Thinking bags...

Go Outdoors! called a few days back, agreeing completely that my tent did indeed have a three foot gash in the built in ground sheet and that this damage probably happened before it left the factory. I headed over on Friday night after work and picked up a replacement and fingers crossed that this time, it's as it should be.

Now we just have to find time to do a test pitch and this time, inspect it thoroughly!

I bought a couple of new books this week, Making Handbags and Chic Bags, both bought from The Book Depository. My thought was to have a go at making bags, since it would keep my sewing hand in but each bag should be relatively quick to make. Of course I hadn't reckoned on how hard it would be to find suitable supplies in Coventry.

I flicked through Making Handbags, which is a fairly basic book compared to Chic Bags (which has some very, very nice bags in it) covering basic bag designs - namely the tote, the clutch, the drawstring and the beach bag - and variations on each. I'd decided to have a go at making a basic drawstring bag, which is not disimilar to a tote, but with gromits set into the top and finished off with a clip on strap.

Sadly it was not to be.

I found some upholstery fabric offcuts I liked without difficulty after sticking my head into Busy Fingers in town. I rather fell of the wagon there, buying fabric, despite the fact that I've probably got suitable fabric in my stash, but it was pretty... And I justified the purchase after Dave commented that the fabric would make excellent breeches, so it has a secondary purpose already.

Then I walked up to Hobbycraft, thinking I'd pick up some grommits and either dog leash clips (as the book describes them) or key ring split rings. This is where I was thwarted. Hobbycraft had 8mm grommits which are possibly too small but no starter kits or die sets, to fit them. The 11mm grommits, were sold in starter kits but it was a case of you can have any colour you like, so long as it's black. Clips and keyring split rings were not to be found.

After scouring the store, I sought out a shop assistant... who proceeded to patronise me and act in a generally terse and aggressive fashion. She did try to help I suppose, but only after I stopped acting like I knew what I was talking about and apologised for expecting her to do her job.

I left the store without buying anything at all, which demonstrates just how frustrated and generally demoralised I felt by the time this woman was done with me.

So, no gromits and no clips which means I'll need to hunt down the required bits online.

On the plus side, we popped over to see Esther and family yesterday for a natter. I got to hold the latest addition and received some tips for the kind of store to search for. So far, the places which seem promising are Corsetry Suppliers (a store I already use here), leather working suppliers, saddlers and pet shops. I did look at online chandlers, who sell all manner of interesting clips but nothing quite like I was looking for. Bead shops sell lots of other things I'd like to buy and are very tempting, so I'm going to have to return for a second look. And of course, camping suppliers...

I did find out the proper name for a dog leash clip is a trigger hook - which helps no end when trying to do a search.

Not exactly restful

Friday night I took my new tent back to Go Outdoors! to see about getting an exchange.

The good news was that they still stock the Vango Venture 500...

The bad news, they were not willing to take my word for it regarding the damage and said I'd have to wait until a manager had time to inspect the tent and give their opinion as to whether the damage warranted a replacement or not. No one was available there and then and there wasn't much chance of anyone being around until some point next week. Rather than argue I filled out the necessary paperwork, including an extensive description of the tear and left the tent with them.

I now await their call with interest...

So far, this has a been a quiet and damp weekend. It's not particularly cold, just dark, damp and miserable out there. I'm still worn out from last weekend and with the work the way it is, my priority this weekend has been on recharging my batteries and spending some quality time with my other half.

We've cycled a fair distance this weekend and went swimming this morning (cycling to and from the sports centre, despite the persistant drizzle), which serves the purpose of spending time with Dave but has been hardly restful. The other thing I've discovered about all this exercise is it makes me very hungry!

My only contribution to decluttering this weekend was to pass a couple of kit items to Dave to see if he can find new owners for them via Maelstrom. Two were items I've never used, having picked them up new on speculation but never had a reason to wear them... And since then, my costuming eye has, er... developed a tad... Which means I've become more selective in what I consider suitable kit.

The other, a lightly used (one and a half events) dress I'm still deliberating on whether to let go or not. It's a fairly simple smock in cotton/linen, with beading and fringing detail on collar and cuffs, to make it more interesting.

At the moment it's in the 'go' pile, mostly because I can't see me needing it currently and I could always make something similar if I needed it. Finding suitable fabric would be a pain, but that is always the case.

What it does represent is a trip down memory lane and creative investment. Every costume piece I make has a bit of me in it and so, letting it go is always a problem. Not to say I shouldn't shed kit I'm unlikely to use again, but it's hard when you've an emotional attachment. At the very least, I wanted to record that I'd made this and hence why I've put a picture here.

I finally got around to blocking the scarf I knitted last month which has been sitting waiting for my attention for the past two weeks.

This is 'Scarf Askew' which I originally found on the now sadly no more Magknits site. So far I haven't found it published anywhere else on the internet, but hopefully its designer will upload it somewhere else in due course. The yarn is an aran weight, the discontinued Jaeger Sport in an interesting bluey/green which I think complements the manly nature of this scarf.

The only modification I've made is to add a moss stitch border, in an effort to curb the curl on this one and boy oh boy, does this scarf curl! I think it really wants to be knitted in the round and I think the stitch pattern would make some wonderfully subdued and manly socks. For now, I've blocked the living daylights out of the scarf and I shall wait to see if it holds.

Finally to end...

My current sock in progress.

As always, click on the images to see bigger versions...

Tension seems to be a theme here

With the end of the week looming fast, I've just realised that I've not written an update on here since the beginning of last week, which perhaps is a fair indicator of how things have been of late.

Work is being work and I'm under a lot of pressure at the moment, mostly because I've been given the go ahead for a project which has been on and off and then on and off and on... (you get the idea) All of which means I'm in full steam ahead mode without much time to do anything else, let alone think of blogging.

When I managed to squeeze in a lunchtime last week, I was working my way through an Anti SpamBot fix for the forums I look after, with a supposedly easy fix having so far accrued at least three hours of my time as I try to get it ready to copy up to server. Since its open source I can't guarantee it will work, but once I finish the last few tweaks (and I have a good clear hour to spare) I'll be ready to give it a go on the test boards before starting to do the same for the real thing.

Last weekend was the first proper camping Ascendancy event of the year and I was preparing for it to be a wet and cold one. As it turned out, things weren't too bad. Friday night the weather waited until we'd got the tents up and then rained heavily, on and off all night and in the early morning, but cleared for the rest of the day. It was cold but I was prepared and so it was definitely copable.

One thing of note was my new tent, bought last September and on its first outing, which turned out to have a three foot tear in the built in ground sheet. It had been partially repaired using tape very similar to the groundsheet, suggesting the damage happened at the factory. How it got past QA I don't know and it certainly shouldn't have been sold that way. I'm not impressed and will be taking it back to the store tomorrow, where I shall be pressing for a replacement.

Plotwise, it was an interesting event which turned into a very uncomfortable situation as plans came unravelled, carefully negotiated deals were thwarted and the whole thing descended into player versus player rather than trying to constructively deal with the problem at hand.

I'm still rather bemused by the way in which we were sabotaged; this happens to me on a regular basis and given the consequences of what happened I'm inclined to react this time. Still pondering how to do this and keep the character playable in such a small game, but it is going to take some doing to repair the damage, something which is going to have to be played out.

Overall, it was a lively game with (I suspect) some OOC personal issues getting in the way which didn't help. The way things went should represent something of a set back for the players, although if they pull together things could work out but we shall have to see what happens.

Knitting wise, I took a sock camping which I diligently worked on while drinking tea in the morning. Talking about turning heels with Gail also proved a helpful distraction to what was going on. A plain sock is easy and relaxing knitting and I heartily recommend it if plot you've been working on for over two years goes horribly wrong, it may save your sanity!

Hmmm... Maybe I should teach Andy to knit? ;)

The same sock went with me to the knitting group last night, where I asked for help from Jane in ripping out the heel. As soon as I showed it to Jane she could see the problem and said I should have photographed it to illustrate what can happen when your tension is way off. I knitted that heel flap on Monday and Tuesday night and to look at it, you'd have said it had been knitted by two different people with completely different needle sizes. On the Monday night it was way too loose and on the Tuesday I seem to have compensated and gone the other way, tightening the stitches so I was strangling the life out of the yarn!

I asked Jane to rip out the heel as the last time I tried that with a sock, I ended up having to redo the whole thing.

All is good now though, with the sock back on its needles and the heel about two thirds done with an even tension throughout.

Arctic Easter and Pink Fuzziness

With certain British papers starting the week with headlines of 'Artic Easter!', you can imagine the theme of the past couple of days. Brrrrrh!

Having never coped well with being cold, this did not bode well for me but even more so it did not bode well for the players at the Easter Maelstrom event, which includes my other half. I'd kept an eye on the forecasts so knew what was coming and spent a considerable part of last week persuading him to take a stove along, as well as lecturing him on not sleeping on the floor! Thursday night Dave weakened and finally consented to take along a small single ring, one gas cylinder, a billy, some tea and some soup (in addition to his usual snack foods).

As it turns out, Dave is one of the better prepared players on site - something of a shock in itself! Tents have been blown down or apart by the high winds, which combined with the snow/sleet/hail showers has driven quite a few people to abandon the event, which Dave says is very quiet (numbers wise) compared to normal. Quite a few of those who've remained have had to give up on their tents, bailing out for the relative comfort and safety of sleeping in their cars.

Not so Dave though, who slept soundly in his two sleeping bags and four blankets. He says the worst his tent has suffered was one lifted peg which meant the inner and outer tent froze to each other. His other complaint was that a billy isn't as good as a kettle when it comes to boiling water.

What a relief that he is OK!

On a knitting note, I finished the pink fuzzy scarf on Friday.

This is "Warm Fuzzies" from Stitch n'Bitch Nation. It is knitted in Paton's Studio Mohair, with two strands held double.

I pretty much followed the pattern, except that my version is considerably longer than the measly 54" suggested in the book. Since the scarf is only 4 1/2 inches wide, I wanted it to have a good length so it could be wrapped around the wearer's neck a couple of times, hence I kept going until the scarf was just over 72" long.

The result is very fluffy, soft and thick scarf which is very pretty as well as warm, which has pleased me no end. Hopefully it will go down well with its intended recipient come Christmas and yes, I'm thinking of Christmas already.

As always, click on the image to see a bigger version...

So now I have a spindle or two...

So far this weekend is turning into one of those expensive ones, where I seem to be falling over myself to spend money.

Yesterday afternoon, with a few hours off work at my disposal I headed off to the camping shop to stock up on gas and buy a new single airbed, so we're sorted for the beginning of season.

Then I had an unexpected visit from an electrician to deal with a dodgy socket and light switch. Unexpected in that I'd actually booked him for Monday, but he had an empty slot so wanted to come there and then.

Next up, I hurried over to a cycling shop where I took a good hour or so to pick out and buy a bicycle. This is something of a gamble for me, since I haven't been on a bike since my teens... Then, low and behold if Dave (who'd dropped in to see what I was up to) didn't decide to buy one as well!

Then today, to top it off we headed to the Re-enactors Market where I acquired these...

I picked up two spindles of differing weights because I wanted to see what they feel like, along with a little booklet explaining the basics and a couple of 50g bags of wool 'tops'. I've no idea at this point whether I'll take to using a spindle, but I'm determined to have a go.

I also picked up a costume book called "Historic Costumes and How to Make Them" which caught my eye. It's a generic instruction book covering the fifth century through to late eighteenth so I'm hoping might be useful.

Hopefully that's about it for spending money for a while!

Knitting wise this week, I've been working on this...

It's a mock cable scarf in pink mohair taken from Stitch N'Bitch Nation, which is a book I bought right back when I started to teach myself knitting. I remember when I first looked at most of the patterns in this book, I classified them as scary - meaning they looked far too complicated for me to even consider. Having picked it up again, it's comforting to be able to say that there are actually things in there I'd think about making now, which shows how far I've come since Christmas 2006.

Anyhow, I picked out the mock cable scarf because it's pretty, pink and girly, which I'm hoping will suit the intended recipient. It's a fairly mindless knit, which has suited me well this week as I'm feeling rather brain dead after being force fed project management jargon for three days. All of which means, that half way in I'm pleased with it so far.

It's official... We are completely mad.

Friday afternoon saw Dave and myself in a car, driving slowly up the M1 towards York for our first Ascendancy LRP event of the year. Slowly because of the weather which consisted of torrential rain, with the occasional bout of sleet which combined with the spray from surface water on the road, made driving conditions treacherous.

As I sat there, gripping the steering wheel tightly and peering worriedly through the haze, I asked "Dave, why are we doing this exactly?"

My other half hesitated only a moment before replying "Because we're insane."

And there you have it. No argument really. We are completely mad.

So started a very cold weekend, with rain and sleet on Friday night giving way to clear skies and frozen mud by Saturday morning. We were sleeping in dark age (ish) huts which are glorified sheds really, very drafty sheds. It wasn't so bad, we are after all experienced campers, fully equipped with four season sleeping bags, thermal underwear and many blankets so we were not as cold overnight as we could have been. But oh my goodness, was getting out of bed on Saturday morning a shock!

I voted for fire and being the only one brave enough to crawl out of her sleeping bag, I did indeed make fire. And I nursed fire all weekend, which I considered to be something of a success since it raised the temperature of the hut by a few degrees and I managed to do this without burning the wooden building down.

One unfortunate side effect of the low temperatures was the butane gas refused to be 'gas', preferring to remain as a liquid inside its canister. Fortunately, Richard had deep pockets and so ended up carrying the gas cans around to keep them warm when not in use, which is why we did manage to have hot food and drink throughout.

The event itself was fairly good and I enjoyed it I think, while being prepared meant we coped reasonably well despite the time of year. It was a little weird to be playing at Murton Park since the last few times I've been part of the ref team there, but I managed to make the transition I think.

I'm taking a rare break and not playing the event in February, with my next event being in March when I hope things may have warmed up just a little.

Of tents and men

This weekend just gone was a busy one. Not that I did anything terribly exciting - I didn't really have time.

Saturday morning was spent doing essential domestic things like cleaning the bathroom and kitchen before something nasty could move in. The rest of the weekend was spent becoming familiar with the intricacies of phpBB, glowering at lace or wrestling with tents.

Lace and phpBB will undoubtedly get revisited, but for now the topic of choice is that of tents.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a new tent to replace my good old faithful blue and red tent that I use when camping without Dave. I chose the Vango V500 and picked one up from Go Outdoors. Sadly, the first one I picked up was missing a toggle on one of the window covers so I took it back for an exchange which they willing did because I not only swapped it for a replacement I also bought a second one for Richard.

Not wanting to leave it until arriving on site to discover something more vital than a toggle was missing, I decided a test pitch was necessary. And being helpful, I volunteered to test pitch the one I picked up for Richard at the same time.

Cue a good two hours of fun on Saturday afternoon and another hour or so on Sunday morning as Dave and I unpacked, pitched, collapsed and repacked two tents. Our efforts were of course carefully monitored and at times aided by our feline companions, with Charlie being particularly keen to oversee the operation.

As you can see the tent is a good size and practically fills our lawn.


Sunday's efforts were much more efficient than Saturday's with the tent going up in under half an hour. It was fairly easy, but definitely a two man job as you need quite a bit of tension on the poles to get them hooked onto the pointy thing (a technical term for the pin on the straps) but no where near so bad as my big green tent.

Dave was quick to volunteer to check the inside of the tents for size which as you can see is quite roomy. Dave's final verdict being that he could happily see himself camping in one of them.

Broken tentage

The past few days have flown by, as they always do when I have a few days off work. Mostly I've been slowly recovering from my holiday, thrown in with a few necessary errands.

While we were away the door zip on our canvas bell tent gave up the ghost. It's always been a bit tempermental, but after the heavy rain of the first weekend and the resulting dramatic shrinking of the canvas, it went from slightly dodgy to near unusable. Hence the tent is going to need a bit of attention before it gets used again.

Now, anyone who's ever priced up a real cotton canvas tent will know they are darned expensive and not at all of the disposable variety. Which is the reason why I intend to replace the zip with dutch lacing.

A trip out to Jackson's of Old Arley later and I have big eyelets all ready to fit. A rummage through my stash produced lightweight canvas which should do the trick for re-enforcing the door flap, making canvas tape loops and an underflap. I'm currently thinking I need to add a couple of inches to the flap so that the loops sit behind the eyelets when the tent door is closed and I'm veering towards tape loops since I think the resulting fastening will be more stable. Input from those who know about such things is of course welcome.

Also on the tent front, my modern dome is also on its last legs. The last time it was used, during the deluge that saw huge parts of the Midlands under water, Richard pointed out the poles have split again. After careful inspection, it looks like all of the poles have hairline fractures, plus the inner tent's ground sheet is wearing very thin across a wide area. The tent goes up inner first which makes it less than ideal in rain and since I've already replaced pole segments twice I think the time has come to buy a new one.

The dilemma here is of course, do I buy now at the end of season or wait until next year?

I have seen a tent I like at Go Outdoors, so now I'm deliberating on whether to go buy it or not. The price is OK and the discount reasonable, but not mind blowing... However, judging by how few tents were available at Old Arley if I leave it for much longer there may not be any tents to buy until the beginning of the year.

All of which means I may need to go back and buy it...