Back from Ribe

So, all of a sudden it's Tuesday and I have to go to work in a few hours.

Ribe was great, I took a lot of pictures, some of them are already on MyFlickr, but here is Kees wearing his new clothes, made by me:

Kees has uploaded his pictures too, so go see HisFlickr.

And here is Danny. I'm sure we'll see the picture she's taking of her new yarn on her blog soon.


I do have some a lot of new yarn too, pictures will come soon. Now I have to get ready for work, come back to the 21st century and earn some money because I spent a lot last weekend. :D

One day left..

... before we drive to Denmark tomorrow. We is Danny, Kees and Janneke.

We'll be here:

and back on Monday may 5th.

Kees' tunic is almost finished and my headcover can be done in the car on our 8-10 hour drive.
Today is for packing, shop for the last minute things you absolutely need and preparing Ayla's medicine box so all my friend and excellent cat-caretaker Katja has to do is take the pills out of it's container, crush them, mix with some salmon paté and Ayla will eat it.

So. I'm back on monday, with lots of pictures. :D

Almost done

On the left the old, on the right the new

All I need to do now is sew the hems and finsh of the seams to prevent them from fraying.
I'l do that by hand, to give it some kind of authentic touch. *grin*
I'm afraid the 'almost' is a bit of an understatement. I don't sew that fast :D

Dressing a Viking

So.. I'm going to be very busy the next couple of weeks. I'm going to Ribe in 4 weeks. So I need to really get working on Kees tunic.

Yes, it's the dark brown fabric down there, that's going to be his new tunic.

Yesterday evening at my Stitch and Bitch meeting, I was not knitting, I was knotting. Needlebinding my socks. Danny helped me with the heel part. I've got a heelstrap now, need to work the yellow yarn till the end, which will be the ankle part and next week, she helps me with the heel, which will be green again. There are some faults in it, but they are my first and I love these socks ;-)

Also on my to-stitch-list is a head cover. My hair is short and dyed in a non-vikingcolour (it's a eggplant kind of a purple)

I'm sewing the hems by hand and I want to embroider some nice edge decoration on it. (Isn't Donna the cutest, all curled up and pretending to be sleeping? :D)

And, last but not least, I have this basket full of linen and wool fabric. I'm planning on making myself a new underdress and a overdress, a brown fish-bone wollen coat with a dark grey woolen lining, and a gugle, a hood with shoulder parts.

So.. I've got lots to do, the next 4 weeks :)

Sorting, Actress and Hoody

So. I will not talk about the Midwinterfest because there wasn't one. We found that out after driving 350 km to Oerlinghausen. Someone obviously forgot to email us there wasn't going to be a Midwinterfest...

I am writing about my day today. I've been sorting out all the papers I have about my education as a volunteer tour guide at the zoo . I've been trained to be a tour guide for our local zoo for 18 months now and it's about time I'll sort all my stuff on that subject. This is what that looks like:

And yes, that is "queen" Ayla, sitting in front of the curtain looking down on the people (i.e. me) working hard. :D

Between sorting and entertaining Ayla, I managed to get some knitting done. The hoody is growing slowly, but steadily:

Cut!

The first cut is the hardest...

All I have to do is start cutting....

But that is what scares me the most.. what if I do it wrong??

Then Kees won't have new clothes on the Oerlinghausen Mittwinterfest.

And I promised his new outfit would be ready by then. "Then" is next Saterday...

So I'll start cutting, wish me luck :D

The vikings came to Oerlinghausen

Last weekend was the viking event in Oerlinghausen. I did convince Ayla to stay at home, she was well taken care of bij the downstairs neighbour and my friend Katja. And Donna thought it was nicer to stay behind together too. So, Danny, Kees and me went by car which Dannys brother was kind enough to lent to us (thank you!) to Germany.

When we arrived it was dark, so outside there was not much to be seen, except a beautiful sky filled with stars. I live in a big city and don't get to see much stars because of all the electric lights, so when I do see a star lit sky, I really get that 'vacation feeling' in my stomach :D

We slept in the backery and although you did not suspect it from the outsight, we had electricity, but no beds. Luckely Danny brought me an air filled sleeping mat, so I did not have to sleep on the bare floor.

After we 'set up camp' we went to "the cellar" where we met some of the other vikings. That's where I learned to speak German fluently. What helped were 3 glasses of Tullamore which found ther way into my body. This evening the first liter of whisky mysteriously vaporated
into thin air...

The next morning Danny and I had to relocate the car so we went into viking cloths to the parking lot to drive it to the allocated designation. There were some tourists looking a bit strange when we got into the car. On the way back to the museum, we walked through the forest which was beautiful.

This is the museums new Longhouse. It looks very nice and the roof is just stunning. The weather was great on both days: sunny, warm.. almost like summer.Here you can see what I did all weekend:

Stitch 'n Bitch the Viking way. The lady is red is Runa Steinarsdóttir, Rona Kreekel in the 21st century. Danny was Stitching and Bitching too, you can see a picture from the three of us on her site. I think my vikingname will be Aldkin Weis, which means "orphin child of the fairies" but I'm not sure yet. I like the name but I have to find out more about it.

On saterday evening we had a nice diner and yet another liter of Tullamore Dew vaporised.. It must be the German air :D

I had a very nice time and alas.. it was the last event of the season we will attent. So now its time to gather around the hearth and sew some new cloths. And the tent. All by hand, to make it as authentic as possible.

Die wikinger kommen!

Danny, Kees and me will be in Oerlinghausen this weekend.

I only have to convince Ayla she really, seriously, absolutely cannot come with us..

Vikings!

Danny and I participated in the Viking week at Archeon last weekend. Unfortunatly Kees had to cancel beacause of a very nasty bug that - as Danny so eloquently put it: "had made him develop an intimate relationship with his bathroom and she (the bathroom) had abandonment issues."

We enjoyed ourselfs very much anyway. Like Danny said on her blog: "We shopped lots and made our first joint purchase: an iron cooking pot.


We want to finish our tent by next Whitsun so we won’t have to sleep at the dorm anymore. Plus we’ll be able to use it as a booth for our pottery and embroidery."

If you have visited Danny's blog you will notice I used her words in my blog. Some of them, the rest are mine. Well the thing is.. why would I make up my own crappy sentences if I can (re-)use the very eloquent ones from my friend? I won't, so I copied/pasted some of her words. All of the pictures are mine.

Just like these socks-to-be. I started nålebinding these last weekend.

I will try to make some pictures from my shoppings. I bought wool, silk, needles and a spindle as well as a new basket.

Here we sit at "our" table, on which we crafted, explained our work to the visitors and where we made and had lunch.


On Saterday evening we had a very nice party with free food and beer and there was music. Danny brought a bottle of yummie Talisker, which was suddenly empty at some point of the evening/night...


On sunday afternoon the fight demo was a bit of a dull scene, due to the free beer that was taken in by the men the night before in large amounts. The warriors looked also very dull all day.. Vikings and alcohol, an interesting combination.


But it was a great weekend, my next viking event will be in Oerlinghausen on september 21st - 23rd.

UPDATE:

Pictures from my shopping:

A wooden spindle and some needles



Shoes! I've got shoes...
and they gave me blisters....
But.. I do like my new shoes. Whan can I say? I'm a woman :D

I also bought a basket, but that will pop up on a picture soon enough.