Monthly Archives: August 2008

We just got back from the Herstmonceux Medieval Festival . My new tent arrived in time last week, so we spent a dry weekend, despite the intermittent drizzle. We had to pitch the back edge on a slope to stay in line with our neighbours, so we ended up half sleeping on a slope, which is why the tent looks a bit skewed in the pic, but it was very capacious and comfortable nonetheless 🙂 Sadly, I will have to sell the tent on, since it is octagonal and not entirely suitable for my purposes – I can’t lay out my reading and stock tables properly unless they stick outside and given the weather recently, this is not a good thing. It is a shame as it is a nice tent – it is about 14′ across but the canvas folds up into a couple of compact bags and I can pick up all the poles together easily. Drop me a note if you, or anyone you know might be interested in buying it.

Medieval Tent

Medieval Gothic Chair

Also for sale, or rather, available to order, are Gothic chairs as shown above. My DH managed to get this one finished in time for Herstmonceux and we found ourselves speculating about introducing a fee for all the people who sat in it to have their picture taken over the weekend 😉 We have plans for a variation with a shorter back and also a two-seater storage bench in the same style. Watch this space or drop me a note if you are interested.

I have rather been bitten by the knitting bug lately. My travels in search of intersting patterns to add to my ever-growing library have led me to some really weird, wonderful and totally bizarre knits. Just as a few examples, controversial knitter Rachael Matthews, responsible for Knitler the Knazi (though reports of a book of knitted dictators would seem to be somewhat exaggerated and just something whipped up by the media to get comments from the outraged), has also come up with such bizarre knitted objects as a penis and a grenade. Of course, there was also the recent storm about Mazz’s knitted Daleks and Ood that caused the BBC to foam at the mouth over copyright, but being highly entertained by the idea, some diligent searching on my part unearthed the Extermiknit pattern. You can also knit mushrooms, a Witch’s hat, a Vlad the Impaler hat and all manner of things limited, it seems, only by your imagination. I look forward to hearing about the strangest knitted object you have come across – post them here 🙂

I’ve just taken some pictures of the fairy wings I made for my daughter recently. They have little pink and lilac seed beads knitted in, but you can’t see them in the picture. She loves them, as you can see, although she does finds the mohair around her neck itchy, so I’ll have to see if I can rinse them in something to help with that. Suggestions welcome 🙂

Knitted Fairy Wings

Finished Bamboo Silk socks

I also just finished the red bamboo silk slouch socks today. I’d put them aside for quite a while and finally picked them up again earlier this week. I’m really pleased with them and they feel really comfortable. These were knitted toe-up, but on balance, I think I prefer top-down, simply because you get a nicer finish on the cuff, but perhaps I should just see if I can find a springier cast-off method. Again, suggestions welcome 🙂

So, I picked up my gorgeous new tent on Friday and after a lot of sweat and quite a bit of help, managed to get it up. I was delighted with it – looked fantastic, roomy, cool pennant – and then… it rained 🙁 Oh dear, it started to drip and judging by the wet patches on the roof the canvas was clearly inadequately waterproofed. I’m gutted – the tent is going back and I have had to buy another as there is not enough time to get this one replaced, but I will commission one like this at some point.

The event itself was good fun and we spent a most enjoyable weekend under canvas, despite the rain. Both days got off to a gloriously sunny start and I’d hoped that it would remain dry and there would be a breeze to dry out the tent before we packed up on the Sunday. I wasn’t prepared for the challenge of 25mph winds that blew up though. At one point we were holding onto the tent poles to stop the canvas taking off, but at least it dried the canvas out. They do say “Be careful what you wish for”:D