A Faire, a hat, some snoods and a couple of socks

We had Faire in the Grove the first weekend in May. It was also unusually warm that weekend! I was there demoing spinning on my Ashford Traditional:

I tried spinning up some Icelandic lamb's wool on Saturday, but it really needs to go through a drum carder. Then I tried spinning up some cormo but it too needs to go through some combing. I didn't bring something like that with me. By afternoon it would be too warm to spin, so it would end up as a socializing time.

Brandon and Dawn-Marie ended up in the Oregonian:

In knitting, I knit up a hat for Micah for his birthday, he really really liked it. Brandon modeled for me before I gave it to him:

Its the Marsan Watch Cap. Knit three inches in black then switched over to the green.

I had also been trying my hand out in making some snoods to wear to events. I used some red yarn that I got from Jamie and some gold that Judy gave me. The gold is a cone, so I have a LOT!

This is a knitted square, then I did a crochet chain. I may take the chain out and try the elastic thread. Maybe a comb to attach?

Then I went back to Ravelry and took a look at the various snoods. A lot of nice ones out there in crochet.

Simply called a Crochet Snood, I numbered it #1. It also needed a crochet chain to cinch it in. I tied it in a bow at the top of my head for the photos and because I was putting on by myself at the time. I like this.

Renaissance Rose Cap - without the roses. Seems to also dimple at the top.

Renaissance cap in gold - still dimpling at the top and then sagging at the back.

The Renaissance caps may get donated as largess, I'll have to show them to a few more people to see what they think.  I had a bit more red that I started to make a second cap with, but realized I was going to run out, so made it smaller. I gave it to Ana to give to Anya. Will have to see if it fits her or not.

I owed my sister Jennifer a pair of 'socks' for Christmas, but she had mentioned that the wool pair I had given her were noticeably warmer and useful at football games. I thought she might like some house socks:

Lacy Ribs and Cables Lace Socks - Ravelry link only, sorry.

I also needed to make a pair of house socks for my nephew Garrett, so I went with the one that I was planning for Brandon:

Cozy House Socks from One Skein Wonders, also a Ravelry link

I have more knitting to get done for people, but I also have a week before Grand Thing and our first camping event of the season. I'm going to try to get a few things sewn for it. Not sure if I can pull off a kirtle or not, but I'll give it a whirl. Caterina was over last weekend with her dresses and while we have different bust sizes, her dress works for me with some small modifications. Her waist is higher than mine and I need a little bit more under boob support. I have that pattern, one for a slip and one for a period pocket. So about eight hours of work and a lot accomplished!

Hexi-puffs, Blocks, Bunnies and a Snood

So I tried knitting Carina's qiviut into a wimple for her. It was a nice knit, but I didn't totally bind off and let it sit for two weeks and tried it on again. I don't have a picture of it on me. It was very snug and felt kind of short. I like the pattern, just not happy with it for this yarn.

I think I'm going to try out Ice Queen and see if that comes out better. It's a larger needle size and I'd do it without the beads.

So while I was letting the wimple ruminate, I opted to do some hexi-puffs and sock blanket squares:

Almost two puffs out of the red sparkly I picked up on the yarn crawl, had to use a tiny bit of the paprika to bind it off. The others were some Abstract Fiber Matisse samples I had gotten during last year's yarn crawl. I had thought to make them into a pair of fingerleI have ss mitts or something but like that they will be in blankets. The block with the green stripe took a few attempts to get a version of the leftover that I liked. I think I made it four times. I have 33 of them now.

There was a bit of the paprika left, but nothing that I could make for Carina, so it went into a block. I had differing amounts of the Matisse, so one complete block and had to dip into one to finish the second block. I have 15 blocks done.

I kind of slid into a bit of a depression. We had learned that Brandon's Aunt Debbie had advanced ovarian cancer that had metastasized. We found out a week before she was going in for surgery to remove organs and parts of organs. After the surgery we found out that it wasn't ovarian cancer but pancreatic cancer and the surgeon was telling Uncle Dave and Judy that she only six to eight weeks to live. What the heck?! So reeling from both news.

His Aunt Mary Lou flew in to visit a few days after the surgery and we had dinner with all of them. I made chicken curry and they had planned to make some cream of broccoli soup, but didn't get to it. Debbie really enjoyed the chicken curry and ate more than she thought she would. She raved about it. She was looking really good after the surgery but still getting used to less energy and how much you really do use your stomach muscles to do a lot of things. It was good to see her.

I have been working on a snood out of a gold lace cone that Judy (MIL) gave me. I've used bits of it for other projects and still have plenty! Andrea used it in my braid at Carnevale. It's slippery even on my Knit Picks Harmony needles, so I was only doing a few rows at a time and putting it down.

Saturday I was home alone, the boys were off doing various gaming activities and I was watching movies and working on the snood. During one of my breaks with it, I was trying to find a quick project to do for the kids for Easter. I thought about doing a different bunny pattern that was in my queue - Knitted Bunny. They lost me when I had to apply knitted ears when I remembered this Knitted Bunnies and how fast it knit up and was finished.

I remembered that I had used my Lion Brand Jiffy for the last ones and that I had some yellow scraps, so it was the perfect one to start out with. Then I found the Fisherman color leftovers and knit one in that and a bit of Camel color. I had two and a half of the squares knit Saturday night and finished the Camel Sunday on the drive to Judy's for the Easter family get together.

Sunday morning I was sewing and stuffing the yellow one. Brandon made me the bunny tails for all three of them while I was sewing and stuffing. I was also making deviled eggs and kind of made my own version of some 'crab puffs'. I had a can of crab meat, took some neuchatel cheese (low fat cream cheese) and cut some garlic chives out of the yard into the mix. Then put the mixture into pre-baked phyllo cups. Super easy!! So I ended up finishing the last bit of knitting on the Camel square on the way to Judy's and actually did the bind off a block away from her house.

I snuck upstairs and put the finishing touches on the bunnies - sewing the square up so it was a bunny on the Camel, putting ribbons on, sewing tails on. I came prepared with my handspun, Kool-Aid dyed Easter Egg in case Corbin wasn't interested in a stuffed bunny. He's seven and a boy after all. ;-)

Little Alyssa picked this one as hers

Madi likes purple, so I wasn't surprised that she picked this one

Kaisha picked this one

Jenna picked this one before Kaisha, so she really did like that it was different from the others

This is the camel one that came back home with me

We were the last ones to leave and so were able to talk more about the latest news on Debbie from Judy. They had a follow-up visit with someone from the surgeon's office and that person was surprised that they had been given the six to eight weeks. They are referring her to an oncologist to talk about chemotherapy and even that is changing from the type that they were originally given. Makes sense since the diagnosis changed. That appointment is this week, so won't know for a bit what the outcome of that is. They did up it to at least six month to a year, but with chemotherapy she could have longer. Yes, its still kind of stage four pancreatic cancer but there are survivor stories of people that with various treatments have lived longer. She referred us to the PanCan site for more info. So I'll be studying that. It was really great to hear though that we wouldn't be losing her in a month, unless she opts to do only palliative care. She wants to fight this as much as she can so unless the oncologist visit is really bad I don't think that will be her choice. I have her in a friend's healing circle but any wishes or prayers you'd like to send her way will be appreciated.

I was working on my gold snood and was re-looking at it and found that something horrible had happened a couple inches down. Normally I would just drop down to those stitches and fix them, but this yarn is so weird that it really wasn't an option. Ugh! So I had to frog that and start over. I have three inches back and really it looks much better of a cast on. I have a goal. We are currently planning on attending an event on Saturday up in Kelso, so I would like to be able to use it there. So I need to get it done by then. Knitting it would actually accomplish that! Haven't knitted any today, so I'll have to make up for it.

Today Andrea came over to use our washer and dryer and so we've been watching season one of The Borgias. We've been noticing that Lucrezia is wearing a lot of different snoods.  I'll have a plain gold one, but I would also like to have one with pearls. I think I'll have to sew those on. Yes, trying to end this on a positve note!

My daffodils

Spring has definitely sprung!

Three Mountains Welcoming Court

At Twelfth Night Baron Alfric and Baroness Jill stepped down from being the Barony of Three Mountains. Baron Aedan and Baroness Alexandria were voted in by the populace and confirmed by Their Highness's of An Tir.

They had their first court, a Welcoming Court on Saturday. It was a lovely sunny spring day. There was a mid-day potluck with the barony providing meat and bread. They had a little armored combat:

Lord Asim talking with the Marshall

Fans cheering on the combatants

Lady Amelia in the foreground with Their Excellancies watching the field

Lord Asim and Lord Attius

Lord Attius and Lord Gerard

Lord Attius and Duke Almaric

There was a children's subtlety contest. Lady Larissa also competed and won her age group for her squirrel.

Building their subtleties

There was also an Arts and Science competition. Herr Ignatius had made a chair/stool as the prize for the winner. The winner of the competition, and I don't know what she did, was Lady Tamar their A&S Champion from the Shire of Mountain's Edge.

Hand carved and the leather was hand sewn by Herr Ignatius

I missed Lady Tamar's squee face, but she was very happy to receive it from Herr Ignatius.  She is the perfect person to receive the prize. It's is low enough that she'll be able to comfortably sit in it.

There were local awards handed out and people inducted into their local service groups. They also had people who are interested in participating in Sargentry Trials. Lady Kattera had the most unusual letter of intent. Hers was written on a cake. Here she is presenting it and a piece that Lady Amelia and I shared - chocolate with raspberry filling - yummy!  Very impressive writing on the frosting too!

Herr Ignatius wanted a picture of us together. I'm not sure why I was looking at the ceiling. 

Before the end of court Baroness Alexandria announced that the Barony of Three Mountains would be gifting our Barony with a donation to help fund our upcoming multi-kingdom event West Coast Culinary Symposium.

Their Excellencies of Dragon's Mist - Baron Refr and Baroness Svava with Lady Aramid and Archery Champion Lady Caterina

Baroness Alexandria presenting the IOU marker for the symposium since the Exchequer was not available to present a real check. ;-)

It was a lovely day and a lovely event with lots of good food. It will be fun watching our neighboring barony with their new coronets. I also started a wimple for Lady Kattera from hand spun qiviut that I had spun for her. It's delicious to work with. 

Carina's Goodies

I helped Carina, an SCA friend, to pick out a few skeins of yarns to make some socks for her. She likes ankle socks so they knit up fast.

She loved the orangey-red of Jill Draper Makes Socks, Splendor Sock a lovely blend of superwash merino, cashmere and nylon. I used it to knit the Who Are You? socks from last year's Rose City Yarn Crawl patterns and the knit along that was done in preparation for this year's crawl. They were another entry for a gift card, but didn't win me one. That's okay, it was a fun pattern to knit and Carina got a pair of socks.

There was still yarn leftover but not enough I thought for another pair of socks. So I found a pattern for fingerless mitts, Warm Hands, Warm Hearts. She's the Kingdom Deputy Town Crier, so she's up very early in the cold and needs to keep her hands warm.

I had thought to do the Padded Footlets, but after reading it over decided it was a major PITA. So I found the Brigid sock pattern. Its a lovely cable pattern and it stops about mid foot and I thought it was a waste of a good cable stopping there so did two pattern repeats and took it to the toe of the sock.

It used a little less than one skein of the The Fibre Company Road to China Light. Its a delicious blend of baby alpaca, silk, cashmere and camel. It's lovely to work with. Plus I had another skein to work with. I checked in with Carina to find out if she wanted another pair of fingerless mitts or socks and she went with socks. Then it was a matter of finding another pattern to do. I tried out a couple, but finally settled on one I had done for Gail - the International Socks of Doom. It's a simple two row pattern but keeps you interested. I had the same leg length as the Brigid socks and same foot length, but when I came to the toe of the second sock I was joining the wee leftover from the Brigid and had to find the leftover I had from Wendy's shawl and fingerless mitts in the same yarn, different color (still have a wee bit left of that so may be able to repair heels if need be in the future.)

Can you see the color difference? 

We had Welcoming Court for the new Baron and Baroness of Three Mountains on Saturday, Carina was the Event Steward for the event so knew she would be there to deliver them all to her.

That's a happy squee face and she was taking them around and showing friends her new goodies. She knows how to care for them and wear them. She also said that I'll be making her new socks each year. Repeat customer!  Now I just have to figure out what I want in trade. Wool or linen fabric, or another for dresses?  I would want a lightweight wool.

Founding Revels 2013

Ummm.... forgot to fill in the blank? When I was pulling together blog posts I had this one planned and setup when to publish, just forgot to go back and fill things in.

So a couple of weeks ago was Founding Revels for the Barony of Stromgard. We have a lot of friends with close ties with the Barony so we have been kind of slow at participating in this event. Fun was had and it was a nice day.

It's a bit of a drive from Hillsboro to Battleground and we had left a little later than planned but still arrived in time to enjoy the fighting:

Lisa, Lady Maighreid with Ulcan the Gentle

Lisa had just gotten fight certified the Thursday before and I'm used to seeing her with her shiny armor. It took me a bit to realize that the person in purple I was watching was her!

Lord Nicolai of Iron Ring and Alexandros Khristodoulopoulos

Axe versus Mace. They both ended up on their knees but I think it was the mace that won that round.

Lord Assm on the right in his new armor. We're liking the pony tail on the helm. ;-)  The fight marshal on the right was awesome. He was getting wet and cold and he was still there for the fighters, and I felt very protected as a spectator.

Viscount Pembroke on the left and Ulcan the Gentle

There was a lot more that I am not posting here. I have them in my Facebook album. After the fighting was a children's "equestrian" event. The children ask an adult to carry them piggyback so they can spear rings and a couple of other things that I didn't know about and missed getting pictures of. Here's the ones I did get of the ring jousting:

Viscount Pembroke with his son

Herr Ignatius with one of his riders. He had two girls that he took through the course, so he got a bit of a workout!

Lord Asim, aka Sandstorm did take his rider to victory for the event

I was inside looking at the silent auction baskets and resisted temptation to bid on a three pound bag of Gotland fleece. I have a pound of it to spin already and don't really need more. Mine is from Gotland, this was probably from a sheep raised locally. ;-)

Spent some time working on my Thorn shawl while at the event too. I probably only added a few rows, but near the end they were long time consuming ones. People watching is also a fun thing for me, so sitting quietly and watching all the going on is not a problem. I did spot a semi-snood like item that Conchobar took my camera and asked for permission for close-ups:

Embroidery is also another past time while waiting for the feast to begin. Lady Nidda is on the right in her awesome red and white jester garb along with the Kingdom Bardic Champion cloak.

The coronet is holding it in place.

I have gold thread and some pearls.....

The kilt was for Susan since she was home sick. ;-)

Lord Caius and Senor Jose with their kids. It was awesome to look over the auction tables into the area set aside for the kids to see them down on the floor playing with their kids. They really are awesome guys too. 

Dinner was impressive. You didn't have to pre-register for the feast and Condessa Ilaria had made individual bread bowls filled with beef stew as our first course. The high table had alternative courses served to them. We were allowed tastes if there were any leftovers - such as smoked salmon, deviled eggs, pickled herring and some stuffed dates.

The beef stew bread bowl. I could only eat three-quarters of it.

There was also a whole chicken that showed up and dessert was a quince cream with a shortbread cookie - yummy! In between there was a cheese and salad plate as well as a pickled veggie plate. I think we all managed to get enough food to fill us up! Not bad for really only $5 per person!!

We'll definitely keep this event on our list of repeat events. This next Saturday is Welcoming Court for the new Baron and Baroness of Three Mountains. Herr Ignatius has been asked to make a prize for the event so we'll be attending. It's a potluck and I have to decide which name I want to do the item under. I do have a Smoked Salmon soup mix that was a Christmas gift that might be good to bring. Probably not enough for a lot of people, so I'll need to bring along another dish or two. Maybe a side or salad?