Forward Into the Past XX, and unknown flowers

The 20th anniversary Forward Into the Past has come, and gone. It was fun.

Awesome amounts of fun! And utterly exhausting.

Sadly, I was too busy to take photos.

Now, there's been a warm streak happening in Ontario and my garden is starting to grow. Again, I'm faced with I-didn't-keep-the-tag-and-I-don't-remember-what-that-is. Bad gardener girl.

So, dear readers.... help. What is this?

Spring!

Spring is finally finally really.... almost here.

Forward Into the Past is almost upon us on April 4th. Go.... check out the website at http://www.treheima.ca/fitp
and if you're local enough, come on out and join us for the day.

We had a high of 12 degrees celsius here and I got some yard work done. I burned a bunch of wood. You have to see the yard to know why that made such a little dent but still made me feel good.

And there are buds on the cherry tree.

Still here, really

My motivation for posting has been a little slack of late, but I'm getting tired of seeing the great potato death as my leading post every time I want to use my blog for the links to the rest of you.

Basically, the last few weeks have been making me somewhat more grumpy then usual. And grumpy doesn't make for good postings.

Forward Into the Past - a yearly day-long conference on all things medieval. I finally learned how to tablet-weave! I've only been trying to get to that class for the past 5 years!

And the party afterwards at our house was pretty decent too. Lots of good friends. :)

New blogs - Links from your links, and the people who comment on other blogs. Friends of friends, so to speak. Community, isn't it cool?

Accepting the Now
Slowly She Turned
The Worsted Witch
Edge Effect
Small Meadow Farm
Maggie's Farm

Coronation - Yep, that's right. The crowning of a King and Queen. It's an SCA thing. We don't care much about the Royalty these days (they come and go every six months), but we went to see a friend receive an award that he definitely deserves. Sort of a lifetime achievement thing, it's hard to explain without all the SCA jargon.

"But Karen, what's with your garden?" - I still have one. And things are slowly starting to grow in it. But this year, the weather sucks, to put it mildly.
Even though it seems like we've finally taken a turn for spring and it is warming up a bit, the overnight temperatures are still dropping below frost levels. It's May already, and I can't even put the darned tomato seedlings out in the greenhouse because they are so fragile in temperatures below 5 degrees (celsius, of course).

So the mud room is quite full of plants that need to be planted. Soon. Before they root rot in their pots.

I'm hoping this weekend sees some .... something getting done.

Fiber? - you must remember that theoretically I dabble in the fiber arts as well? Well, I learned to tablet weave at FITP, and promptly went out and bought some yarn to do that there craft with, and.... I have to sand the damned cards. Which is not so much fun. So, I've been drop-spinning instead. So much so that my shoulder is starting to act up again. Does anyone know how not to aggravate one's shoulder?

Pictures? - well, ya know, you've seen one crocus and daffodil, you've seen 'em all. Gods, I'm depressing myself. I promise I'll get some pretties up here soon. Within days, really. Not weeks apart, I promise.

Forward Into the Past

Well, it's over for another year. Seems like it came and went so quickly.

This past weekend, my hubby and I ran our yearly conference on medieval history, called Forward Into the Past. If you want to see a list of the classes taught, you'll need to look in the History section, as the Man has updated the site already. Comments from the feedback forms will be up later.

I got a five-year pin for teaching. :)



These are the results of the class that I spearheaded on natural dyeing in history. There were 5 teachers, including myself. I collected the teachers and did the overall powerpoint presentation for the class. Each teacher brought a dyebath and spoke on their choice. It was kind of a combination of class and round table.

The yellow at the top is weld, to the left is sandalwood, to the right is brazilwood, and the purples at the bottom are alkanet.

This one is special - it's woad, in a urine bath. Sarah wanted to keep it separate for the squeamish. It's pretty amazing to watch it turn colour as it absorbs the oxygen. I'm going to do that successfully one day.



And despite the snow here tonight... there were a bunch of these lovely blooms out on sunday when I took Anti-V and Jo on a walk around the garden to see what is poking it's head out.



I'm sure there will be more soon enough. I love my garden!

Karen

The week that was

So, it seems that I can only manage to blog once a week these days.

To catch everyone up then... spent most of the week combing out the black fleece, slowly developing a comfortable rythym with it. So far, I estimate 1/3rd tog to 2/3rd thel, to very little waste.

But I'm not done with it yet, and as I said in the last post, the thel desperately needs another wash.

I started spinning with it ---- and it only gets more black as a spun thread.


Took some time out from that project on thursday, when the Region decided to have a Snow Day, in fear of a freezing rain warning that didn't come until the middle of the night, making friday hellish to drive in. Think they picked the wrong day and then couldn't do it twice in a row without losing face? The coworker who fell on the ice friday morning, and had to be rushed into surgery for two major breaks in her leg probably thinks so...

So on my Snow Day then, I dyed some stuffs with a logwood exhaust bath, that a friend had given me. She said she didn't have anything else left in the house to dye! I used it right up until the last thing in the bath came out light gray instead of purplish.

Neil and I went to Ottawa this past weekend, to attend an SCA event called Practicum, which features some classes on various SCA and history related topics. Not as big an event as Forward Into the Past, but quite educational and fun.

As a bonus, we got to sleep in a Sleep Number bed at a Radisson for our two nights up there, and were quite pleased with it. We're thinking about replacing the waterbed, and we're trying out other alternatives. Next on the list is the Tempurpedic beds - there are a few hotels in Ontario, and one particular one in Rhode Island that have the Tempurpedic beds.

If you have any opinions on these top two contenders, let me know!

While at Practicum, I almost got this hat completely done by the end of the day, only just adding the last row at lunch today.



It's done with a craft called naalbinding, sometimes referred to single-needle knitting. Naalbinding is being taught at Forward Into The Past (FITP) this year. :)

And speaking of classes at FITP - if you were interested in learning something medieval, what would it be? Particularily textile-related - I'm trying to decide what I'm going to teach this year. :)

I have in the past taught Weaving on the Warp-Weighted Loom, Women's Roles in Old Norse Society, a Textile Overview from the Viking Age, and two different types of courses in natural dyeing - one a round table with other dyers, and one an introduction to the craft, in a Viking Period context.

I'm loath to drag my loom in again. Frankly, I'm loath to drag it anywhere, it's so big and akward and heavy as all hell. So that kinda lets weaving out, unless there's a big demand.

Thoughts that go through my head are.... Dyeing with Woad (but I'm not sure I know enough yet to teach it), Fleece Prep in the Viking Age... *sigh* I'm so undecided.

Any opinions?

Karen

Snow and Fleece

I don't mean to have an entire week between posts but ...well, things happen.

Snow, snow happens.

Remember last week, I mentioned getting a chance to do a bit of yard cleanup?

Well, this is the yard today.



*sigh*

I washed my first fleece on saturday. Look at the yard behind me - two days ago it was green(ish).

*sigh*



To date, all my fleece experiences have started with the shepherd washing the fleece before she sent it to me. This time around, I was present for the sheering, and claimed the fleece as it came off. That was last spring, and it's only taken me the better part of the year to get around to washing it. It's a black Icelandic.



And yes, those are the famed freshly pink walls behind me.

It was.... dirtier then expected. Having no idea what to expect and all.



I'll post pictures once it's dry and combed. And again later, when some of it's been spun.

Today, I'm working on the Forward Into the Past website. We're just getting started on this year's organization, so the courses available are still sparse, compared to what we will have, but feel free to check it out.

Neil and I run this thing, a day long set of classes in medieval history, every year. It's quite a lot of fun, and totally exhausting. At least for the organizers. :) If you're in the Kitchener-Waterloo area of southwestern Ontario on the first of April, come and check it out. No fooling!

Karen