Little Stuff

Worked all last week in San Francisco. I had forgotten how much time and energy it takes to commute, work a full day with a brief lunch break and commute home. Since this was an arbitration and I was the Chair, I had to listen doubly hard. First to hear the evidence and then to hear and then rule on the objections. My style is to not give clipped rulings like - "overruled", but to rather phrase the response so the lay people in the room understand the why behind the ruling. Sometimes it gets me in trouble - sigh.

Finished up doing the 2 patches for the Queen's Champion's cloak. These were wool on wool with gilded leather couched around the edge. Nothing fancy and I forgot to take pictures (bad Sabrina). The Queen was worried about having some nice patches for the Champion's cloak -- a notch above the ones being done for the Guardsmens cloaks. The Needleworkers Guild was having a class on this technique at Crown. I purchased 2 of the kits from the instructor to do the badges and the instructor was kind enough to do a badge also. So there are at least 3 nice patches. I feel a little guilty since all the members of the court are doing badges - some more than others, but still. Did roses for the Queen to give as thank-yous to her sewing team as well.

This week I need to concentrate on doing my next column and the associated project - Blackwork: Filling Patterns. I've decided to do a figure - a la Scholehouse For the Needle and then doing the filling in 2 styles - one traditional blackwork and the other with metal thread, but blackwork patterns. My target is a needlecase. You will have to wait for the magazine to come out to see the project - Needlepoint Now --- Blackwork Bands will be May/June and Blackwork Filling Patterns will be in the July/August issue.

In addition, I need to do MORE Dyeing. It seems that if I want to knit up the yarn I have and felt it for the project I have in mind, I need TWICE as much yarn as I have already dyed. Sigh! So I have some walnut left (2 oz) and can do a bit more of it. I have tumeric and can do some of it. Have ordered more materials and hope they arrive before I leave on the trip. I'd really like to take the 2 pounds of yarn and get it done up.

Then I also need to get the laptop up to speed. Load all the software, etc. We really hope to be able to upload webpages of the trip to our personal website for our friends to keep up with our adventures.

And the countdown begins.....10 days....