Zip-Zip-Zip!
Feb. 10th, 2006 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threadwalkerWhiz! Zip! Phft!
I feel like I’m whipping along and the universe around me is having a moment of balance. So I better enjoy it while it lasts because I’m sure it’s a fleeting moment. I think it’s because I got so much work done over the last few weeks, the insane pressure has momentarily eased and I can breathe deeply.
So if you read the rest of this, it must be because you're at work on a Friday and bored out of you skull. hahhaha! For me, this is a tool for tracking what I'm up to and reinforcing my "to do" list of tasks. Because my brain says "if you wrote down that you were going to do it, you need to do it". heh!
Collegium
I got the half-day off for next week and I’m going to do a site visit with Bella Juana Maestra de la Cucina. (yippee!)
I’m sending out a bunch of e-mails to teachers who provided releases, but no hand outs with last years event. I passed off what I have to my CD-Guru, but we discovered that a few of the releases didn’t have handouts. I blame the hurly-burly pace at Collegium and I seem to recall some teachers saying “I’ll send it to you later”. E-mail to the bunch of you forthcoming today. (wink!)
My collegium finger-drive took a walk and it had all my files from the events I’ve autocratted for the last 2 years. This sucks because I was going to pass the caboodle of info onto my successor. (I kept it at work with my pen-mug. We have security, but it’s not like there’s laser-death poised over my desk to keep incidental stuff from wandering. Sigh.) This might be catastrophic, but I have copies of all the event handouts and I have a clear plan/vision for spring Collegium. I also printed every single file in hardcopy from Nebulorum - yes, kind of compulsive, but I wanted a clear record of what I was doing. In hindsite, you could call it something like an Autocrating Master Plan. As far as teachers, volunteers, etc, 90% of the people I “recruit” are on electronic media and I have several Yahoo memberships and address books. It’s all good. It will be a pain in the rear to reconstruct the files because I still want to provide something to my successor, but there it is. It’s not a complete disaster, just a severe annoyance and I’m capable of working through this.
Website – my web minion is jump-starting the website for me. Thank goodness. I’ve got “HTML for idiots” and have messed around, but don’t have the time to goof with this and don’t want to inflict my learning curve on the Kingdom. I have a few volunteers who've said they'd build a website and I’ll follow up with them today and see if they are still up for it. But this can be going in parallel so that “something” goes live by the end of the month (which is when the April Page Copy is due).
Art, Sewing
Reality check - My docket is a lot fuller than I thought it was. And I seem to be losing some much needed flabbage through conscientious healthful living and not by accident (yea!). Instead of making myself a bunch of fitted stuff that might hang wrong on me in a year (which is exactly what's happened with the bright red Italian I got laurelled in), I’m going to work on my commitments to others. I also rethought my plan to make a particular dress for Beltane – why in the world would I drag silk through the dirt? Anyway, we aren’t going for the entire event and it was the Salon that was motivating me. Since I’m not sure when the salon is, it’s silly to put myself through that. I may start the project, but I’m not going to set a due date. And if my stars are aligned and I can go to the salon, I have plenty of things to wear even if it’s all old and been worn dozens of times before. Maybe the wool Raphael? Maybe I could make myself a new chemise for it? I've been wanting to do that for ages. Hmm. I must ponder this.
Anyway, the short of it is no fitted Ren dresses for me this year.
I’ve got the following:
1. Kirtle and smock for Kira. Possible 2 of each so she can get through an entire weekend with fresh clothes and a consistent look. (That’s something I like to do – spend an entire weekend with a particular look). I got the supplies for the first one this week at Discount Fabric in SF.
2. Barter pay-up to fighterchick/Catagon: I’m on the hook for 2 outfits and D’Salia is on the hook for 2 others in return for the 4 embroideries for the mantles. I know we’re each doing at least one for fighterchick, but I’m not entirely sure if Catagon gave away one of her barters to fighterchick or not (this has to do with how they divvied up the embroidery between them). It’s not urgent because I don’t have fabric or deadlines yet and I’m not entirely sure who the second outfit is for, but it’s still out there.
3. 15th c. Italian for Krista. Another barter for embroidery. But she’s been so wonderful to get to know and she’s doing this mouth-watering embroidery thing for me. I think I need to do more than just a single 15th c. Italian outfit. I think I need to make a weekend-worth of clothing for her. I may also throw in a kirtle set, but we’ll have to see how fast I can work. I have the chemise fabric and I’m itching to start the foundation layer, so I may just get some fabric and start one of the “extra” dresses I want to make for her. Errr, after I shop, which will be after payday!
4. Norman/Anglo outfits for the spouse and I for 12th Night. Did fabric shopping for this last week. Ouch! Did some damage at silk road – picked up wool flannel there. Picked up white linen at Discount Fabrics. Ready to roll on his. Not so sure about mine.
5. stuff for kids – did a few pieces already. Cut out more. Puttering along
6. second set of 15th c. boy clothes for A&S for me
7. set of 15th c. boy clothes for Jeff. Got the shirt, hose and farsetto fabric. Still need something swanky for the overgarment.
8. Dress study in silk; something modern and completely unrelated to SCA. It involves different silk fabrics, dyes and playing with cutting on the bias and cutting on the grain. Should be interesting and 'creative' by the time I'm done. And my fingers will probably be purpley-bluey-green. heh!
That's not too much! Actually, it may end up taking more time than the first list because of all the new pattern drafting. ;- P
Teaching:
Session 2 of early period costume workshop was last night. It seemed to go smoother than the first one. I think it helped a lot that I copied our meeting style from work, which is have an agenda, note who’s responsible for each agenda item, and stick to a time limit for each one.
I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed teaching. The challenge I like the most is the part where I develop the tools that will help the audience learn. I spent the last few weeks trying to analyze the mental steps I go through when I’m designing a project. The problem is I’ve done so much reading and experimenting that my knowledge base is an evolution of information. Each new tidbit of information goes into this mental collage and it’s hard to distill that into something useful that someone can take away and use by themselves. I just “do it” without thinking too hard about “how” I do it.
Last night it was my hope to provide tools that give specific guidance. I put together color palettes of surviving textiles based on photos in books (thanks to doing some color mating in OSH’s paint department), I printed up packets of figures you can draw clothing onto (thanks to Gianetta who’s got the scoop on some cool websites), and came up with a worksheet for estimating fabric yardage. I cleaned out D’Salia’s closet of early period clothing and some of my own for show-and-tell and optional "try on". Between us we had a variety of sleeve shapes, cutting ideas, wide range of wools and linens, and a variety of ways that color and texture have been combined and embellished.
Hopefully the participants will have a clearer idea of what they want to do.
The 3rd workshop is on embellishment. I’m really excited that one of my students is going to lead it. She's doing a bang-up job of researching - I get absolutely zero credit for guiding her or helping her. How about credit for putting her on the spot? Nope - she volunteered. So maybe I get a small, tiny, crumb of a nugget of credit for putting together a safe venue of very interested people. Anyway, I'm stoked. Totally stoked.
I also have a few calls out to others to cover complimentary topics. I may dig through my resources to see what I can find on tablet weaving as an embellishment. But I'm not "on" for that one, which is also nice. I enjoy being the student, too.
Work is busy, but not insane this week.
We're taking the kids to a comic convention this weekend - should be fun. And my mom is coming over to spend part of the weekend with us. We'll need to snap some pictures because she's then heading off to spend 5 weeks with sis in VA.
I feel like I’m whipping along and the universe around me is having a moment of balance. So I better enjoy it while it lasts because I’m sure it’s a fleeting moment. I think it’s because I got so much work done over the last few weeks, the insane pressure has momentarily eased and I can breathe deeply.
So if you read the rest of this, it must be because you're at work on a Friday and bored out of you skull. hahhaha! For me, this is a tool for tracking what I'm up to and reinforcing my "to do" list of tasks. Because my brain says "if you wrote down that you were going to do it, you need to do it". heh!
Collegium
I got the half-day off for next week and I’m going to do a site visit with Bella Juana Maestra de la Cucina. (yippee!)
I’m sending out a bunch of e-mails to teachers who provided releases, but no hand outs with last years event. I passed off what I have to my CD-Guru, but we discovered that a few of the releases didn’t have handouts. I blame the hurly-burly pace at Collegium and I seem to recall some teachers saying “I’ll send it to you later”. E-mail to the bunch of you forthcoming today. (wink!)
My collegium finger-drive took a walk and it had all my files from the events I’ve autocratted for the last 2 years. This sucks because I was going to pass the caboodle of info onto my successor. (I kept it at work with my pen-mug. We have security, but it’s not like there’s laser-death poised over my desk to keep incidental stuff from wandering. Sigh.) This might be catastrophic, but I have copies of all the event handouts and I have a clear plan/vision for spring Collegium. I also printed every single file in hardcopy from Nebulorum - yes, kind of compulsive, but I wanted a clear record of what I was doing. In hindsite, you could call it something like an Autocrating Master Plan. As far as teachers, volunteers, etc, 90% of the people I “recruit” are on electronic media and I have several Yahoo memberships and address books. It’s all good. It will be a pain in the rear to reconstruct the files because I still want to provide something to my successor, but there it is. It’s not a complete disaster, just a severe annoyance and I’m capable of working through this.
Website – my web minion is jump-starting the website for me. Thank goodness. I’ve got “HTML for idiots” and have messed around, but don’t have the time to goof with this and don’t want to inflict my learning curve on the Kingdom. I have a few volunteers who've said they'd build a website and I’ll follow up with them today and see if they are still up for it. But this can be going in parallel so that “something” goes live by the end of the month (which is when the April Page Copy is due).
Art, Sewing
Reality check - My docket is a lot fuller than I thought it was. And I seem to be losing some much needed flabbage through conscientious healthful living and not by accident (yea!). Instead of making myself a bunch of fitted stuff that might hang wrong on me in a year (which is exactly what's happened with the bright red Italian I got laurelled in), I’m going to work on my commitments to others. I also rethought my plan to make a particular dress for Beltane – why in the world would I drag silk through the dirt? Anyway, we aren’t going for the entire event and it was the Salon that was motivating me. Since I’m not sure when the salon is, it’s silly to put myself through that. I may start the project, but I’m not going to set a due date. And if my stars are aligned and I can go to the salon, I have plenty of things to wear even if it’s all old and been worn dozens of times before. Maybe the wool Raphael? Maybe I could make myself a new chemise for it? I've been wanting to do that for ages. Hmm. I must ponder this.
Anyway, the short of it is no fitted Ren dresses for me this year.
I’ve got the following:
1. Kirtle and smock for Kira. Possible 2 of each so she can get through an entire weekend with fresh clothes and a consistent look. (That’s something I like to do – spend an entire weekend with a particular look). I got the supplies for the first one this week at Discount Fabric in SF.
2. Barter pay-up to fighterchick/Catagon: I’m on the hook for 2 outfits and D’Salia is on the hook for 2 others in return for the 4 embroideries for the mantles. I know we’re each doing at least one for fighterchick, but I’m not entirely sure if Catagon gave away one of her barters to fighterchick or not (this has to do with how they divvied up the embroidery between them). It’s not urgent because I don’t have fabric or deadlines yet and I’m not entirely sure who the second outfit is for, but it’s still out there.
3. 15th c. Italian for Krista. Another barter for embroidery. But she’s been so wonderful to get to know and she’s doing this mouth-watering embroidery thing for me. I think I need to do more than just a single 15th c. Italian outfit. I think I need to make a weekend-worth of clothing for her. I may also throw in a kirtle set, but we’ll have to see how fast I can work. I have the chemise fabric and I’m itching to start the foundation layer, so I may just get some fabric and start one of the “extra” dresses I want to make for her. Errr, after I shop, which will be after payday!
4. Norman/Anglo outfits for the spouse and I for 12th Night. Did fabric shopping for this last week. Ouch! Did some damage at silk road – picked up wool flannel there. Picked up white linen at Discount Fabrics. Ready to roll on his. Not so sure about mine.
5. stuff for kids – did a few pieces already. Cut out more. Puttering along
6. second set of 15th c. boy clothes for A&S for me
7. set of 15th c. boy clothes for Jeff. Got the shirt, hose and farsetto fabric. Still need something swanky for the overgarment.
8. Dress study in silk; something modern and completely unrelated to SCA. It involves different silk fabrics, dyes and playing with cutting on the bias and cutting on the grain. Should be interesting and 'creative' by the time I'm done. And my fingers will probably be purpley-bluey-green. heh!
That's not too much! Actually, it may end up taking more time than the first list because of all the new pattern drafting. ;- P
Teaching:
Session 2 of early period costume workshop was last night. It seemed to go smoother than the first one. I think it helped a lot that I copied our meeting style from work, which is have an agenda, note who’s responsible for each agenda item, and stick to a time limit for each one.
I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed teaching. The challenge I like the most is the part where I develop the tools that will help the audience learn. I spent the last few weeks trying to analyze the mental steps I go through when I’m designing a project. The problem is I’ve done so much reading and experimenting that my knowledge base is an evolution of information. Each new tidbit of information goes into this mental collage and it’s hard to distill that into something useful that someone can take away and use by themselves. I just “do it” without thinking too hard about “how” I do it.
Last night it was my hope to provide tools that give specific guidance. I put together color palettes of surviving textiles based on photos in books (thanks to doing some color mating in OSH’s paint department), I printed up packets of figures you can draw clothing onto (thanks to Gianetta who’s got the scoop on some cool websites), and came up with a worksheet for estimating fabric yardage. I cleaned out D’Salia’s closet of early period clothing and some of my own for show-and-tell and optional "try on". Between us we had a variety of sleeve shapes, cutting ideas, wide range of wools and linens, and a variety of ways that color and texture have been combined and embellished.
Hopefully the participants will have a clearer idea of what they want to do.
The 3rd workshop is on embellishment. I’m really excited that one of my students is going to lead it. She's doing a bang-up job of researching - I get absolutely zero credit for guiding her or helping her. How about credit for putting her on the spot? Nope - she volunteered. So maybe I get a small, tiny, crumb of a nugget of credit for putting together a safe venue of very interested people. Anyway, I'm stoked. Totally stoked.
I also have a few calls out to others to cover complimentary topics. I may dig through my resources to see what I can find on tablet weaving as an embellishment. But I'm not "on" for that one, which is also nice. I enjoy being the student, too.
Work is busy, but not insane this week.
We're taking the kids to a comic convention this weekend - should be fun. And my mom is coming over to spend part of the weekend with us. We'll need to snap some pictures because she's then heading off to spend 5 weeks with sis in VA.
