Weekend Update - NY and VT
Sorry I've been scarce around here. Between work and re-reading Outlander and traveling this weekend, my Internets time has been greatly reduced the past week or so.
Friday after work I drove out to Greenfield, MA to the Textile Company. It was a lovely day for a drive. I thought I remembered that they had Sunforger canvas in stock, and our next Guild meeting we’re finally going to be doing tent repairs. I know they carry wool, as that’s where I bought the wool that I’m going to use for my Schaube (German coat). I found some nice heavy canvas (12 oz?) and some lighter stuff. It’s not Sunforger (flame resistant) but that’s OK, it will work fine for the repairs I need to do (reinforce/replace a grommet, fix some door ties).
They didn’t have any wool though. Well, three bolts, but nothing that I wanted. Usually they have much more than that. They had some really lovely flannels right next to the wools. I loved the colors, they had three different houndstooths (in a green, a butterscotch, and a nice brown) and a lovely blue/black herringbone. But when I checked the fiber content, they weren’t wool flannel, they were 100% cotton. Anything I would want to make with them would be outdoor activities, which means I want wool (because when you’re getting rained or snowed on, cotton flannel is next to useless). *le sigh* I bought one yard each of the two weights of canvas and headed for home. I have a lovely ride through the back roads of VT, NH, and MA. It’s one of my favorite rides in the country, lots of twisty windy roads, hills, and a covered bridge. And on my way back I stopped at the Target in Nashua and picked up some more clear plastic tubs for organizing the sewing room.
Saturday I was headed to Schenectady, NY to visit Marc and Brittney. I had asked Brittney to help me draft a new bodice pattern. I wanted to get up early and get on the road so we’d have plenty of time to work on my gown. But I also really wanted to bring along the fabric that I wanted to make the gown out of. Which I couldn’t find. I’d already put some time into the sewing room last weekend, but hadn’t dug my way down to the fabric I wanted yet. Which is why I had new plastic tubs. I needed somewhere to put the piles of fabric that didn’t have homes yet (and I still needed to replace one non-see through tub). I spent one 45/15 hunting for it, with no success. On my break I e-mailed Brittney and let her know that I might be a bit later than I originally thought.
About five or ten minutes into my second 45/15 I got down to the very last tub at the bottom of the pile, and in the very bottom of that tub (I am not kidding) I finally found the two lengths of tropical weight wool I bought last year. It took me the rest of the 45 to put the sewing room back together and re-stack all the tubs in my fabric stash. I really need to get rid of projects that I’m never going to finish and weed down the fabric stash a bit. The bad news is, I got on the road much later than I thought I was going to. The good news is, I really got the sewing room organized while I was hunting and I put my new tubs to good use. I’ve got one tub of projects to work on for CTRF, one tub of things to work on immediately after CTRF, and several other tubs are organized too (linens, wools, all white fabrics, fabrics that are slated to become 18th century garments, etc.). I’d also, during my breaks, gotten most of my bras handwashed and had gotten around to sending out e-mails about doing another Landsknecht shoe order.
I finally got on the road at 11:00 (I’d wanted to leave around 7:00, so only four hours late!). Just before I left I remembered that Chad lives in Schenectady now and popped him a message letting him know I’d be in town, did he want to meet for breakfast or something?
The drive down wasn’t bad. Traffic was meh. When I left the Garmin said I’d arrive in NY at 2:15. I figured add in a few minutes for a pee stop at some point and I should be in NY at 2:30. I didn’t actually arrive until around 3:45 due to traffic and one stop to eat/pee/buy gas. Both 495 and the Pike were pretty congested, and I spent more time than I like to in stop and go traffic. Which gave me plenty of time to think about alternate routes for the drive home. When we drove back from EMMA in April, we took a route through Vermont to Stephen and Alena’s house that took us by Bennington Pottery. We stopped in (I think Alena wanted to pick up a wedding present?) and I really liked the pottery, but didn’t buy any. Alena said they have some, and it’s fantastic (dishwasher safe, all that good stuff). So considering how bad the traffic is on the Pike on weekends, I figured I’d take the scenic drive through Vermont on the way home.
When I got there Brittney was scrubbing the stove (she says she’s been nesting in advance of the baby coming this fall). We chatted for a bit, then drove over to the college so we could use Brittney’s costume shop for our project. She’s a theater professor/costume designer/costume shop supervisor (I don’t really know her exact title) at Union College. I had brought muslin with me, and my current bodice pattern (and wool and linen and my box o’ sewing tools). She looked at my current bodice pattern (which is version 3.0 for one piece and version 4.0 for the other) and made some comments about what looked right and not right. I showed her the original pattern that I started with (for example, the back neck line has already come up an inch or more, but she moved it up even further). She traced out my current pattern on the muslin, added a generous seam allowance, and ran it up on the sewing machine and added lacing strips. Then I got into it, and we got to fitting with safety pins and marking it up with a pen.
She brought the back in a bit (which is good, because that’s the one place I cannot fit myself). As I said, we brought the back neckline up quite a bit. She moved the shoulder seams back (they were pretty far forward) and we redrew the sleeves completely from one where the curve at the top of the sleevehead is a bell curve and the seam runs down the underarm to one where the sleeve head is a big swoop and the seam runs down the back of the elbow. It should be very interesting to see how Camp Frau gown 4.0 turns out!
Chad texted me when he got out of work. He had to work Sunday, so no meeting up for breakfast. But he said if I wanted to swing by his work (Starbucks in the next town over) for a drive by hugging, he’d be there after 1:00.
We finished up around 7:00, gave Marc a call to let him know we were headed home (he was in charge of dinner), and stopped to pick up some chicken on the way home. Dinner was pasta, chicken tenderloins, and fresh green beans. Nummy! We sat up and talked pretty late, first over the dinner table, then in the living room, and finally upstairs looking at photos on the computer. I finally dragged myself off to bed around 11:30, but could have easily stayed up much later.
Sunday morning I woke up to a very loud BANG around 7:00 a.m.. It was a hollow metallic sound, like when the garbage truck dumps the empty metal dumpster back on the pavement at my condo complex. Brittney thinks a squirrel committed suicide by transformer again. Apparently this is a frequent occurrence in their neighborhood. She’s actually witnessed this happening before, complete with fried squirrel falling out of the transformer. It took the power company two hours to show up, and another hour and a half to swap out the transformer before we had power again. After the initial bang I went back to bed and slept through most of it, but I think Brittney and I were chatting on the couch in the living room for at least an hour before we were able to make breakfast (Marc had already gone into the office, as he works on Sundays). Once we had power back, Brittney made us waffles. And we lingered over the breakfast chatting, before moving back to the living room for (you guesses it) more chatting.
We looked up the address for Bennington Pottery so I could plug it into the Garmin. And also the address for the Starbucks where Chad works. Then Brittney showed me the picture of Wulfram’s hat that she found and pinned on Pinterst. It does look just like the uber floppy hat that I made for Alex. Then of course we got sucked into Pinterest, because that’s what Pinterest does. We ended up following a link from a pin to some California Landksnecht’s photo album on Flickr of his trips to Germany. You know you’re a Tossfrau when you're looking at a stranger's museum photos and you exclaim to your girlfriend, "Wait! Go back. Look at the langets on that pike!” [FYI - Langets are reinforcing strips that run down the sides of the wooden shaft of a pike.]
I finally pried myself away from the evil lures of the Internets and got dressed and packed up my stuff. Since it was around 1:00, I headed off to visit with Chad. When I arrived (around 1:30) he was just getting out of his car in the parking lot. I drove up and called out my window, “Hey you!” I got a big smile and an even bigger hug out of him. I think he’s been lonely since moving away from MA and most of his friends. We walked inside and I bought myself a nibble while he punched in. Then I sat at the bar and we chatted for 15 or 20 minutes while I ate. Then business was starting to pick up and I didn’t want to distract him and get him backed up (since he was at work) so I hit the road for Vermont.
It was a gorgeous day for a drive. Mostly sunny, with some scattered clouds to cast dramatic shadows on the mountains, temperatures were in the mid 70s. Just really, really gorgeous. I’m so glad I took the scenic route home, even if it did take me longer than the highway. I stopped in at Bennington Pottery and found a few small items while I was browsing. I picked up two plates and two bowls. We’ll see how I like them. I’m planning to do a purge of the kitchen this fall, I have too many plates and bowls that I don’t use (or where I only have partial sets because either 1) I’ve broken things or 2) they were partial sets in the first place that I picked up second hand at thrift stores or flea markets). I’d like to get down to where I have a much smaller set of dishes, but ones that I actually like and use on a regular basis. And that are pretty. Pretty is important too. So if these work out, I might head back later in the fall, after faire is over, and buy enough to replace some of the current crop of dishes.
On the way home I stopped at the Scenic Overlook (at Hog Mountain? Not sure, I just know I’ve stopped there before). I thought I remembered that the tourist trap shop had a deli, but no, only ice cream. I bought a myself a chocolate shake to keep my blood sugar up on the rest of the drive home, because by this point it was way late to be eating lunch, and my waffle had worn off hours ago. When I got back home I stopped at the grocery store, and finally arrived back at Frogholm a little after 7:00.
I unloaded the car and put the groceries away, unpacked and threw in a load of laundry, and then settled down at the computer. I caught up on Facebook and Tumblr (but not on Live Journal, sorry guys, I’ll get to y’all tonight). And then watched last week’s episode of Outlander (for the fourth time). Then turned off the computer and watched the second episode. In which we finally get the scene of shirtless Jamie that I’ve been waiting for. *happy sigh* I’ll admit it, I’m easy to please. Hunky shirtless man in a kilt? Yes please….
Friday after work I drove out to Greenfield, MA to the Textile Company. It was a lovely day for a drive. I thought I remembered that they had Sunforger canvas in stock, and our next Guild meeting we’re finally going to be doing tent repairs. I know they carry wool, as that’s where I bought the wool that I’m going to use for my Schaube (German coat). I found some nice heavy canvas (12 oz?) and some lighter stuff. It’s not Sunforger (flame resistant) but that’s OK, it will work fine for the repairs I need to do (reinforce/replace a grommet, fix some door ties).
They didn’t have any wool though. Well, three bolts, but nothing that I wanted. Usually they have much more than that. They had some really lovely flannels right next to the wools. I loved the colors, they had three different houndstooths (in a green, a butterscotch, and a nice brown) and a lovely blue/black herringbone. But when I checked the fiber content, they weren’t wool flannel, they were 100% cotton. Anything I would want to make with them would be outdoor activities, which means I want wool (because when you’re getting rained or snowed on, cotton flannel is next to useless). *le sigh* I bought one yard each of the two weights of canvas and headed for home. I have a lovely ride through the back roads of VT, NH, and MA. It’s one of my favorite rides in the country, lots of twisty windy roads, hills, and a covered bridge. And on my way back I stopped at the Target in Nashua and picked up some more clear plastic tubs for organizing the sewing room.
Saturday I was headed to Schenectady, NY to visit Marc and Brittney. I had asked Brittney to help me draft a new bodice pattern. I wanted to get up early and get on the road so we’d have plenty of time to work on my gown. But I also really wanted to bring along the fabric that I wanted to make the gown out of. Which I couldn’t find. I’d already put some time into the sewing room last weekend, but hadn’t dug my way down to the fabric I wanted yet. Which is why I had new plastic tubs. I needed somewhere to put the piles of fabric that didn’t have homes yet (and I still needed to replace one non-see through tub). I spent one 45/15 hunting for it, with no success. On my break I e-mailed Brittney and let her know that I might be a bit later than I originally thought.
About five or ten minutes into my second 45/15 I got down to the very last tub at the bottom of the pile, and in the very bottom of that tub (I am not kidding) I finally found the two lengths of tropical weight wool I bought last year. It took me the rest of the 45 to put the sewing room back together and re-stack all the tubs in my fabric stash. I really need to get rid of projects that I’m never going to finish and weed down the fabric stash a bit. The bad news is, I got on the road much later than I thought I was going to. The good news is, I really got the sewing room organized while I was hunting and I put my new tubs to good use. I’ve got one tub of projects to work on for CTRF, one tub of things to work on immediately after CTRF, and several other tubs are organized too (linens, wools, all white fabrics, fabrics that are slated to become 18th century garments, etc.). I’d also, during my breaks, gotten most of my bras handwashed and had gotten around to sending out e-mails about doing another Landsknecht shoe order.
I finally got on the road at 11:00 (I’d wanted to leave around 7:00, so only four hours late!). Just before I left I remembered that Chad lives in Schenectady now and popped him a message letting him know I’d be in town, did he want to meet for breakfast or something?
The drive down wasn’t bad. Traffic was meh. When I left the Garmin said I’d arrive in NY at 2:15. I figured add in a few minutes for a pee stop at some point and I should be in NY at 2:30. I didn’t actually arrive until around 3:45 due to traffic and one stop to eat/pee/buy gas. Both 495 and the Pike were pretty congested, and I spent more time than I like to in stop and go traffic. Which gave me plenty of time to think about alternate routes for the drive home. When we drove back from EMMA in April, we took a route through Vermont to Stephen and Alena’s house that took us by Bennington Pottery. We stopped in (I think Alena wanted to pick up a wedding present?) and I really liked the pottery, but didn’t buy any. Alena said they have some, and it’s fantastic (dishwasher safe, all that good stuff). So considering how bad the traffic is on the Pike on weekends, I figured I’d take the scenic drive through Vermont on the way home.
When I got there Brittney was scrubbing the stove (she says she’s been nesting in advance of the baby coming this fall). We chatted for a bit, then drove over to the college so we could use Brittney’s costume shop for our project. She’s a theater professor/costume designer/costume shop supervisor (I don’t really know her exact title) at Union College. I had brought muslin with me, and my current bodice pattern (and wool and linen and my box o’ sewing tools). She looked at my current bodice pattern (which is version 3.0 for one piece and version 4.0 for the other) and made some comments about what looked right and not right. I showed her the original pattern that I started with (for example, the back neck line has already come up an inch or more, but she moved it up even further). She traced out my current pattern on the muslin, added a generous seam allowance, and ran it up on the sewing machine and added lacing strips. Then I got into it, and we got to fitting with safety pins and marking it up with a pen.
She brought the back in a bit (which is good, because that’s the one place I cannot fit myself). As I said, we brought the back neckline up quite a bit. She moved the shoulder seams back (they were pretty far forward) and we redrew the sleeves completely from one where the curve at the top of the sleevehead is a bell curve and the seam runs down the underarm to one where the sleeve head is a big swoop and the seam runs down the back of the elbow. It should be very interesting to see how Camp Frau gown 4.0 turns out!
Chad texted me when he got out of work. He had to work Sunday, so no meeting up for breakfast. But he said if I wanted to swing by his work (Starbucks in the next town over) for a drive by hugging, he’d be there after 1:00.
We finished up around 7:00, gave Marc a call to let him know we were headed home (he was in charge of dinner), and stopped to pick up some chicken on the way home. Dinner was pasta, chicken tenderloins, and fresh green beans. Nummy! We sat up and talked pretty late, first over the dinner table, then in the living room, and finally upstairs looking at photos on the computer. I finally dragged myself off to bed around 11:30, but could have easily stayed up much later.
Sunday morning I woke up to a very loud BANG around 7:00 a.m.. It was a hollow metallic sound, like when the garbage truck dumps the empty metal dumpster back on the pavement at my condo complex. Brittney thinks a squirrel committed suicide by transformer again. Apparently this is a frequent occurrence in their neighborhood. She’s actually witnessed this happening before, complete with fried squirrel falling out of the transformer. It took the power company two hours to show up, and another hour and a half to swap out the transformer before we had power again. After the initial bang I went back to bed and slept through most of it, but I think Brittney and I were chatting on the couch in the living room for at least an hour before we were able to make breakfast (Marc had already gone into the office, as he works on Sundays). Once we had power back, Brittney made us waffles. And we lingered over the breakfast chatting, before moving back to the living room for (you guesses it) more chatting.
We looked up the address for Bennington Pottery so I could plug it into the Garmin. And also the address for the Starbucks where Chad works. Then Brittney showed me the picture of Wulfram’s hat that she found and pinned on Pinterst. It does look just like the uber floppy hat that I made for Alex. Then of course we got sucked into Pinterest, because that’s what Pinterest does. We ended up following a link from a pin to some California Landksnecht’s photo album on Flickr of his trips to Germany. You know you’re a Tossfrau when you're looking at a stranger's museum photos and you exclaim to your girlfriend, "Wait! Go back. Look at the langets on that pike!” [FYI - Langets are reinforcing strips that run down the sides of the wooden shaft of a pike.]
I finally pried myself away from the evil lures of the Internets and got dressed and packed up my stuff. Since it was around 1:00, I headed off to visit with Chad. When I arrived (around 1:30) he was just getting out of his car in the parking lot. I drove up and called out my window, “Hey you!” I got a big smile and an even bigger hug out of him. I think he’s been lonely since moving away from MA and most of his friends. We walked inside and I bought myself a nibble while he punched in. Then I sat at the bar and we chatted for 15 or 20 minutes while I ate. Then business was starting to pick up and I didn’t want to distract him and get him backed up (since he was at work) so I hit the road for Vermont.
It was a gorgeous day for a drive. Mostly sunny, with some scattered clouds to cast dramatic shadows on the mountains, temperatures were in the mid 70s. Just really, really gorgeous. I’m so glad I took the scenic route home, even if it did take me longer than the highway. I stopped in at Bennington Pottery and found a few small items while I was browsing. I picked up two plates and two bowls. We’ll see how I like them. I’m planning to do a purge of the kitchen this fall, I have too many plates and bowls that I don’t use (or where I only have partial sets because either 1) I’ve broken things or 2) they were partial sets in the first place that I picked up second hand at thrift stores or flea markets). I’d like to get down to where I have a much smaller set of dishes, but ones that I actually like and use on a regular basis. And that are pretty. Pretty is important too. So if these work out, I might head back later in the fall, after faire is over, and buy enough to replace some of the current crop of dishes.
On the way home I stopped at the Scenic Overlook (at Hog Mountain? Not sure, I just know I’ve stopped there before). I thought I remembered that the tourist trap shop had a deli, but no, only ice cream. I bought a myself a chocolate shake to keep my blood sugar up on the rest of the drive home, because by this point it was way late to be eating lunch, and my waffle had worn off hours ago. When I got back home I stopped at the grocery store, and finally arrived back at Frogholm a little after 7:00.
I unloaded the car and put the groceries away, unpacked and threw in a load of laundry, and then settled down at the computer. I caught up on Facebook and Tumblr (but not on Live Journal, sorry guys, I’ll get to y’all tonight). And then watched last week’s episode of Outlander (for the fourth time). Then turned off the computer and watched the second episode. In which we finally get the scene of shirtless Jamie that I’ve been waiting for. *happy sigh* I’ll admit it, I’m easy to please. Hunky shirtless man in a kilt? Yes please….