Eleanor's Closet Opened

I'm Moving

2007-05-15T11:05:00.000-05:00

to a new Blog location. Catch the new stuff here:

http://eleanors-closet.livejournal.com/

God Save the Queen

2007-05-04T20:14:00.000-05:00

Several of us from Gardner's Company received a huge honor today. Several of our guys were invited to serve as an honor guard for the Queen of England's visit today, and boy was it awesome!

At first it seemed that the women of Gardner's were going to be grouped along with the public, which was fine, but things improved dramatically once we were on site.

We were able to commandeer a most excellent vantage point.

And we were able to see just about everything from here, particularly our guys looking absolutely splended as the honor guard when the Queen left the Fort. Ron is in the foreground and Tom is in the background (most clearly, anyway). You can see Harv as well.

How awesome was that!

I'm back again

2007-05-01T19:18:00.000-05:00

I got back from my trip to Arkansas last week, but I had to fly down to San Antonio yesterday for a quick meeting. It's good to be back and in my own bed, at least for a couple of days. I can't elaborate on the next trip until we're back. It should be interesting.

But in between trips, we met up with some friends and went to the Fort Frederick Market Fair, held at Fort Frederick. This is strictly an 18th Century fair, and the vendors are held to that standard. It's a great event to find things like wools, linens, linen tape, iron ware, and general camp stuff. Some stuff is just out of our time period, but it's still fun to admire the artistry. Most of the vendors create their goods, so unlike Pennsic, there are very, very few "junk stores." Smoke and Fire was about the "junkiest" but they still have to sell 18th Century items or reproductions, so there wasn't any Wal-mart finds laying around.

The woman selling bread out of her cart grew the grains, ground them to flour and baked the breads. While pretty expensive, they were pretty awesome.

This is the stall that friends of ours were selling some 18th Century wares. Kelly is an excellent seamstress and has been doing fairly well sewing things for the Fort McHenry crowd and others. The tea urn is her acquisition for making tea and keeping it warm. She was awfully happy to find that!

There was a lady making baked goods in her brick/clay oven. Believe it or not, this is not a permanent structure. I got to talk with the proprietress and she was very interesting. Unfortunately she was done with her baking by the time we made it to her stall.

And this is my purchase. A 1790 reproduction reflector oven. Obviously I can't use it for Elizabethan stuff, but Fort McHenry, you bet! This makes some awesome roasted meats. I can't wait until September when we can break this in! This was a rather expensive purchase, and Jim can tell you I agonized over it. I tend to talk myself out of expensive purchases.

The Bandes did purchase some things, a few Father Christmas gifts, some iron table legs, and a couple of iron trivits. I personally also picked up a new grill. The tin monger and the iron monger were very happy to see us.

I'm on a business trip

2007-04-17T18:58:00.000-05:00

So I'm ducking out and doing this quick post.

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTP)

Your personality type is goofy, imaginative, relaxed, and brilliant.

Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 6% of all men
You are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

The Pictures are In!

2007-04-07T06:17:00.000-05:00

The pictures that Cindy took at Jamestown in March came in today! So now I can show off Jim's new outfit that I worked on.

But first, a foodie. On some of the foodie blogs I lurk on the latest recipe has been Hot Cross Buns. Having never tried these before I collected a recipe from BBC and gave it a whirl.

The Result:

The only thing I would do differently from the recipe is less lemon zest. I think there is just a bit too much, so maybe half as much. I used raisins and currants for the mixed dried fruit, and pumpkin pie spice for the mixed spice. Overall light and tasty.

On to the pictures.

The first picture is the complete outfit. The doublet is the new wool one I made just before MTA. The pants I let out so that he could wear them again. They are also wool, but a Christmas present from a friend. The falling band you see completed and "pinned" to the doublet collar. I actually use a long basting stitch so Jim doesn't have to worry about pins. And the shoes are the altered Clarks desert boots. Overall a spiffy looking dude.

And this is Jim hanging with some friends before the Fort opened on Sunday.

And Jim trying to pinch some coins from Cindy, the person who took some of these pictures for us.

How Cool is That?

2007-03-27T18:40:00.000-05:00

Over at Baking and Books, Ari had a contest for folks who signed up for her mailing list. I signed up and guess what? I won a cookbook! I never win things. Really. Just ask anyone who's ever been to Las Vegas with me.

The book arrived today and it is fabulous. Thanks Ari!

Waiting on Pictures

2007-03-22T07:51:00.000-05:00

Well, Jamestown was great, a little cold, but no rain. MTA is famous for having the worst rain all season. Unfortunately, the day Jim wore all his new stuff, I had packed the camera carefully away in my basket. Which was in the car under a mountain of stuff. So I asked Cyndy to take some good pictures of him, which she did. I know the pics have been burned to a CD and hopefully placed in the mail, so I'm sure I'll see them soon.

Otherwise I took almost no pictures. We were pretty busy. I did capture one fun photo of Cyndy and Henrietta.

Henrietta had to be the most tame chicken I've ever seen. She sat on Cyndy's lap for about an hour and let children touch her. Cyndy wasn't holding on to her and Henrietta could have left at any time. It was funny!

Some Progress

2007-03-12T11:13:00.000-05:00

I finished the falling band this weekend. I got hemmed linen all stitched into a neck band and realized I needed something to tie it with. So I made linen ties by doing some fingerloop braiding. I think it turned out okay.

I'm still working on the wool doublet, but it's coming along nicely. The sleeves are all done and the doublet itself needs buttons and the buttonholes cut open. We're getting there.

Then we decided to do something fun for dinner and we made homemade pizza. I made a whole wheat crust, used homemade sauce, reduced fat pepperoni, canadian bacon, and lean ground beef. This was the meat-lover's version. It looked so good out of the oven, I had to take a picture. The one in the back just came out of the oven, and the one on the peel is getting ready to go in.

Too many projects

2007-03-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

I'm not usually this bad. Granted, I do start projects and leave them hanging (sometimes for years). But most of these current projects I have every intention of finishing because either Jim or I actually need them. Jim mentioned before the Volunteer Training Weekend that he doesn't have any wool outfits. Which is true. It's never been an issue before. So I ordered some wool on-line and have started a wool doublet (pictured below) that I will hopefully finish for Military Through the Ages at Jamestown.

I altered a pair of wool trunk hose so that they will fit again. I altered a pair of Clark's Desert Boots to look more Elizabethan. That was easier than I thought it would be. I'm still working on the falling band, but it is closer to completion. I'm still working on my wool bodies.

Meanwhile I desperately want to start a knitting project. I'm refraining from yet one more project in my basket until I finish a few more things.

The wool doublet is coming along, but I'm having more fun with other projects than sewing right now.

Someday it will all come together. I just have to remember to take a picture of it.

In-Progress

2007-02-25T15:47:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted much about sewing lately, so here are a couple of projects that are in the works. This is a pair of bodies that I'm working on and have been for awhile. I'm hand stitching the channels for the reeds with linen thread. The blue fabric is a light wool and it is inter-lined with a stiffer linen canvas. It will be lined with another linen layer to hide the stitching on inside. This project has been a little daunting because it's so much handwork, but it is moving along rather nicely. I would like to finish it in time for Military Through the Ages at Jamestown, but I'm not going to push it. I want a nice article of clothing when I'm done.

After the Volunteer Training Weekend, Jim and I made a list of all the "stuff" we needed to do for the Anniversary Weekend in May. While I have a corset that works, Jim needs falling bands. He has 1 or 2 at the moment, but MTA is a 2-day event and the Anniversary Weekend is going to be a 3-day event. He needs more. This one I've been working on, off and on, for years. It's been a nice little hand work project that I take with me when I remember it. It's linen with a pulled-thread hem. I need to stitch down the pleats and then attach it a band that will get pinned to a collar.

Volunteer Training Weekend

2007-02-23T11:52:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we attended a training weekend at Jamestown in preparation for the 400th Anniversary Celebrations going on in May. Lots of things happening in Jamestown this year.

Cindy is the Fort supervisor and she does a fantastic job of organizing the bunch of rabble called re-enactors. We had some class room stuff (teaching methodology, women in 17th century England, Angolan society, Powhatan society) and some getting out and viewing the buildings and the interpretative goal behind them.

On Saturday because we had a critical mass of Gardners members in one location we had a meeting! Surprise! The hotel was cool and let us use their breakfast room as long as we cleaned up. Then of course we hung around and stitched, conversed, and negotiated. It was a good time.

Yarn-Foo

2007-02-13T12:18:00.000-05:00

I was on business travel to San Antonio last week and I was able to hook-up with a friend who knits. She took me to a fabulous yarn shop. I think she has gotten me hooked on knitting. We picked up some large needles, some small needles and some wonderful yarn. The blue is a fat yarn requiring size 10.5 needles. I'm hoping I can learn to do a monmouth cap with that yarn but I need to get some double-pointed needles first.

The red is a nice weight for socks, but I'm hoping to knit a miser's purse with it. My friend copied out some directions for me. Obviously I need to learn to knit in the round first.

What fun trip!

Buttonholes

2007-01-28T13:58:00.000-05:00

I have been continuing to work on the red cassock. I've been doing a bit of handstitching, and now I'm working on the buttonholes. I'm handstitching those as well, but I found some beautiful pewter button from Steve Millingham's Pewter Replicas. Even though he is located in England, his prices are so reasonable that even with overseas shipping and an abominable exchange rate, the buttons usually work out to be less expensive than what I can find over here.

The cassock is madder red wood lined with linen. All the hand stitching is with linen thread.

Resolutions

2007-01-25T07:42:00.000-05:00

It's taken me awhile to come up with a resolution. At least one with a reasonable chance of success. I'm resolving to be better organized.

Ha! I hear you laughing again! It's true! It appears to be the one skill I have that I can share and help others with. Thus I'm trying to be better organized.

I'm working on getting the Calendar together for Gardner's Company. I didn't realize how busy we could be until I started working on it. We could be pretty busy the first 6 months or so of the year. If we do all of the major events at Jamestown that's 4 trips.

We had our Yule event last weekend and I have to say, I was horribly unhelpful in getting this event together. Poor Carla did the lion's share of it, from the murder mystery, organizing food, and coordinating the site and sending out the announcement e-mails to unresponsive members, and determining who's coming (which you need to know to do a murder mystery). My total contribution was getting the Father Christmas gifts together, and even then, Carla helped pick things out. I was a putz. So, that's part of the resolution. Get my act together enough to be more helpful in coordinating and organizing at least our own events!

Wish me luck!

Thank you!

2007-01-14T20:53:00.000-05:00

Thanks to LornaJay I figured out the twist in my garters. It's funny, you can see where I changed my stitches and the twist disappears from the garter. I evidently need some expert guidance before I tackle anymore knitting projects. Bad habits are hard to break, and just the way I was wrapping the yarn over the needle made the difference in how the garters turned out. So, it took 3 or 4 rows before I would remember wrap away from me, not toward me, without thinking about it. I'm hopeless.

The funny thing is that I find myself reaching for the yarn and needles. Maybe another pair? Really, a person only needs so many pairs of garters, and I already have a beautiful knitted pair from my friend at Knitiot. Maybe I need some different yarn .....

Progress Report

2007-01-11T07:21:00.000-05:00

I finished one garter, at 30 inches long. Considering the stretch factor, I'm sure that's plenty long. As you can see, I've started on the next one.

As I was cruising along on the first garter, I realized I had no idea how to stop knitting. How do you end these things? I did a quick google on knitting, and found this site. Where I learned it's called binding off and there is a proper way of casting on. Anyway, I successfully ended the first garter and I have proceeded to the second.

But notice the twist in the second garter. If the dog toy wasn't holding down the completed garter, that sucker would be all twisted up as well. What's up with that? I know it's something I'm doing, because a friend's knitted garter isn't doing that.

Knitting?

2007-01-06T11:39:00.000-05:00

Well, I think this is knitting. A knitter I am not, but in a fit of ambition, I decided to try to knit a pair of garters. This is about 2 hours of work. It took three starts and then the yarn was so overworked it was a mess until I got past it. I am so not a knitter.

Considering Yule is in about 2 weeks, I'm not sure I'm going to get a pair of garters done in time. So its a challenge.

Jim looked at it this morning and said that Heather would be done by now. Heather is a friend of ours who knits very well. I just laughed and agreed, she probably would be done by now.

Secret Project No. 2

2007-01-03T18:34:00.000-05:00

This is a Capote coat made from a 4-point Whitney blanket. It is a fairly simple pattern - the body is all one piece. You attach sleeves and the hood and you have a Capote coat. However, what you don't realize until you try to jam two layers of 100% wool blanket under your presser foot is that Whitney blankets are thick. THICK. At least 1/4 inch in a single - yes single - layer. It does compress under the foot, but you are struggling to push this through the machine. Had I been a smarter cookie, I would have cleared off the treadle machine and used it. I think it would have worked better.

Anyway, the coat is for when Jim goes to Cowboy Action Shoots during the colder months. Around here most clubs stop shooting in December, January, and February, but there is one club that still holds monthly shoots during the winter. So he will get to use it. Maybe. It's been in the 50's here lately.

Secret Project No. 1

2007-01-03T12:27:00.000-05:00

Well, this is one of the secret Christmas projects, in a somewhat finished state. It is a knock-down bed, but it is missing the slats that will form the base for the air mattress.

I got the idea for a friend of mine who was cobbling together a sort of platform for her air mattress for Pennsic. While it worked, it wasn't pretty or easy to put together.

This bed is made out of poplar and is painted with Lexington Green milk paint. I have one coat of satin finish polyurethane applied but it needs at least one more coat. We going to use the slats from her other bed for this one. Then it will be done!

I learned a few things while working on this project. I suck at mortises. I really need to practice chiseling. Keeping your chisels sharp helps a lot. I learned how to sharpen my chisels, but I probably need to stop and sharpen them more often during a project. Wood filler hides mistakes. I do need to invest in better mortising chisels - apparently there is a difference in chisels. I hear you all laughing at me! Anyway, the bed works and is easy to put together. I used my own knockdown bed as a guide with a change or two.

I did get some cool loot over Christmas, specific to this project - three of Roy Underhill's "Woodwrights Shop" books. I've only had time to sort of flip through them at this point, but I think they are going to be very useful and informative.

A couple of things

2006-12-21T08:50:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I baked cookies. Lots of cookies. I've already given most of them away. Jim and I could absolutely eat all of the cookies, however, we really don't need to.

I've also been doing a little bit of non-Christmas sewing. This is a red wool cassock, lined with linen. I had hoped to get it done before Foods and Feasts at Jamestown, but that didn't happen. I still have to put on the collar and do button holes and buttons. I'm doing a bit of hand sewing on this as well, so it's taking a little longer. It will be nice and warm when it's done!

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

Can't tell you

2006-12-04T10:47:00.000-05:00

I've got baking, sewing, and woodworking all going on this month. But I can't tell you about the sewing and the woodworking because they are Christmas presents. And they read this blog.

The baking I'm doing are Christmas cookies for us and for a friend. I've made all cookie dough for the various cookies I'm making and it's all now in the freezer. That way I can bake cookies when I have time in two weeks. So no pictures yet.

Just can't tell you about the rest. Its a secret.

Thanksgiving Day Fun

2006-11-27T12:38:00.000-05:00

For the last several years, several members of Gardner's Company volunteer at Jamestown for the annual Foods and Feasts event. This event is over the Thanksgiving Day and the weekend and focuses on food, of course.

Carla and I usually set up "shop" in the Barracks Building of Jamestown Settlement. We volunteer there and do 17th Century English cooking demonstrations. Using period recipes we prepare various dishes in the huge hearth behind me in this picture.

While we are toiling away preparing food, there are also military activities, and some of our other members help fill out in other buildings of the fort.

Here are some of our guys in formation for a military drill. Robert is wearing the very sexy thrummed hat. It was a bit chilly in the morning.

Anyway, some of the wonderful foodies we made were:

A Mushroom and Leek tart on the Left and a Dried Fruit and Almonds Tart on the right.

Chicken Fricassie - Martha Washington's recipe I believe.

A meat pie. This particular recipe is a pork, fig, and cheese pie which turned out quite yummy.

And and almond tart. This tart is an amazing cream-based confection. The crust is like a sugar cookie and the filling is cream, almond paste, sugar, and egg whites. Yum.

That's just a sampling of the goodies we made. We made more that I didn't get pictures of before the volunteers and Staff gobbled it all down. It's hard to take pictures of stuff when you're supposed to be interpreting and trying to hide things like the camera under your apron. Thanks to some friends I have pictures of me, which I never get.

Overall, the weekend was some work, but I always have fun doing the cooking. It's also interesting working with the public and passing on some early American history in the process.

SkyMaul

2006-11-22T12:15:00.000-05:00

I read this article in Salon through an RSS feed to Bloglines and nearly spewed coffee through my nose this morning. Anyone who has flown on a major (and probably minor) airline in the last few years is familiar with the SkyMall catalog in the pocket of the seat in front of you.

Sheer boredom drives you to flip through this Mall of Unnecessary Stuff. Well, apparently there are other folks wondering just who is ordering this crap and have put together SkyMaul a parady of the ubiquitous airplane catalog.

I'm going to have to find this and read it. The little bits I've seen have been quite funny.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-17T12:18:00.000-05:00

Isn't it funny how time flies? Okay, sometimes not so funny. Like now, it's the 17th of November. Next week is Thanksgiving, and Christmas is just around the corner. I find myself pretty much unprepared for the holidays. And then I wonder why I'm so unprepared, considering they happen every year, predictably at the same time every year!

I used to be better about getting ready for the holidays. I don't like procrastinating. It's not really in my nature. I’m the type who wakes up at 3:00 am and worries over things. Any thing. So I try to make sure I don't have anything to worry over. But yet, for the last couple of holiday seasons, I have found myself unprepared for the holidays.

And I wonder why.

Am I really so busy throughout the Entire Year that I can't come up with ideas for the holidays? I can't say that I am, but yet here I am again unprepared. I have a few gifts already purchased, and have a couple of ideas for some family, but for most of them, I have nothing, and can't think of anything cool. Maybe that's the problem; I want to find that cool gift.

But then, what is a cool gift? I think it's something that maybe the recipient wouldn't necessarily buy for themselves, but wouldn't mind having. Or maybe something hand made.

But then, if they wouldn't buy it for themselves, who's to say it wouldn't just sit around collecting dust? Having been the recipient of many dust collectors, I don't really want to do that to someone.

I love the holidays. I enjoy being off from work, cooking yummy food, wrapping gifts, and giving them to my friends and family. I enjoy gift-giving, especially when you've found that gift you really want someone to have. Many of my Christmas decorations are things I purchased in Germany and they are very special to me. It's always fun putting those decorations up around the house and on the tree.

It's finally fixed!

2006-11-05T21:08:00.000-05:00

Finally I have a reliable FAST connection to the internet. It's been a week long odessey. After spending hours reloading all of my software on my brand new hard drive, the internet connection problems still persisted. After all that, you would think something would have improved. I call Comcast yet one more time, and the guy said your modem is shot. Well Hell, I figured that out! What else is there ? Now, you can go to a Comcast store and exchange it or call a tech.

I've been waiting for people to bring me things all week. Which is another story. I wasn't going to wait for yet another tech.

I went to Best Buy and bought my own damn modem. Of course, the broken rented POS still has to go back to Comcast, but my internet connection is fixed!

Yeah!