frualeydis | Reading

I had forgotten that today was when clocks change, till I woke to head to the loo, and my phone said it was 04:00, so I wondered if I should just get up and di an early workout, but when I returned to bed the dawn light said 03:00, at it sounded much less appealing, so back to sleep I went, not waking again till the phone said 07:18. Keldor woke then, so we wound up talking for an hour before we got up and played Qwirkle over breakfast (I not only won, but got a record high score, for me, of 79 points).

Today was Reengarda’s crafts day in town, but we decided to stay home and work on our project here (this decision prompted in part by a discussion with my sister in Australia about fuel prices just now, and realising that it cost even more here than there).

So today was the day we fixed our newest tent. When we were in Lofoten last summer and needed something in the way of a roof over the outdoor smithy to keep rain out of the forge, they discovered that one of the geteld tents hadn’t been dry when it was put away last summer and was so mouldy that it would need to be thrown away. We pointed out that mouldy canvas couldn’t be hurt any more by smoke from the forge, and they agreed, so the back wall was sliced open with a knife, and it became a lovely sunshade:

At the end of our couple of weeks out there, when we took it down for the end of the season we realised that having it out in the sunlight, plus all the smoke from the forge had worked magic, and while discoloured, it no longer smelled of mould. We couldn’t bring ourselves to throw away that much canvas, so we rescued it.

Today it was time to fix it, so it will be usable at Double Wars. So we took a strip of canvas from a hammock Keldor found at a second hand store sometime this winter (the hammock looked new and unused) and sewed it (by hand) to the knife-cut tent wall. Keldor did the first pass of sewing, while I cleaned the dust off the under floor layer in the attic loo. (the rest of the hammock is a good size to make a bag for storing/transporting the tent).

Then I folded the strip of canvas over the seam and sewed down to seal in the cut edges, while he went upstairs and installed the linoleum floor.

Then he did top stitching through all the layers of the seam to strengthen it, while I painted the the first layer of paint on the wood trim that will go between wall and the floor.

Then we took the tent out and put a stick of rattan in the top channel of the tent, staled down the walls and lifted up the ridge pole and compared the tent height with pavilion poles from our sunshade. This tells us that we want uprights that are about 2 m, 30 or perhaps 40 cm tall, so he will make some.

Then we pack the tent fabric into the car. Tomorrow after work he will use the high pressure wash on it, and hang it to dry in the shop overnight. We don’t expect it to be perfect, but it should be useable for Double Wars. We have quite a few people who need crash space in tents in our camp, and the price for this one was right.

Then we curled up on the couch with some popcorn before I went down to paint the next layer of paint on the trim.

kareina

I went to bed early last night, which meant that I woke early, too. I started my day with a quick pilates session, and finished washing all of Reengarda’s black sheets that we use as tablecloths at events.

Once Keldor got up around 07:00, we noticed that one of the center bed legs had fallen down, so we took everything out from under the bed, fixed the leg, vacuumed under there, and put things back in a better order, so nothing will get pushed against that leg and knock it over again.

Then we did a quick game of Qwirkle over breakfast (he points out he slaughtered me), and then started working on the house.

First up, trying to solve the problem with the cellar floors flaking in a few ares. When we bought the house there were places on both the walls and the floors that had been flaking, due to too much moisture. We solved most of that by just opening all of the ventilation in the cellar, which the previous owner had blocked with newspaper. But the closet we had spackeled and fixed the walls and floor before painting it four years ago is starting to have flaking issues again.

So Keldor bought some vents for the various doors, which we installed this morning. By the time that had been accomplished the last load of shire tablecloths we dry and ready to pack, so we could start working on the loo, where we got a far bit accomplished:

finish putting up the outer wall over the insulation on the laundry room side.
then he put up most of the drywall on the bathroom side of the wall, while I spackeled the outer wall.
he started working on the ventilation for the room, he installed the collection box, with its sound damping and one of the vents. (There was already a fan at the exit vent that the box now covers, but now it won’t be so noticeable)
He drilled the large hole in the wall through which vent tube will run, to carry moist air from the laundry room and out that collection box (there are advantages to living with a partner who installs ventilation for industry buildings for his day job (he want me to add that he is also seriously cute, and talented at Qwirkle))
eventually he reached a good breaking point and went upstairs to feed the fish in the aquarium, and I cleaned the bathroom and laundry room, not only getting all the dust from cutting wood and drywall, but even cleaning lint out of the dryer door beyond where the lint trap is.
When I finally came upstairs, he was asleep on the couch.

I forgot to mention that our housekeeper made it over today as we were working. Can I just tell you how nice it is to have time and energy for doing these renovations because someone else is taking care of the basic “keep the house liveable” cleaning? We appreciated it extra this week, as they had a family medical emergency the week before, and couldn’t come, so we had two weeks worth of cleaning to be done.

kareina

I woke in the middle of the night with discomfort in my hip, on the left side of my tailbone. It has done this a couple of times before, always on days after doing the HIT app, which is weird, as during the training my body feels good, but clearly something is getting out of position doing it. Last time I found videos on line for adjusting one’s hip on one’s own, and it cleared up. But perhaps it is time to talk to a physical therapist about how to keep it from happening again, if I can find a good one.

I must not have remembered to plug my computer in properly yesterday evening when we did training, as when I got on the bus this morning, the computer started to turn on, and then abruptly turned off again. Normally I just work on battery power on the bus, and it is fine. I got out the cable and plugged in the computer, but it took a while before it would turn on. Luckily, today was a day I had a messenger conversation with my SCA mother, so I was glad of the excuse to not have a computer on which to work.

By the time she said goodnight my computer was functioning again. But by then we were close enough to town that it didn’t seem worth working, so I updated this instead, and looked up physical therapists in Umeå. There is one whose office is reasonably near the uni, so I may call them—they open around the same time I will arrive on campus.

I blame the hip discomfort on the part where I forgot to pack my water bottle, so all of I have had to “drink” during my morning bus ride is the apple and orange I brought with me. So, as soon as I arrived I went straight to the lunch room, and found a 2 liter carbonated water bottle someone had left, so I rinsed it out and filled it, and had something to drink from the rest of the day.

I did try calling a couple of physical therapists, and sent messages to a couple of others, but didn’t manage to find any with time today, though one I messaged said that they regularly get last minute cancellations, so it is always worth it to check.

During full department Work Place Meeting I was having problems hearing the speaker, so I pressed the button my hearing aids, and suddenly I could hear the sound from the microphone piped directly into my hearing aids. This is the first time I have neededthat program, usually a microphone playing in the room iis good enough.

While I was in that meeting, they delivered my office soffa. Yay! After the meeting I met with one of the PhD students who had been involved in digitising a lot of old documents associated with an archaeological excavation back in the 1990’s, to find out what they did and get an introduction to the collection. I have volunteered to see if I can make sense out of the information and transform it into an archaeological report to turn into the county in which the excavation happened. Apparently as one of the archaeologists who ran that dig later got a PhD from us, we are responsible to write the report, and if we don’t the county may forbid us to ever be involved in another excavation in their county limits.

My motivation, on the other hand, is to get a bit more directly archaeology related experience, and I think it will be fun to look at the artefacts and write the report. It will certainly need an introduction that says something to the effect of “for reasons beyond our control some of the information from this excavation is no longer available, but…”

So this afternoon I looked up the name of the person who led the dig and found them on FB! Much to my delight, I have one friend in common with them, so I sent the mutual friend a note and asked for an introduction. This got me permission to send a direct message, so now I have sent a note introducing myself, and asking if it might be ok to do an interview. I hope they say yes!

Keldor had planned to stay in town and catch a hocky game, which didn’t sound interesting to me,so it seemed like a good opportunity to do someabout the shire “tablecloths” (they are black cotton bedsheets, but they work fine as tablecloths), which had gotten wax dripped on them.

Just after I sent a photo of the project to the shire chat, with the caption “I am not saying I don’t like hockey, but this sounds more fun”, Keldor walked in the door, feeling sorry for himself, as he didn’t get to see the game after all. Poor thing. Apparently they normally play the game at the theater in Folketshus in Skelleftåhamn, and he likes seeing it there, in comfortable seats, with a crowd of fans, but it didn’t happen this time.

ironing

koshka_the_cat

And my dress, worn at No Kings. I love that creativity is appreciated there and in protests.

koshka_the_cat

I'm ready for today's No Kings protest!

koshka_the_cat

Some specialist I saw! He incorrectly diagnosed me with the cornea thing, and incorrectly diagnosed me with a partial hole in my retina

My eyes are nice and healthy except for not working well! And cataracts...

But only until the 7th! I'd have taken the appointment on the 31st if it weren't for this appointment! Oh well! I actually have another appointment that day for a thyroid scan that I already rescheduled once. My blood tests have always been good, but I have a family history and my new doctor wanted a scan. I'm ok with making my insurance work!

kareina

I had energy issues in the middle of the day. I blame the long day yesterday. So I took a nap and then painted the cardboard mock up for my Charlemange’s camera holder, black on the inside, gold outside, then painted on “jewels” and “pearls”. If we don’t get the leather version done on time for Crown, this may do the job.

But I managed to find energy in the afternoon and so put in a nearly full work day anyway, by continuing to work for a while after Keldor got home.

By the time I managed to put down the computer, he was downstairs doing the next step on installing the wall between the loo and the laundry room.

So I started sewing the first of the clasps to his Keldor copper trim kaftan, with pauses to help when he needed a third hand.

Here he is adding the last bit of frame holding the insulation in place (and serving as an attachment point for the wall surfaces).

putting up the wall

While the wall surface on the bathroom side of the wall is left over drywall that the contractor left here after putting in the walls for the attic loo, he is covering the insulation on the laundry room side with scrap OSB he took home from work. So when he was done with putting it up on the left side of the door I started covering the surface with spackel. There is more of that to do, but tomorrow is soon enough.

Good zoom training session tonight. Now we should head to bed, I have to go to the office tomorrow.

koshka_the_cat

Was the highlight of the day spurting gas on myself getting gas or getting knocked over by the win to spin wheel at the school's anniversary party? Who knows? Who cares? I'm off tomorrow for an ete appointment!

(I had to hold the wheel because it was broken. A mom, who I don't think spoke English well so didn't understand when I said to spin it gently, spun it hard and towards me, so it fell and knocked me down. Owwwww. I left half an hour early.)

Three day weekend and sleeping in tomorrow though!

koshka_the_cat

I knit two rows at lunch today. Sitting in the air conditioned hallway. There was no air in my room until probably 6th period--it was in the 90s today. But I enjoyed knitting, so yay!

And I love remote trading in Pokemon Go. I got an armored Mewtwo today! My pokefriend in Germany got a Galarian Articuno. You choose up to three pokemon and the person you're trading with picks which to give you. Very fun!

kareina

Today was a crazy busy day at work, with 10 hours elapsed between opening the computer on the bus this morning, and putting it away on the bus as we approached home. The highlight must be meeting colleagues from the library for fika, since Therese made a traditional German rolled cake, filled with cherries and cream. We all took seconds!

From there I went to the sound studio at Humlab to re-record the sound for the the tutorial I made. I only found out this week that we have a sound studio. Gee it gives much better quality than recording on one's phone. Then I used the computer in that room to re-assemble the tutorial using the video screen capture clips I had previously made. Since I had a spreadsheet full of notes as to which clip goes where, and with what bits of the script, I managed to get the whole tutorial assembled on time to catch the 15:30 bus, so only an hour later than my usual bus.

Keldor was just about home from work as the bus dropped me off, and it was raining, so I just waited in the bus station a couple of minutes till he arrived, and then rode home with him. Today is Sweden's waffle day, so we had waffles and a game of Qwirkle before I went upstairs to paint the last layers of paint on the knotwork in the attic. Next time we have time/energy we can put in the floor in that room, and then the plumbers can come back and put in the toilet and sink.

kareina

I slept weirdly, having strange dreams wherein I knew that I was dreaming, but I still endeavoured to solve the problem in the dream "just in case I wasn't". However, I woke with enough energy to tidy up the house during our morning phone call, and then mix a new batch of Muesli before work. Perhaps the fact that the flowers behind the house are already waking up helped with having energy for that.

koshka_the_cat

I finished the 30s dress! I need to go over it for little things, as usual, but it's done!

koshka_the_cat

I wasn't thrilled with the shoulders on my 30s dress. The slit barely opened and my slopey shoulders were too slopey. I liked the mockup more and remembered that it had more gathers. So I opened the shoulder seams as much as I could without undoing hems and gathered the front more and gathered the back. Much better!

I need to do a little touchup where I couldn't machine sew. It's best to undo hems, but who really wants to do that when you can excessively fiddle?

koshka_the_cat

I'm almost done with the first shoulder. It's nice to have the energy to knit!

Of course, I go back to work tomorrow...

kareina

It occurred to me last night that I truly haven’t time/energy to cut leather by hand to cut the leather for my Charlemange’s camera, the leather circlet to hide my new GoPro camera that I want to make for Crown, so I asked Alfarin if he could do it in his laser cutter. He was willing to give it a go, so I spent the day doing design. The original crown has 8 very different panels. It was faster and easier to make the the two side panels the same as one another, and the four small pieces the same as one another. My panels are differently proportioned than the original, in part because (I assume) my head is smaller than Charlemagne’s was, and in part because the height is dictated by the need to cover the GoPro camera. The full design looks like this:

The furthest left panel of the image is the back center panel, and then the panels progress around my head. Note that the colours are likely not what I will go with in the final version, they are just random colours selected to show that the original had lots of different colours gems, and if there was a pattern to the colour placement, it isn’t obvious to my eye.

The coloured bits representing jewels, and the larger arches with my arms and the laurel wreath will be painted silk. All the tiny black dots are holes for either sewing the panels together, or sewing the silk to the leather.

The leather will look more like this when it is first cut out (the black bits are holes):

Then “all” I will need to do is to paint the leather gold (or gold leaf it), and sew the silk in place, sew the panels to the headband, and attach the camera.

We don’t need it for a full week after I will be able to pick the leather bits up from Alfarin, assuming that it even works to print it. What can go wrong?

While I spent the day at the computer working on that Keldor slept in, and then moved to the couch to relax, and then went to the store to buy cat food and orange juice (he is not certain he’s 100% healthy today), and then he relaxed some more (hopefully it won’t develop into being actually sick). Good thing we made good progress yesterday on the house, but it would have been nice to have come even farther.

kareina

I knew that Keldor was keen to work on house projects this weekend, but I hadn’t realised he was thinking of the not only Create an attic bedroom, but even the downstairs part of Create extra bathrooms as well as the attic part,

I started my morning with a 25 min pilates session, by which time Keldor was awake, so we played Qwirkle over breakfast then went to the attic, where he resumed putting up insulation in what will be the bedroom, and I began painting the next set of decorative knotwork on the walls

When he ran out of the metal framing pieces he has been using to hold the insulation in place he went into town to make more, and I kept painting:

When he came back he had not only what he needed for the attic, but even frames exactly the right size to hild insulation to make a wall between the downstairs laundry room and loo.

wall from inside

In the evening Þórólfr came over for board games. We played Albion Protects Royalty (the Drachenwald version of Cards Against Humanity), using Sven of Reengarda, the toy Sjören, as the 4th player, putting in random cards. The final scores were 28 (Þórólfr), 11 (me), 10 (Sven), and 8 (Keldor).

Then Keldor and Þórólfr played Bradw, a complicated Swedish medieval version of backgammon. During that game I finished the embroidery on the fourth dragon for the Keldor copper trim kaftan

dragon number 4

Then we introduced Þórólfr to Qwirkle, and he won the second game.

After that game I cut a piece of heavy leather to test my calculations for my Charlemange’s camera circlet, and I determined that while it will work as planned to hold the camera, cutting all the pannels by hand in that thickness will take far too long.

So I sent an note to a friend in Luleå to ask if there was a possibility to get the pieces cut in their laser cutter and we could pick it up next weekend when we are there. Alternatively, I could do it in painted cardboard, but a leather version would last longer.

By then it was midnight, so Þórólfr went home, I did my yoga, and we went to bed.

kareina

Since I didn’t get the call that the car was done til I was more than an hour into the bus ride home yesterday, we decided to pick up the car today. The shop closes early on Fridays, so I decided to get the car first.

So I took my normal 06:20 bus (the earliest available). I worked on bus ,but only for just over an hour. Then I was feeling too aware that I needed to get off the bus at the first stop after we got to the city, so I packed the computer and got myself ready.

Luckily, the bus I needed to transfer to came pretty quickly, so I was at the shop at 08:00, which meant that I was at the inspection station in Ånäset by about 09:00.

I had planned to work for the 50 minutes before my appointment, but that shop is a “sit in your car and wait for the SMSto tell you to drive into the shop” kinda place, so I just scrilled on the phone, so I would notice the SMS.

It worked. Since they do inspections, which mean looking under cars, they have a valley in the middle of the room, and we are to drive over it, one tire on each side of it. I didn’t know that I have a phobia about driving over a hole in the floor that is wider than half the car, but it turs out that I do. Next time either Keldor takes the car to the inspection, or I drive to the door, and let the inspection people take the risk of needing to keep tires on either side of the hole in the floor.

Luckily, and not particularly surprisingly, given that the csr has just been fixed, it passed inspection.

Around that time I talked to Keldor, who had had such an effective work morning that they had already finished the day’s job. He has been commuting in his work car, so it makes sense that I drive in to get him, so he can leave the work car at work. Besides, we needed to buy more insulation for the Create an attic bedroom project.

So, rather that going home and working, I drove in to town and we bought the insulation, then we went to several second hand stores, finding a variety of useful objects, though not a suitable cabinet for the upstairs loo, which we had hoped to find. The day’s acquisitions included:

a black velor couch pillow

a shirt and a pair of trousers for me, and a pair of jeans for him

a couple of lamps for the upstairs room

a cookie jar

two bentwood boxes

Once we were home I started working on a new project I am calling Charlemange’s camera, and stayed up till 01:00, oops

koshka_the_cat

I bought three skeins of yarn for the lacy sweater. One got me through just over half the back. The front is slightly less yarn than the back, so the next skein will easily get me through that. Then the lace peplum, cuffs, crocheted (ugh) neckline and belt and belt loops (also crochet, but I doubt I'll do that. I'll try...) are left. The peplum is almost as big as the back though. It's a half inch longer than the underarm measurement (or whatever I decide) and it's wider. The pattern calls for it to be the same width, but I'm two sizes bigger on my bottom half, so I downsized the top of the pattern and am leaving the peplum the same size, or maybe even a tiny bit bigger, so it's going to be 26 to 38 stitches bigger.

So I ordered another skein. It's always so hard to tell how much you need with old patterns!

koshka_the_cat

I held up the skirt pattern to me again. Floor length. I don't want to deal with taking a foot off of it, so I'm using the Melisandre/linen skirt pattern. It was exactly where I thought it was, neatly labeled 30s scalloped yoked skirt. I pinned the yoke pieces to the base, and pattern! I'm going to add a half inch to the side back pieces because the linen skirt does like to unsnap, but that's not worth a mockup.

Much easier!

koshka_the_cat

The left shoulder on the sweater is growing, and I wound the second 450 yard hank of lace weight yarn into a ball.

The 30s dress bodice is almost done. I have to hem the sleeves and finish the neckline binding. The pattern calls for facing the sleeves, but that was too stiff.

As expected, I needed to tweak it a little once I sewed it. It's too long waisted in front and I opened the sleeve seams a little more. It's basically a kimono sleeve, but it has a seam at the top and the sleeve is open over the shoulder.

I'll do the hand sewing tonight and start the skirt tomorrow. If it gives me any trouble, I'll just use the seahorse skirt or the 30s Melisandre/linen skirt. That one does have flare that the seahorse one doesn't. I don't think it will give me issues though, even though I did notice it has straight edges where the original drawing of the layout has curves. We'll see...

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frualeydis

Evas historical costuming blog

November 2021

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Page generated Mar. 30th, 2026 12:26 pm

Eva's journal

I take pleasure in many things

Reading

Navigation

Double Wars prep

a productive Saturday

working at the office

No Kings!

No Kings!

Huh

looking like it will be a wall

Long day!

Knitting

a busy day

yup, it is spring

Done!

Shoulders!

Knitting...

now I have a good design to work with

progress in more directions than I had anticipated

lots of unplanned errands

Yarn...

Decision!

More progress!

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November 2021

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