A Day for Sewing and a Movie

[hrj]

Despite all appropriate protections, I seem to have picked up a little poison oak last Sunday at the Ed Levin part workparty. It showed up on the back of my knees around Thursday, so I'm guessing that I'd gotten some on the outside of my pants but then while driving home (before the clothes went into the wash and the body into the shower), with my knees bent and sweaty the sweat must have sucked up some poison through the fabric. I thought I was better than that about spotting it and not even coming close, but I don't know what else the rash could be. (Not too bad -- if I'm not touching it, it doesn't even itch.)

It looks like my letter of complaint about the lawyer is stirring someone to action. The legal referral company that sent me to him in the first place, having been faxed their courtesy copy with a more personalized cover sheet, called me up to see what they could do to help. I had to point out that, while I'd be delighted for them to put pressure on the lawyer to get his act together, I'd already mailed the complaint to the Bar Association. As I explained to them, I don't believe in threats, I believe in actions and consequences. He'd already spent two and a half months ignoring me -- the complaint was a consequence of that. Even if he makes it all good now, he still will have spent two and a half months ignoring me. If he wasn't going to do right by me just because it was the right thing to do, I don't see that it would make him a better person to do it simply because I threaten to file a complaint. But the referral service seems genuinely interested in helping get things moving.

I went off to the Windy Meads Newcomers' Collegium yesterday to give a lecture on "How to choose a persona and name." Small audience, but good discussions I think. I was very heavy on the " here's an enormous variety of approaches you can take" part, with a leavening of "remember that all your choices have consequences and some choices about persona and name will affect your options in the SCA more strongly than others." The funny thing is that I actually have rather strong and rigid notions of how people ought to approach persona and names, but that's in a separate compartment of my brain from the newcomers' lecture.

In theory, SK and I are going off to find an IMAX theater still showing the new superman movie this afternoon -- the only option seems to be in Dublin, but that's not too far. In the mean time, I need to get a bunch of sewing done on the princess's Vikings. The metal-braid trim is done for the upper edge. The lower edge may or may not get done before Pennsic, since I have to deliver it this coming week.

Comments

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

...pretty.

how do you do that trim?

[hrj.livejournal.com]

It's functionally equivalent to doing bobbin lace with metal wire. This particular design is a slightly simplified version of one of the BIrka trims -- the original had doubled wires where I'm using single. I work it on my lace pillow with pins over a paper pattern, just like for thread. The only significant difference is that you have to be careful to avoid kinking the wire, since it's hard to straighten out the kinks once they're in there. When finished, it's stiff but very flexible, so couching it down to the ground fabric also helps stabilize the pattern.

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

are you coming to Pennsic? That's just cool! what's the scale like?

I need to go dig in my birka stuff now...

[hrj.livejournal.com]

On my monitor it's displaying at life size. I think this may be a bit bigger than the original scale, but since I scanned the originals at a bazillion dpi (since I was scanning microfiche) I'd need to poke around a little to determine that.

I average one Pennsic per decade -- I'm due for my third trip in another five years or so.

[aastg.livejournal.com]

The metal trim is cool - it's wire, right? Knotted, or are those beads? (Slack requested for my middle-aged eyesight...)

[hrj.livejournal.com]

It's wire -- but the things you may be seeing as beads might be the threads couching it down onto the fabric.

[ssasha.livejournal.com]

Do you have a handout that you do for the Newcomers class? I would be interested in knowing more about how a name and persona affect your options as well as the variety of approches. I seem to have lots of new folks around me who ask me how to pick and choose. Maybe because I am stationary with my spinning wheel while everyone else is running around?

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Do you have a handout that you do for the Newcomers class?

No, alas. For classes like this, I tend to sketch out an outline, include a few reminder-notes of topics or examples I want to include, and then wing it. (It's what I used to do for most of my TA work -- except that then I'd need to come up with chalkboard exercises, too.)