Happy Labor Day!

Wow! I know I've been feeling kind of out of sorts and unproductive lately, but I didn't realize how out of the swing of things I've been lately, but now I see it's been going on for about a month. Well, tomorrow is the first day of school, I've had a recovery weekend, and am actually starting to feel ready to tackle the fall now. So, the tunic came out well. My adorable husband is the green lantern, a friend was the red lantern. The quilt is a gift for our lovely and gracious queen, who has been having a difficult time of late. She is also the head of my husband's peerage household, so we found out about some of the news before it became public. The quilt was originally supposed to be for me, but I decided to finish it for her instead. Now, I'm working on a quilt that will be for me! The pattern is "Blossom" by Joanna Figueroa at Fig Tree Quilts. It's a pattern that was in her last book. I'm using cream and coral floral prints for the flowers and a light green marble fabric for the background. I'm also trying a new method of construction. Usually, I make blocks, but these blocks lend themselves to being made up as units, and then assembling the units to make the blocks. So instead of making the units for one block and sewing it together, I'm assembling the sections. I've done all of the centers, and then each flower has 8 petals. The perpendicular ones are made a little differently from the ones that are set on an angle. I'm working on the perpendicular petals first, and cutting as I go, because I just couldn't face hours over the table cutting all those pieces. I did cut strips, the directions said to cut so many strips of a certain size and the sub-cut the strips into squares or rectangles. So I cut the strips, and I've been cutting the squares in short bursts as I use them. I'm hoping to get this done before it gets super cold. I'm finally getting around to making up my summer SCA dress. Fortunately, this hasn't been a super busy summer, event-wise. I'm going to try to finish my dress for the Kingdom Arts and Sciences Fair in September. I really need to work on my documentation for my project. I made a Tudor-style quilt, which is done, but I need to work on the write-up of what I did.

Oh, hey! I missed more weeks than I thought....

Well, better to come back after a few weeks than to keep not-posting, right? The dinner was really nice, and the 4th of July weekend was great! Neale and I learned how to do torch-fired enamel with powdered glass, which was really cool. Neale's was much better than mine. I finished the quilt! Unfortunately, when I washed it, I found some places that needed fixing. I think I didn't have quite enough seam allowance. I think the real problem was that I wasn't as precise with the background hexagons that I cut myself, and some of them came out a little bit bigger than the pre-cut ones, and then the slightly larger hexies didn't fit together as well as they should have. So, all of the problems have been fixed, and since they were almost all around the edges of the hexie flowers, where the pre-cuts met the background fabric, I sewed over those edges with a decorative stitch on the sewing machine. It was a nice way to outline the flowers, I thought. So tomorrow or Saturday, that will be heading off to its new owner. Now, I'm working on a medieval Green Lantern tunic for the husband. There's going to be a super hero ball at an upcoming event, Academy of Performing Arts. Neale wants to be Green Lantern, which was inspired by Aladdin. I'm making a tunic with tiraz bands, which were bands with Arabic calligraphy attached to tunic sleeves. Usually, they would have passages from the Koran, or something like "God is great." Mine have the Green Lantern oath translated into Arabic. I'm nearly done. Pictures will be forthcoming soon, really.

This week, I've made some progress on the quilt top. The two sides are all squared up, and I'm over halfway through squaring up the top. So, yea, progress! I'm still stalled on the blouse I've been working on. Saturday or Sunday, I'll probably get some sewing time in. My husband's peer and that household (basically, adopted SCA mom and dad, sister and brother-in-law) are coming to dinner. I spent a lot of time (but not as much as I should have) last weekend cleaning the house. The refrigerator is clean, and I'll do some touch-up cleaning Saturday morning. I know they're coming to see us, not the house, but if I'm going to cook for people, I want them to be at least somewhat confident that I'm not going to give them food poisoning, you know? So the menu is roasted chicken thighs with new potatoes, roasted cherry tomatoes, and herbs. It's a Jamie Oliver recipe, and it sounds simple and looks yummy. I'm making focaccia from scratch and peach pound cake. My other project is knitted washcloths. I decided to volunteer to be royal liaison for our group's big fall event, Diamond Wars. Royal liaison basically contacts the people who handle the royals' travel arrangements to coordinate things with them, and make sure the crowns have everything they need. It's also customary to leave goodie baskets in the cabins. For Diamond Wars, we're going to put together a snack basket and a toiletry basket, and I want to knit washcloths to put with them. Our own king and queen aren't coming because of previous commitments, but there will be visiting royals to take care of. Right now, I'm doing test patterns with some leftover Peaches and Cream cotton yarn.

My resolution lasted a week - go me!

This week, I've been doing some hand piecing, even though I now have a sewing machine again after almost a month. I should backtrack a little and explain the sewing machine situation. I have a Juki HZL-K65 that I've had for about a year. I love her, her name is Shelley. Well, a month and a few weeks ago, I started having a problem. When I lowered the presser foot, the light on the start button stayed red instead of turning green, and the machine wouldn't sew. I re-threaded the machine, cleaned it, everything. Finally, a month ago, I took her in to the dealer. Their repairman worked on her for a while, then decided she needed to be sent back to the company. The problem seems to be the motherboard or some other computer part. So, Juki is going to send me a new machine. The process usually takes 4-6 weeks, so I might have a new machine next week! In the meantime, I have a loaner machine from the dealer, an HZL-K85. It's almost like Shelley, only it has a lot more decorative stitches. I do have other machines, but I've been spoiled by Shelley. My first machine is a Singer Wal-mart special. It was a start, but not my favorite. I also have my Grandma's 1964 Kenmore. She actually sews better than the Singer, but she only sews a straight stitch. So I've been sewing a new top, kind of a peasant-blouse kind of thing, on the loaner machine. I've also been trying to finish a quilt top by hand-piecing. It was originally going to be for me, hexi flowers made with 2 honeycombs of Honeysweet by Fig Tree with cream background. Then I found out that the head of one of my SCA households is going to have surgery, and I'm a big believer in blankies, so I'm finishing it for her. Actually, she just had surgery yesterday. So far, she's doing well. I just wasn't in the mood for partial seams on the machine, though, so I'm piecing the last few hexies to fill in the edges by hand. This has been the worst week for news! I know two people who have passed away, and someone else who lost a baby due to complications in her pregnancy. Making a blanket for someone doesn't seem like a lot to do in the face of so much loss, but it's what I can do. Since it's summer in the South, I'm going to use flannel for the backing and no batting. I have an old quilt I made that way, and it's the perfect year-round blanket. There's a household gathering in a few weeks, and I'm hoping to have it finished, so I can send it with her husband.

Introduction

Hi! Since this is the second week of June, I thought that it was about time I got on that list of stuff I was going to do this summer. The top of the list is to start actually writing in my blog. I love listening to podcasts while I walk, and sometimes around the house. I'm not up to tackling podcasting right now, but I'd like to get out there in the crafting community a little more. So, back to blogging, and since it's been so long since I updated my old, very sparse blog, why not start a new one? So, a little about me: I'm April, I've been married for 7 1/2 years. I'm a Montessori teacher with 2.25 cats, and the fraction is because our boy (seen in my profile pic) is a big boy. My husband and I are medieval re-enactors in the Society for Creative Anachronism. In the society, I am The Honorable Lady Medb (Maeve) inghean Daire, a 12th century Irishwoman living in a crusader state in the Middle East. I am also an apprentice, the equivalent of a squire to a person who was knighted for excellence in the arts. No, that's not completely accurate, but everybody knows about knights and squires, right? I do a lot of crafting, both modern and....not, mostly textile based. I knit, quilt, sew, embroider, and I'm learning to spin with a drop spindle. The last project I finished was the first stage of what I'm calling Henry VIII's Blankie. He totally had one. For real. In the 1547 inventory of all of Henry VIII's stuff, which makes a pretty big book, there were a handful of small quilts, about a yard by a yard and a half made of linen with wool stuffing. One of them was "for use by the King's person." See? He totally had a blankie. I don't blame him, blankies are awesome. It's stage one because plain whitework just doesn't seem fancy enough for The King. Seriously, the guy had an indoor porta-pottie with a velvet seat cushion. Stage two will be embroidery on top of the quilting.