Back from Estrella

I know it has been a bit quiet here recently. For the past while, I've been out at an SCA event, Estrella War. There were about 4000 of us crazy historical recreation people, creating the Middle Ages and Renaissance in the middle of the Arizona desert. Oh man, did I have a marvelous time! Friends and hugs, shopping for one of a kind hand crafted items, coursing my spaniels, cooking over an open fire, cheering on my warriors... I need to wash the pile of laundry, sleep for a week or so, and then I want to go back and do it all again!

Arts wise, it was a great week. I delivered some of my wool socks to their happy new owners. I was able to spend some time demonstrating spinning, which is a lovely way to spend an afternoon.



In fact, on Friday we had bunches and bunches of school kids who came through the event. I spent most of that day discussing how folks in the Middle Ages made clothes, from prepping the raw wool, through spinning, through weaving, and to sewing. Hopefully some of the kids went home appreciating the luxury of having a mall nearby.


Shopping wise, I picked up a new little box loom for making belts and bands.



Isn't it cute? I'm going to try card weaving on it, and maybe some warp faced inkle bands. The inkle loom I've been using is actually out of period for Medieval recreation. This would be much more appropriate. I look forward to trying it out.

I also picked up the book "The Warp Weighted Loom" by Marta Hoffman. I sense a project coming on.

My camera got a work out too, as I took around 100 pictures. Some of those images will be turned into paintings sometime in the future. I have them in an album, here: http://s15.photobucket.com/albums/a366/lissamc/Estrella%2026/

Now, I need to re-group, and figure out what project to tackle next. More socks? Hair sticks? Trying out the box loom? Making new costumes to show off the custom buttons I got? (From Epaul at Grypon Song Gems. Dangerous man! http://www.gemartist.com/)

Hmmm.... Anything but tackling the mountain of laundry. It smells like stale campfire smoke.

(Pictures by me, Jeff Kahler, and Christi Martin.)