Diary of a *Gasp* Guildmaster - perception

It has been quite some time since I posted in this blog.  Much has happened.  So much has happened.  I don't even know if anyone still follows this:

Anyway...

Perception.  What is perception?
The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as:

"a belief or opinion, often held by many people and based on how things seem:

We have to change the public's perception that money is being wasted.

These photographs will affect people's perceptions of war."

Over the last year or so, my own perceptions have been challenged.  My perception of what it means to be a Guild Master.  At Rowany Festival 2016, I did play a guild master prize.  I had never thought or saw in my mind's eye that I would ever be good enough to be a guild master.  Well, apparently someone else's perception of my skill was higher than my own.  With quite a lot of work, a ton of guidance and critique, insane amounts of training and practice, I managed to pull it off.

Now, I will also admit right here that 2 weeks before my prize when I was trying to get my head around Case of Rapier, that I had this overwhelming sense of impending doom and failure.  I couldn't comprehend what I was doing.  I was a fraudster, a trickster, but not quite a shapeshifter called Maui (wait, wrong movie).  It took a lot more mental capacity to work past that.

A few months ago, an incident left me reeling.  The details I will not go into, but needless to say, I haven't actually attended training in over 6 months.  Over the weekend at Fields of Gold, or is that Rivers of Gold, a conversation was had.  Again, while it was deeply personal and confronting, it held quite a lot of content that was perceptual.  Outlook on one's self.  It boiled down to one question.  How do you make yourself do something when you are really not interested?  This is a tough one.

Now, a bit about my core personality.  I am a total 'Negative Nancy'.  Yes! This was pointed out to me.  In spades.  Yes! It was very difficult to hear.  Yes! I recognise this in myself.  Yes! Other people agreed.  No! I do not want this to ruin something I love, or to my own perception, had thought I had learned to hate.

So to answer that question.  How do you make yourself do something when you are not really interested?  The answer is "I have no idea how you are going to do it, but here is how I plan to go about it."

Step 1. 

Admit to yourself that Yes! there is in fact a problem, and it most likely to be with you.  I AM my own problem.

Step 2.

Nut through the thing that is making your perception a reality.  I worked out why it was that I had started to hate fencing.  It wasn't fencing itself, but the physical environment that we train in.  Now, we in Rowany have a nice big space.  Fabulous.  What is not so fabulous is the actual space.  It is huge, it is high, it is crowed.  It is noisy.  Enough that you cannot hear yourself think, let alone be a good teaching/learning environment.  I don't know about you, but I cannot study or concentrate in a space that is reminiscent of a packed high school gym with noise reverberating off every surface, including the inner surface of your skull.

Step 3.

Repeat after me... You are not responsible for the actions of others, but you are responsible for how you choose to respond/react to them.  Now, I cannot claim ANY credit for this pearl of wisdom.  This is word for word from Damon Greybeard.  I hate to say it, but Yes! He sometimes has plenty of wisdom, and sometimes I will even listen to it.

So my perceptions of 'why I hate fencing' were sort of shattered in is short sentence.  I was reacting badly to an incident, and the only person I was hurting was ME!  Yes!  Me!  No one else is going to care if I don't turn up to training.  Except Me!  Whodathunkit?

Step 4.

Be available.  My own perceptions are that "there are too many Guild Masters in Rowany, and no one is going to want to work with me, when there are so many others they can benefit from.  What do I have to offer that is so different?'  I told you "Negative Nancy. I still hold true to this.  However, as I haven't been to training for sometime, this is going to be very true, because the newer people have no idea who I am, let alone what I have to offer.  Again, this pearl of advice is from Greybeard.  Sigh.  I really wish he would stop speaking sense.

Step 5.

Give yourself a chance to make things happen.  Oh boy.  Deeper down the rabbit hole we go if we weren't already deep enough.  Set yourself a time frame to try and cement the alteration in perception.  Since I haven't been to training for hmmmm.... 6 and a half months, I probably need to have a go again.

So, phase one - my aim is to try and make it this evening.  With gear in hand.
I will try to keep you posted.

Costuming Escapades (Start of the embroidered hood)

Over the last couple of years I have been on a mission to lose 28 kilos.  This requires a lot of concentration, dedication and a heck load more of willpower and determination.  I started on my journey in April 2011 after I had hip replacement surgery and having gained about 10 kilos in 2 years.  I was already overweight but topping out at 102.1 kilos was the final straw.

This weight loss has required a complete rethink of my medieval garb as really none of it fits me anymore.  So I have decided to replace my wardrobe, with 2 exceptions.  A red/blue 16thC wool gown of Dutch style and a linen dress I made years ago and decided to rebuild it.

I decided to start at a hood.  I had been wanting to do something embroidered for a while but my limited skill set for embroidery meant that it had to be a fairly simple design that wouldn't take too much time to create.  So I started digging around and Racaire in Drachenwald (Europe), or Austria to be more precise had already made a hood that gave me the perfect inspiration, complete with pictures.

Digging through the stash of fabric I knew that I had some heavier blue wool that would be perfect for a warm hood.  Using the Medieval Tailor's Assistant pattern, I drew up the hood on the wool and added 15cm to the length to allow for the dagging pattern.

I then needed to decide on a dagging shape.  In the 14thC it appears that the favoured shapes are either the 'oak leaf' that Raciare used or the 'flame'.  Now I am not that clever when it comes to embroidery and I needed to use something that was not excessive in it's coast line but wouldn't look out of place either.  So I went with a simple round.  It is inspired by the shape of 14thC biconical cup.  Once I was happy with the shape, I drew it out on plastic and then transferred the shape onto the cutout hood.

Balcony Garden (Part 1)

Since I first moved to Sydney in 2008, I have maintained a balcony garden.  They have invariably failed as I was pretty terrible at watering or maintaining them.  The poor things just died.  Since the beginning, 2 plants somehow survived.  An Apricot Nectar standard rose, and an Arabica coffee tree.

Watering was a problem as I was having to truck several watering cans of water through the bedroom to the north facing balcony.  It was reasonably successful with tomatoes and herbs being produced, when I remembered to water it.

In 2011, my husband and I moved to Drummoyne into a much larger unit with a balcony three times larger than our previous one.  The first year was spent ignoring the pots, emptying a few out, clearing out dead plants and generally forgetting to water the plants unless they looked sad and desperate.  A couple of months ago I thought that I might like to reestablish my balcony garden but knowing my laziness with a watering can, I knew I needed some sort of irrigation system.

These pictures above are the second attempt at a balcony garden.  The coffee tree (at rear left of the r) picture) is now bigger, but wind damaged and suffering a bit from being in a saltier environment.  The lavender, sage, rosemary and strawberry pot have all perished.

I started looking around the internet to see what there was in the way of information for practical balcony gardens.  There are many, many websites on balcony gardening, but they all kind of depended on either an outside tap and hose system (which I don't have) or a water can, which I know I am dreadful with.

Then the revelation happened when I found the Urban Green Survival blog, I noticed that Dean (the blog owner) had my ultimate solution.  A 100L plastic water storage tank and irrigation pipe with irrigation heads.  So with this in mind the new look balcony garden on the much larger balcony was planned.

More tips and tricks - The Apron

Yesterday, when I went to purchase drive band for my wheel I walked into the store to find everyone spinning and, they were all wearing aprons.  I looked at the aprons and noticed they were all of a dark colour.

This serves 2 purposes.  Keeping the broken fibres or nubs in one place in your lap, not all over the couch, chair or floor and, to provide a dark contrast background for any pale fibre being spun.  I noticed this mostly last night when I changed into other pants and they were patterned.  Then I remembered I have a black apron which I dug and has now been promoted from being an apron taking up space in the linen cupboard, to actually being used for something useful.

My apron also has pockets in it where I can put my flick carder rather than leaving it laying on the couch.  I spin while sitting on the couch as sitting on our dining room chairs is not an option due to physical inability to sit on them for long periods as I have a total left hip replacement.

Tips and tricks

Well I never thought that I would be writing tips and tricks for spinning on a wheel, but here we are.

Don't you just hate it when you are spinning quite happily and you are suddenly waving bye-bye to the end disappearing into the wheel orifice?  I know that I do.  Until today, if I couldn't find the end I would have broken a thread and unwound the bobbin.

If you lose the end as I just did into the orifice; start treading in the opposite direction at a very very fast pace for about 30 seconds.  Check your bobbin for the end.  Repeat until you find it.  I learned this today and was a bit dubious when I heard it, however I just tried it and well, it worked!

The things that you learn when you head into your favourite spinning supply store to purchase a drive band.

Current Project - Unknown fleece - Stage 1

A few months ago while at an SCA Fibre Guild gathering at Tina's house, she handed me a large plastic bag of fleece.  Not sure what I was going to do with it, it was unceremoniously put aside and kept on getting moved around until I decided it was in my way and that I had to do something with it.

We don't actually know what breed the sheep is.  It is definitely a long wool breed as the locks are just over 25cm (10") long.  The closest that I could find in The Fleece and Fibre Sourcebook (Robson and Ekarius, 2011) is a Wenseleydale.  The description and colour range match the pictures and description in the book.

Now I have only ever processed a couple of fleeces before so I knew that I had to soak and wash it before I could do anything with it, so into the bath tub it went.  Warm water, half a bottle of regular hair shampoo and a jolly good soak.  With some gentle agitating to break out the dirt, urine and goop; rinse and repeat several times, the fleece came out pretty good.

Half of the washed fleece

Once dried, I started pulling locks out and sorting them into length and colour.  Sadly, this is not my strong point and I could do with some more practice at this.

I have picked approximately half the fleece into locks and stored them in cardboard boxes.  The unpicked fleece is currently living in a large pink plastic box that has no lid.  It just makes it easy to move.

Due to the fleece being a long wool, it is perfect for Viking Wool Combs, however as I have been slack and now unemployed, I do not have the funds to purchase either the finished combs, nor the materials to make them.  I did try a hair comb but that didn't produce the fibre that I was wanting. So another strategy had to be used to prepare the fibres for spinning.  A flick carder was the answer.  Now I do have one of these.  The flick carder produces a soft fluffy, mostly parallel lock for spinning.  This would allow me to create a semi-worsted yarn.  Flick carding will not remove all of the really short hairs as a wool comb would, but it does remove some, so the yarn is not as spiky as it could possibly be.

Flick carded lock with cut end to the right.

So then the next thing was, how do I spin it?  That was answered by my hubby.  "On a wheel so that it is done sooner."

Who am I spinning it for?  Pretty early in the process I decided to spin it up and give it back to Tina as a finished product.  This then had a part in how I was going to spin it.  Tina is a stickler for authenticity and required me to crack out the book Textile and Clothing 1150 - 1450 from The Museum of London.  Page 26 states that "mixed spinning (Z spun warp / S spun weft)  where all the fibres lay in the same direction when woven, produces a firmer cloth suitable for raising a nap and for other types of finishing.

I figured this would be a good process.  As I am flick carding, there is a 'waste' amount of fibre that is being put into a container.  I will card this with paired cards later and S spin it for the weft threads.

As a consequence, this fleece will not be plied and will remain as singles ready for weaving.

My introduction to spinning

My husband asked me to start this blog as a way of documenting the stuff that I do regarding fibre arts. I am a member of the SCA is Australia.  Within the society I am Juliana de Northwood, a mid-rank fencer, I spin and I am known to be outspoken and tell people when they are being dumb or stupid.
Mundanely I am Alonya Cullinan, unemployed administrator and scuba instructor, support person and friend.  I am a kiwi who migrated (awesome for a flightless bird) to Australia for a boy and I am loving it here.

I have been spinning on my own for roughly 14 years.  I went to a group event in Wellington, New Zealand and I saw my friend Catherine Wellington with her homemade drop spindle.  I had wanted to learn to spin since I was a kid when I was given a beautiful Ashford Traditional wheel.  Sadly, I didn't have the brain space for it and the person who tried in vain to teach me gave up.  I think I ended up giving that first wheel away.  Stupid of me.

So Catherine and all her patience taught me how to spin on her homemade spindle.  We were sitting in the little hall on a bench and she showed me how to 'dress' the spindle and, the basic mechanics of spinning.  She lent me a spare spindle and gave me a good length of commercially prepared fibres and off I went.  The rest is history.

My original
Ashford Classic Spindle

My journey didn't stop there.  I knew that I would have to give the spindle back to her so I set out trying to find one as I didn't have the skills or knowledge to make one.  A trip to Golding's Handcrafts in Wellington turned up an Ashford Classic Spindle (90gm), a commercially prepared Romney fleece and a niddy-noddy for about $65.

I didn't know what the best yarn was to use for a 'leader' so I looked through all my knitting yarn and found a length of pure wool, 8 ply.  What a disaster.  It slipped all over the place, I kept dropping the spindle and nothing I did worked.  So I split the yarn and used only 2 strands of it.  I was hooked.  It took me quite a while to get through that fleece.  Probably a couple of years, as I was so bad at it, I couldn't get more than a 25 meters yarn on the spindle.  Hence why it took me a while.


In early 2000, I found an Ashford Traditional wheel in a second hand store for $30.  So I bought it, and took it home.  I had no idea how a wheel worked.   A phone call to Catherine to organise a lesson and a few days later hey presto, I was off and running.  I loved my wheel and was using it at every available opportunity.  I even took it to jousting tourneys, events and to people's houses when we were doing arts and sciences gatherings.

I have loved spinning ever since that first day spinning with Catherine.  I am grateful to her for her patience and knowledge.  She lent me books, gave me pointers, showed me fun stuff and shared her passion.  She has introduced me to this whole new world and I have been stuck here ever since.

Loni