Nudity is Only Skin-Deep

I'm a hooker. I'm even part of a hooker guild. Rug hooking, that is. Last week, I signed up for an introductory rug-hooking workshop. It's a traditional craft practiced extensively throughout the Atlantic provinces, but somehow, I'd never personally encountered it before. I'd done latch hooking, but that's a bit different. Last night, I officially joined the guild. My current project is not a beautiful one. It's lop-sided and the colours are uninspiring, but I'm sticking with it anyhow. My niece thinks it's beautiful, but her standards are much lower than mine.

(One of my chinchillas occasionally develops male pattern baldness on his head, and I overheard her telling him, "Nadger, you're so beautiful with your white fur, dark eyes, and bald head.")

My current project is also supposed to be a chinchilla, so I guess it's all related. I think I'll give the finished piece to my niece, since she's its biggest fan.

Two weeks later, and I think I'm finally over this cold. My lungs are still tetchy, but I am thinking of giving them a test drive by going for a run shortly. I've also finally scheduled an appointment with a sports doctor about my ever-problematic foot. I sure hope he can figure out a solution. Last week, it blew up after a dance class and was hurting like whoa and basically feeling like it was filled with a bunch of randomly-placed bones and tendons. When my foot is acting up, I can't dance for shit, not even floorwork.

I attended an ATS class with mystress yesterday. It was nice to dust off some old moves I haven't thought about in over a decade. I'd forgotten all about the tribal variations of the camel. I always liked those! It's too bad I won't be able to attend all of the classes, but at least I'll get a refresher. And now I am thinking about breaking out the kasiklar for the first time in ages. I used to play those, sometimes even in performance. I remember once combining them with floorwork, even, which was kinda neat!

I've been doing so much dancing lately, and I love it. I'm intrigued by the differences between contemporary dance and belly dance. Right now, the fashion in contemporary seems to be in keeping the movements clean and unadorned, whereas in belly dance, so much is decorated with flowery arm or hand movements. I want to look into taking regular technique classes, but think I might have to travel to Guelph to do so. I guess I have some research to do!

In case I haven't mentioned it, f00dave got hired on at a sweet job, and now I am planning on going back to school for the winter term. I only want to go part-time, but I'm excited. I'd start in the fall term, except that I'm going to the UK for a while in mid-September, so that screws up the term. In the meantime, I'm studying outside of a university environment. I'm taking dance, yoga, and art classes. My first sumi-e class is this Friday, and I'll be starting an advanced yoga class on Thursday. I'm excited! As for university, I'm thinking of fine arts, classics, and/or Latin.

I'm also looking forward to continuing my adventures in textiles and costume design. I currently have no projects on the go, but that's partially by design. My office is in a dreadful state, and I'd like to get some semblance of order before I mess it all back up again. That being said, I think I'll try my hand at making a Viking hat, next.

I'm contemplating putting together an introductory workshop on tablet weaving. I want to experiment a bit more, first, though, so I can figure out how to fix other people's fuck-ups. I could also put together a workshop on how to make Rus-style poofy pants, or how to make a Viking tunic, but I think those might be less interesting to most people.

Well, mostly complete. I still don't have hose, braies, naalbind socks/mitts/hat, turn shoes, winingas, or a tablet woven-belt. But, ( I do have THIS: )

Yes, it's coat time again. I'm on a roll. I would like to finish the Viking coat for knightky by tomorrow. I just have some trim to sew on, and then it's done. I want to tablet weave a belt to go with it, but that will have to wait. I have a dress I want to make, next.

In the meantime, here's what I can show. The coat is very obviously not my size, but it fits Kyle just fine.



The coat that I based this design on was entirely lined with squirrel fur. Since that is not a viable option for me, I lined it with plain old lining fabric, and used fox fur for the collar as a nod to the original lining. Fox, squirrel. Close enough, right? I also made the collar removable with hook and eye closures so the coat can be dry-cleaned.



Here's the pretty, pretty trim I purchased specifically for this coat. I love it so much! You can also see a peek of the plain brown lining.

I will have more photos when I can put the coat on the person it was made for.

The coat continues. Here's where I'm at, now.



I've been hand-sewing silk/Merino wool yarn onto the edges as trim. It takes a while, as I'm sure you can guess. I'm attaching clasps. I still need to do the armpit gussets, and then finish the lining along the bottom, and hem the whole thing up. I want to add trim to the sleeves, and I also want to figure out how to get them from hanging funny. valkryor is awesome, and showed me how to line sleeves. These sleeves were fine, but for some reason, they're not hanging neatly anymore. So weird. They were fine at her place. I think I'll have to do some tacking up near the top of the sleeve. I just hope I can find a way that looks ok.

Eventually, I want to sew the yarn as stripes all along the body of the coat, but that's a long-term project.

I hope to have this done in the next day or two, because then I want to finish knightky's coat. So much sewing. So many coats....

I'm making headway on my coat. I have it mostly lined, and the sleeves are attached. I still need to finish lining it, finish up the edges, add the clasps and trim, and hem the bottom, but it's looking like an actual coat now, and not just a bunch of pretty fabric.

See?



I used the ghawazee coat pattern from Atira's Patterns. The pattern sizing runs small. How small? This coat is a size large, and it fits me just right. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not exactly a big person.

I didn't have enough of the silver to line the whole thing, so I used some navy blue for the top part of the sleeves where it won't show. I'm pleased that it's not looking like crap. Huzzah!

I still have to finish the accessories. I have a knit cowl. Somewhere.... I need to make a belt, arm warmers, and possibly a hat. I will wear my giant gold and black skirt underneath the coat. It's not a perfect match, but it's not bad, and I don't have the time or fabric to make a matching tiered skirt. I have grey suede pants with silver detailing which perfectly matches the coat, so I'll wear them under the skirt and hopefully keep warm. And because I'm wearing black with the skirt, I can wear my black jazz shoes and it should look fine.

All this, and I still haven't decided on the music for dancing, yet. Sheesh.

I went to Fabricland and looked all over for a fabric for my new Ghawazee coat. I wanted a white or pale dove grey wool, but none was to be found in the appropriate thickness. And then I found this in the sale rack for drapery/upholstery.

It's much richer in person. The photo doesn't really do it justice. It's a peculiar bluish-silver, with pale blue and gold embroidery. I plan on lining it with a heavy bluish-silver satin that my sister gave me as a birthday present years ago.

I also bought some dark blue and gold tassels, because I'm going to need a belt or hip sash to go with it. So now I just need to start cutting and sewing.

I always dread cutting into nice fabric.

So today is supposed to mark the biggest, giantest, most snowpocalyptic blizzard of forever and a half. I'm treating it like I normally do: ignoring it and going on with my daily life. Today I am off to teach a new session of belly dance at another community centre. I have a workout to do, and I have a client to train. I may even pick up a few groceries on the way back from teaching.

I will dress warmly, though. Three cheers for my hand-knit wool scarf, my winter boots, and my thrift shop-scored sheepskin coat!

When I get home, I have to do the dishes and maybe engage in some cookery. And then, if I have the wherewithal, I will attempt to teach myself some basic naalbinding. I'd like to make hats, mittens, and socks the Viking way. Look at some of the stuff made with this ancient technique:







And here's a tutorial:


Der Oslostich - ein Nadelbindelehrgang - MyVideo

And on that note, I'm off to teach my dance class. Toodlepip.

I was uploading a photo of my sister, and FB suddenly went tits up for me. I didn't worry. Sometimes the site crashes. I got an error message that read, "Account temporarily unavailable. Your account is currently unavailable due to a site issue. We expect this to be resolved shortly. Please try again in a few minutes." No biggy.

I tried again later. Nothing.

An hour or so later, it's still not working. But no one else's account seems effected. No one can access the wall on my account. So I submitted a report. Here's hoping they can resolve the issue. I do the bulk of my networking and event wrangling from there.

EDIT: It's alive again.

In other news, right about now, I'd like to scoop out my uterus with a grapefruit spoon. I had raspberry leaf tea, but it didn't seem to do diddly. So I took an Advil, and am waiting for that to kick in. I need to be functional, and not all bent over and clutching my abdomen. I have to teach a bootcamp class tonight, and I also need to go out for a few errands. There are library books awaiting me.

Ah well, I'll just do some reading for now, waiting for the meds to kick in.

In other news, one of my students gave me a set of weaving sticks last night. So now I have a new toy to play with. I ordered in an inkle loom, and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. Whee!

Link time!

Some fabulous leggings (thanks, chernobylred): Striped! Skulled! Mediterranean! Want.... I also want to make my own pair of these cage leggings. Easy peasy.

Historic Enterprises Dark Ages Clothing: Some excellent resources for my costuming endeavours, here. I want to make a whole outfit.

For sale, the house with a very strange hiss-tory: Desperate realtor slashes price on Idaho home infested with SNAKES: I'm not afraid of snakes, but there's no way I'd want to live there. Snake poo everywhere. Ew. And it would stink.

Basic Tablet Weaving: What I've been working on, rather sloppily.

If water retains the memory of whatever has been put in it, where do you obtain water with no memories?

Also, every time the formula is diluted, what happens to that extraneous water with the extra particulate in it? Is it disposed of in some fashion to ensure it does not contaminate the world's water supply?

I'm curious.



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Completely unrelated.... I started making bath products a while back. So far, I've made some lovely salt and sugar scrubs. I was going to make something else that contains borax, but now I can't remember what it was, for the life of me. And now I have a nice big package of borax and I don't know what to do with it. I suppose I could make laundry soap, but I don't really need any, right now.

I don't have lye, so making regular soap isn't going to happen.

Any ideas?

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I was hoping to join a craft swap group online, but after shipping off a few things, I don't think it will happen. Holy crap, but Canada Post is prohibitively expensive, now! It cost me $15 to mail off a simple toque. Crazy!

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I think I might start plotting out the Viking costuming I wanted to do. I have a bit of time, right now. Now, where to start? Hmm....