Have any of you access to pieces of bog pine or bog yew? Bog oak need not apply.

We've finally made the last of our large furniture purchases to get our house in order. Today our dining room chairs arrived via FedEx ($235 p&p for 4), so we have a proper dining room suite to go under the chandelier, in time for smarriveurr's mum to come down for Thanksgiving.

Between that, the nice bed and my retirement account, I'm feeling remarkably like an adult.

Remember how I'd been hoping to fix my blue yarn enough to use? I can definitely say that both conditioner and lanolin (especially the lanolin) do make the yarn much nicer to the touch, but do not adequately help the tensile strength to use the yarn for a project, even when I'm being gentle with it.

With lots of fudging, and catlins2busy's patented "half-life method," I've managed to get the sleeves in without them causing too much wibble in the fabric right around the armscye!

Woo!

A while ago I did a first mockup of a Sture doublet using a bought pattern, and had epic fail. The length of the front and back pieces were different, the armscye was way too big for the sleeve (which many people blamed on my adding extra width to the sides to accommodate a beer belly as I felt had been done in the original), and there were niggles that I had with the overall look.

( The second muslin has fared better. )

I've made my new needlecase. A new pair of Oseburg-style shoes ought to be turning up in the post within a couple weeks. I've been upgrading my re-enactment kit since Pennsic, and I'm pleased with the results thus far. Am wondering about my knife, though. I like it, and I'm going to keep it, but the leather sheath that came with it looks too machine-done, and I don't like that.

Those of you who do a female Norse impression: how do you hang your knife from your brooches?

For drmcsexypants and femmetofarad: I adapted the recipe for the grilled artichokes with smoked tomato mayo portion of tonight's supper from an online source, though I made a few changes.

Obviously, no onion. I roasted two quartered tomatoes at 350º for three hours, tossing in 7 cloves of garlic for the last hour; I did not roast the poblano that I substituted for the pasillas. I also changed the chili powder and the cayenne for three pinches of jalapeno seeds, and used maybe half the mayo.

The salsa was totally winging it.

Due to the massive storms in our area, AT&T service is out, so if you've been trying to contact us on phone today, we're not going to get the call--only emergency numbers are working at the moment.

laurensa, this cake is freaking amazing. Thank you! I'm sorry I wasn't there for it last night.

I'd mentioned the Yoshida Brothers (I believe to rorschach at drmcsexypants' party) as shamisen-with-electric-guitar. Here is an example, originally gotten from parowa:

Having taken a class by Lady Blitha of Wolfhou on medieval needle cases, I decided that I wanted to make a more contemporary needle case, as the one I've been wearing for several years is technically Bronze Age, and I knew I could create something both shinier and higher-status. I used a 9th century Norwegian find, on p. 241 of Roesdahl and Wilson's From Viking to Crusader catalogue, as my inspriation. It turned out to be rather easier than I'd expected.

( Process Under the Cut )

I'm making a Sture outfit for thirteenletters, and it's not going well yet.

Normally, when I sew, I apply fabric to the end wearer, and remove what isn't the garment in question. I decided to use a paper pattern for this particular outfit--Reconstructing History's 506, informed by Janet Arnold's take on the same outfit--and I feel I'm way outside my comfort zone. I have several problems in this garment so far that tell me I simply do not grok what's going on.

( Cut for photos and lengthy text )

Leaving class today, worrying that trying to lead students to knowledge can be like trying to herd cats, I thought to myself that I wanted something really nice for dinner. (I also thought that I'd like a stiff drink, but I try not to think that.) My only real constraint was that it use broccoli, as I had some from the farm stand earlier in the week that I ought to use up. (Wine was just a bonus. I swear.)

Normally, as I prefer dry and oaky wines, I don't like white; I find it tends to be too sweet or fruity. This recipe, though, seemed both interesting and useful with things I already had in the kitchen. All I needed was the clams and a bottle of white. Even smarriveurr liked it, and he doesn't normally eat "sea rocks." And I didn't even need a stiff drink.

Pasta with Sausage, Broccoli and Clams

250 g pasta
300 g sweet Italian sausage, in bite-sized pieces
3 cloves garlic, minced
red jalapeno, julienned
bunch broccoli, done into florets
dozen Maine clams, scrubbed
4 dL white wine (I used Yellow Tail sauvignon blanc, which is surprisingly layered for an Australian wine)
tbsp butter

While doing the rest of this, cook the pasta. In the last couple minutes of cooking, toss in the broccoli. Drain. Put into serving bowl.

In a large saucepan or pot, brown the sausage. Remove the sausage to your serving bowl. To the same pan add the garlic and jalapeno, and cook for about a minute. Pour in the wine and clams, turn up the heat, cover and steam for about 10 minutes (until the clams open). When they're open, add the butter and season with salt and pepper. Pour over the pasta, broccoli and sausage.

The original recipe from which I adapted this called for a topping of parmagiana and fresh parsley, but it was still tasty without.

Happy birthday today to damionreed who with R is currently jetting around Europe. :)

Just quickly before bed, am entirely entertained by Riku Rantala/Tunna Milonoff and their show Madventures, which seems to have been in production in Europe well before now, but has just made it here. If you like Tony Bourdain's No Reservations, this is even more entertaining in that "are you out of your mind?!?" kind of way.

Back before social networking--back when imagemaps were the state of the art in HTML--I had my own web presence. I first used it to showcase some of my creative work, then my historical research projects. I felt it was useful for disseminating information that wasn't otherwise available on the 'net at the time, and it provided me with a space I could share with other geeky friends around the world through frequent updates. This space went through a couple design iterations of various levels of technical difficulty, and I felt it gave me a little more geek cred. Last I updated it, I was still an undergrad. Now that my name starts with "Dr." I'm sure you can figure out how much I've felt like it's a useful part of my digital persona, but it was there, and a few friends have offered to hook me up with hosting I'd like more than my last host.

Now, I'm conflicted about the usefulness of continuing to have that kind of presence. Flickr and LJ take up most of the social aspects of what I want to do, and I also use these venues to disseminate nearly all the same information I used to disseminate in HTML. I still want to feel like I know what I'm doing with the development end of things, but I don't know that creating a new space would be anything more than a technical exercise; I'm not sure it would fulfill the same purpose it used to.

One of my other considerations is identifiability. One of the motivations I might have for creating this space is a professional portfolio, and I'd want to put my name on that. I would have to be okay with the fact that there are people out there who may have the intent to find me by my legal name--something I'm obviously not interested in, for several reasons--and I would have to reconcile the desire to put my name out there with the fact that I could be found by people with whom I desire no contact.

Am still not sure it would be a positive, at this state, especially without knowing exactly what it is I want out of it. :/

I came home to no fewer than 12 emails from different people about the new Anglo-Saxon gold hoard just found. Thank you, but I saw it on the Beeb this morning over coffee before work.

ETA: Current Archaeology has prettier pictures. Am only now catching up with CA as I've just been inundated with student papers today, too.

The Vale of York Viking-Age silver hoard is being conserved to ready it for display.

Every time a new Dan Brown book comes out, I want to commit grievous violence. At least with this one, it's the American Civ profs who'll have to unteach some wantonly distributed fiction, which rational adults ought to separate from The Way Things Really Were, but don't.

I swear, sir, I blame you for my lesson plans on Merovingians and Templars.

Photos from the Friday night showing of damionreed's latest production here.