuffs and collar of the embroidered shirt; it is an amalgamation of several bands of embroidery from the period.  Yes, you can copy it if you want.  :)

Swear, I *swear* there will be a whole post on the shirt soon.  Meanwhile, here's a pic of the pleating:


This is for the collar of the gathered shirt.  The pleats are 1/4" apart, and would be starched and set like a ruff.  It's 4.5 yards of handkerchief weight linen, cut in strips and butted together, with the drawn-work stitching carried over each of the butted seams (as in, step 1: Pull threads, step 2: Sew seams together, step 3: Do drawn-work stitching along the entire sewn-together length).

More tomorrow. 

The two vulture chicks have died; we're not sure how.

We noticed this past week that the vultures were agitated, and were either chasing off an interloper, or fighting between themselves.  It was impossible to tell.  The chicks hatched on Wednesday evening/Thursday morning, and one was dead pretty much out of the shell.  I couldn't tell whether the adult vulture had tried to help it out of its shell and it was too damaged to survive, or whether it had died shortly after hatching.  As far as I could tell, there were no signs of violence.  The second chick was dead this morning, also with no signs of violence.

I honestly don't know what's going on, but one vulture (I don't know if it was one of ours or not, since ours are not banded, and all vultures look the same) was trying to get in to the coop, and the other vulture was chasing it off.  There was a lot of hissing, growling, and jumping at each other with feathers flying.

I have never seen this behaviour before, and I desperately hope that our couple aren't mad at each other.  We saw two vultures up in one of the trees, and they were grooming each other gently, so I hope this is our couple, and that they'll lay a second clutch (vultures will lay a second pair of eggs if the first ones come to harm).  I tried to stay out of it, including not trying to rescue the second chick.  I'm not a wildlife rehabilitator, and other than loving our pair, I have no experience with vulture care.  The natural order of things has to be held to, even if it's distressing.

Hopefully, now this sad episode is over, things will be all right again.

I'm at pinkleader's house, waking up slowly.  Thankfully, my clothes still fit.

see y'all Sunday.

Oh, yes, I was going to post more often...

The things one says right before one becomes pinned to the sofa for weeks on end by what appears to be a sudden localized increase in gravity always come back to bite one on the ass, yes?

I've finished the drawn-work on the cuffs of the gathered shirt while so pinned, though, so it hasn't been an utter waste of time.  Also, I got the embroidery pattern for the nightcap nailed down today, and I'm ridiculously pleased with it.  It will go on sale through Reconstructing History as soon as I'm done with the cap itself, maybe sooner, I don't know.  But it's pretty, and I'm pleased with it.

I discovered that working with deep intensity on a drawing project makes my hands icy cold.  I had not noticed this before, possibly because it didn't happen when my thyroid actually worked.  I have very nice fingerless mitts keeping my hands warm right now, and the same mitts will be on sale at Lochmere's "Night Under the Town" in April.  It's the last time the shop will be open for a bit, so we can concentrate on the Jamestown project.

Which I will start posting on in more detail.  Just as soon as I can surgically remove the sofa cushions from my butt.

Oh - the vultures have started nesting, and the other day we caught the two of them on the ground in front of the chicken coop, looking exactly like a couple saying goodbye in the morning before one of them leaves for work.  I swear, they kissed.  Bob saw it too, so it's definitely not my medication.  They are so freaking cute.

Man, oh man, oh man.  Okay.  Aside from my body being utterly impossible (I'm used to it), my life is just endless, endless awesome.  I'm not kidding, it really is.

Why?

Well, there's Bob.  Who wouldn't be happy with him?  As I write this, he is taking the recycling out, getting proper postage on a package I'm sending to England (that includes filling out customs forms), and doing the grocery shopping.  He has not complained once in all the time I've been glued to the sofa (or in bed) by the weight of my body.  And he's funny, smart, handsome, and a musician.  And he loves me.

But no, really, we've heard all this before.  Why?

Gardiner's Company, of which I am the Education Officer (it sounds fancy, but all it really means is I HAVE THE POWER OF LIFE AND DEATH OVER EVERYONE'S CLOTHES MUAH HAHAHAHAHA give advice to newer members on their kit), has been asked by the Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center to create two entire suites of clothing for the new Governor's House in the living history Fort.  They'll be displayed, and they will actually be able to be worn, but the person in charge of the project says they can only be worn if we're all very, very good.

This is really exciting.  Gardiner's and Jamestown, we go way back.  We've had some really good times together.  I, personally, have been a volunteer interpreter since before I was with Bob.  Other members of Gardiner's have been volunteers there since before there even was a "Gardiner's Company".  It's a lovely place.

But now, it's getting even lovelier with the new Governor's House, which has been furnished with gorgeous pieces (including an amazing four-post bed with soft furnishings that some members of Gardiner's have also been consulting on).  We are going to provide two shirts, two suits (matching doublet and pants), a set of ruffs, a set of falling band and cuffs, stockings, leather gloves with embroidered gauntlets, and a nightcap.  We are going to be paid, even.  I was so excited, I threw in the nightcap gratis, because they really, really wanted one, but didn't think their budget would stretch that far (and they're right; the nightcap would eat up about 3/4 of the budget in time alone).  But we get to make clothes for a museum!

WE GET TO MAKE CLOTHES FOR A MUSEUM!!!!!!!eleventy!!!!

The suits are going to be made by Eleanor Hamilton (SCA) and Olivia Carlisle (SCA), I'm spearheading the linens, with help from Victoria Dye (Anna Pickering in the SCA) (I think; she's changed her name), and others TBD.  Eleanor and Olivia have drafted all the clothes patterns (suits, shirts), and I drafted the accessories (hey, cutting out rectangles is hard.  Stop laughing), and, more importantly, I've designed all the embroidery patterns.

I plan to blog my part of the proceedings here, with the tag "governors new clothes".  Gardiner's is also on Facebook, but I am not, so Eleanor will post links there.

We're all madly excited.  We got final approval on the drawings at the February training weekend.  Our due date for the main pieces is mid-June, so expect me to get more and more panicky, or, if I'm a good girl and do my work, more and more smug.  The secondary pieces I hope to deliver by November, for Foods and Feasts.

This is a huge honour for Gardiner's and a huge honour for me.  I'm so excited.

(Having successfully avoided Valentine's day - in my case, by getting a no-holds-barred sinus headache that put me to bed for most of it, but that's okay, because we both planned to do absolutely nothing for V-day, we are now packed and ready to go off for the weekend to Jamestown for a volunteer training thing.  But here's a post, because dammit, I want to get posting regularly again!)

We get a lot of circulars and catalogues in the mail, as in, our recycling bin for paper is full every couple of weeks (one week if there's a major shopping holiday coming up, like Christmas or, big surprise, VALENTINE'S DAY), and that's the catalogues we don't keep.  Eevery six months or so, we clear out all the catalogues we've kept because we might want something, and that usually fills the bin to overflowing.  I don't sign up for catalogues, nor do I ever skip the "opt-out" button when buying things on-line, but since every magazine we subscribe to sends its mailing list to every catalogue company on earth, we get a lot.  When we moved, it took less than a month for our catalogue harvest to get to pre-move levels.

"Why don't you just call them and stop delivery?" I hear you ask.  Well, truth be told, I enjoy flipping through the things - sitting at the computer for long stretches can really hurt, and sitting with a catalogue, marking every thing I'd buy if I had unlimited money is a form of window-shopping, and I find it fun and relaxing.  Also, if I stopped all the catalogues, I'd never have found my really close to Elizabethan backgammon board (it was called "tables", and I saw a picture of one once that looked almost exactly like the one I bought).  It was even more special in that the pieces and dice were made of bone and horn, not the plastic that all other boards use (I even ordered one once that said "bone", but they were plastic.  I was so cross!).  They only sell it at Christmas, too.

And it's not just the period-style stuff - it's the fun things I'd never in a million years think to look for, like the Barbie Collector's catalogue, where you, too, can pay $300 for a Barbie with a "silkstone" body intended for collector's only, so you can't even play with the damn' thing.  I once got a catalogue put out by Cher, full of gothic silliness and overpriced stuff you can buy at Hot Topic (or could, when they were selling to goth kids).  If you want an "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark" themed house, she was the one to go to (15 years ago.  Now it seems like everyone has jumped on the neo-Victorian goth/steampunk train).

In other words, I like the paper versions.  I see things I would never think to look for on-line.  Casual browsing on the computer is harder than flipping through a paper catalog, and it's much quicker to pick up the catalogue and show guests the hilarious "period" costume Museum Replicas puts out.  I also love the mailings that come in a thick envelope of 4x6" pieces of paper advertising random crap from random companies (this is how the "As Seen on TV!" companies attempt to reach people who don't watch TV).  I like these less than the cataloges, because I am guaranteed to rip the envelope, thus making little rectangles of cheap shiny paper fly everywhere, and dive under the couch, never to be seen again.

Inside the last treasury of such disparate items as the "Mr Steamy Lint Balls" (2 for $7) and a reflective plastic owl cut-out designed to scare birds from your fruit trees ($14.95), was an ad for a book called "101 Things to do With a Cake Mix", which made me wonder what terrible, terrible things can one do with a cake mix, other than make delicious baked goods with a slightly plastic aftertaste?*

Sadly, the writers have not plumbed the glorious depths of cake mix creativity; it appears to be a simple cook book suggesting that you make brownies (yeah, that's a stretch - and isn't there a box mix for those?), peanut-butter cookies (ditto), "Banana Split Cake" (does not sound delightful at all), and ice-cream sandwiches (note: Ice-cream required.  Also, spare time better spent reading a decent book, while eating store-bought ice-cream sandwiches, which will almost certainly taste better).

I suppose it's just me, but I was hoping for fun stuff, like buying ten boxes for cheap and making cake bricks to build a cake fort (icing makes an excellent mortar, as long as you stay away from the "whipped" stuff).  In fact, I couldn't think of 101 things, but I came up with a shorter list:

1.  Add water and re-grout bathroom tile.
2.  Pour box on bed and have a cake-flavoured orgy (Happy Valentine's Day!  Now go change the sheets).
3.  Add bird seed and make really weird suet cakes to confuse your birds.
4.  Spackle holes in the wall (match cake flavour to paint colour).
5.  Pour cake mix into balloons and have a cake fight (if you have cranky room-mates or nice furniture, do this outdoors).
6.  Pad your bra with unopened bags of mix (soft!).
7.  Bake in a bread loaf pan and see if it tastes good in a grilled cheese sandwich.
8.  See if raw cake batter works as a facial treatment (don't sue me if this turns out to be a bad idea).
9.  See if cake mix powder works as well as bovine milk replacement powder for creating explosion effects and make your own action movie (film this for YouTube, please).
10.  Turn your experiments with cake mix into a best-selling book (I get half).


*Don't get me wrong; I love cake mix, and use it all the time.  It does have a distinctive flavour all its own, though, somewhat like knock-off brand Twinkies.

I don't care for Valentine's day advertising; I think I'm not in the least bit alone in this.  Since I watch a lot of TV, I've been subjected to some pretty sad V-day product pushing, including a bunch of ads for engagement rings, the smallest of which appeared to be three carats, surrounded by another carat of pave diamonds.  They're pretty, but I don't think it's terribly romantic to go $20,000 in debt for a ring.  And what's with the "chocolate diamond" thing?!  I guess someone said "we got a bunch of brown diamonds here; let's see if we can sell them for even more than the white ones.  What do those gals like?  Chocolate.  Yeah, we call them chocolate diamonds, and the chicks'll go ape for 'em."

Black diamonds have a slight allure, in that there are not very many black precious gems, but brown?  Go with the topaz, and save yourself the fleecing from the jewelry industry.

The usual bunch of ads for chocolate, chocolate, chocolate-covered strawberries, chocolate, and flowers have been up - today, I'm seeing them every commercial break, in a last-ditch effort to vacuum money from guys (though, to be fair, the chocolate-covered strawberries ad had a man saying "yes, I'd love to receive these for Valentine's day", so at least someone is assuming that guys might be appreciative of some gift other than sex from their woman).  The three standards - chocolate, jewelry, and flowers - are being pushed for all they're worth.  If I see another ad for those hideous Pandora bracelets (I apologize if any of my readers have one, and love it - I think they're ugly and shamefully overpriced), Bob is going to take the remote away from me and banish me to the library so he doesn't have to hear me rant about them again.

My vote for the stupidest gift suggestion, though, goes to the giant 4.5' teddy bear from Vermont Teddy Bears.  Because no-one really wants a giant toy that takes up space and attracts dust.  Small soft toys?  Sure.  I got a plush Cthulhu from friends for Christmas, and I adore it.  For the couples with a good sense of humour, the mono virus plush is a delightful idea.  A massive thing that is almost my height and cost $100?  Less delightful. 

I think I'd prefer $100 worth of flowers, if given the choice, and I'm sure most women (this is not something you buy for a man, and the ad pretty much makes that clear) would come up with similarly non-giant teddy bear choices.

I haven't been updating much lately, because even I am bored of hearing myself whine about how I don't have the energy to do anything.  Like I've mentioned in previous posts, I spend a lot of time on the sofa, either watching TV and sewing, or staring out the window at the bird feeder (I caught the vultures mating again today; they actually kiss afterwards.  It's so sweet).  The rest of the time, I sleep a lot.  I've also spent some time on creative work, which I swear, I'll be telling you all about soon.

Since I spend so much of my time on that sofa, I find that I'm really fascinated by shows that document people whose lives are much, much worse than mine.  At first, it was just all the hoarder shows (Hoarders, Hoarding: Buried Alive, and Animal Hoarders), since I can recognize that same tendency in myself - I love to collect things, I have a hard time letting go of things, and I also have anxiety disorder - and it's my way of making myself dust.  That, and it's like watching a car wreck.  But recently, I find myself fascinated with the Gypsy shows, mainly on TLC (they really need to drop the "Learning" part of their name and replace it with something else).  I've seen multiple episodes of My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, and now, their new show, Gypsy Sisters.

( and... shiny!Collapse )

I am still alive, I've just been spending a lot of my time sleeping.  My medication is not keeping up with my thyroid decline, but I am assured by my doctor that it shouldn't continue much longer than a year to reach total zero, at which point, we'll try and find the right dosage.

In the mean time, I'm working on things (when I'm awake) that I assure you will be fun and exciting when I'm able to talk about them.

So... 

Oh, here's a story about my vultures.  I happened to look outside from my near-permanent perch on the sofa, and caught our vultures in the act of mating.  In the window of the chicken coop (see avatar).  Now, vultures aren't terribly graceful on the ground at the best of times, and well, when they're mating, their balance is... precarious.  As I watched, the male fell off the female, backwards into the chicken coop, and disappeared.  The female, with complete aplomb, merely turned her head and looked back, as if to say "you all right down there?", and settled down on the window sill.  I laughed myself silly.

However, they did spend quite a bit of the rest of the afternoon sitting together in the window and snuggling.

Interestingly, my guess as to which one was the male and which one was the female was correct.  I'd never have known for sure if I hadn't caught them mating.  If all goes well, we should have another batch of vulture chicks soon.