My embroidery documentation

Okay, so some of you heard that I entered by embroidery project into the SCA's "Art and Sciences Competition", which is kind of like a 4-H fair for medievalists.  Judges don't compare your work to other entries, but to a set of criteria, and then score you accordingly.

I wrote up documentation for the competition – it describes the the entry, and any research you did – and after I placed first at Regionals (the state of Indiana), I advanced to "kingdom" (IN, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan). You're allowed to modify your documentation but not your entry.  So what follows below is the documentation for Kingdom – where I placed second, by the way.  (That's not as amazing as it sounds; since the judges are scoring you against criteria, it's possible for everyone to walk out of there with a first place score, or for no one to do so.  I didn't "win" compared to other entries.)

Subsets of the criteria include Documentation, Methods and Materials, Scope (your intent with the piece), Skill (how well you pulled off your intent), and Creativity.  A final subset is Judge's Impressions, which is the only area where a judge is allowed to let their personal opinions influence the scoring.

Without further ado.

 

Opus Anglicanum embroidered belt favor, completed December 2010.

Documentation

The piece is an SCA-typical belt favor embroidered in the Opus Anglicanum style of the European 14^th -15^th century, based on imagery and artifacts dated between 1340 and perhaps 1380 (with one example from the mid 15^th century). The piece is constructed of two-ply cotton embroidery thread on cotton muslin which has been doubled for strength.

This embroidery technique is known to have been used for such elaborate work as papal and royal garb, but it was also seen in more modest items such as relic pouches or the ubiquitous aumônières or almoner’s purses. While belt favors of this type are unique to the SCA and not to historical period (period favors consisting of kerchiefs, removable sleeves, gloves and the like), both are elaborately decorated items worn suspended from a belt, making the embroidery form perfect for my purposes.

The main sources of my information are three website addresses which carry a great deal of scholarly book citations and, most importantly for my purposes, pictures of surviving artifacts from the time period.

See:

· http://www.cottesimple.com/alms_purse/alms_purse_history.html

· http://www.doctorbeer.com/joyce/emb/almpouch/almpouch.htm

· http://threegoldbees.com/projects/5-embroidered-lovers-purse

All three websites were constructed by women in the SCA who researched and then created almoner’s purses for their own use, and detail both their research and methods of construction.

While I realize my own documentation would be helped by going deeper into my research in order to locate and use some of the primary and secondary sources they uncovered, the fact is I never planned to enter this piece into competition. My general habit is to research something I want to create, create it for its own sake, and then be nagged into finally entering the thing into A&S. In this case, I really only wanted to try my hand at embroidery for the first time since childhood, and to create a belt favor for my husband as an excuse for learning the embroidery. For those needs, the research on these websites was more than sufficient. And then I completed it, my friends nagged me to enter A&S, and behold!, here we are.

Having said that, the documentation you are reading now will incorporate images and examples from those websites and cite the sources from which they originally came, in addition to photos of my own piece at various stages of development.

Interestingly, when I returned to my sources to help build the documentation for my piece, I discovered that purses themselves were also treated as favors in period. The author of www.cottesimple.com quotes the following:

Since the height of courtly love in the 12th century, purses have enjoyed status not only as a fashion accessory but as a romantic token or favor, passed from one lover to another, according to Andreas Capellanus, the famous author of The Art of Courtly Love.
Camille, Michael. The Medieval Art of Love. London: Harry N. Abrams, 1998, page 51.

So it would seem that the adaptation of this style was both circular – a purse used as a favor inspired me to create a favor that resembled a purse – and even more appropriate than I had originally thought!

Methods and Materials

As described above, the piece was stitched using cotton embroidery floss on cotton muslin. Period examples were generally made with silk thread, often with gold or silver thread used for the background, and stitched onto linen, which may have stood alone or been appliquéd onto velvet for final construction of the purse itself. I, however, have a budget and discovered that locally, silk thread was going to be difficult to come by, especially in the variety of colors that I would need.

As an aside, one judge at my regional A&S fair commented that, while they understood the substitution of cotton for linen on this piece, they were a bit concerned with having so much of it show, as I left the belt loop un adorned. Following up on this observation, I noticed that in my husband’s most frequently worn garb, his belt is partially hidden under the “skirt” of his riding jacket, or under the blousing of whatever tunic he happens to be wearing, which by happy accident, means that the cotton belt loop is hidden as well. I confess this wasn’t a deliberate consideration on my part, but I’m perfectly content to enjoy the result anyway.

Almoner’s purses were embroidered on both sides, usually with related images, but occasionally with simple geometric designs on the back. My stitching capabilities as well as the typical way of displaying belt favors in the SCA made it much more sensible to embroider the front panel only. The embroidered panel itself is situated on the bottom third of a long, narrow strip of fabric, which was then folded over to create the belt favor’s loop, and the edges hemmed. The hem itself has not yet been completed; the current stitching was NOT done by me, and was meant to be temporary so that the favor could be presented to my husband on a specific date. Fortunately, I did remember to take a photo of the back panel itself, included here as “Image 1”.

 

Image 1. Back of the finished embroidery.

My sources show that almoner’s purses often depicted secular motifs and scenes such as fanciful beasts, musicians playing, and quite often that of lovers in a garden, suggesting that the name “alms purse” was merely a catch-all term, perhaps from the Christian exhortation to practice charity (www.cottesimple.com), or possibly a holdover suggesting that at one time the purses were reserved for such a use (pure speculation on my part). As the favor was a gift for my husband, I kept the secular theme of love but chose instead to design a scene of my own, depicting myself and our daughter in the garb that we wore most often. (The child has since outgrown the dress portrayed in the image, but the colors were originally chosen to represent a specific outfit.) The two figures stand between stylized trees, typical not only of illuminated manuscripts of this time frame, but also of the almoner’s purses themselves.

Image 2; artifact made in Paris circa 1340.

• Cited on www.cottesimple.com as Camille, Michael. The Medieval Art of Love. London: Harry N. Abrams, 1998, page 50.
• Cited on www.doctorbeer.com as an item in the collection at Hamburg, Museum fuer Kunst und Gewerbe (Inv. 56,137).

The embroidery itself was done in Opus Anglicanum, or “English work,” so called for the expertise and renown of English artisans at the height of this technique’s popularity. The main elements of the technique are figures embroidered in split stitch and outlined in stem stitch, on a background which was most often (but not always) done in gold thread worked in underside or “invisible” couching. Other stitches included chain stitch, satin stitch and knotwork, but these always were much less prevalent than the split, stem, and underside couching stitches. Another hallmark of the style is the use of a range of hues to achieve lifelike shading. Stitches on the faces of human figures often followed the contours of the cheeks and foreheads, resulting in additional lifelike effects as the stitches caught the light from different angles when the fabric was moved about. Finally, in Opus Anglicanum, no ground fabric remained visible once the piece was complete. Again, Image 2 provides an excellent example of the typical features.

As you can see in the entry, all of these hallmarks have been adhered to with the exception of gold thread worked in underside couching. A period artifact survives which shows a background worked in colored thread (Images 3a and 3b). I took advantage of this as well as extant imagery’s resemblance to period manuscripts to create a diapered effect using “laid work”, which gives the appearance of satin stitch while conserving thread, in alternating directions and overlaid with a lighter thread to represent the whitework so typical of manuscript diapered backgrounds.

Image 3a. German orphrey ca. 1450 showing colored background instead of gold

Image 3b. German orphrey ca. 1450 showing colored background instead of gold

Image 3, cited on www.threegoldbees.com as “German orphrey mid 15thC, St Anthony Abbot and a female martyr. V&A Museum, London. Photos courtesy of Mistress Acacia de Navarre.”

• The website has three photos, of which two depict the figure of the abbot; I have labeled these 3a and 3b. The third photo, of the female martyr, is not included here. The web page’s author seems to imply that this was the only example of an exception to the gold-background “rule” she was able to locate, although it is possible that it was merely the first such.
• (www.Dictionary.Reference.com defines “orphrey” as “an ornamental band or border, especially on an ecclesiastical vestment.”)

In my entry, I placed a grid on the background in stem stitch to keep the alternating squares consistent. Since my original concept drawing was done on graph paper, it was easiest to use that as the “skeleton” or template for my diapered squares – which means that, yes, I embroidered graph paper lines onto my piece. I had thought at first that the grid might remain visible, but I discovered that it was best put to use by piercing through the grid lines with the needle. This served to keep the “satin” stitches an even length, and also ensured that no fabric would be left uncovered at the ends of the stitches. Since the gridlines are now hidden, please see “Image 4” for proof of the depths of my geekery.

 

Image 4. Embroidery in progress, showing grid “skeleton” for diapered background

Every area apart from the hands and faces is worked in at least two and most often three colors, with the tree trunks making use of four and the lady’s gown five distinct shades; there are approximately thirty distinct thread colors used in the piece. The lady’s shoes are done in satin stitch, the stitching on the faces follows the contours of the cheeks, and no ground fabric is visible, even if the piece is bent backward somewhat. I attempted to make use of modern satin thread for the diapered background, but found it so extremely frustrating to work with that I opted to pull it out and start over. I had hoped to use satin for a bit of “shine” in lieu of actual metallic threads, but in the end I preferred not only the ease but also appearance of the natural-fiber thread.

It should go without saying that the embroidery was done by hand and not by machine. After outlining, I began by filling in the wimple and veil, followed by the skin, and from there worked my way through the different areas mostly going from smallest to largest. Apart from the leaves and lady’s gown, every area had its own specific set of colors that were not repeated elsewhere (and in fact the leaves use different shades of green than the gown), such that completing an area also gave me the satisfaction of finishing an entire color group as well. I kept all the thread and my concept sketches in one bag, and ceremoniously removed the colors once they were no longer needed.

The fabric was placed in a square frame rather than a hoop and the figure was completed over a span of about eighteen months (two years if you include “downtime”).

Scope

I’m kind of a fan of scope. As I mentioned earlier, I have never made a piece with the intention of entering it into competition, but I am naturally drawn to detailed, complex work that requires patience as well as some degree of skill to accomplish. Below is a summary of my intentions for this piece:

• Motif Complexity – lifelike human figures in natural poses and a degree of emotion portrayed in both posture and facial expression.

• Design (how the motifs are combined, appropriateness to period and place cited) – a balanced and harmonious composition of motifs typical of the style of almoner’s purses, using a palette of colors that all complement one another well without clashing.

• Variety of elements/motifs/stitches/techniques – accurate to and entirely typical of the Opus Anglicanum style, with reasonable exceptions made that were plausible and known to have existed in period.

• Difficulty of materials chosen – NOT. Materials that would be easy to work with for a (more or less) first-time embroiderer, consistent with my desire to experiment, fit into a low-income budget, and possess a degree of both strength and washability, since the piece is meant to be used and not simply displayed.

• Difficulty of stitches and techniques – typical of the style. When choosing a new subject I tend not to pay attention to how difficult it may or may not be, since I plan to learn whatever I need to accomplish the project. As an inexperienced embroiderer I can only tell you that split stitch is very slow for me.

• Size and density of stitches – small and extremely dense, but again, my intent for the piece was to imitate the typical expressions of the Opus Anglicanum style.

• Extent gone to ensure appropriateness to period of techniques and materials used – minor. When embarking on a new project I most often utilize materials that I already have on hand, although I will take steps to avoid using anything too overtly modern in appearance without justification. As for technique, my interest is in learning how it was done, so my intent is to accurately utilize period methods wherever it is feasible.

Skill

• Accuracy in design realization – see design drawings accompanying the piece, including original color sketch and a later shading map made for the gowns of the two figures.

• Neatness (especially in starts and ends) – I have no idea how I rate compared to experienced needle workers. I tied knots for most of the starts and ends, and supposedly that’s some kind of cardinal sin depending on who you talk to.

• Tension – insert cheesy blood-pressure joke here. Overall I think I’ve succeeded in keeping the stitch tension very even. Keeping the fabric under uniform tension in the frame was difficult and I ended up with a slightly off-kilter rectangle once the piece was removed. My thanks to the judges at my regional A&S fair for their advice on how to avoid this in future.

• Uniformity (in stitch density, stitch length, etc.) – my first stem stitch around the outside border of the piece – in other words, the first embroidery I had done in roughly two decades – is pretty uneven, but that improved steadily over the course of the piece. The split stitch has some minor variation in length, and I can point out one or two flaws in density.

If applicable:

• Finishing of piece (hemming, appliqué, etc.) – the hem currently in place was meant to be temporary, and not done by me because I’m horrible (and painfully slow) at hemming anything.

Creativity

Obviously you’ll be the judges here, since I have no hope of objectively evaluating my own creativity; I can, however, point out problems and challenges I faced throughout the project. As far as innovations are concerned, all I can really think of are the original design of the scene to depict a plausible variation on a known secular theme in extant artifacts, the variant background stitching used instead of underside-couched gold, and perhaps the use of a period embroidery style in combination with an SCA-specific cultural item.

Challenges included researching extant imagery and designing a scene typical to the period themes and representative of images in period manuscripts, selection of the entire color palette once the scene was determined, and designing the belt favor itself so that I could build it using a single piece of fabric. Once the embroidery was in place, I needed to figure out the best sequence and methods to hem the sides so as to eliminate loose ends, but avoid eliminating a loop for the belt to pass through. As a complete and utter non-seamstress this actually took me quite some time and several discussions to puzzle out.

There was only one circumstance that I think really qualifies as a “problem”, which I had nearly forgotten about. As Images 1 and 4 show, the lady’s wimple and veil were originally done only in white and light gray. They were the first colored area to be filled in after outlining was complete, so I was unable to tell whether the gray I used would be sufficiently dark. As it turned out, I went back after everything was complete and laid in some additional shading with the same dark gray used in the tree trunks. Apart from my first attempt to use “satin” embroidery thread for the background, this is the only area of the picture that I really needed to revise after beginning.

Conclusion

Thank you all for your review of my work, and your generally merciful commentary. I had two years’ worth of fun designing and constructing this piece; I hope you enjoyed looking at it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Stuff

Lately I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons with some friends; the moderator runs a very character-based game, less plot and campaign focused than some I've been part of.  So the character I created is really grabbing my attention, and now I'm writing up our game sessions from her point of view.

Sorry - I almost never share this kind of thing outside of gaming groups.  My fiction is one of the few things I feel truly uncomfortable about showing around. But it's creative and I'm enjoying it, so I wanted to at least mention it here.

**

Our local group hosted a major medieval event on the 16th; I entered my embroidery project (see elsewhere in this blog) into the Regional A&S Competition.  If you're not in the SCA, try to imagine a statewide 4-H fair only old-fashioned; you make stuff, display it, and judges score it based on specific criteria for whatever type of thing it is.  Your "place" is determined by your score, not by actually competing with others.  It's completely possible for everyone at one of these to walk away with a first-place score, or for no one to do so.  To my surprise, I got a first place.

I've had a few people look at me funny when I tell them I wasn't expecting a first.  For the record, my surprise doesn't come from thinking I did a poor job on the embroidery, okay?  I might have self-esteem issues, but I do know what I do well.  Relax.  No, I was surprised because I know what the criteria are and what kind of work A&S competition generally favors.  By and large, my focus when I make stuff is on using it for a specific purpose - a belt favor my husband can wear, a kite that I can actually fly - whereas the focus on authenticity in A&S (we are an educational non-profit, after all) means that things made for competition tend to be best suited for display.  Imagine a kite made of parchment and silk instead of Tyvek and nylon - the one I made would have cost close to $200 just to build and then I'd be petrified of damaging it, right? So I make different choices when I make stuff, and those choices generally would hurt me in A&S competition.

The highest possible score you can get is a 30.  The lowest score you can get and still be in first place is 24.5 if I remember correctly.  Each of three judges will score you independently and then those scores are averaged. Of the three judges' scores, my lowest was a 24.2.  I find this really, truly unbelievable.  My fabric is all wrong!  My thread is modern!  My research was (for me) scanty!  I built something we use in the SCA but that didn't exist in period!  How in the world did I score so well?!

Answer: what I did right, I did very, very right.  Heh.

**

Speaking of very very right... you know that calligraphy thing I was talking about in previous posts?  Presented Saturday morning.  Audiences often will say "oooooh" at an especially nice scroll.  I'm trying to remember when an audience last applauded for one, though.

Award of the Sapphire for Sir Raedwulf Caveron O'Dell

Sorry it's sideways.

Made on Bristol board with India ink, gouache (pronounced "go-wash", it's just opaque watercolor), 23K gold leaf, 12K "white" gold leaf, 100% copper leaf, glass gems, three rough sapphires, one sapphire pendant, and a partridge in a pear tree.  This is the most ambitious thing I've ever made without assistance, and ranks up there in the top two or three most ambitious things I've ever made even with assistance.

Fear not, I'll get all educational here at some point and post a full start-to-finish explanation.  I get a kick out of photo-documenting my big projects - going back over the process is just fun for me, and sharing with people is too, so why not?

I'm sure this makes me some kind of egotistical maniac in some people's minds.  My five-year-old likes to show off the stuff she did really well at, and no one accuses her of being self-centered.  It is, however, nearly 11pm and I don't feel like stepping onto that soapbox so close to the time I should go to bed.

G'night, folks.  Buenas nachos and all that.  Somebody hire me for a job.

Placeholder Post. What?

I've not been feeling motivated to write anything lately.  It's been kinda depressing, actually, but at least I've managed to keep some projects in the air, even if I haven't been in any sort of mood to write about them.

The embroidery project – remember that one, from so long ago? – yeah,  it's been almost two years and I'm in the home stretch, finally.  Filling in the blue background and probably 3/4 done with that.  I need to get pictures up soon so you can see where I embroidered graph paper on the fabric.  I wanted a checkerboard pattern, I needed a guide, I stitched lines in place to use – and they are graph paper.

This may be a new level of obsessive for me.

***

The painting project on the milk canister is finished, and I have photos for that as well, and simply need to upload them.

***

And finally, since cold weather is coming and I want something that will keep me from getting cabin fever during the months spent indoors (well, okay, I should say "will permit me to focus my cabin fever maniacal leanings and use my powers for Good"), I've gotten back to my mosaic project. 

Remember that one? I'm casting stepping stones, planning to use them around an outdoor fire pit or something, with  each one looking as medieval and awesome as I can pull off given my level of expertise (low) and nitpicky tendencies (high).  The third stone didn't set right when I cast it – the mortar mix was off – and it broke into pieces when I tried to show it off at my kid's preschool. 

Yeah, that kinda sucked.

It's been probably two years, and now I'm getting around to the repair work that I knew I'd need to take care of eventually.  I get to basically play archeologist and lift each glass tile out of the stepping stone block, which involves chipping and scraping at the mortar around each and every one of those fiddly little pieces of hand-nipped glass, sharp edges and all.  Then I get to clean off the dust and bits of mortar still stuck to it, and place it on my work board as close to its original position as possible.

My work board is a cookie sheet with modeling clay rolled out on it to the exact size and shape of my stepping stone mold.  I can press stones into it, pull them out, rearrange, and all that good stuff as much as I want without having to worry about anything becoming permanent before I'm ready for it.  Once all the pieces are in place the way I want them, I lay strips of duct tape over the entire image and carefully peel it out of the clay.  After that it's just mix up some cement and go.  Once the stone has set for a couple of days, I can pull the duct tape off and the image stays where it belongs, and looks awesome.

The funniest part is that this is the exact method that the ancient Romans and such used – only the tools have been updated.  Instead of modeling clay they used quicklime, which is basically mortar that you deliberately mix wrong so it won't set; and instead of duct tape they used several layers of  fabric soaked in glue.  Apart from that, though, the process is identical.

And yes, I need to get some photos up of that, too.  Beloved child will be five in December and she's taken the most recent batch of pictures for me.  Did a good job, too!

***

So yeah. I've been working a sucky day job, but I've also been pursuing some projects, which are the only things keeping me from going nuts at the day job.  I have pictures, I just don't have a lot of motivation to upload them right now.  Not to whine overmuch, but it is hard to muster up the energy when I'm not sure more than two people actually read these posts anyway.  If I don't have an audience, writing for myself is still valuable, but I don't need photo evidence of what I'm doing – I have my memory, for as long as that lasts.

Adventure, mayhem, and pretty things

Hello folks.  How ya been?

I keep forgetting to mention the embroidery project, which is in its final stages for color.  I'm working on the blue background, finally, or I would be except the project is currently stalled.  Why? Well, because, it's sitting in top of my scanner, waiting for me to take pictures of it to share with all of you.

***

I also keep forgetting to mention that I've been given an art commission to paint some Celtic knotwork on a large antique metal milk-canister.  I've spent the past several days drawing out the knotwork on paper, reworking it to my satisfaction, and the past two days using an exacto knife to cut the drawing into a decent stencil.  Relax, it's just to get the guide lines on.

If we hadn't killed my van today, I'd be heading to the store first thing tomorrow morning to pick up paints and such so I can begin the transfer onto the can.

***

Related to the knotwork is the fact that I recently claimed an SCA "scribal" assignment - a request for volunteers to do calligraphy for our society's award certificates (we're medieval history buffs and re-enactors, did you think we were going to print awards off on a computer?? Psh!) - for the first time in about five years.  The SCA is, by and large, a game where we dress up and pretend to be medieval, but like anything, it has its group dynamics and its politics, and between the political stuff and some honest burnout, I haven't really had the heart to do a "scroll" in about five years.  If you look back through the archives, you'll find a private commission for a gentleman's SCA award from about two or three years ago, but the regular stuff with deadlines hasn't held any interest for me in quite some time.  I think it'll be good to get back into the swing of things; here's to hoping I'm right.

***

Oh, and I'm also auditioning tomorrow to join the Lafayette Chamber Singers, one of those very small groups where you can only get in if someone else dies.  Fortunately, no one died this time around, but they did move far far away, freeing up one slot; and the conductor has decided to expand the soprano section so they can take on more ambitious compositions, which has opened up another one or two slots besides.  Talk about luck for me... wish me some, if you would.

***

Finally, in addition to the van, we're very sorry for breaking much of the rest of the Lafayatte area earlier today.  The van broke down on the access drive to Wolf Park, where we had been planning to observe their weekly wolf-bison interaction, only it got cancelled for the first time in pretty much ever due to the potential for more storms (yesterday's were "apocalyptic" according to Amy Prettybaby) and the heat index heading toward the ridiculous zone (kind of like Ludicrous Speed in the movie Spaceballs).

Once we got the van towed, the husband's car acquired, and the rest of us collected from the park premises, it was time for an early dinner.  So we headed to Pizza Hut, ordered our meal, and watched over drinks while the lights flickered impressively for about half a minute before going out altogether.  The manager came out and told us he was very sorry, but the transformer out back had just shot "really kinda beautiful" sparks and lightning into the air in all directions, caught fire, and fallen into the street, and he hoped we wouldn't be too upset that our dinner wasn't going to be happening there that evening.

At this point, after starting as, "oh, bummer" and progressing to, "eh, it's a nice day to be stuck at a nature park, and hey, y'all are really nice people", the day's catastrophic failures became completely hilarious.  I'm still chuckling as I type this, to be honest - I mean, what are the odds of all this happening at all, much less happening all on the same day, back to back, while my father-in-law is in town visiting?  Plus there wasn't any reason to actually be upset - we weren't in any hurry, no one was hurt, and it really was a nice day to be stuck at a nature park with really nice, gracious, and extremely helpful staff.  While we were trying to see if we could fix things ourselves and/or jump-start the van, my daughter and I got to check out the nature along the side of the road, in the form of wildflowers and a whole crowd of butterflies and other harmless bugs.  She was an angel the whole time and thought that riding in the tow truck with Daddy was cooool.

Anyway, after everything else, we were almost afraid to go to the next-closest Pizza Hut, since we weren't sure what other damage might be caused just by us being near the place.  Luckily, nothing went wrong (except that their cable and radio had gone out shortly before we arrived, though I don't think we can really claim that as ours), dinner was yummy, and we had a good visit with my father-in-law after all.

Our motto for the day: If you know where you're going, it's not an adventure.

Hope to see you at the Farmer's Market if you live nearby, and if you don't, then maybe some other time.

Cheers!

Wow, look at the time...

Holy cow, has it been four months?

I will plead winter depression, busy with henna gigs (plural!), and getting caught up in reading and writing fan fiction.  For some reason, writing is the only thing I do that I actually feel shy about showing off.  Something about it is almost too personal - I can let intimate friends read my work, or total strangers, but I don't want anyone in between (which is nearly everyone) to see it outside of tightly controlled conditions.

Yeah, it's weird, but you already knew that about me.

So, to manage the very briefest of catch up commentary: Embroidery is really happening - in fact I'm down to just the background and then it will be complete and there will be nothing left except the "construction" part of the sewing. I am registered for the farmer's market again this season, which amazingly enough starts in only a few weeks.

And I need to find more work - not just henna, but something with which I can actually pay a few bills.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some comments to moderate (I started getting hit by spammers and had to switch to moderation rather than leaving comments open to all and sundry).

The wisdom of home remedies

My friend Amy Prettybaby sent me this image, suggesting I change "cross stitch" to "embroidery".

I have no idea what she's talking about.

Boy, time flies

Well, folks, if you're not following me on Twitter, you really, really ought to be; I've been posting there much more frequently than here, largely because, as they say, sharing your thoughts with the world is a lot easier in 140-character increments.

The holidays have been bearing down on us, the days have been getting shorter, and my brain has been trying to hibernate while also trying to focus and get things done.  I'll let you know how that goes.

I love winter, I truly do, but I have a real problem when I can't recharge my solar batteries outside every now and again.  The constant gloom of overcast days and long nights wears on me after awhile.  It's no wonder Norse mythology is so depressing: those people lived in this kind of thing practically year-round.

***

On the creative front, embroidery is continuing, and continuing to look good, too.  I'll even be teaching a little tomorrow at our local SCA chapter's Christmas Court, assuming anyone is interested in learning about it.  This will be my first foray into teaching any of my crafty stuff in several years; back from about April 2000 to September 2003, I was crazy busy with calligraphy and did a lot locally, both making stuff and operating a small scriptorium where people came and practiced each week, and I taught, coordinated projects, and such.

Because let's face it – if you're in a society devoted to recreating the lifestyles and art forms of the Middle Ages, and you're giving out award certificates to your members, you're not going to just print something off at the local copy shop.  You're going to look around until you find yourself some scribes in that society, and you're going to get them involved, and they will proceed to fall all over themselves creating stuff for the joy of it that would otherwise cost serious cash to commission.

(Note to self: get some of those photos up here on the blog, now that the website is defunct.)

Anyway.

In early 2004, Politics Happened, because politics eventually happen in just about any large group of people, only this time they Happened all over some friends of mine.  Between that and the burnout I was starting to accumulate, I was pretty soured on the SCA in general, and didn't have the heart to continue scribing.  My most recent calligraphy project, back in December of last year, was my first in about four years.

I had a point – oh, yeah – when I stopped doing calligraphy, I didn't have anything to teach either; so sitting around at Christmas Court tomorrow, chatting with friends about the embroidery and offering samples for them to work on, will be the first "teaching" I've done in quite awhile too.

***

Something else I'm looking forward to seeing, since it was my idea originally, is the Class Handout Library/Swap Meet.  SCA chapters host events; classes get taught on every topic you can imagine, and then some; the teachers produce handouts for their attendees to take home.  When I was at Pennsic this year, a lot of us sort of mutually agreed that if we happened to get to a class that someone else wasn't able to attend, we'd share our handouts with them once we got back to camp.

It occurred to me that it would also be a good thing to share those handouts with the folks who didn't get to come camping at all, and that's how the handout library was born.  (It's still in an early enough stage that we're not quite sure what to call it.  Is this a lending library?  Are we making photocopies to distribute?  We're definitely making our stuff available for reading, but are we letting people take them home?)

I've got handouts on everything from Queen Elizabeth's handwriting style, to period oil lamps and how to create your own.  I've got stuff from the deep inner meanings of Eastern Orthodox iconographic symbolism (and how to make your own), to the best ways to accessorize your outfit by time period, to something called stick-weaving, which is believed to date back to the Ice Age, and which was taught that day by a 7-year-old.  And that's not even getting into my whole subset of calligraphy-related handouts: the bookbinding classes, various alphabet styles, or how to craft good-looking "fakes" of English letters that resemble Arabic, Oriental kanji, or other foreign writing systems.

(Screw politics; if you're a geek who likes a little of everything, you will love the SCA and all the stuff there is to learn there.)

And that's just my own handout collection; I have no idea what other cool topics will be represented tomorrow, though I admit I'm hoping to snag a copy of the period underwear handout to look over, any maybe something on authentic dyes and safe ways to use them.

*blink* What?

I will never understand the people who think that it isn't cool to want to learn new stuff, or to admit that you enjoy learning all these weird little tidbits.  Seriously?  I was made to feel like a freak growing up, and I'm now having the time of my life diving into this great big swimming pool full of nifty topics and splashing my way through a little of everything.

I mean, wouldn't you be proud to know people who can build authentic working ballistae, and get to fire them on battlefields every weekend? 

***

Clearly, this is what happens when I don't post often enough to the blog; perfectly ordinary "going to an event tomorrow" topics build up pressure in my brain and turn into rants when I let them out (geeks rule!).

***

In other news – yes, I have other news – I got a booking call today to do some henna for a baby shower in January.  I am so stoked.  I really enjoy slinging henna, and I don't get enough bookings in the winter, so I'm thrilled every time I get a call.  I mean, I'm probably supposed to be all "well, let me see if I can fit you in" when I talk to clients, but life's too short to be snooty.  Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't want to sound pathetic and do the "you really like me!" thing either – but man, I just love getting bookings.

Which reminds me, I had a gig a couple weeks back where I got to pull out and really devote time to the North African designs for the first time, and it was terrific.  One of my clients posted her henna onto her Facebook page; once I can find the link, I'll snag it and post it here for the curious.

That's it for now, I think.  Cheers to one and all, and please, don't let holiday stress get to you.  If it starts to, give me a call and I'll come do an intervention involving chamomile tea, and/or ice cream, and/or henna for you.

Bless!
Heather

End of the season

Well, henna is winding down for the season, at least for us Western folks - there are a couple of big holidays coming up yet in Islam between now and the end of December - but the farmer's market will be closing the week after this, and I don't have anything else lined up just yet.  I'm considering the indoor fall/winter market that is being proposed over in Elmwood Plaza, but I still have several questions for the organizers and they've been slow to respond.

For the record, data entry isn't nearly as fun as putting henna on people, so don't you want to help me out here?  Of course you do.

***

The prairie grass is gone, the clay masquerading as soil has been hacked into a less cratered surface, a couple bags of potting soil have been spread over the top of that - it's pretty much bulb planting time.  The challenge will be to remember to hold a few back for my daughter to plant All By Herself.

I've been up off my behind for the past few days, and it's getting to where it feels good - there's a threshold there, I'm sure other people have noticed, when you've been geting not enough exercise for way too long?  Where the inertia is telling you to go sit down and get some potato chips, and moving is the last thing on your mind, even when you're already up and moving?  Yeah. If you can just suck it up till you're over that hump, it gets way easier.

(Thus Spake The Not-Actually-Exercising Exercise Guru.)

Point being, the stiff muscles just feel like they need to be warmed up now, instead of being put back to bed, and I'm plotting my next moves in the garden eagerly, as opposed to whining that I'll have to get up and get all sweaty and stuff.  However: I went back to bed this morning after seeing the kiddo off to preschool with her daddy, and the next thing I knew it was noon.  I mean, it was good sleep, but jeez.

***

Let's see, running through my "tag" list... I was flattered to get an email asking for information and tips on putting together some mosaics that a friend wants to make for her own garden.

A few days ago, my daughter and I modified her school "scarecrow" project and made princesses (you glue paper shapes to the edge of a paper plate that has a face on it).  We used the paper I bought ages ago for origami, and every time I use the phone downstairs the book I have with so many bazillion origami patterns in it is now staring at me from its spot on the shelf.

Darling daughter's closet and dresser have a lot more room in them now that the stuff she's outgrown is out of the way...

I finished outlining the leaves in the ongoing epic embroidery project and discovered that using the dark green was a bad idea.  So I got to rip all that out and I'm now doing it over in black. Sigh.

***

And that's all I can think of for the time being.   Cheers, y'all!

Because you're all just dying to know…

…and because I feel like it's a good thing to stay relatively current on the blog even when not much is happening.

Octoberfest was a bust on many, many levels.  Rotten weather, rotten turnout, rotten income – all connected, naturally.  Compound that with the organizers being extremely short-handed (and a much smaller planning team compared to the year prior), and the knowledge that I could have been at any one of four or five other events that I would have really enjoyed, and you end up with a Bad Day.

The capper was when the tent threatened to blow away, and my beloved husband was forced to come dashing out of the restaurant where he and darling daughter were having dinner, so he could help me drop the tent legs and keep the thing on the ground.  I ended up bent over inside getting things put away, and whacking my head on the exact center of the roof frame…  that would be the part where all the nuts and bolts come together, and stick out, and HURT when you walk into them scalp-first.

Yeah, after having been near tears from stress for much of the previous hour, hitting my head ended up being the final straw.  In other words, I wasn't near tears anymore, I was in tears.

Oy.

I had an extremely strongly worded (read: blistering) lecture/rant/email all planned out in my head, until I found out about the organizers' own problems, and then I just couldn't bring myself to send it.  Those guys had enough on their plate.  Plus, let's face it, I wouldn't have actually unleashed fire and brimstone on a real live human being no matter how tempting it might have been.  I have this pesky ability to put myself in other people's shoes, along with a very strong internal censor, which means I'll think a fiery blue streak if I get upset enough, but I won't actually say any of it.  Very few people (in my world, at least) actually deserve to be ripped into, so I don't; it's that simple.

I still kinda wish I could at least share the rant I would have ranted, but in the interests of professionalism and karma, I'm thinkin' it's time to just let it go.

Um, if you see me anywhere in the next month or so, make sure I'm letting it go, okay?

***

This post was almost three times as long as it is right now, until I chopped the gardening stuff out and put it in an article of its own; so instead I'll just say that the embroidery is making progress and I'm getting all excited, again.

For some reason, it worked out that each area of the design has its own family of colors, and for the most part, the colors don't overlap.  So starting the ground meant breaking out the yellow/orange/warm browns; the only reds anywhere in the picture are in the lady's sleeves (rust shades) and the girl's gown (pinks); the only blue will be the background; and so on.

Right now, the only colors I have left in the bag are about six different greens, and the blues to go into the background.  And last night I finally started on the greens.

The green tones are actually the only ones that show up in more than one area; the leaves on the trees, the lady's gown, and possibly some detail on the ground where the figures are standing, are all green.  I've tried to keep the olive greens in the tree and the cooler shades in the gown; and the leaves will only have two shades, while the lady's gown has five covering all the highlights and shadows.  Regardless, green to me says "home stretch" even if only about half the total area is actually filled in right now.

What can I say, I'm easily amused.  Throw pretty colors at me and I get all excited and distracted and stuff.

Cheers!

Embroidery

I've managed to do enough cleaning at my computer desk – barely – to unbury the scanner and get a decent image of the embroidery project I keep telling everyone about.  I'm picking up momentum now, as more and more of the design gets finished and I get excited about seeing what I can do next.

This is just a thumbnail, so if you want to see a larger image, go ahead and click on it.

Darling daughter was home all this past week sick and miserable, which meant I wasn't allowed to get more than ten feet from her at any given time.  We discovered I could cuddle and sew at the same time, which is why the little girl is complete.

I've been informed that the ground will have "mud first, then grass on top of the mud and then flowers on top of the grass.  Bluebells."  We'll see about the flowers, although the grass accents sound nice and would be consistent with some manuscript images I've seen in this style.

Um, for people who need to know such things, this is cotton embroidery floss, two strands, on cotton fabric – muslin, I think.  The only stitches are outline aka stem stitch, and split stitch, except for the shoes which are satin stitch.  The background will be done in satin stitch as well, but you'll get more detailed information when I actually get to that stage.

***

Darling daughter is now recovered and looking forward to seeing all her friends tomorrow in preschool.  I, however, had a night of unbelievable insomnia coupled with unbelievable fatigue today – as in, I was able to catch a nap and get caught up on the sleep I missed, but I'm still wiped out and wanting to crash even before the kid's bedtime.

***

Out of curiosity, how many people read these blog posts here at Little Fiddly Bits, and how many are just catching the feed via Facebook or elsewhere?  Feedburner says I'm not getting any traffic, but I'm getting enough comments elsewhere that I have a feeling it's not seeing something it should.

Cheers, y'all.

The usual

I've signed up for OctoberFest, to be held on Saturday, October 3. This is their third year running an event that drew 3,000 people in its first year, and 10,000 last year. I'm hoping to sling quite a bit of henna while I'm there.

***

Speaking of henna, Global Fest was a success even with the scheduling conflicts - a home football game, the last Mosey of the season, and the Lay Flats music festival all on the same day made for smaller crowds than last year, but I still topped $250 in henna sales.

***

Embroidery - the stupid trees are finally done! I'm working in a color that isn't brown or gray! Wa-hoo!

***

Geocaching: in which one uses one's GPS (or iPhone with a GPS function) to find hidden "treasure boxes". The family had our first successful find today, and the three-year-old loved it. Of course, now she's holding a non-violent protest against the institution of napping, but we did have fun right up until that point. She declared that we had to follow her down the trail because she was the "know where we're going girl".

***

Gardening at this point involves not quite watering or weeding as much as I ought, while planning the seed purchases for next spring and plotting a faster way to heat up water to scald the prairie grass to death. It's effective, targeted exactly on the plants I want to destroy and nothing else, and non-toxic. Apart from annoying the earthworms, this has to be the single best weed-killing method I've ever seen.

***

I'm sleepy. My kid is not. I should be used to this by now.

Various and sundry

Hello, all ye faithful readers (all two of you, or whatever).

I have a personal motto that Pennsic, the massive camping event I went to a couple of weeks back, isn't over until you've gotten all the dirt out from under your toenails. While this sounds icky, it's actually pretty accurate, because it usually takes that long to put the camping gear away, do all the accumulated laundry, and otherwise recover from the vacation that was supposed to be helping you recover from life.

Man, I love Pennsic. I had forgotten how much; the last time I went was two or three years ago. I took all kinds of classes, learned nifty historical things, and fed my troubling obsession with colored string. I learned something called stick-weaving, another embroidery technique, bought some yarn for no good reason, and some filament or "flat" silk thread to go with the new embroidery technique. Luckily I don't have any projects to use it on just now. I also painted a bedsheet-sized banner as a tongue-in-cheek response to an award a friend was recently given.

Any banner that has "The Man, The Myth, The Legend" across the top is a good banner.

***

Speaking of embroidery, the project I've been working on all this time is still progressing. About the most exciting development is that I got thoroughly sick of gray and brown tree trunks and treated myself to some rust (I know, try not to be too scandalized) for the sleeves of the lady figure. I know how boring neutral tones can get, and I thought it would be smart to get them out of the way first, but they're driving me so batty that I don't want to pick up the needle and do them. 'Specially the tree trunks, because the shading there isn't straightforward the way I expect it to be everywhere else.

Okay, the design is of a woman and child in medieval dress, standing between two trees. The whole look of the thing is meant to resemble a medieval manuscript, and I'm using a medieval technique called opus anglicanum to work it. Mostly this means everything is done in split stitch except the outlines, and I get to use different colors for shading. The shading had me worried, so I finally traced a copy of the design, and then sat down with a pencil and went over the gowns until I had a good range of lights and darks. Then I outlined every section where there was an obvious difference between the tones - so now I have a shading map that pretty neatly tells me where to put which color to get the results I'm after.

The tree trunks don't work that way. I'm basically winging it with two shades of brown and two of gray. They're skinny enough that it shouldn't take me much longer to finish them - I'm on the second one now - but they're still bugging me, and they're boring anyway.

The only other colors I have completed right now are white, cream, and a very light yellow, so the rust is actually the snazziest thing going right now. Plus the sleeves are a teeny area to work, so they make a nice diversion that won't keep me off the tree trunks for too long.

***

Beloved Husband took a hedge-trimmer and helped demolish massive amounts of Stupid Prairie Grass. Another thing I learned from Pennsic is a medieval way to prep the ground for gardening: It's this nifty period weed killer called scalding hot water. Now that the grass is mowed almost to the ground, I'm going to go back through, trim it as close as I can, and then use our tea maker/hot pot to boil up a few liters at a time and go cook me some unwanted plant life.

Yes, prairie grass can be lovely. But you need to make up your mind whether you're doing a prairie grass sort of landscape, or a flower garden, and then keep the damn grass out of the flower beds.

***

Classes resumed at the local university today. I have to quote my friend Ned, who always liked to say that "it's a lovely campus - shame about all the students." Not only have several thousand freshmen arrived who've never driven in this city before, there are a few hundred students from abroad who have likely never driven in this country before. Campus will be an interesting place to GO NOWHERE NEAR for a few weeks, until things settle down a bit.

***

On the other hand, all those students make for lots of potential henna clients. I'm still at the Farmer's Market, will be at Global Fest in two weeks, hope to get in at Octoberfest in the early part of the month, and now I've got a classified ad running in the campus newspaper. Now I just need to get my booking "brochure" up here and run a few hundred more business cards, and I ought to be good to go.

Odd, I certainly don't feel like I've been this busy.
Cheers, y'all.

Henna absence - noooooooo!

Well, everyone, it had to happen sooner or later.

This coming weekend is the July Mosey Down Main Street, and I will be in Wisconsin. I am disappointed about this because the Moseys are so much fun (and I get money and everything!), but the Wisconsin thing has been in the works for months, so...

The August Mosey is iffy for me right now, because I'll be on my way back from Pennsylvania, and might not get back in any shape to do henna, much less in time.

The September Mosey is opposite Global Fest, held at the Morton Community Center, and you can bet your sweet bippy I'll be over there instead. Last year was crazy, and I'm not about to miss this year's.

However, you can look for me at the Farmer's Market tomorrow in my shiny new EZ-Up shelter. It's definitely built to be sturdier than the last one, and hopefully less prone to wind damage. I have a brand new batch of henna waiting for test subjects, I mean clients. The test patches I did on myself look very, very promising.

***

Embroidery is happening. I'm doing tree trunks at the moment, trying to get all the boring neutral colors out of the way so I can start putting in some greens and reds and fun stuff like that.

At the moment, the embroidery is even more fun than usual, because The Husband has a small project he is working on, as well. It's a gift, so I can't talk about it more than that, but it's nice to have something that we can sit down and do together. When we're on the computer, we're usually not facing one another, much less talking while we do our separate things. With this, we keep up conversation and show off our work and all that.

Embroidery as marital aid... I can just see someone writing up an Expert BS Article on that.

I'm considering getting or making some kind of peg-board just so I can display all the embroidery thread skeins I have, up on the wall where they'd kind of count as decor, and add some color to a fairly bland space. I haven't cleared space to work in the studio in too long, and it shows.

***

I recently rediscovered my mind-mapping account over on bubbl.us (no "e") and I've been trying to use it to get a handle on my life. Probably the project management apps at either TaskWriter or Todoist would work better for that, but I like the pretty colors at Bubbl.us.

Of course, this also keeps me from "having the time" (oh darn) for data entry or actually working on the projects that the apps are supposed to be helping me manage... hmm.

***

Watch this space for henna "brochures" that I hope to keep permanently accessible via the category tags on this page. You should just be able to click on "info" or "brochure" or whatever and get the main information about booking me, about henna body art in general, and about henna safety.

"Safety?" I hear you say. "I didn't know henna had a safety concern!"

So, to keep you from freaking out, here is the short version:

Public Service Announcement: If anyone is trying to sell you "black henna", say NO. At best, you're looking at a mix of henna and indigo, but it's much more likely that you're looking at black hair dye. Hair dye is not intended for use on bare skin, and it can leave scars. If you really want to see some good gross-out photos, you can follow this link, but you might prefer taking my word for it.

I do not, have not, and will never use anything other than pure henna powder, along with other safe ingredients. Feel free to ask me for my ingredient list, anytime, or to request a special batch made without a particular ingredient (ie, without lemon juice, or without a specific essential oil to which you are allergic).

Anyway, there's more information on safety that I will include in the brochure, but those are the basics. It occurred to me that if I mentioned safety, I'd better clarify or people would freak out.

***

The flowers that I got from the hardware store? Some of them we got for a quarter because they were teeny, scraggly things and the lady just wanted to get rid of them. Yeah, they're blooming now. This makes me happy.

Till next time, y'all.

Gosh golly, I'm so tech-savvy...

I've noticed that I often want to update my blog even though I have very little to actually say (maybe I should become a politician...?) I've also noticed that the only way to keep Facebook from eating my life was to subscribe to a feed that just shows my friends' status updates. It's looking like short-and-sweet messages just work well for me.

So yeah, I went ahead and put up an account on Twitter, and yeah, it's linked to this blog, over there on your right. I'm wondering if the "tweets" will show as updates to the blog or not, 'cause if they do, you could be notified when I update. That assumes you don't have a Twitter account and don't want one, 'cause otherwise you could just follow me there.

***

Embroidery is progressing. Maybe when I unbury the scanner (currently there's a box of data entry work on it) I'll get some pictures in for y'all.

And, as the first tweet says, flower seeds have pretty colors on them. One packet is more expensive than one skein of thread, but you get lots more flowers once they sprout, and if you buy perennials, they're the gift that keeps on giving!

Speaking of flowers... Note to self: it was a mistake showing the kiddo how to blow the fluff off of dandelions last year. Our yard is now very, very well populated with pretty yellow flowers. Man, those things are fertile little buggers. Supposedly their roots produce a purple dye - this may be enough incentive to get me out there with a spade (but probably not).

Kid and I went to the local greenhouse for the first time today. She thought it was great, right up until the roof dripped on her nose and startled her. We now own a snapdragon start -- any flower that you can squeeze and make it go "roar" is automatically COOL -- along with the fennel I was looking for, and some delphinium seeds that I wasn't. Couldn't find the darn Maximillian sunflower seeds, though. This is getting frustrating.

Good news, bad news

The good news - the wimple and veil were almost completed....
bad news - in the wrong colors.

The good news - I apparently know how to make my stitches good and solid and secure...
bad news - which makes them a royal pain to pick back out.

*sigh*

***

Now taking suggestions for a domain name and website ideas... I think I'm going to take the good folks at Mobiuz up on their offer, once I figure out what sort of site I want to build.

New residents, new opportunities

Yeah, okay, this has nothing to do with my creative endeavors, but everything to do with beauty, so...

Our housing addition has a pond. I don't know how far I can go to call it a habitat, since they mow down to the water's edge and treat the water to counteract all the lawn chemicals that wash in and cause algae blooms, but still. Pond, fish, frogs, and drop-in visits from ducks, geese, and about every other year a family of muskrats takes up residence in one of the culverts and starts undermining the bank.

Well, we also get great blue herons, one of my favorite birds. Last year a really HUGE one got his foot caught in a muskrat trap - I know this because I was the one who noticed he'd been in the same spot all day, and got close enough to confirm how badly he was stuck.

This year it's either a different heron, or he was immature last year and has come into his full color this year, because he is spectacular. All the pictures you see with the shiny white head, black streak across the eye, kind of shaggy feathers on the throat and chest?... This particular bird looks like he has a sideline modeling for the Audobon calendar.

Yesterday and today, for the first time, I've seen a kingfisher in the area. Yesterday he was on a wire about a mile off, along the route I drive to take the kiddo to preschool. This morning he was sitting on the culvert at the pond. Yes, the same one that the muskrats like so well.

I'm going to miss the house swallows this year, though; they were living in a mailbox just across the street from the pond, and for some reason the homeowner wasn't too happy about that. Barn swallows are this really rich midnight blue with orange chest and bellies; house swallows are an equally rich deep teal-green, with white chest and bellies. I'd never seen them before last year, but in the fall the guy took down his mailbox and replaced it with something harder for birds to set up housekeeping in.

***

At the event where I taught the henna class, I also proved once again that I needed a chaperone anytime there is colored thread around. But they were five skeins for a dollar, and how can you pass up a deal like that?

Things are actually progressing with the embroidery thing. I'm outlining the lady's wimple and veil right now. You might recall a griffin I mentioned doing in Bayeux stitch; I gave it to a friend of mine whose "kingdom" emblem is a gryphon, and she said it would probably end up being part of the front panel for an early-period gown. Cool. Probably I should ask her to send me a picture of it, since I never thought to take one.

***

When you're clinically depressed, it's too easy to fall into the trap of struggling to be "happy" as the opposite of "sad." Thing is, happiness comes in moments and snippets. A guy I know describes it as the butterfly landing on your shoulder - beautiful, but impossible to try and keep around. What is better, according to my counselor and my college memories, is the idea of "peace" as the opposite of "suffering". So I've been checking in with myself yesterday and today, asking what feels peaceful to me, what brings me contentment, that kind of thing.

Or, as a great many sources of wisdom like to say, "Pain is; suffering is optional." Another way it gets phrased is, of course, "shit happens"... it's how you handle the shit that determines, oh, pretty much everything.

***

Had an email out of the blue (heh - out of the ether (I'm so clever)) from a guy who wants to host a web domain and site for me, for free, simply because he likes to assist artists and the arts. Sadly, I keep finding myself trying to examine the horse's teeth, just because it's been awhile since something like this has dropped into my lap without conscious effort on my part. All I did was leave some business cards somewhere and the guy found one.

Also, I have no freaking idea what domain name to pick. Just my name isn't very catchy, nor does it describe what I do... but like this blog, I do a lot more than just henna, even if that's the only art I'm making money with at the moment.

Hmmmm... suggestions welcome, both serious and otherwise.

***

Anyone know how to repair a stepping stone that has cracked into four pieces, just from having a three-year-old walk on it? This was the one I discovered had poorly mixed concrete, and was crumbling around the edges and all that.

I'd really rather not redo the mosaic from scratch, nor "recycle" the thing by chipping each piece of glass out of the broken sections to rebuild into another stone. Even though that probably would be both faster and the wiser course to take. That damn thing took me about a year to finally finish; I really don't want to dork with it anymore if I can help it.

***

I think I'm on an upswing emotionally; I can tell I'm improving when my brain starts providing me with song lyrics without my asking. Today it was "Beer Run" while at the cashier, paying with a $10 and getting back a $5. If you've never heard the song, try to imagine a nice hillbilly twang and someone going "yee-ha" in the background. It doesn't have a banjo, but it should.

B, double-E, double-R-U-N, Beer Run,
B, double-E, double-R-U-N, Beeeer, Ru-un,
All we need is a ten and a fiver
A car and a key and a so-ber dri-ver
B, double-E, double-R-U-N, Beer Runnnn.

Not sure who wrote it, but it plays on Bob and Tom every now and again, so I guess it qualifies as their contribution to American culture.

I will continue to agree with Steve Martin's (very old) assertion that it is impossible to remain unhappy when a banjo is playing. 'Course, at the time I'm sure he'd never heard Bela Fleck playing BACH on banjo... which would only serve to confirm, reinforce, and utterly and competely prove the point.

Bits and Pieces

Had a private henna appointment not too long ago, which was nice. I really need to thank the Java Roaster, a local coffee shop, for being so relaxed about my bringing clients there. The house is pretty much never in a state where I feel comfortable bringing people here, and coffee shops make for a nice atmosphere, so...

Taught a sort of "Henna 101" class this past weekend at our local SCA event. It's funny - I have street cred in the Society as a scribe, and all my henna experience is completely outside that hobby, yet my scribe classes in the past have never drawn more than two people, while the henna class had five or six.

The embroidery thing is progressing, slowly, but it is progressing. I'm just happy to be finished with outlining things in black, and able to move on to the colors.

There hasn't been much else happening in my creative world lately; looking forward to the Farmer's Market season in a few weeks, need to get my contract and booth fee in, NOT looking forward to using the damaged pop-up from last season. I really need to get out of the house, though, and this is my best way to do it.

It's a weakness, I admit

I like colors.

Seriously, I don't sew and I find myself wanting to purchase pretty fabric. I already have over thirty different colors of embroidery thread at home that I don't do very much with. When I was a more active scribe, I bought a whole bunch of powdered pigments, intending to make my own paints but mostly just enjoying the colors. I don't actually know how many boxes of crayons I own, but considering I'm almost done being 36, I'm pretty sure that even one box counts as "a lot"... and I know I have at least four.

We won't discuss the garden overhaul I'm working on, except to say I'm finally giving myself permission to dig up the previous owner's mostly white or (very pale) pink or (very pale) lavender garden, and almost all the replacements I'm looking at are going to be pretty intense.

This week in Mississippi, I attended dyeing classes for lack of anything better to do.

Oops.

I'm now considering plants for the garden based not just on what colors they are, but also on what colors they can make other things turn. Worse than that, I'm considering rounding up the neighborhood kids and teaching them to make colorful, semi-permanent messes too.

***

Did henna at Gulf Wars (Mississippi), first time in months, I don't seem to have lost much skill, and I really need to get my registration fee in to Parks and Recreation soon if I want to be included in their advertising for the Farmer's Market. I donated the leftover henna to the dyeing workshops, and played with some string samples with it also.

***

Also attended an embroidery class focusing on the "Bayeux stitch", as in, the main stitch used throughout the Bayeux tapestry. It goes fast - really, really fast. My stylized griffin from the tapestry margins is almost done, and I know have a pile of yarn in the three colors I needed for it.

***

On a completely unrelated note, does anyone know whether it's possible to get a permit to grow hemp? Yes, that plant, aka cannabis, aka marijuana. I could care less about the drug; that part concentrates in the leaf tips as far as I can recall. I want the stalks, for fiber - string, cloth, or paper, hemp has been used to make 'em for thousands of years. They're also a way more sustainable and renewable crop than trees (six times the paper-usable fiber per acre compared to trees), and I'm pretty sure they're better than cotton as well, though I can't find the stats on that just now.

I'm going to stay out of the "legalize marijuana" debate for now, but I would like to see the plant itself made legal to grow. Just as there are different varieties of grapes, or corn, or roses, there are different varieties of the cannabis plant - you can divide them into three loose categories, only one of which is intended as a drug crop. The other two main types are much lower in the drug content, and are cultivated for their fiber, or for the oil you can get out of their seeds. According to some federal agency or other - DEA, maybe? - 95% of the plants they find and destroy belong in those other two categories. In other words, the DEA wastes a heck of a lot of time and resources on plants that would be false alarms, if it were legal to cultivate them.

You could issue permits, and bring people around to inspect your operation, and only worry about the crops that are being grown without a license or whatever. The way I see it, one guy with a clipboard and some test tubes would be a lot easier on a department's resources than a dozen guys with bulletproof vests and jugs of kerosene. Ya know?

I bring this up in the interests of going green... and also to see what colors I can dye the fibers.

Yes, I'm still here

No worries kids, I'm alive and everything - I just haven't been up to much lately in the creative realm, and there's only so much excitement even I can generate talking about the embroidery thing. I have a hand done, and most of one face, and I've decided that the black outlining and shoes are "done enough" for the time being.

You are welcome to sarcastically ooh and ahh along with me here.

...Nope, I just spent five minutes thinking about it, and that's pretty much all that's going on right now.

Bits and pieces

Let's see.

First - I got no sleep last night, for no good reason (except maybe that I was mentally rewriting a novel I had just read to make the main character a little more realistic). So if any of the rest of this post sounds like, "Braiiinnnnnnss...", that's why.

Second - embroidery. I cut the fabric today, after shrinking it in hot water a day or so ago. Yes, this is slow. I'm a fan of huge projects that can be managed in teeeeeeeny tiny little chunks. Plus I haven't really given myself time to do anything else with it, because of:

Third - data entry. Braiiinnnnnnss... Actually, it's going pretty well. As long as I remember to keep the radio tuned to something cool, I can get into a groove and just do the thing. Also, technically I'm an independent contractor, not an employee, so I get to add my hours to a little invoice at the end of each day, and see how much money I've earned so far. That helps more than you'd think.

Fourth - Remember my calligraphy thing that I did back in December? My commission for it was a barter for a new pair of medieval-style shoes. They arrived yesterday; they fit great, and the black looks sharp. I am stylin' now, baby. Before too much longer, I'll actually resemble the drawing I made for the embroidery project. No, I still haven't scanned it.

Fifth - nah, there's nothing else. I just wanted another excuse to say "Braiinnnnnss..."