YURT!

I finished the yurt!  I set it up at September Crown on Saturday night, after a day of finishing the build, putting in rivets in the walls and the roof covering, and making a flap out of some leftover canvas (I need a larger piece, but it worked fine for the night).  Friday night we all shared the 16' Regency tent, which was a bit of a tight fit for the five of us.  The doorway on my yurt is covered up by overlapping pieces of canvas, which can be opened up and tied back for airflow and an "open house" to welcome visitors.

Avelyn also finished hers--we worked on them at the same time--and her family was able to sleep in it on Saturday night.  Friday night they spent a very uncomfortable evening sleeping in the van (they wouldn't recommend it) because the rafters were too long and caused all kinds of issues with the roof.  In the end, the roof covering was somehow still too small for the yurt--we'll have to figure out how *that* went wrong...they have a little bit of a peek-a-boo roofline for anyone over 5 feet tall...not a problem for me, but it is for just about everyone else I know.  We're going to have to sew a 10" flap around the entire edge, which will keep the wind, rain, and eyes out of the tent.  Avelyn's door is a hinged piece of plywood with a clever locking mechanism, which helps keep the little ones in the structure--their littlest one is not quite two years old and prone to adventure-seeking (he's a wanderer). 

I'm starting back to work on the Turkish socks--I had to rip the first one back to the toenails and add a few more stitches to make it a more comfortable fit.  I'll get to try it on soon to see if the extra four stitches will be enough.

Now that the tourney season has drawn to a close, it's time to begin repairs to favorite garments and replacing outgrown clothing.  Ben needs a new wardrobe of tunics--light, medium and heavy as well as lightweight and warm pants; Cammie needs a couple medium and heavy tunics; and Emma needs a complete wardrobe.  She chose the type of dress she wants, and I didn't get very far in creating it--ran into several stumbling blocks.  However, she changed her mind and decided she wanted kimonos instead.  Now I just need to make a few coordinating garments--warm kimonos, pants, cloth hose, etc.  Kelly would like a couple of lightweight tunics and a couple of heavy tunics, and a couple more pairs of pants (and I have to repair the brown pants I made for him last year where the seam tore out).  Not to mention the tunic I still have to make for Tyrssen...one more for that guy. 

I also have to finish doing some stitching on the 12th century Anglo-Saxon tunics for presentation at 12th night (if we end up going)...it's going to be held in Coeur d'Alene, which would be best without children in tow...we'll have to see if we can have the kids go visiting relatives for a couple days.  This is as much as I've gotten done--I still need to do some embroidery around the bottom, around the wrists, and refinish the hems.  I may also do some very light embroidery around the yellow undertunic, but something much simpler than this.

In the meantime, I have to get a sampler done for Girl Scouts.  Since I still don't have any books for leaders or girls (they're replacing everything), I don't have any lesson plans or ideas of how to achieve goals or badges.  I decided to go a little retro and teach them things from the old badge books.  From what I can tell, there are *no* needlework or fiber arts badges for Juniors...and that's my specialty.  But I'm going to teach them how to do blackwork anyway.  I've got Lesley Wilkins's "Beginner's Guide to Blackwork" and will pull a few designs out of the book to do in a sampler and show the girls how to do one or four of those.  Maybe I'll talk about how there are many samples in the Victoria and Albert Museum and how during Victoria's reign, they opened the museum and schools and how she was such a pioneer and leader.  Something like that.

Elewys