This....is gonna be a long one. Way back in the summer of 2019 my mom and I took a long weekend to travel to LA. The main reason for our trip was to visit the Getty Center, but we stopped by the fashion district as well....and dropped some money. I ended up purchasing 8 yards [...]
Category: 16th century
Tiny Human and the Sleeves of Doom

Ok. Where were we. March-ish? Right, well in the intervening time I have: finished all my classwork for my master's, done all of the research AND written up my dissertation, gotten a job (ok, internship, but paid), moved countries (again), and packed most of my reenactment kit into a box that I will see again [...]
Zen and the art of not messing up counted thread embroidery

The most common thing I hear when talking to people about my counted thread embroidery obsession is "I can't do that, there's too much counting and looking at charts". And they do have a point-- if you are a person who hates looking up from your work, finding your place in a chart, and looking down again, counted thread might drive you a bit mad. But, there are a number of tricks you can use to make the whole process easier.
I blame grad school

Once again I am back to confirm that yes, I am alive, and yes, I am still making progress on various projects. Slowly. I also wanted to announce that I am participating in the West Kingdom's Virtual Artisan Display for March Crown, so if you want overviews of some of my recent projects with everything, [...]
Recent Successes

I know, I know, I have been failing at blogging. But to be fair I changed countries, self-isolated for COVID, yelled at the medical centre until they refilled one of my essential medications, and had technical difficulties with literally every electronic thing I own. Oh and started the second year of my MPhil. Nbd. For [...]
Blah Blah Black Sheep

I was really extraordinarily surprised when my last post (cough RANT cough) about the history of colored sheep, a topic that is normally considered to be esoteric beyond belief, conjured a lot of interest in a follow-up. So Jason, Ari, and Randall, wherever you are, this is for you. It's pretty common knowledge that a [...]
Designing for Heat
Hopefully some of you remember the Avoiding Heatstroke Dress from a while back, which was intentionally designed and built to keep one (1) tiny human who is bad at homeostasis from developing heatstroke at events in the 95-105 ºF range. It was....moderately successful, I survived June Crown 2018 but Purgatorio 2019 killed me. It [...]
Projects I will probably never make
Hip hip…vivat?

Drachenwald Crown Tourney has come and gone, actually more than a week ago? I did kind of massively overdo things that weekend and spent most of the week recovering. But! I went! I did finish my fitted gown in time, thank god, because it was chilly. Going up the spiral staircase to the dormitories in [...]