Once again, catching up

It seems as though I can DO things or I can blog, but not both. I don't quite know how to find a balance, but I need to try a bit harder or things just won't get recorded.

To catch up a bit, we had our first official SCA event at the College in quite some time. It was called Bows and Blows, and needless to say featured archery. It was our first attempt at the sport and fortunately, one of the Kingdom Archery Marshals, Lady Constanza, was willing to fly out from the UK to run things for us. We had 16 first-time archers and the hardest part of the day was getting them to pause to eat lunch. When the archery finally finished, we  headed to my house for crafting and feast, after garbing up. It was too cold for the kids to shoot in garb, since most of them are in poly-cotton starter kit. Here's a selection of photos, beginning with one of Constanza and her longbow.

 

 

It was a really good day and the kids committed to another event in October, again featuring archery. They're also planning Bows and Blows II for April 2016.

 

 

This is what they looked like after shooting and fighting. It was a long (but very good!) day!

 



Spring is really coming!

My tomatoes have sprouted! As have the indigo and the foxgloves! 

Any guesses?

Can you tell what I've begun this weekend??

There is a 4-seat couch under there!

So ready for spring to arrive!

I have a terrible case of spring fever, so I gave in to it and started my seeds for my vegetable garden and the long-awaited herb garden today. The vegetables I started today include various heirloom varieties of tomatoes, peppers (sweet and hot), eggplants, pumpkins, gourds, asparagus, and melons. I have lots of other seeds ready for things like beans, carrots, beets, and corn, but those will be seeded directly into my raised beds when spring is really here.

For the herbs (and dye plants!) I've got indigo, false saffron, lady's mantle, sweet woodruff, sweet marjoram, German chamomile, lamb's ear, St. John's wort, rosemary, borage, thyme, wormwood, rue, chives, spearmint, sweet basil, catnip, parsley, sage, bee balm, fennel, celery, and rhubarb. Again, there are more, like dill, which will be directly seeded later.

Not that there's much to see, but here are the first planted seed trays. You can certainly tell which ones have been watered already!

 

Not that you can tell from that picture, but the trays are actually in the conservatory, so they will get lots of proper sunlight. I need to take some daylight photos of the conservatory, so I can show off the lemons and kumquats on the trees and also the lovely blooms on the camellia and azalea! 

 

Most of the new flowers I'll be planting this year will also be directly seeded, but a trip to the garden center is in order, to get more seed trays for the ones that do need to be started indoors. 

Small projects underway or finished

I finished up a small embroidery project this week. It's a portion of a large wall hanging for Insulae Draconis. Constanza started it, but hated it after finishing the gold portion, so I did the black for her.

I would not want to do another - so boring!

And another run of household badges is started. I need to have those done to distribute before Raglan Fair. These, on the other hand, are quite fun to stitch!

The patterns are made for Samuil's tunics, too. Emma and Snezhana are going to do an assembly line of basic tunics for him, based on the prototype I made. That will guarantee he has enough for long summer events (10 days or so).

Taking a step backwards

I never posted any photos from Yule Ball/ Kingdom University in December 2014. But I promised I would, so here we go.

This is where the event was held. Not a bad little castle! To give some perspective - that banner is 5 x 15 feet in size!

 

The weather was fine enough to have court outside in the knot garden. This is the induction of the new Kingdom Artisan, Jahanarabanu Vivana.

 

 

Here's a nice little picture for the Heralds! This was the backdrop for court.

 

 

 

Feast photos. Yule fun with the best of friends!

 

This picture is special. It's all the titled Kingdom Heralds of Drachenwald (Schwarzdrachen, Albion, Edelweiss, and Aurochs), except Posthorn, and he's here in spirit. See the little heraldic tabard on the red panda?

 

 

Heralds do get silly! Albion and Edelweiss loved this gift from the Holly King. It's a puzzle of heraldry!

 

Here's almost all the household of Linden Manor.

 

 

And here's how they really behave!



Today's progress

Got all the parts for the hood update cut out and ready to assemble. Also created a calligraphy and illumination area in the library, directly below the skylight. Cleaned the library - dusting mostly - and decided where to hang the large mirror to reflect the most light. All the C&I stuff I have been gathering up is now all in one place and organized, ready to begin experimenting! A good day, all in all!