Fur, paint, and zombies, oh my!

[chargirlgenius]

What stands out most in my head from this weekend, is that when the zombie apocalypse happens, I want Jeff by my side. That is all. If you were there, you'll know why. :-D

Saturday, we visited thatpotteryguy and smiep who were hosting the La Belle meeting at their house. Typical meeting, boys played, ate lots of food, etc. etc. Of note, I purchased 70 squirrel skins that were being sold for somebody getting out of reenacting. Pretty white bellies! The back skin is reddish brown, not grey, so it's not the preferred 14th century squirrel fur, but Veale (In The English Fur Trade in the Middle Ages) mentions other varieties of squirrel, including a reddish-brown one (redwerke), imported from Southern Italy. Now, just to figure out the cutting and the piecing that results in the right look, plus not a lot of waste. 70 little squirrels is not all that much, and I want to make the most of them. I have a couple of ideas, but the most economical way to get a basic vair look means that the fur will not all be running in one direction. I have yet to figure out if this is an issue (Veale doesn't seem to say). I'm leaning away from that, and dealing with waste. On the bright side, a more miniver path looks like it'll be less sewing. *sigh* More research... Naturally, googling for more info turns up articles that *I* wrote. :-D

The boys were... busy... but altogether pretty good. Henry had a grand time helping throw sticks on the big bonfire. He likes to help (and when it's just him, he can). We should have brought a longer shirt for Henry, as we let him run around naked from the waist down all weekend. My apologies to our friends, but we had a very successful weekend over all. No accidents at all, and even a totally dry night, sleeping in undies. Yay! We really needed that.

Sunday I painted my closet. I got both coats of the trim on, and one coat on the walls. Jeff has some sanding to do so the second coat will have to wait. After the first coat was on, I compared the color to the wood trim on my Ikea mirror, which is the same tone that I'd picked for the wood. Crazy, but it looks like I picked the paint to *match*, it's so close. I think I like it that way - otherwise the alternative is to go with the medium stained wood, which I don't think I like as much against the medium stained floor (they won't match). I like the contrast of the light wood against the darker floor. I also like that the light wood will help the windowless closet look brighter. It's not as trendy as the dark wood, but I think a better choice. Really, the paint doesn't matter all that much, as you'll only see about four feet of it altogether.

Stupid us, we forgot to grab the floor nailer that paleobob and ichseke graciously brought with them to the La Belle meeting. I blame the pouring rain when we were on our way out. That's it. I'll be at Sapphire to pick it up (just Saturday, probably with Henry in tow), but that means that we won't get the floors nailed in this week anyway. Likely, that means my closet won't be done until after we get back from Belgium. Oh well.

Comments

[smiep.livejournal.com]

no trauma, just much amusement re: semi-naked boy. Glad it worked :)

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

We’re grateful to M and H for entertaining him with the fire. :-D

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

Red/brown squirrel fur, which is the summer or autumn fur is also mentioned in Newton (bishe and popellus) and can for example also be seen on an early 14th century Norwegian altar frontal showing St Olav, who, as a royal saint, always was depicted in aristocratic, fashionable dress.

/Eva

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

I just discovered that Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince is online as a googlebook! Amazing!

Thanks!

[jemala-malvada.livejournal.com]

Congrats on potty success!!!!