Battlemoor - Getting ready for the fight

This weekend close to 50 people descended on the Battlemoor site at Walsenburg CO. It was amazing! One of the prettiest pieces of land I have ever seen. While the camping will truly be primitive I can't imagine anyone complaining about it. The Views!! Oh my lord it was something that I will always remember. Majestic mountains rising on the western side and a mesa vista that spreads out for a hundred miles on the east. There were moments when I was speechless.

The work was grueling, but honest. Labor having never been my forte, I still managed to put in my four hours. We cleared scrub brush, cut wood and hauled it all off to make way for wonderful camping sites. The babbling brooks and streams were a lovely accompaniment. The weather turned hot and cold all day, but never too much of either while the work was being done. The evening was a different matter. I understand it was miserably cold. I opted to come home and finish working on Bela's garb. I was thinking I would miss out and wishing I had stayed, but not after I heard how cold everyone had gotten.

The next Work Day is 5 & 6 June. I'm looking forward to it already. Now I have to get on to making all of the little things I promised for the event. Wash stations, stenciled hangings, signs, glow in the dark path markers. Lots to do.

Coronation Garb is DONE!

His Majesty Bela's coronation garb is done. What a difficult project. The patterns just kept getting weirder and weirder. 100 inches for the waistband of his pants????...Really???? And it was so diffcult to get a real perspective of the pieces I was working on. Somewhat like sewing a tent. It's just so big that you can't really see how it drapes and falls because there wasn't anything to hang it from.

But after much trial and error I think I achieved something that he can wear. My only wish was that I could have had a fitting before turing it over. But it is finaly out the door and on it's way to Their Majesties castle. I added a couple of nifty details. Some hand carved chinese wooden beads became uber cool buttons and I placed a iron on apple patch over his heart on the inside of the Over Vest. Annas device is apples so I am hoping he will be charmed by the detail and not see the problems inherrent with the over all design.

Today I get to work on my own new gown for this weekend and finish up cutting out plastic patterns for Their Majesties as a parting gift. I also have several more of Bela and Anna's garb pieces I could finish up to give to them this weekend. Let's see how much of this I get accomplished before Friday.

Unser Hafen's Studium

This past weekend I attended Unser Hafen's Studium. As always it was a delightful event of learning and catching up with old friends. I did more catching up then learning.

I was able to promote the Batlemoor Garden Project with both Mistress Angest and Mistress Leonora. Both felt it had merrit and we are going to see if we can make it happen this year. The ball is now in my court to get them the info to pass on to their garden club members and I need to find the Outlands Gardening list on yahoo and post info to the Outlands Kingdom page. If I can bring everyone together we can start a dialog on how to get this working.

Milianori's Hat Workshop was the only class I had time to attend. I could have spent more time actively sitting in and seeking classes, but I was having too much fun sitting and talking to people. Also Kira and I arrived a bit late at 11am. The Hat class was great. I learned how to make buckrum and wire hat frames from scratch. I very useful skill that I hope to employ soon.

Kira attended Meenakshi's Indian clothing class and has a new found lust for sari's. She of course is hoping that I can reproduce the things that they talked about. Unfortunatly I did not attend the class. So I guess we will see.

We headed out while court was in session. Kira and I stopped at the Pita pit and had gyros and falafel. It was OK. Not Nick's food but certainly better the a burger. After food we headed over to Helene's home. It is a true masterpiece. The whole house is built like a period Tudor home. We got the nickle tour and I must say I was impressed. I wish I had photos to post.

The ride home was helped by a Moster Shot which worked much better then I expected it too. Kira slept and I got time to myself to think. My favorite way to travel.

The Kings new clothes

I am asked to make His Royal Majesty some new clothes. I am deeply honored. I have made two set for Her Majesty Anna. I like to think I did well on both sets. Hers were so very lovely and easy to make. You see she had a pattern. Which with only a little modification I was able to use. King Bela's however is a page of drawn pattern pieces with associated numbers for measurements. I have spent some time looking at these figures and patterning them out. But for the life of me I am having a difficult time making a 24 inch arm seam fit into a 29 inch shoulder hole.

I would scrap the entire thing and start from scratch except that His Majesty is such a very large man and I do not have access to either his self or any of his current garments which fit. the two men in my household are no where near his size, so that experience on their garb will not really help me. So my best best is to use what I have and just press on.

So why am I sitting her blogging about not being able to get this right instead of heading into the workshop? Well I guess that is because I am doing my best to put it off.

Feast of Fools

This past weekend was our Baronies annual Feast of Fools. Last year the event was cancelled due to weather and this year looked to be the same. But we managed to get a lovely if windy day in between snow and ice storms. I wasn't expecting a lot and frankly some of our local events have become rather boreing. But it was a pleasant enough day though with little to do. That in itself was rather nice. Their Majesties were in attendence and Queen Anna had her mundane mother along. I spent a lovely 45 minutes talking to her. We had met previously and shared a few common interests. I live in a house next door to one of her oldest friends. She also works for Barnes and Noble and I hunt the book store regularly. She is a delightful lady.

Duke Garreck from Drachenweld has recently moved into town and he and his lady Countess Yasimin attended this as their first official local event. I had some fond memories of him as he was the sitting King when I autocrated my first Crown Tournament. He gave me my Linquiestring (sp). It was fun to sit with them at Feast. I was lucky enough to get a seat at the table as I had not registered for Feast and was thinking to go home when ThorvaldR offered me an open seat and Khiara said that I might serve for my meal.

Now the most wonderful part of the day was the fabulous Feast made by no other then Mistress Elainna (Mem as she is fondly known). She is one of the best Scadian cooks that I know of. Though I have frequently eaten better food, nothing is so consistently good as one of her Feasts. I heard her say that this was her last one. She feels she is getting too old to continue the Art of Cooking Feast. I am saddened by that but happy that I was in attendence. Mistress Rivka was there as well as THL Ursula. Both are such wonderful people to see. You never get to talk to them however as they are always too busy in the kitchen.

We ended the evening at Club Dragonsspine in THL ThorvaldR's home. It was a very good evening catching up with old friends, many of whom had not attended the event. I had only one Cosmo and suffered it's ill effect all through the following day. At leaste I did not wrinkle up like a prune this time. So much for my wild life.

Spring Crown

I had a great time in al Barran. the weather was perfect that day. Days before and days after it snowed like crazy. But for Crown it was a balmy 80 degrees and sunny. I actualy got tan. I could live there. Wish Tim didn't think it looked like Baghdad.

The fighting was exciting I'm sure. I don't really know I was having too much fun meeting up with old friends who I seldom get to see because I never travel that far south. Monica von Zell was there. She really is my favorite person in New Mexico. Aside from being one of those few people who was a friend almost 3 decades ago, she is just wickedly cool. She helped make the donation lunch. As usual it was outstanding. I bought the recipe booklet. You can't go wrong when you soak anything in honey.

I finished up Her Majesties new dress. I must say the buttons were over the top. 2 inches of fabulous gold and pearls. But they looked great on the brocade. Pink really could be her color. She says she got so many complements on it when she wore it at Gulf Wars. I'm very proud.

I thought the Battlemoor meeting would never start. But when it did things went well. I got a lot of very embarrising praise. now I feel like I will have to do something to live up to the hype. Giovanni and Cainnleach made me squirm. But it was very sweet that they think I've been doing something unusual. Wish I knew what that was.

The drive back was heavenly. Tim and Stephen both slept, so I got to spend 6 hours with my self. It was good!

I need to travel south more often.