Tour de Fleece 2012 Spinning

Tour de Fleece started on June 30th and ended on July 22nd. During that time I was out camping for three events that were three days or longer. I really tried hard to drop spindle at events. I got a few minutes while at West War, taught a drop spindle class at the Champions Tourney but didn't get any spinning done at July Coronation. So a total of fifteen spinning days for me.

I had collected a bunch of fibers to spin up. Some of them smaller sample sizes and gave away a bunch of fiber to the student. I ended up spinning 15.28 ounces of fiber on a combination of my Lendrum, the Ashford Traditional and the drop spindles.

Left to right, top row: Romney/Perendale #1 - 167.78 yds, Romney/Perendale #2 - 153.10 yds,  Midnight Polworth - 80.8 yds (Navajo plied), Gotland locks - 47.9 yds, Raspberry Firestar - 25.5 yds, Denim Blue Superwash Merino - 35.88 yds

Bottom left to right: Red Merino/Silk - 260.1 yds, Stone Fruit Merino/Tencel - 133.3 yds (Navajo plied), Milk fiber - 139.6 yds, Valkyrie Alpaca - 58.3 yds, Alpaca Mix - 31.3 yds, BFL/Silk - 4.5 yds, Denim blue Superwash Merino - 11.33 yds

Total Plied Yardage = 1149.39 yards

Lendrum Spun
Red Merino/Silk- 260.1 yds, Milk fiber - 139.6 yds, Valkyrie Alpaca- 58.3 yds, Alpaca Mix - 31.3 yds, Stone Fruit Merino/Tencel- 133.3 yds

Total plied yards = 622.6 yards

Ashford Spun
Romney/Perendale #1 - 167.78 yds, Romney/Perendale #2 - 153.10 yds,  Midnight Polworth - 80.8 yds, Gotland locks - 47.9 yds, Raspberry Firestar - 25.5 yds, Denim Blue Superwash Merino - 35.88 yds

Total plied yards = 510.96 yards

I found out Wednesday afternoon that the Team Ashford group drew my name in the random number generator and I get a braid of hand dyed fiber from FatCatKnits. I'm happy with what I accomplished during the event. Lot more than previous years! I think the fact that I haven't been knitting may have played a part in that.

July Coronation 2012

Wow! Our third event weekend in a row!

This year the Barony of Three Mountains won the bids to have July Coronation and Twelfth Night in their region. With it so close, we couldn't miss it!  July Coronation was held at Trojan Park along the Columbia River. At night you can hear the big ships going up and down the river to the Port of Portland as well as a few trains.

We arrived before Gate opened on Friday because we had volunteered to individually work Gate and Parking. So we had enough time to unload, no cars on the grass or paths, and change into garb to get to our assignments. Leeloo had a blast going back and forth with us while we were unloading. It helped wear her out a bit.

I spent a few hours working Gate and then picked Ignatius up from Parking and we started setting up camp. It was overcast but humid, so very muggy with mosquitoes.

We had hoped that more of our Household could join us, but it was just Ignatius and I with Leeloo. Jenna also arrived Friday night and Amelia (Andrea) arrived Saturday morning. She had to pass of the munchkins so it made sense to arrive then.

 So we had all this lovely space for more tents that didn't arrive. Oh well! We had access to the covered kitchen area, so easy water. It also wasn't that far of a walk to the flushies, though biffies were closer. If you've ever tried to navigate a biffy in long skirts and layers, you'd go the distance for flushies. ;-)

 Looking back towards where most of the action was taking place. As you can see not a normal campground. lol

The Barony of Dragon's Mist was asked to work Water Bearing for the event. So I volunteered to work on Saturday. I initially thought I would be there for a couple of hours, but others didn't show up to help out, so I worked until the end of all the fighting. So started out with Rapiers and then moved on to the Squire's Tourney. It was nice being thanked by all the fighters for providing them with water to keep them going. I walked around with a bag with water bottles and often a tray with either oranges, pickles or a bowl of pretzels. With the heavy fighter's I got to witness the Knighting of Viscount William Geoffrey and another squire being put on Vigil to become a Knight. Very cool! I later found out that my sunscreen didn't last my four and a half hours on the Eric. I have a most interesting sunburn around my neckline. It shows where the shadow of my head was and the strap of the waterbearing bag across.

This is Eobhan receiving the King's Protector he won for Archery. He just stepped down from being the Archery Defender for the Barony of Dragon's Mist. King Ieuan and Queen Gwyneth were busy in their last official Court for the Kingdom. 

I was commenting that we've seen a lot of the King and Queen and it was pointed out that we went to more events this year that just happened to also be Crown events. D'oh!

 We gave Leeloo Bach Rescue Remedy and Aspen to help her deal with a dog that even another dog seemed to take exception to, an older grey and black Cattle dog. As you can see it relaxed her to the point of leg sliding off Ignatius' lap. Yea puppy drugs, that aren't really drugs!

 We were impressed with his puffy pants and just the overall stunningly pulled together outfit he had. Legs aren't bad either. ;-)  It's a lovely color of orange too. I could almost do that for a dress, but think I might have to change the red tones of my hair to match. lol Ignatius called it late Dutch, looks German to me.

Long live King Vik and Queen Astrid! Queen Astrid lives just south of us in the Principality of the Summits and the Barony of Terra Pomeria. We know of several people from Iron Ring that have been asked to serve on the Queen's Guard and I think retinue.

I won't lie, the mosquitoes were evil! I had one bite twice right on my left forefinger knuckle. It was really painful! Jenna had one land on her eyelashes!  Lots of bites were had until Amelia came with some heavy duty OFF!, some stake smokers and a light that had a little fogger.

Tryggvy's War is the first weekend of August back at Trojan Park. Those mosquitoes may be a factor in deciding to go or not. We'll have had a weekend off, though we could go to A Game of Thrones and Stormgods, as it is a fairly local event. We instead will be going to a hat party Saturday. It's an annual house party that Brandon's co-worker affectionately known as Doppler Dave throws with his partner. I have a couple of spiffy hats to choose from, just need a hair style to match.

Just remembered to update my wiki page too.

Dragon's Mist Champions Tourney 2012

This was our first Baronial Champions Tourney and we had it up on Magda's farm near the summit of Bald Peak on Chehalem Mountain above Newberg. Since I was responsible for the merchants (I was able to get one!) we were able to setup camp Thursday night. We arrived in the early evening and found where there was shade so decided to setup there. 

Zac and Andrea relaxing at the fire circle. You can see we were at the bottom of the slope away from the main action. We still had people that wandered down to say hi during the event. We had Andrea, Dawn-Marie, Jenna, William and for a night his girlfriend, Jessica. Plus Danna and her boyfriend, Shawn and his daughter Reagan were part of the group I was feeding for the weekend. Danna brought her two dogs Peyton, black two year old Cocker Spaniel and Granna, thirteen year old Lhasa Apso. Deborah also set up her tent by us as did Tara a violin player. We had our own encampment!

Leeloo loved being able to run around dragging her leash Thursday night chasing the birds and trying to hung the many moles that were out in the field. Peyton apparently did get to kill one slow one.

I taught a drop spindling class while at the event. This is me in my Augsberg dress. I'm in the process of moving the hooks and eyes. I was also naughty here and wasn't wearing a chemise under it! (I have a cloth band behind the hook and eye, so there was no skin showing.)

The gentleman was the meat merchant that came out for the weekend. He was curious about the drop spindling, something his wife is interested in learning how to do, but she wasn't there. Lisa had hoped to come by and do the class but was busy on child duty.

Iron Ring friend, Jose on the left with Dean. A nice young man that Cailina had met at West War who lives in our Barony. Small world!  He was camping by himself and living on PB&J sandwiches, so we fed him oatmeal and muffins Sunday morning.

 

Gerard on the left and Nicolai on the right. I think this was the final bout that determined Gerard as our first Champion for Dragon's Mist.

 William has been going to archery practice since he came out with us at Grand Thing. He was able to finally get some time in on the range Sunday morning before we left.

Caterina made him the bracer on his left arm. He still needs to get his own bow. He's been relying on loaner gear. I think he'll improve even more once he has his own bow. He's also asked me about events in August and September that he can go to do more archery. Huzzah!

We had a lovely weekend up at the farm. I'll be returning the second weekend in August for Acorn War. I'll be teaching another drop spindling class, but will only be going up as a day tripper. 

Brandon was acknowledged by Baroness Jill of Three Mountains with a Baroness' award, the Trillium, along   with Eoghan, Ana and Jose. Very cool stuff! I'm betting that he'll also see something from Baron Alfric before he steps down at Twelfth Night. 

An Tir - West War 2012

We left on the fourth of July to head down to Gold Beach for our third An Tir - West War. We took Dawn-Marie and her daughter Cailina with us. Again we were camping with the Murphy's and a few other friends this year - Lisa, Sara, Amanda and CJ.

The site is a working farm where he moves his goats, horses and sheep out of the two main pastures that we use for camping/merchanting/demo'ing and the war grounds. It had rained the week before and when we arrived we found that the area for group was kind of marshy and it divided us up a bit and limited additions to our group.

We still had a good time. Got to visit with friends, go see what the merchants had on display and attempt to take a class or two. I found that the work beforehand with Leeloo wasn't enough to help her with dog overload.

Saturday morning we woke up to find a couple of inches of standing water under the lighter blue canopy on the right. We had to dry out the rug before we could pack it Sunday morning. Cailina is photographing her handiwork. Leeloo's wondering what dad's doing.

Cailina braided my hair for me and then decorated with flowers she found in the area - buttercups and clovers.

Cool bed frame and center post support with chandelier. The bed side boxes are a step up into the bed plus storage.  You can see the red velvet curtain that hides their 'closet' where they have their clothes hung up. Lovely inspiration for our pavilion!

 On Saturday we piled into the car and went to the beach. It was Leeloo's first trip and she thought the sand was fun to run on sand, but she didn't like how cold the water was, or waves sneaking up on her.

Can't see mommy!

We weren't the only ones that went to the beach. A bunch of rapier fighters also went down to have fun. They apparently do this every year.

 Queen of the West in a pretty Cranach dress. I'm planning to make one soon, so Brandon took several pictures of hers so I could see.

This is Sir Rodrigo receiving most valuable Knight from the King and Queen of the West at Court. We got to spend some time with him, as his food came from Lisa for the weekend. ;-)

On the way home we were fortunate to avoid a multi-car accident that happened right beside us while driving through Salem. It did involve another SCAdian, but thankfully she wasn't hurt, just her car. We're looking forward to next year's event (in a different camping spot!)

Day 4 of Tour de Fleece

Days 1 and 2 I finished the singles of the Romney-Perendale roving that I had been working on for Largess. Day 3 I plied the singles and came up with two skeins of lace 2-ply yarn. One skein is 167.78 yards and the other is 153.10 yards. So out of the eight ounces I ended up with a total of four skeins equaling 652.4 yards.

Some sucky night-time photos, Day 1:

Day 2:

I was having problems with take up - can you tell?

Day 3:

Then I got it figured out

Some dark blue and purple polworth I got from the WWSiP swap

Day 4:

I soaked them and they are almost dry, why they aren't all twisted up. It's after dark, so won't have time to get good photos of them before we leave.

The trailer is all packed, I have dresses in the wash. I had to do some repair work on one dress and forgot about that until today. Today was food prep day, so I spent all day cooking and chopping and bagging for the event. Just need to pick up a bag of hot dog buns before we get there tomorrow afternoon.

I'll leave you with some lovely photos of flowers in my backyard. The day lily I won't get to see finish all its blooms most likely, darn it.

How is your Tour de Fleece coming along?

WWKiP 2012

This was my fifth year organizing the local World Wide Knit in Public event. Once again at the Hillsboro Farmers Market and where we'll have the WWSiP in September.

We had people volunteer to make bags and Grace of Grace's Cases surprised me with some little notions bags. I had a harder time getting yarn donations, but a new shop in town Black Sheep at Orenco stepped up with some Cascade Heritage sock yarn for everyone. There were several people that donated stitch markers, so while the bags weren't full, they had lovely items inside, as well as the awesome project bag itself!

I got to Whole Foods late the night of bag assembly because I had a business meeting for the Barony to attend, so came straight from there. Which means, I forgot my camera and to take pictures!

To top things off for me, I wasn't able to attend the actual event and it was the day after my birthday too! I'm in the process of trying to get my massage license current again and that means Continuing Education classes. One of the classes I needed was on the same day as the event and I had to make a difficult choice. The class was kind of disappointing, but at least it gave me 8 credits towards my 25 needed.

Robyn did take pictures, so I have these to share:

I was told it was a lovely event and we had at least 25 people there as all the bags were given out. We had a few lovely door prizes, that went to good homes too.

I did keep one of the little notion bags for myself and a little ball of yarn for the Beekeeper blanket I want to start:

Did you get out and knit in public at an event? Do you regularly knit in public?  I was just at a library event where Phillip Margolin was speaking and started a Barn Raising Quilt square. It was part of the Adult Summer reading program, and he is a local author. I had read his first two books he wrote and will now probably go back and read some of his newer stuff.