Salt on my face

Cocktails yay. Plus moonwalking bagpipes were awesome.
I would love if Spain or Greece won and we got a complete budget eurovision. Like, we've already got a football stadium, so that's where we're hosting it. Here is your triplex plates over grass, single tracker spotlight, two people flapping cardboard for wind machine, and sparklers for pyrotechnics. Deal with it.

My prediction:
[23:04] <ArwenEurovision> Sweden, Russia, Iceland. italy and Estonia in the top 10.

Only wrong about Iceland. I must have underestimated how much people didn't want to get Iceland stuck with the expensive event...

Today I brought my cats to my parents' house as they'll be staying there while I'm off sailing. Tijg settled in immediately and examed everything, as he does. Spook was very worried for a while and then settled down a little bit and will probably need a few days.

My own place is very quiet now.

Tomorrow I fly to Liverpool to sign on with Pelican of London. I have not sailed on her before and will be watchleading, which is a little scary. I think I'll be okay on the sailing technical stuff (a lot carries over) but I have no clue about things like 'what time is breakfast' and whether there will be extra blankets aboard or a waterproof jacket in my size. There's a daysail on the saturday that I planned in specifically so I had at least one day to figure all these things out before I get a group of people in my care (on sunday) who will be asking me all those questions! I did just found out it's an adult voyage, not youf, which will hopefully make that a little easier.

Kittens!

If you think 'aww, kittens, I could watch them all day' - you can!

I did an Ikea hack thing :-)


( First it was like...  )
( And now it's like...  )

Epic IKEA trek was epic. NOT a good place to go if you don't have a car. When I got back home I was then dismayed to see that the DIY shop was closing early for Rememberance day and not opening on Liberation day (tomorrow) so I couldn't go buy a backboard, but found this old cupboard door in the shed. The colour is kind of horrible, but the foil will not take paint, and I can live with it.

I turfed a lot of stuff off the table, that's why it looks so neat (crap's now on my bed, so a lot of it will be going back onto the table..). But still. Happy with it. I bought a Ribba painting display rail too as that would be handy for machine tools, but there just isn't vertical space to put a ledge under the bottom basket and still be able to put stuff on the table down there. The Bygel cups on the right side aren't ideal for the machine tools though, so I may change something later.
It's not currently attached, but I need some parental advice on how best to attach something to a plasterboard wall, and it can wait.

I might make the (public transport) trek to IKEA tomorrow. I have a strong urge to make a yarnbombing-yarn organising wallplate out of plastic bag holders.
Kind of like this, but four of them horizontally lined up against a backboard. With a rail to put in machine bits and a hanging cup to put in the working tools. And I must have this NOW NOW NOW, hence considering the 90-minute journey to the nearest ikea..

This may or may not be connected to the 4 metres of drain pipe I've promised to make a covering for..

Last summer, because I was a rash and inexperienced knitter, I started a mahoosive project in kid silk (which is a very thin, fluffy thread, for you non knitters). This was before I had a clear idea of what my hands could handle. I managed to get about a fifth of the way in when it was put aside in favour of projects that didn't make my hands hurt, and then occasionally and sadly taken out and mournfully put away again.
A very lovely somebody from my knitting group offered to finish it for me, and I got it back tonight. And it is SOOO lovely, like snuggling up in a cloud. I offered to make her cake, but later on I discovered that she likes mead, so I might give her a bottle of the F batch :-)

Not actually in the middle, but a rather neat grouping all the same. I've developed a right-veering tendency I am trying to fix. And I got to play with a longbow! One of the instructors brought his basic one for me to try. It was really heavy (I've been shooting with a 25lbs recurve, so 35lbs was a strain) but I had a lot of fun.

Still to do:

1.     Vambrace tooling (they're more motion restrictive than I'd like, so I'm only going to be wearing the left one, and I'll see what it looks like after it's been oiled)
2.     knife + sheath (Don't have, but I have so many accessories that I doubt this is in any way needed)
3.     Bow (stained, made a different string. Still doesn't look like much, but meh, it's a prop)
4.     Sleeves (figured out how to hang them with an unobtrusive button and a loop of string.)
5.     Gorget/yoke - (mum did this for me and it looks awesome')
6.     Weathering and wearing everything - did some work on the cloak, but everything else needs a good drag through the mud

I just tried it all on and I'll have to pray for cool weather, because that is a serious load of stuff to wear. Lots of layers, two different belts, a sword, a bow, quiver, belt pouches - just the clothing layers weigh at least 7kg andit  takes about ten minutes to put it all on, too. I'm so going to regret this if it's 25 degrees...

On the other hand, it looks really cool.

Updated from here
I'm probably making some things more complicated than they need to be, but I am hoping that if I keep having so much fun with the archery I can join a longbow group that also does some creative/re-enactment stuff, and I might want to use this costume there. So it needs to be functional too.

Still to do:

1.     Sword sheath/hanging strap (decided on just a frog/hanging strap)
2.     Quiver (Tooled and put together.)
3.     Quiver straps (done)
4.     Vambraces (changed these from the film costume - no archer would have buckles on their inner forearm. Mine are very basic. They're currently at the shoemaker place to get ringlets attached to them)
5.     Vambrace tooling (they're very plain. Or I could just weather them heavily.)
6.     knife + sheath (need to look into what I can find that looks right and doesn't break laws to carry)
7.     Bow (have, needs staining a darker brown. The string is yellow right now, need to see what I can do about that)
8.     Arrows (need some that look right OR, since arrows with natural fletching are expensive and I'm not spending money on that since I don't know what sort of bow I might end up with and if they'll be right for that...  just keep the arrow sack covering them)
9.     Face mask (HIGHLY doubt this will be needed temperature wise. Overheating is more like to be a problem)
10.     Sleeves (at shoemakers to get rings for their attachment. I tried latches, but they become undone when I move my arms. Single bit of lacing, then. How did these people get dressed without help?)
11.     Gorget/yoke - attach an edging to make it longer in front, find a way so it lays better on my shoulders. (hoping to do this wednesday when at my parents')
12.     Leather canteen, staining
13. Weathering and wearing everything - I need to get over my selfconsciousness and just traipse around the floodlands in this stuff.

The straw bales were very evil, and so I shot them. Third lesson of the archery course. We're at 14 metre now and using a visor. I enjoyed barebow more (it has more of the feeling I'm looking for) but the visor undeniably helps accuracy.
I'm really pleased with my progress: good consistency, I'm getting some nice groupings, shot nothing outside the target circle, and 8/10th went inside the red circle. I'm managing to adjust reasonably fast to distance and stance changes. And I won the mini competition with 177 points (last time was 133 I think) which was 9 points ahead of #2. I hope I'm not just enjoying it because I'm doing so well.

I forget if I've actually announced this or not, but I have started a tumblr for my yarnbombing (and other world-weirding) activities.

http://weregonnaneedabiggerbrain.tumblr.com/

I bought a second hand yarn swift and a winder via marktplaats. ZOMG. Making balls with the winder is SO MUCH FUN. I must go and wind ALL the yarn.

No, not knitting needles, arrows! It was the first lesson of my archery course. And I loved it. Modern recurve bows to learn on (I want to go in the direction of wood/longbow later). Mostly trying to develop a correct, consistent stance. I won the first-lesson-beginners competition. By 18 points. :-)

My green finger itch doesn't usually hit before the first properly springy day, and that hasn't happened yet, but sessifet25's talking about sowing things did remind me to order planetplant seed. (Which, as an aside, I do from http://www.plant-world-seeds.com/ - they have lots of interesting heirloom varieties, and I like my weird tomato sorts :-). Seeds arrived yesterday.

Today it was kind of grey and not springy at all, but I made myself go outside with the cats and I readied almost all the outdoor containers, chucked a few poor things I'd neglected over winter, and sowed stuff. As usual I'm trying to strike a balance between sowing enough that I'll definitely have some plants to put out, but not enough that I'll be macheting my way through a gazillion seedlings. If they all do well I can probably hand some off to my neighbour and my mother, anyway.


I took the Avocado plant inside a few weeks ago when it was -10, but I think it might have been too late. Strangely enough it's still drinking water off of the tray, or at least I think it is, but it appears to be pretty dead. I'm going to give it until planting-out time to get its act together. If the seedlings are ready to go out and it's still not showing any lifesigns, I'm going to chuck it and put something else in the container. Space is at a premium here!

Remember that (Ithilien) Ranger costume I'm making? I'm looking for simple decoration patterns I could burn into the leather. I have a few star patterns and the white tree on the quiver, but since it's a common ranger, I don't want to use too much in the way of 'royal' imagery.
If it were a Rohan costume I could use simple Celtic decorating patterns and running horses, but I can't think of an equivalent for Gondor. Any ideas on what sort of patterns and symbols common people might use to liven up their ulitarian gear?

Inspired by a conversation on #afp: if you were ever to write an autobiography, what would its title be?

Mine: 'Running With Boltcutters'.

Yours?

So here's an idea. If I start knitting more Christmas baubles like the examples in this picture --->

And I offer them for sale for €10 per one and €25 per three, who would be interested in buying some?

They are a little under 7cm in diametre. I can make 8.5cm diametre ones as well, I have a few bigger cores.

My current idea is that people commit to buy, I knit them, and I make sure the actual transaction/posting happens by early november at the latest.

Any takers?