uncharted waters

Leah's in uncharted waters, trying things she's never tried before and loving it. Most of it is happening without my help, by the crafter's choice and by necessity, since I'm covering a full-time job in a client's office this week and then doing my usual work in the hours before and after. You can imagine the chuckle I got when I noticed the camera was not in its usual place and I turned it on and found this:

She had been searching the Web and found Simplicity pattern 4510, then hijacked Scott's bakery delivery route one day with a detour to Joann's and with a xmas gift card in her pocket. Pattern purchased, she rummaged in our fabric stash to find fabric. It's not enough yardage, but she plans to simplify the pattern anyway and says she'll figure it out along the way. Well, okey dokey then.

There was cutting and sewing the other night, and apparent rummaging through the button box yesterday. I am concerned about the pattern size she chose after measuring herself, but she tells me she will figure that out later too if she needs to. No prob, sez the confident one!

Yesterday, I arrived home from client's office to an email from her with a link to this Daisy and Rose Irish Lace Collar, which she found via Ravelry. When she got home from an afternoon of fun, she dug around in the needlework supplies and found DMC Cordonnet that she thinks will work and a vintage crochet hook, size 10, that's way smaller than anything I've ever used. The pattern is from New Zealand and they use different terms than we do for crochet stitches, but the terms they use are also terms we use, just meaning different things, so that's a challenge. In other words, if the pattern calls for a treble crochet, you don't do what we know as a treble crochet, but instead do a double crochet. If the pattern says double crochet, you don't do our usual double crochet, but instead a single crochet! I told Scott it's like if somebody said, "I would like you to help me paint this fence" but what they really mean is "Let's go to the beach tomorrow." The pattern makes perfectly good sense as we see it, but it means something entirely different!

Once she got the hang of how this all works, she was off to do her thing and here's where her first motif is this morning.

Her gauge is way, way off (loose = bigger), but she doesn't mind, says she'll just make fewer motifs or have a more elaborate collar than the original. Blocking will, of course, result in a miraculous transformation too.

Rock on, kiddo!

hangin' with the Redcoats

Since we've been loving Old Sturbridge Village's Redcoats and Rebels weekend for years now, you've seen plenty of pics of it before, but here are some highlights from yesterday's event.

Reenactor using a lucet to make a square cord. I've known about lucets, but never tried it and never seen one in action, so this was a fun thing to come upon.

My favorite independent reenactor, proudly wearing the dress she sewed specifically for this event. She started with this Simplicity pattern as a guideline, but modified the heck out of this thing because she had way less fabric, time, and experience than it called for. The pattern talks of boning, lining, bias tape -- all sorts of things Leah had no intention of fussing with, so she just skipped those parts of the instructions and made modifications where necessary. When it became clear that there wouldn't be enough time to finish her crocheted lace collar, she subbed in a fabric one. Cotton fabric and buttons from our stash, "petticoats" from my wedding dress storage box. :-) There's lots of room for improvement, of course, but she is ecstatic with the results and her mind is spinning with more sewing ideas. Given how many times she was stopped along the way at Sturbridge yesterday by people asking if they could take her picture (and given how many people in costume were there, the fact that she was picked out of the crowd so often is truly astounding), she certainly had a lot of encouragement as a result of her efforts!

Reenactors enjoying some shade near the blacksmith's shop while troops and spectators gather in the distance for the big battle.

Jesse with some tired reenactors after the battle, chatting it up about the weapons collections. This guy made his big gun from a kit and, like all enthusiasts, was happy to discuss its finer points as long as there was an interested audience. Jesse spent the early part of the way with the historic miniature gaming group from Boston. He discovered this group at Redcoats and Rebels last year and has since become involved with a group locally, some of whom are also members of the Boston group, so he enjoyed being welcomed back this year as an experienced historic gamer who could help other new folks learn the game.

A new experience for us this year was the comfortable feeling of being a part of it, not just visitors. We know some of the reenactors through the Nathan Hale Homestead and the fiber community, knew the gaming guys from last year and the local group, are recognized by some of the OSV staff because we've been going there forever, and just generally bumped into people we knew all over the place and found ourselves in pleasant conversation with other people everywhere we went. No doubt about it: this is one of our favorite events of the year.

Then we came home and I worked on my secret project, which hit a huge roadblock. I can't bring myself to look at it yet, but will re-evaluate later today and determine course of action. Let's just say that everybody 'round here wisely gave me lots of space by bedtime last night.