Getting anywhere on a bank holiday weekend is a nightmare. How did I manage to forget? blocked out more like ( Read more... )

Slow start to today. I blame the weekend ( Read more... )

Thanks to several months of enforced inactivity, I'm feeling uncomfortably round, and had an unpleasant encounter with a measuring tape recently.

So I'm resolved to get out of the office at lunchtime more often for walks - daily isn't too often - and I'm considering drastic measures, for me: Saturday CandyI encountered this at Crown this year in ( Read more... )

After carefully texting me 3 times to let me know when my delivery would arrive, and confirming a 2 hour window for today, my mattress delivery arrived....3 1/2 hours late ( Read more... )

So in the end, I dropped about £100 on patterns. Partly to get hold of the patterns, partly to support the reenactor-gone-pro industry.

I'm now the proud owner of:

• Margo Anderson's Elizabethan Gentleman patterns
• RH 509's 15th c Florentine ladies gowns
• Tudor tailor Henrician mens clothing

Observations - note that I have not yet unfolded and cut these ( Read more... )

Have spent most of the day getting to know Win8 ( Read more... )

I've long avoided gilding, partly because I love calligraphy best, partly because of the esoteric ingredients list. Slaked plaster is just the start of the weird-ass stuff you have to collect to create true gesso, that creates raised gilding.

In my long-term avoidance, I've collected every other imaginable form of glue (gum arabic, gilder's malt, ( Read more... )