Monday miscellany

in which our plucky heroine feels somewhat less wobbly...

And as a way of warming the kitchen I've started pre-baking the quinces... 20+ minutes in the oven at 350°F and they are much easier to peel and cut into pieces. Then they can be frozen or cooked further as desired, and the cores and peels added when making quince or other jelly.

※※※

~ hopeful ~

Garlic, iris, hyacinth, and tulips... planting bulbs is a statement that there will be a future. These are a statement of not just bare survival but also of beauty in the world. Thank you Acantha for sharing this hopeful gift, and when they bloom, or come to full growth, I will think of you!

※※※

This is a fascinating article about the garnet and gold metalwork found in the Sutton Hoo archaeological site.

※※※

~ getting ready ~

This is the second year I have coordinated the (secular) "Advent of a Better Year" swap, where everybody gets 31 tiny wrapped gifts, one for each day in December. Everyone gets a random assortment from all the other participants.

There are 20 sets on the table currently, five more sets I've not yet made a box for, there's a package of goodies for the swap out for delivery today and one tomorrow, someone driving up tonight with their set, and I am still waiting to hear from one more person, but I've turned my worktable into Advent Swap Central so that once all the goodies arrive (hopefully in the next day or two) I can do the mix-n-match, and seal up all the boxes and take them to the post office...

*Notice: next year our plucky heroine is moving the deadline for tiny treats to arrive here back two weeks, from October 31 to October 15, to better allow for "shipping and handling" time.

※※※

November SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	Halloween cushions	repot spider plants	recycle bin
2	applesauce	harvest persimmons	yard waste bin
3	cat head graphic	moar pruning	recycle bin
4	6 jars to ferment	grape pruning	yard waste bin
5	lime curd	-	-
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. a great porch visit with Ashe this weekend, when they drove down here to drop off Advent Swap goodies from their family
2. learned a new origami box fold
3. I don't know how they end up there, but there were three! spiders in my bathtub this morning! Fortunately for them, I keep a spider catching cup and a postcard in the bathroom, so I can remove them safely and without harm to either of us
4. Acantha sent me flower bulbs as well as garlic to plant

Time of Isolation - Day 1589

dry bones - day 35 (year 2)

in which our plucky heroine restarts a project...

in the before times, one of my SCA goals was to create plausible contents of a Viking Age sewing kit*. Since deciding to participate in Athenaeum later this year, I want to make some new artifacts, and get back to doing a bit more research

These are Viking Age style threadwinders, based on finds from Birka (8 - 10th c). The two originals are made from antler slabs; as I do not have antler slabs on hand to work with, these are made of cow bone, but actual dimensions. Bone is easy to work with hand tools, as long as you take careful precautions to not inhale the fine dust created when sawing/filing/drilling etc. Once I did the rough cutting to shape, I switched to using my alundum hand grinding stones used under running water, for my lungs safety sake. While alundum is a modern compostite of aluminum oxide, in the Viking Age, sandstone and other abrasive rocks were available (whetstone pendants have been found) though I do not know if they were used in shaping bone and antler.

Here is an image of the larger of the two threadwinders from Birka:

Links to the museum website pages with the originals: small thread winder and large thread winder

※※※

April SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	wire planter cage	cover smaller sleeve board	yard waste bin
2	prototype mesh wash bag	cover larger sleeve board	recycle bin
3	5 jars blood orange marmalade	baby plants repotted	bag of fabric
4	3 jars Awesome sauce	skirret cage adapted	bag of fabric
5	4 jars strawberry rhubarb sauce	temporary biffy	bag of fabric
6	two large blue planters	remove thumbhole cuffs	bag of fabric
7	two bone Viking threadwinders	x	bag of old fur
8	x	x	yard waste bin
9	x	x	recycle bin
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - Back in 2017, in the Before Times, my friend Drusa made me this exquisite Scandinavian style workbox, which while it isn't exactly the type made in Viking times, is too precious to me to leave sitting on a shelf. Objects of beauty are made to be used...

※※※

To be of use - by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.


I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.


I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.


The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

oh so busy...

in which our plucky heroine accomplishes much...

For weeks now, I've been working on making a set of 16th century German clothing for my friend Maeva; she was attending Perfectly Period Feast North this last weekend, and I completed her linen-lined wool supportive undergown and her wool long sleeved overgown. In addition, I made multiple accessory items, including a gollar (shoulder capelet), a three layered headdress, and a hand-smocked, entirely hand-stitched linen apron. This sewing was quite the stretch, as it combined a small amount of machine stitching with a lot of hand stitching, and a number of techniques that were new to me. While I myself do historic re-creation as a hobby, my primary interest is in the Viking Age, and the clothing styles of centuries later than that are very different and much more complex in construction. I learned a lot and enjoyed the challenge.

Maeve, wearing the 16th German clothing I sewed for her, put on an impromptu fashion show Sunday afternoon when we stopped by Bolt Fabrics. The sales associates there had been following my progress with great interest, and it was a treat to be able to show them the results "as worn". Here I am helping her get all the layers properly in place. I hope to have better photos soon!

※※※

Mindy came down this last weekend, and the biggest thing we tackled was removing all the horrid irregular red plastic "privacy slats" from the chain link fence in the backyard. They didn't ever actually block the view of the neighbors, or the alley, but being all different lengths, turned the never-very-attractive chain fencing into a real eyesore. Now it is a lot less visually cluttered, and the offending plastic bits were tied in bundles and donated to the Rebuilding Center for re-use. We also put away the air conditioner til next summer; being able to close the window all the way means that the kitchen is a wee bit less drafty.

Saturday night we sorted through and re-folded all my wool fabrics, so the resource center shelves are now about a quarter dealt with. Not sure but that in time I may donate some of the wool, as there is definitely SABLE* happening in that category! There is only so much melton cloth our plucky heroine can use... That said, I found a piece of nice thin finely-woven grey herringbone wool, and even better a very special piece of what is probably cashmere in a deep chocolate brown! (soooo silky-soft) After trying on the gollar I made for Maeva, which seems the ideal garment for warmth in my Very Chilly Cottage, my plan is to make one for myself as well

※※※

In the interest of using up some of my assorted precious indigo fabric scrap (as opposed to the simply ordinary scrap, which gets discarded in various ways) and inspired by the current "Freewheeling Single Girl Sewalong" I've started piecing arcs of indigo, with the idea of a quilted bed throw... While at Bolt yesterday, took advantage of their anniversary sale to acquirea few yards of Kona cotton chocolate brown fabric for the background to said indigo rings. While I won't be finishing a quilt in six weeks, most of which I spent on the aforementioned 16th century clothing, my hope is to turn at least some of the fabric stored here into  wintertime warmth and comfort. Aside from the brown cotton, all else needed for the project was already in the resource center!

※※※

October SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	6 jars grape syrup	moar apple pruning	grapes harvested
2	Maeva undergown	wool fabric sorted	yard waste bin
3	Maeva overdress	AC put to bed	yard waste bin
4	Maeva wool gollar	x	red fence slats
5	Maeva wusthalbe	x	-
6	Maeva steuchlein	x	-
7	x	x	-
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - my "emporium" aka "resource center" formerly known as stash, is a highly curated (if not yet well organised) source of materials for Useful Projects, and I am continually grateful for that

* SABLE = Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy

tidbits and trinkets

in which our plucky heroine is keeping very busy...

the faceted "cornerless" rectangular carnelian beads, ordered from Etsy, arrived Monday... so beautiful, (and probably the closest I can get to actual cornerless cubes) My thought is to try and create a suitably Viking Age treasure necklace, because it would be fun! There are a few examples* of necklace finds with a mixture of shaped carnelian beads, rock crystal beads in faceted, round, and melon bead shapes, with an assortment of other special beads and charms...

※※※

starting on the two additional garments that need sewn before ATWW. Aesa needs a wool overdress, and Isabel needs a linen aprondress. Wool overdress is cut out, and partially sewed, the linen neckline binding was perfect handwork for my bus ride today

※※※

Charles Lewton-Brain at CMAG on Tuesday night... ZOMG! What an inspiring presentation. I haven't taken so many notes so fast since I was in school, and hopefully some of the many ideas will be able to make the leap to my own workroom!

※※※

Started on charter painting #5, a Silver Chime for the Summits. Really liking the colors on this one so far, and it has all the solid areas painted in. Still need to do all the fineline detailing, but hope to have it done in time to send down to Investiture this weekend (which I am Not Going To, since as mentioned, I must Complete All the Things)

※※※

grumpy with pain, as my ankle, after being seemingly on the mend for over a week, suddenly began hurting yesterday and today is bad enough to make me think about ibuprofen. Maybe not drinking enough water yesterday set it off? Not sure, but I sure am limping and wincing today. Acupuncture appointment made, and am making certain to drink more water today. Also adding some curry to my eggs for lunch (tumeric)...

※※※

Stripey dress is all cut out and about a third done: skirt just needs two rows of bottom bias edging stitched. Bodice has yoke attached, collar stitched and turned ready to attach. Pretty pleased with clever pattern cutting, there were only a very few very small scraps left of the fabric to discard. since there wasn't enough to cut both sides of both button bands in the same direction, the inside ones are horizontal and the outside ones vertical, which will play interestingly with the stripey collar.

※※※

June SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	blue floral blouse	backyard clothesline	dead rope
2	charter #3	boombox cord plug	bag yard waste
3	batik popover dress	weeds gone front yard	bag yard waste
4	charter #4	weeds gone back yard	yard waste bin
5	Laurel enamel	weeds gone side yard	yard waste bin
6	x	apple tree mulched	-
7	x	4 sewing shelves sorted	-
8	x	new serger needles	-
9	x	rulers cork reattached	-
10	x	gussets added to shirt	-
11	x	neckline adjusted	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - the weather today was darn near perfect for huge chunks of the day... not too cold, not too hot, and mostly not too sunny. Every time I went outside, I smiled!

* a partial list-of-links to assorted Viking Age necklaces of inspiration:

carnelian and rock crystal in various shapes, with treasure pendants mostly beads

mostly carnelian and rock crystal cornerless cubes, with a small amount of lampwork, and treasure pendants

carnelian and rock crystal with many treasure pendants

assorted shaped carnelian and mostly facteted rock crystal

assorted carnelian, rock crystal, stone etc

mixed shaped carnelian, rock crystal melon and rounds, etc

two different kinds of woolgathering

in which our plucky heroine cogitates...

Not going to make resolutions, not going to set goals I have no idea of how to implement. Obviously I do successfully implement life changes, so am going to continue with what is functioning, be open to possible avenues of positive helpful growth, and am going to be kind to myself and others, as best I can.

Even though I feel like I never get anything accomplished, my own SMART* goal logs contradict that. Included in the listings I posted yesterday (109 things made, 63 things fixed, and 55 things discarded) are that in 2018, in addition to all the assorted random projects and preserving, I :

• painted a dozen charters
• created six original scrolls
• sewed eighteen garments for others
• sewed eight garments for me
• made six enameled jewelry pieces

Also, looking at the list for 2018 shows me why I feel like I got nothing accomplished (or rather, where, left to my own devices, that I chose this year to focus on textiles rather than on studiowork - metalwork - enameling) In my mind the metalwork/enameling is my "real" work, the work that allows me to hold my head up, and everything else I do is just trivial. And it is also my metalwork/enameling that I have the least amount of confidence in my ability, where I feel the most "imposter syndrome". Hmmm a lot of tangle there to unpack...

This is one end of one of the tangled strings. Once I gave up on working for others, which never was a good thing, and became self-employed, I had several different activities that were income-generating. Primarily for many years I worked cleaning houses. I did that work until age and pain made it too difficult for me to do the work well, which began with the year I took off for my cancer journey, when I was much too weak to do hard physical work. Housecleaning is steady and reliable work, and pays comparatively well for the time spent, providing one works independently. It is needful but not mentally strenuous, which means that after a days work is done, that there is still a modicum of energy and bandwidth for creativity. What it also is is work that many look down on, and there were years and social circles where I didn't say what I did, just "self employed". Making custom jewelry has no such stigma attached, but to really make a financial success of any sort of custom work one needs entrepreneurial savvy I never yet have figured out. I have managed somehow to cobble together a life, though.

Not sure that I want to poke at this tangle more tonight, I'm tired, and my ankle hurts, and I have physical therapy tomorrow morning.

※※※

So, since it is suddenly much colder here, it seems a very appropriate time to start on my Sólbein Cardigan, which I decided to knit and participate in the Fringe and Friends Steekalong. I am attempting to convert the top down pattern into a bottom up version, since I do most of my knitting while riding public transit, and it is a lot easier to handle smaller chunks than an entire sweater (wish me luck, I’ve never done such a thing to a perfectly functional pattern before!) With three different colors of denim-y blue Lettlopi, my cardigan will hopefully fill a very needful niche in my wardrobe, if all goes well.

※※※

todays gratitude - warm wool, life and limb, roof and walls, good food and clean water, and most of all the family and friends that hold me in their hearts...

a scribal sojourn

in which our plucky heroine minds her p's and q's...

I recently volunteered to create an original SCA award scroll for Stromgard, as I really enjoy the drawing and painting aspect of the scribal arts. But since I want to be able to do the whole scroll myself, that means learning calligraphy as well. There are quite a few different styles of lettering; I am learning Gothic, since I love the style of illumination that was common in western Europe in the 14th century.

I started out by practicing lower case letter forms on graph paper, using a calligraphy felt pen, the larger size helps with learning to see how the letters are shaped, when good and when needs improvement. Then I switched to using a dip pen nib, in a much smaller size, that would work for the overall size of the scroll I am making, here the letters are less than 1/4" tall, written with a nib that is less than 2mm in width.

I realised that I needed to learn to make capital letters as well, once I spent a fair amount of time online looking at the three manuscripts that were my inspiration. While some of the text in history had inset versal capitals, it was much more common to only use versal letters for end caps, and to use calligraphed capitals inside the text block. So, I opened my trusty Drogin, and set about learning the "uppercase" letters too!

(the blurry edges and blobs are in part because I am writing on graph paper, which is too absorbent to handle calligraphy ink)

After writing through the text several times, over the course of several days, I had a sense of how it would work written out as a block, where to put the end capitals on the left, and the line fillers at the righthand ends... one last time on graph paper, so I can overlay it and begin to mark out the space where the rest of the design will happen.

While doing the research for this project, I found and fell in love with these ladies on horseback, and since this is a scroll for an equestrian honor, using those images as inspiration seemed appropriate.

(detail of my sketch)

... finally it was time to start actually writing on the bristol board surface that will be the actual scroll... it was so much nicer than writing on graph paper, and my pen work looked a lot crisper, though obviously still very much work of a beginner. I can only work at the level I am currently, it keeps me humble to try new things, and I can see gradual improvement from where I started. As always, my own standard is "would I be happy to receive this" and in this case, so far, my answer is yes. Hopefully as the work continues and I add the painted and inked decorations I will still be happy with the outcome.

I do go through a lot of graph paper and tracing paper when doing design work... it allows me to keep the good parts of a sketch, and go on from there, gradually working out how I want the design to look. This is several iterations in to my efforts to design the illuminated border decoration. I have been looking mostly at images of The Book of Hours (fragmentary), Use of St Omer, from the early 14th century, for my inspiration, though the women riding horseback are from a contemporary work The Queen Mary Psalter, and I found the little person holding a shield that is hanging from the foliage when I was looking through images of the Luttrell Psalter

Once I add a design for the large remaining space above the text block, it will be time to transfer the design to the actual paper, ink in all the motifs, and begin painting. I predict a fun weekend!

Tuesday tidbit - the shapely Viking apron dress

in which our plucky heroine, though still sick as a dog, stashes these instruction here, in case anyone is interested...

This simple to make, simple to cut out, patternless pinafore is based on cloth fragments from the Viking Age. We have almost no completed garments, but tattered fragments were tarred and used as ship caulking; said caulking, recovered from archaeological digs, has been interpreted to be parts of a garment like this one. What I like about this concept is that it is also basically a zero waste sewing project. Helpful nowadays, but much more important back in history when every piece of clothing was made from fibers prepared from the raw wool or flax.

page one of handout sheet


second page of handout sheet


Useful schematic of how this pattern works


worksheet for 3 panel apron-dress


worksheet for 4 panel apron dress

additional notes: It is necessary to make some thin shoulder straps, either from excess fabric on one edge, or from some complementary fabric. This pattern lends itself to embellishment. Since we don't usually hold our clothing together with brooches, unlike in the Viking Age, it would be simple to just stitch the shoulder straps in place fore and aft. For modern wear, any useful finish of the raw edges will do just fine, I usually serge the seams and bind the hemline and the top edge. The missing sheet of my handout is the one on early period seam treatments - here is some similar information, and some more useful seam tips... and here are some decorative seam embroidery stitches

Tuesday tidbits

in which our plucky heroine confronts the Perilous Piles of Paper, and is impressed with the creativity of her local pals ...

After last week when I cleared away the paper detritus from the computer zone, it seemed like a natural next step to start dealing with the paper handling systems here at Acorn Cottage. I've a big two drawer file cabinet in the workshop, which has not had any organization applied to it in well over a decade, and in truth, it has been more dead storage than active filing, which is a waste of good cubic. My coach and I decided that the Monday after my holiday/birthday party would be an excellent day for focusing on this project. Through the miracle of technology, I here, and she faraway connected intermittently all day long, while I sorted through piles of papers, emptied and culled file folder contents, discarded/recycled unneeded papers and relabeled the refilled contents of the file cabinet with words that actually were clue-ful for me to access information and images when I need them.

The two full drawers contents were weeded down to part of one, with the remainder of that drawer now holding not-yet-used pads of artist paper, tracing paper, and graph paper for future projects and planning. The second drawer is empty, and will end up storing additional art materials once we move on to a level two organization of the house contents. The end of the level one declutter is actually in sight, as soon there will be no more Boxes of Unknown Contents. My aim is to complete level one by the end of 2016... wish me luck

:::

For the last few years, I've hosted a "Saturnalia" party toward the end of December, as a contradiction in the darkest season, and to celebrate to my own natal day, which occurs at more or less the same time. Not at all a convenient time of year for a party, when every weekend day or evening has multiple events filling the calendar, but needs must.

This last Saturday a delightful assortment of my friends arrived to spend the afternoon or longer in convivial conversation. This year, unlike the last several, there was no specific requirement for Roman food or garb, but my dearly loved and eccentrically creative pals Ursel and Marya were undeterred... You may not remember that last year they were partially responsible for the arrival of the Coliseum, complete with sea battle between gummi bears and gummi sea serpents. This year there was an inspired combination of architecture and geology:

Not everyone gets a holiday/birthday subtlety complete with "documentation" (in the form of an artist rendition of what the Forum at Pompeii probably looked like prior to eruption...)

and... despite some issues with the unexpectedly no longer liquid "congealed" lava (strawberry jam needed a bit of help from a serving spoon in order to break out for suitable pyroclastic flow)

The aftermath of the eruption...

Thankfully for the state of my kitchen, my dear friends were sparing with the powdered sugar "volcanic ash"

:::

December SMART goals

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	wee jambe enamel	5 skirts hemmed (for Megan)	full paper recycle bin
2	Tullia apron	winter turtleneck mended	bag of papers
3	3 knitted dishcloths	-	bag of papers
4	custom table drape	-	-
5	candied grapefruit peel	-	-
6	rum balls	-	-
7	-	-	-
8	-	-	-
9	-	-	-
10	-	-	-
11	-	-	-
12	-	-	-
13	-	-	-
14	-	-	-

:::

Monday media and musings

in which our plucky heroine takes two steps forward and one step back...

when handicraft and history intersect... using exquisite papercraft as an illustration technique

:::

Was working on some paperwork sorting/decluttering tonight and realised I needed something normally stored in the Transformer Cabinet, but when I opened the door, the entire contents of the cupboard exploded outwards, dumping ancient paperwork and random stuff all over the living room floor! KAPOW!!

I just had to laugh... it was so unexpected, that door has been opened countless times without such a surprise. I am going to just bag it all up and stuff it back in the cabinet, as it is all ancient history, old records and random papercraft supplies, most of it will likely end up in recycling or in the bag to go to Shredfest later this year.

:::

This weekend I carved a small sparrow stamp, working on a seme of sparrows for Farbjorns heraldic device submission; rather than draw them each individually, the idea is to print them all on the heraldry submission form... not sure it will work, but even if not, this is a fun stamp... now to find some blue tape, tape off the form and see what happens...


Rough draft of concept... the printing works. I really like the effect of the identical birds. Definitely need to see if there is low tack blue tape, this tore the paper up badly. (on consultation with some friends, the suggestion was made to simply use another piece of paper to mask off the edges, as each bird is printed individually that would work and be really simple)

:::

February SMART goals

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	carved bird stamp	-	2 bags to Goodwill
2	-	-	-
3	-	-	-
4	-	-	-
5	-	-	-
6		-	-
7	-	-	-
8	-	-	-
9	-	-	-
10	-	-	-
11	-	-	-
12	-	-	-

one giant step

... in which our plucky heroine interrupts her regularly scheduled broadcast of hens and assorted handcraft to take joy in the tectonic shift that moves our country a little bit closer to the best of all possible worlds... Marriage (and families) not broken by law but protected; we have come a long way, with much effort, to a place I didn't expect to see in my lifetime*...

"Love is love, no matter who, no matter where..."

* I remember being on Boston Common for some of the rallies mentioned in the song. The world can shift, and change for the good is possible, however unlikely it may seem at the time. Happy I am that friends who want to be married, now can be, and that their love, and the families they are raising, will not be forced outside the law. Incremental progress can lead to great change.

Roman buttons, an experiment

...in which our plucky heroine is having fun assisting/collaborating with Sharon Rose, who is doing research on what was used to fasten the upper edges of Roman tunica; my task is creating various options that she can then try in various iterations as experimental archaeology.

Eight small discs sawed from brass sheet, then the edges filed smooth and slightly rounded.

After annealing the brass discs, the next step is to dome them using a dapping block

To turn the domed circles into buttons, brass wire was bent to a shape that would be stable while being soldered in place on the concave underside, and still allow the buttons to be stitched in place

Eight finished lovely shiny buttons, ready to become a decorative addition to a Roman womans garb, to fasten together the upper edges of the tunica; I was looking at some of the sculptures and think that this size is a pretty good match as far as diameter goes

...and the reverse side, cleaned but not polished. I use large pipe cleaners to store and transport shank buttons, it keeps them tidy and together as a set

down the rabbit hole

in which our plucky heroine, having stopped in Olympia on the way home from Crown and spending time talking with Cathy, am now currently suffering a minor obsession with Anglo-Saxon enamel brooches... hunting information, have fallen down the rabbit hole of archaeological research...

...following links led me to a citation in the Corning Museum of Glass site, and seeking further information on the journal Medieval Archaeology, I found the Archaeology Data Service site, which has an amazing wealth of informaition, and where I found the first fifty volumes of said journal in digital form! Now have several articles available to read and study. I am such a geek. While I like looking at photos on Pinterest as much as the next person, I love being able to know more than oooo-look-shiney...

Sunday satisfaction: part the second

...in which our plucky heroine concludes the Roman brooches project

Back at the beginning of February, the project of creating a pair of ancient Roman style womens dress fastener brooches, inspired and informed by this 1st century Roman disc brooch, began. It was a challenging project, as there were several new techniques I ended up using, and a new workshop tool was created as well, which will prove not only ideal for these, but useful for the forseeable future (neatly set rivets are always nicer)

They are now completed, and are both known to be useful and believed to be beautiful; a successful project that will hopefully see much use by their new owner in years to come... they are actually not very large, and I am quite pleased with the details of the tiny riveted bone discs and engraved patterning...

becalmed

It has a been a really rough week(and more) a combination of far too much heat, being sick enough for three days that work needed to be re-scheduled, and emotional stress, but our plucky heroine felt just a tad brightened today by finding a cylindrical parcel in the mailbox all wrapped about with moustache duct tape... and inside, a pair of gorgeous hand carved tasting spoons, made for me by the very talented Seb Barnett... One is oak and the other is brazilian walnut, polished with grapeseed oil and beeswax; they are as long as common kitchen wooden spoons, but with small narrow deep bowls, suitable for dipping out a wee taste of something cooking on the stove. There is nothing better that having the artwork of other artist friends to use in daily life.

Look at the detail on this acorns and oakleaf finial, so perfect for my kitchen and done, of course, in oak.

The other tasting spoon has a wee fat bird as a finial, somewhat reminiscent of the hens that should be living here, and definitely perfect for Portland! The walnut has such a rich color. Really, cooler weather can't come soon enough for me, so that there will be soup, and stew, and sauces to cook and to taste...

:::

Girl has been thinking perhaps too much, about success and failure, about acceptance and settling, about disappointing the very folks one would least want to... Though it seems like all should be well, my med appointments show no overly untoward issues, and there is still a roof overhead and food in the cupboards, I am still waving in and out of feeling bereft, and unsure how to move from where I stand now to more solid ground. There are too many days when it feels like my life the last twenty years has been wasted, days when my heart is full of unshed tears, days when the only touch against my skin is the rough bark of the street tree that I lean against and water the ground with the pain in my heart.

There must be a way to find a new path to a place of balance... I have been working with SR, my acupuncturist, on the various focal points of pain in my body, and while my feet, with regular attention, are functional again, the new different pain in my shoulder seems to have a peculiar emotional content. While laying on the table this week, with needles in various places (particularly in the very cranky rotator cuff) a wave of sadness crashed over me and tears leaked down from my eyes across the sides of my face. Now mind, my most common thing when getting acupuncture is to fairly promptly fall asleep, and I did do that eventually, but there is something, for lack of a better term, stored in that shoulder that is not yet in my conscious awareness, but connected to the aforementioned issues.

What rings in my mind, when left to drift, is that I am still in limbo, still unwanted, still a failure. Twenty years ago I met someone who was all I'd ever asked for, save for one minor detail... that I was not what he was looking for. Though our lives have braided together in different ways over the intervening years, it feels to me now that some lack in self-confidence put me in the category of someone that he looks at with disappointment as to how little I do with the gifts of hand and eye I have been given, compared to what I could be doing (or maybe that is all in my head, being that he and I have never talked about it, that not being the sort of connection we maintain). Though Gryphon and I had throughout our year and a half together (and before) an ongoing conversation about who we were and what we wanted, in the end he chose C and left. Did my hard won choice to do my best to accept him as he was, not asking him to change for me, not putting up fences to limit his life and connection to others, somehow make me of lesser worth. I wonder, or is it that I chose him, but he didn't ever actually choose me... shall never know

The connections I have now, I cherish. All different, all valid, and none with the proximity that would allow more ongoing contact. Does this mean that I am settling for less than what I want or accepting what is possible... Girl is still really broken, despite months spent seeing a counselor... and I need to find a way to mend. The external scars are visible, the internal ones will always be there, but my spirit, that could heal, that could be mended, in the way that kintsugi, the japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold, creates a new beauty from what has been irreparably broken

Larson-esque (not Gary)

This is rather amazing! Actual period film of the artist Carl Larson and his family and home - I saw this on Terry Windlings blog and just had to share... I am certain that I am not the only one of my circle that has great admiration for this artist and his wife and the lifestyle that they created at the turn of the last century. I never thought to actually see them on film though!