I've Been Drivin' All Night.....

Another three hours driving yesterday, the normal to and form work followed by a hoon down to Swansea to have tea at Adams' Mum and Dad's place. It's a good drive for getting time on the board, an hour each way. Also, we haven't been going down there as much as we probably should have so two birds with one stone. No stitching, too hot and no time.

And now for a little colour. Wanted to post a picture but I haven't done any thing, so below is an image of the Der Krönungsmantel of King Stephan. It was produced in the 11th Century, probably in Germany or of German workmanship. It is a silk ground fabric with couched goldwork. Take alook in the "Katalog" section for some great info (in German) but some very useful line drawings.

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Publications of Interest

There are a couple of recent and upcoming publications that may be of interest to people studying medieval and early modern textiles and embroidery:

Dress in Anglo-Saxon England by Gale R. Owen-Crocker. This is a revised edition of the 1986 edition of the work. It covers many aspects of Anglo-Saxon dress.

Medieval Clothing and Textiles 1 - I believe this will be an annual publication. The first issue (to be publised in April, 2005) will be covering some interesting topics including:

• Stitches in Time: Establishing a History of Anglo-Saxon Embroidery by Elizabeth Coatsworth
  
• Textile and Textile Imagery in the Exeter Book by Maren Clegg Hyer
  
• Pomp, Piety, and Keeping the Woman in her Place: The Dress of Cnut and Ælfgifu-Emma by Gale R. Owen-Crocker
• Threads Bared: Dress and Textiles in Late Medieval English Wills by Kristen M. Burkholder

Woven in the Earth by Else Ostergaard. This newly translated work looks at the textile find in Herjolfsnæs, Greenland that were made in 1921.

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Hot and Tired

It was another scorcher today. Drove over to the computer market. Our neighbours wanted a new machine so we went with them to help them choose. I had to leave early to get to my SCA officers meeting. It was the quickest one we've ever had, mostly due to the majority of people not showing up. We then went to the school for the tourney, another hitch, no marshalls. So that was cancelled (probably not a bad thing, it was way to hot to fight, over 35 degrees). Didn't get any stitching done, too hot.

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Progress

I managed to get about another 3 hours done on the sleeve. The second stripe is done and I've moved onto the bottom set of motifs. I couldn't face another stripe, alternating keeps it a bit fresh. I was really warm today and Adam spent the whole day playing Fable, so by tea time, he had a headache and headed to bed for a couple of hours. More stitching time for me.

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Still Kicking

I've been off air the last couple of days because we've been running a symposium on academic integrity. We had a couple of well known international speakers and the whole thing seemed to go very well. So now I'm at work catching up on two days of emails and work.

On the stitching front, I managed to get about 5 hours done yesterday. Nearly finished the second stipe. I hope to post an updated photo either on the weekend or Monday.

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Most Annoying Things on Blogs

I've spent way to much time surfing with BlogExplosion and came upon the things that most annoy me on blogs:

1. Huge Title Graphics - Why do so many people have these huge, massive title graphics at the top of their blogs?? If you have to scroll down to see the first entry in a blog, then the title graphic is too big. I don't know how many times I've been on BlogExplosion and when the 30 seconds is up, the page still hasn't loaded, cause they have this huge graphic there!

2. Funky Plugins and Apps - Some people seem to have a massive amount of "funky" plugins and apps coded into their sites. Again, sometimes these take along time to load, or if you are surfing from behind a firewall, you have to put your username and password in 10 times to load the Java or whatever. Also, feeds that come in from other sites take along time to load (see 1).

3. No Comments or Contact Details - I hate blogs that want to be conversational or controversial that don't allow comments or have email etc for you to contact them.

There are other things that annoy me about blogs, but these are the top three.

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Fable

I had a completely un productive night last night. I just watched and helped Adam play Fable on the Xbox. I don't normally like playing computer games but this one is fun, so of course it is single player!! I should've stitched, but I just couldn't get motivated. I am getting sick of the shirt. So I might start on the sweetbag. Only problem is that it's black and white at this stage too! I might just outline one leaf so I can get some colour going.

Hey, you BlogExplosion surfers - I was surfing via the Directory, to look at blogs on specific topics, and I won some mystery credits. So if you use the Directory, make sure you are logged in first, you might get a pleasant surprise!!

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Blackwork, Driving and SCA

I managed to get another couple of hours done on the blackwork sleeve. I've finished off the second row of spot motifs. Now, I will have to do two stripes. That should take about 12 hours.

I got in another hour or so of driving. We had a SCA meeting today and I drove there, via a shopping centre to drop off some DVD's. I'd made copies of the Anglo-Saxon handout to give to people, I received many positive comments. If I get a spare couple of hours, I'd like to make up some samples of each of the types of designs in the handout, to show people what they can look like.

I have to start working on the next one now, Viking. It's going to be hard, so little information to work with.

I've also been doing alot of surfing via BlogExplosion. There are alot of blogs out there, and I've found a couple that are worth a second visit. If you are looking for a way to find something interesting to read, joining BlogExplosion and surfing the links is a way to do it.

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More Scrapbooking and Yahoo Groups Problems

No stitching today. I took my neighbour to a scrapbooking workshop today. We only stayed four hours, but I'm pretty sure she is hooked. We did 8 pages. They need a few finishing touches but they are looking great. She took some more supplies with her to keep going this afternoon.

Does anyone know about YahooGroups?? I uploaded my Anglo-Saxon file to the Yahoo group I set up and a few people are getting a "You don't have permission to access this file" message. I changed all the setting to allow members full access, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Any help greatly appreciated.

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Embroidery for Clothing - Anglo-Saxon Handout Now Available

Well, after much drafting and redrafting, the first part of the Embroidery for Clothing series, Anglo-Saxon is now available for download.

There are two versions of the Embroidery for Clothing - Anglo-Saxon handout, the first is formatted for A4 paper and the second is formatted for Letter sized paper (this is the ones that Americans need to use). It is 24 pages with 10 pages of patterns.

Because of the file sizes involved (3.6mb), I have had to make the files available using an email list - needle_prayse_notify. This is a notify only list, that is, mail is only sent to the list when a new file or resource is made available. So it is likely to only be a few messages a year.

So, if you go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/needle_prayse_notify/

And sign up, you can download the file.

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Driving

I'd just sat down to do some stitching last night when Adam got home from the gym. Once I'd done his tea and messed around, he decided he wanted me to drive to Charlestown Square. I'd skipped driving home cause I wasn't feeling 100% and he wanted me to make up the time. So we jumped in the car at 7.30pm and headed off. Driving at dusk to the biggest shopping centre in the city on late night shopping night wasn't my plan for the evening. Anyway, it all went well and I added another hour to the tally. But no stitching was done. I hope to get a bit done this weekend, depending on the weather, it is really starting to warm up. Mid 30's yesterday.

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The Fitzwilliam Museum

Just been searching the Fitzwilliam Museum online database. They seem to have added quite a few things. The link I have given is to the main catagories page (I can't link directly to items). For embroidered items, check under Antiquities: Costume/Fashion. Most of the entries are Coptic fragments, most of which are tapestry but there are several embroidered items in there as well. One of interest is a complete childs tunic.

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Sleeve Update

I managed to get another couple of hours done on the sleeves. Two more motifs finished. I would've got more done but I finally managed to catch "The Crucible" on pay tv, so I got distracted. Interesting watching considering the current political climate. Also more driving lessons. I am getting better but still occassionally making stupid mistakes.

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Scrapbooking 101

My neighbour from a couple of doors up just had a holiday in Bali. She'd seen a couple of my scrapbook albums, particularly the Northern Territory one, and has asked if I'd help her do something similar. So we bought her some supplies from my friend who's a CM consultant and she came down and we did the first page last night. It ended up taking 3 hours, but the page turned out pretty good. So now her homework is to go sort out photos and decide on titles and colour schemes. Another one brought to the dark side!!

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Blackwork Sleeve Progress

Finally got an update picture of the first sleeve for the Warwick shirt.

This is the right sleeve at about 12hrs work. The individual motifs are taking about an hour each to do and the band takes about 6hrs to do. It's proving a bit time consuming due to the intricacy of the design and also the small size of the design.

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BlogExplosion - Some Thoughts

Firstly, I have to say I'm surprised. I've only been signed up for a couple of days and I have already seen a significant amount of traffic directed to the site via BlogExplosion.

Secondly, while I've seen this increase in traffic, is it quality traffic? Please, don't get me wrong!! I'm not talking about the visitors but rather how much they actually read the blog. BlogExplosion visitors, please leave me a comment or two to let me know what you think of the BlogExplosion method of increasing traffic.

Finally, I might as well try and get some feedback from these new found visitors. So what can I do to improve the blog, especially if you are a non-needlework person?

UPDATE: OK, I stand corrected!! My first comment about the quality of visits supplied by BlogExplosion came within 2 mintues of the post being made to the blog! I'd like to thank everyone who has commented so far.

UPDATE 2: To all my new visitors. I just realised that Nov has been a pretty boring month for me and the blog, so if you'd like to get a better idea of what my blog is usually like, please check out the archive for October, it's much more interesting, with lots of pictures and links.

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I'm back

I'm back on board. Post election depression and lack of progress on the sleeves have meant a lack of posts. I hope to rectify that from now on.

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Casus Belli

Lives in the Balance

I've been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you've seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war

And there's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs

On the radio talk shows and the T.V.
You hear one thing again and again
How the U.S.A. stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends--
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally can't take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

There's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can't even say the names

They sell us the President the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they're never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

(c) 1986 SWALLOW TURN MUSIC, ASCAP

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Sleeve Coming Along

Got the first centre band finished last night. While it works up pretty quickly, I think next time I will do a less compact design. Even though I am using small stitches, the flowers especially are coming out a bit blocky. So next shirt, I am going to come up with a better, less complicated design, which will work up quicker but keep the denseness. I also got two motifs done, these work up really quickly and give great impact. I think the combo of the bands and the spot motifs is going to work really well. The only thing I am thinking now is about cutting down the amount of work in the back and front, since most of it is going to get covered up? I did about 3 hours last night.

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Quiet Day

I decided not to go to Barony meeting today, I wanted to get the last of the house work out of the way and get some needlework done. I can take it with me , but I loose a couple of hours travelling time. So I stayed home. I got about 3 hours done on the sleeve. I am just about finished the first band down the centre.

We bought some lollies just in case we got any Halloween wannabes last night. Didn't get any. I think cause it was Sunday night rather than Saturday night.

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