ATW 2013

in which our plucky heroine has a wonderful time traveling to AnTir/West War and back... (along with about 1300 other folks from up and down the west coast)

We left Portland at by around 9 on Thursday last. I had sent my camping gear south already, on Monday, with my friends Ulfred and Elfrida who were heading down early to help with site layout for the event. I was riding down with Ayla, who I'd not met before, and my friend Ursul. There was much chat along the way, as Ayla was relatively new to our particular group, but she seemed to have an extremely varied set of interests and skills, so will soon find her way.

when we finally got near the coast, it was necessary to take a small break, walk around, and feel the cool wind

every bend in the highway had something else lovely to look at... had we not wanted to get to the site in a timely fashion, it would have been a real treat to actually hike down to the beach

There is such amazing scenery along the Oregon coastline; if fortune favors me with the chance, I would so love to spend some time there again, with more chances to explore and take pictures

the bridge over Coos Bay, came up almost too quickly for me to get the camera out of the daypack...

We decided to stop for lunch in Coos Bay; when the sign for the Blue Heron Bistro, promising German food/seafood called to us. It was an excellent choice, the homemade sausage I had for lunch was an excellent example of the genre, and my companions seemed to be equally satisfied. Happy the day when a new good road food spot is found, and should fortune ever send me back through Coos Bay hungry, there will be another stop there...

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Friday

most fortuitously, the spot I set up camp was just to the west of this small stream, which meant that I had the soft sounds of water to grace the start of day, as well as morning shade on my tent, which is a great treat (means not being rousted out of bed by excessive heat at daybreak)

This was the view looking south when I stepped outside my small tent in the morning. This is the most beautiful and best site I have ever been at for an SCA event; there are forested hills like this in all directions, relatively flat pasture to camp on, apparently new this year the site owner put in an abundance of piped potable water taps, and basically no visible intrusion of the modern world.

Whilst visiting with my friends Marya, Lawrence, and Freydis, (who kindly shared their morning kasha with me) I found out that Marya has made birchbark boxes! I get so enthused to see the recreation of uncommon techniques!

After breakfast, it was time for those who came here for the martial activity to head to the war field...

...there was an impressive equestrian presence...

...our Royalty on horseback, riding across the war field

riding round the camping neighborhoods...

a knight and his horse share a quiet moment before the war
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Here is another perspective from the SCA event West/An Tir War,
held in Gold Beach, OR on July 4-7 2013
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Vasilisa is a woman of many talents, she wove the headress she is wearing. My friend Idynthrysis created the bronze temple ornaments.

a closeup of the temple ornament, and of the weaving...

Friday evening as the sun is low in the sky, shining across the hills above the encampments...

As the sun set over the hills, and dusk settled gently over the encampments, the nighttime stars came out... Never in my everyday life is it possible to witness this, as the sky darkens the stars come into view almost one at a time at first in the gradually darkening sky, till at full dark the sky is ablaze with stars... Such beauty, hidden from sight forever in the city, is so exciting to me, as rare and precious a gift as travel itself...

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Saturday

on Saturday morning, in the Arts and Sciences pavillion, a "salon"... Mistress Mathilde Hadebyr and Meistara Kathlin in Storradthaa demonstrate Norse whipcord braiding. In addition HL Gersvinda Gaeslinger shared her knowledge about applied viking knotwork and mica embellished decoration from the Birka finds.

Saturday afternoon, for the first time ever, I dyed at the War! Marya was teaching a class on "Mostly Madder". and we got to experiment with several different dyepots, and ended up with a beautiful assortment of colored yarn. This picture shows tumeric, which yields a vivid golden yellow.

Here is Marya with her jar of madder roots... madder is a dyestuff that yields an assortment of different reddish orangish colors

Cooks from several kingdoms gather at the War for the "Cooks Playdate". They spend the days creating all sorts of wonderful period foods, and in the evenings they set up an enormously long series of tables and have a feast. The food tables, barely visible on the right side of the picture, are only halfway to the far end of the feast tables...

passers by are encouraged, if hungry, to sample the various dishes and I was more than happy to oblige, when called across the field by several of my friends. I needed no extra encouragement to give the ritual compliment that "period food is yummy!"...

Here you see part of the long series of tables set for feasting by the participants in the Cooks Playdate. When seen across the field, they look very much indeed like the illustration in a manuscript, with the bright colors, the decorated table, the pavilions in the background with banners waving in the coastal wind

Couldn't fit all the tables into one picture... this is the other end...

Yseult of Broceliande, at evening court, shortly before being called forward to be recognised as a Companion of the Order of the Laurel.

Drum, violin, and hurdygurdy... On Saturday night, there was yet more merriment, and the camp of the Kingdom of the West was filled with revelry and music. Though I toddled off to sleep in my little tent beside the stream, the sound of the drumming sent me off to dreamland...

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Sunday

On the way home I rode back to Portland with Ulfred and Elfrida. We stopped in Bandon, and after a short visit to the local cheese factory, we ate a late lunch/early supper at Tony's Crab Shack. Another memorable roadfood meal, I had rock cod broiled with garlic butter, yum! Very local, very fresh, very tasty...

soon we were back on the road, heading back over the Coos Bay Bridge, then up along the Umpqua River and back to I-5...

Driving through the Willamette valley, heading north to return to our everyday lives, with tired feet and happy memories.

low tech : high function

...or, an assortment of Tuesday tidbits...

one easy way to make multiple images for freezer paper stencils, is to simply pin together more than one layer of freezer paper before cutting the design. For this particular project, since I want there to be mirrored identical images, simply folding the freezer paper back to back will do the trick

Below is a closer view of the partially cut stencils, showing the multiple layers. I have done up to four or five layers this way; it is needful to be certain of a very sharp blade in that case.

Are you tired of my process picture yet?... here you can see the stencil designs painted in with a light layer of dark green. Before ironing the stencils into place, I carefully ironed creases into the front yoke to help locate the stags evenly placed.

Now this project is ready to be embroidered, in several shades of lighter, brighter greens. I'm thinking a couched outline, and some kind of openwork filler stitchery in the body...

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Not sure where I first ran across the idea of a salad table, but the older I get, the more appealing the idea becomes. I have the materials to do this, save the growing media which would need to be acquired... and I have the very basic skills to build this. If I made it a little smaller, it would be something that could be another small gateway into food here. Am tempted to build one that is narrower, and place it on the front porch, which would be that "shady in the summer sunny in the winter zone and be very easy to keep watered! To go along with increasing the food growing capacity, it would be an excellent idea to increase water handling/storage. Whilst there is already a lovely marble-lock siphon on hand, this rainbarrel pump looks like a good "one is none and two is one" way to get water out of the rainbarrels

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...came home from errands yesterday to find that LoneChicken seems to have died, possibly from the heat. She had been behaving somewhat oddly for a while, since the OtherHen was taken by a raccoon. Hiding in the chicken house, not coming over to the fence for treats... I know that some folks on the Urban Chicken list forcibly dampen their hens in hot weather, but since LoneChicken was not tame, chasing after her with a spray bottle wouldn't have helped her, or me... I do know that my next iteration of Chicken House will be smaller and more easily moved, so as to be able to place it in the deeper shade in the summertime. I also think that perhaps some way to build a chicken pen that is the size/shape of the raised beds I want to grow might be clever, I remember reading about this somewhere in a website on remediation through agriculture... there is such a difference between the fertility of the soil in the backyard, and in the front yard...

not June gloom...

in which our plucky heroine realises she has been a busy bee in the month of June, despite (her own) opinions to the contrary...

There has been far too much unrelenting heat this month, unlike the usual "June gloom" which pairs gentle grey mornings and soft sunshiney afternoons... Yesterday was close to 100F, and inside Acorn Cottage it was still over 80 at 1AM. Here's hoping this is not a precursor to hotter weather later in the summer.

An orange cephalopodian tee shirt for J was completed, with all the seams handstitched, and all the edges embroidered... this particular project took about two weeks from idea to finished object; about a week to cut the stencil and the same for handstitching (done in small chunks of time, not 24/7)

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Stencil design applied to neckline of red tee shirt for C (next modern handwork project). Since the idea is to have the design continuous around the neck edge, the various parts of the shirt need to be stitched together before the stenciling is done, and since this shirt will have reverse applique details, it seemed prudent to machine stitch said seams, since they will be cut through in places (unlike the octopus shirt, with the design stencil-painted but not reverse applique; variety is good)

The color is a little off here, since I took the picture at night in the kitchen... the red is really a bit darker, more burgundy, and the painted areas are dark brown, not black... Once the paint is dry for 24 hrs, it can be heat set, another layer of jersey fabric can be basted underneath, and it will be ready to have the design details handstitched. More good travel/transit handwork...

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A number of years ago, when I was first learning about freezer paper stenciling, I used that technique to print this silhouette  (a free download from Ottobre Designs) on some dark brown fabric, which immediately came to mind as inspiration when S suggested a stag for embroidery on her new tunic. Of course, this image is Much Too Large, being almost a foot across...

...so, I re-sketched it in a more suitable size to fit one on either side of the front, facing each other. It will be a lot of fun to embroider! My plan is to actually stencil it very faintly onto the solid fabric to transfer the design, then outline in embroidery.

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Topological puzzle solved successfully... The upper pad is memory foam salvage, held together with internal baffles stitched inside flannel "skin", the lower pad is three "cushions" of dense foam + egg crate foam, covered and hinged together to fold/stack... a new upgraded tourney bed, just add pillows and bedding...aside from the new dense foam bottom layer, purchased 'specially for this project, all the materials were from stash... I might have a house full of too much stuff, but times like this, it sure comes in handy