The only picture I have so far of myself at Coronation. I was honored to be asked to help hold the canopy for Their Majesties. Special thanks to Michael Coward for taking the picture.

I had a wonderful time at Coronation last weekend.  The weather was lovely although the wind gave us quite a lot of problems on the field.  The 30 mile and hour gusts that had been forecast ended up being pretty much constantly sustained.  We had several tents blown down and the list fence blown over before we had to pull them all down.  Sadly our little 16′ x 16′ day shade was among the casualties.  The wind ripped out a big section of the center.  Thankfully, it’s totally mendable and our marque, which we were also using, was totally unharmed.  Guess I’ll be making lemonade with a tent mending tutorial.

I was the field steward for the event so I ended up spending most of the event setting things up and taking them back down but I did get a chance to judge one of the St. Catherine’s A&S tournament entries.  For those of you who haven’t heard of St. Catherine’s before or who live outside of our area, St. Catherine’s is a rather intensive A&S competition in which the total number of entrants is restricted and each entrant must preregister months in advance.  All documentation must be turned in in advance and is disseminated ahead of time to the judges.  On the day of the competition each entrant spends at least 30 min with their judges giving an in person presentation and receiving feedback.  It’s really an excellent competition and we had many amazing entries.

With my field steward duties and the A&S judging I had already signed up to do I ended up deciding not to fight.  It was probably for the best since I don’t know how I would have squeezed fighting in but I did miss it by the end of the day.  Guess I’m just going to have to make sure I get in more than my fair share next time to make up for it.

The fighting was a lot of fun, even if my head wasn’t in the right space.  With the wait while people moved their cars of the field so we could start fighting and a few other things that went on I found it very hard to focus on the fighting.  I still did very well in the speed tourney, making it into the double elim.  I did not do as well in the double elim as I did in the speed tourney but I know the adjustment I need to make.  It was very different than the Ymir tournament that I am used to, but it was no less enjoyable.  The only real drawback for me was that the tourney style that was run didn’t really allow for the personal evaluations I like to be able to do at Ymir so I will need to find another tourney where I can make those evaluations.  All in all though I had a great time.  I did end up missing the tavern brawl melees so I could attend a vigil but I made it back in time to watch the Free Scholar prize and get in some pickups.

One of my favorite parts of the event though was getting to spend some time chatting with people I do not get to see often.  Lately it seems that when I’m at an event I’m always running to the next thing and I never get the chance to really stop and talk to my friends.  It’s a bit disappointing because so many of us seem so spread out and busy now that we only get to see each other in passing at events.  This event though I really tried to take more time to hang out and chat.  I still didn’t get to chat for as long as I would have liked with some but it was still really nice and really enjoyable.  I’m going to make a point of slowing down more at events in the future so I can spend more time chatting with the people I went to the event to see in the first place.

The last highlight of the event was finally getting off my bum to talk with Master Eldrid about some heavy armour I’ve been meaning to commission.  We talked about a helm, gauntlets, and some other small things.  I want to get back out on the field with my spear for wars and I’d like to pick up a few more authorizations so I can fight in some Pas.  I’m pretty excited about it.

The only low light of the event was how late it was when I left.  Gaston had been onsite Friday night to guard for Melisent la Ruse’s vigil.  I had decided to daytrip so I could watch the puppies and we had both decided to come home Saturday night so we could have Sunday to put stuff away and recoup.  We took the dayshade down and were packed up by 5:30pm and that was the time I headed up to court.  Baronial Court was ending and I felt rather guilty for not knowing that it had already started.  I usually make it a point to stay for court.  You never know who will be getting an award and everyone deserves to have people there to witness their recognition.  Getting called into court is a very special moment, regardless of the award being given and I think it’s important to be there.  But I digress.  Royal Court was set up once Baronial Court ended and it started not too long thereafter, probably around 6 or 6:30pm.  I enjoyed court and I was happy that I got to stay to see Andreas’s Pelican and Liva join the Order of the Laurel.  Livia was the last piece of business and I left as soon as court was over.  Now I expect Ymir courts to be long.  There’s a lot of people and a lot of business.  But leaving site at 8pm to drive 2 hours home by myself has totally made it on my Murtaugh List*.  I got home and immediately told Gaston we needed to either stay on site next year or get a hotel room.  My vote is for staying on site.  Not only would we be waking up at the event but I would also have all evening to hang out and chat.

Sadly I forgot my camera so there aren’t any pictures.  I guess that makes two low lights.  Next time I’ll make sure I bring it and the Flip.

* Murtaugh List: From How I Met Your Mother.  A Murtaugh List is a list of all the things you are now too old to do.  It is a reference to the Lethal Weapon movies.  In this series Sergeant Roger Murtaugh was Danny Glover’s character and he spends most of the movies running around saying “I’m too old for this sh**!”

I spent nearly all day on Saturday working on my upcoming article for Foundations Revealed.  My last two articles for the magazine were on hosen and this one is on Elizabethan bodies.  I’m very excited about it and I got quite a lot accomplished.  All I need to do this week is work on the days I have mapped out and will be done in plenty of time for the deadline.

Sunday I fought and marshaled at House Red Wolf’s demo.  I had a good time and we got quite a bit of interest.  I’m looking forward to seeing some new members to the barony at future events, practices, meetings, and workshops.

I was particularly glad to see such a good turnout of support for the NCSU demo.  Many of us got our start in the SCA in student groups when we were in college.  Sadly however our local student groups have been suffering for the past few years and at points have had to go inactive because we didn’t have any students to keep them going.  These times were especially sad because they meant we loss use of University facilities (which were always great sites for meetings and small events) and we also lost the ability to hold recruitment demos for new students.

I know it can sometimes be hard to continually try to recruit and retain students.  Their class schedules and the work they have to put into their studies means that they can’t always participate regularly and retention can be difficult.  But I really think the enthusiasm and energy they bring with them both when the can participate and after they graduate make any potential additional work totally worth it.  I’m very excited to see our student groups coming back to life and I’m really looking forward to doing what I can to help them.

The current state of my new green linen Kirtle. The sleeves are attached, the hand finishing is done, and now all I need to do is hem it and sew the eyelets.

I spent most of this past weekend working on projects for various upcoming events.  My poor husband was on call all weekend which meant changing the planned projects around a bit but in the end I got quite a bit accomplished.

The first thing I worked on was pulling out all our coolers and our camp grill and scrubbing them all down in preparation for War of the Wings.  We’ve decided to run an encampment this year and I want to make sure all our stuff is ready to go ahead of time to help cut down on some of that last minute stuff that always comes up.

The next thing I worked on was cleaning, rebluing, and waxing my helm and gorget in preparation for Golden Rose this coming weekend.  They turned out really well but I think I’m going to need to add one more coat of wax to them sometime this week.  It did take longer than I expected but less time than Coty expected so that was great.  Afterward we went out for sushi with friends.

So that was my Saturday.  On Sunday I set out to clean the pavilion (more WoW prep) and hopefully get some work done on my green linen kirtle.  Coty helped me pull out the pavilion and lay it out in the sun.  It wasn’t very dirty at all but there were a few places where it had gotten damp at one point that I wanted to spot clean.  I got that taken care of pretty easily and left them to dry in the sun.  We got some lunch and then I set to work on my kirtle.

When I last blogged about this project my to do list was as follows:

1. clip curves
2. press front opening
3. make up new sleeves
4. insert sleeves
5. hand finish front opening and sleeves
6. eyelets
7. hem

After working on my kirtle Sunday afternoon it now looks like this:

1. clip curves
2. press front opening
3. make up new sleeves
4. insert sleeves
5. hand finish front opening and sleeves
6. eyelets
7. hem

I’m pretty pleased.  I got quite a bit done (pictures are up in my gallery).  I had hoped to finish the hem last weekend but by the time we packed up the pavilion, got the clean coolers and grill in the trailer, and got some dinner we were an hour out from True Blood and I decided to just enjoy a bit of a break.  A friend is hosting a sewing day after Golden Rose this Sunday and I think I will just work on finishing it up there.

Tonight I’m hoping to get some laundry going and finish the second coat of wax on my helm and gorget.  I’d like to go to fighter practice Wednesday night as well as Thursday.

A Saturday afternoon on the Spar.

This past weekend we went down to Beaufort, NC to enjoy some excellent Coastal NC wreck diving.

We arrived in Beaufort Friday afternoon and after checking in with the dive shop we enjoyed a lovely early dinner with friends at No Name Pizza.  It’s a great little hole in the wall pizza place that also makes really excellent pasta, burgers, and sandwiches.  If you are ever in Beaufort I highly recommend it.  We were staying in the dive shops dive lodge so after dinner and a quick trip to the grocery store for breakfast stuff and snacks we headed back to the lodge to wait for the rest of our dive group.  They arrived through out the evening and after talking about the plans for the next day we all headed to bed.  Morning would be coming very quickly.

We were all up by 5:30am and on the boat with our gear set up and ready by 6:30.  By 6:45 we were under way and on our way out to see the U-352.  It was about a 2 hour trip off shore and simply an amazing dive.  From the U-352 we headed to the Spar where we dove with some of the most beautiful Sand Tiger sharks I have ever seen.  Sand Tigers aren’t an aggressive shark and these guys were really very curious about who we were and what we were up to.  They spent quite a bit of time checking us out.  It was incredible.  After the Spar we headed back to the dock and after pulling our stuff off the boat and cleaning our gear we got showers and found a bit of lunch.  Our dive leaders had organized and excellent cookout for us.  Some rain chased us inside but the food was excellent.

Sunday we were up again by 5:30 and on the boat before 7.  We got underway by 7 and headed out to the Aeolus.  We enjoyed a very lovely dive on the Aeolus before heading to the Indra.  It was an excellent day on the water.  The seas were nearly flat calm and the sun and water were just gorgeous.  We got back into the dock around 1ish.  After unloading our gear and checking out with the dive shop we got showers and packed up the car to head home.  We left Beaufort around 3pm and after some lunch and an uneventful drive arrived home around 6ish.  We had a lovely dinner to celebrate our weekend and then happily crashed into bed.

Thankfully we had also taken Monday off of work and we spent the day at home relaxing, recuperating, and doing some laundry.  It was an amazing weekend.

We don’t have an underwater camera but some friends did get some pictures of us.  There are a couple pictures of me up on my gallery and I will be adding more as I get them.

I miss all my friends at Pennsic but I’m looking forward to the stories when they get back.

Not to worry though.  I have still been working on the items I outlined on Friday and I hope to have some more cool things up and running for you guys very soon.

1. My computer
2. My jacket embroidery
3. My kite

I have some graphic design work to do for another web project I’m working on but I plan on spending the rest of my weekend embroidering on my jacket and finishing some much needed updates to Elizabethan Mafia.  The things I still need to do are listed below.  I’ve already gotten about half of them done but I really want to have the other half finished by the end of the weekend.

1. Webpage write up for 14th Cen. hosen
2. Add write up to Silk Suit
3. Get Dueling article up
4. Write up for stockings
5. Add links to FR articles
6. Write up for red linen kirtle
7. Upgrade to Joomla 1.5.20

Don’t worry, I don’t plan on staying inside during my weekend at the beach.  But I do plan on taking advantage of the wireless connection at the club house and getting a good portion of this done while hanging out by the pool.  Afterward I plan on flying my kite at Jockey’s Ridge and maybe enjoying an ice cream with my hubby.

Sadly we didn’t get a chance to see the 17th Century shipwreck, but I believe they will be moving it to the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum soon and we plan on making a trip to see it as soon as we can.

In other news, some of you may have noticed the Affiliate link to Avahost.net that I have added to my blog and website.  Avahost is my hosting company and after having enjoyed their service for a full year I can now happily to recommend them to my readers.

Now I’m going to go enjoy a quick run on the treadmill, get some dinner, and spend the rest of my evening happily working on one of my current projects.