Amateur Bard

It’s been a hot minute, huh? Spring was rough; it’s been a struggle to keep plugging away at things. But I have made incremental progress. I migrated this blog to its new home (with a few different stops along the way, to try different blogging platforms) I’ve made some major changes to Rabbit’s costume, including a new, completely handstitched doublet. My personal violin practice has fallen to the wayside the most, but my periodic teaching gigs are always a pleasure.

I made the trek to Bristol once already this year. When I saw on the weather forecast that we were going to get a nice weekend, I was champing at the bit. How often do you get a relatively cool and not-really-rainy day during a Midwest summer? I totally lucked out: although there was a spotty shower as I was leaving home, the rest of the day was 70s, medium humidity, and overcast but no rain (at least, as long as I was on site.) I enjoyed some of my old favorites, which I hadn’t seen since 2019, and I took in a couple of new-to-me shows; all very enjoyable. I hope to go again and see more, as a couple of things I wanted to see overlapped or were back-to-back but on opposite side of the site. Between my own slowness and the theme weekend congestion, I missed the openings of some shows and I always feel a bit awkward showing up late, although I join the crowds as quietly and unobtrusively as possible, when possible.

(I will complain a little: I’ve accidentally managed to avoid theme weekends the past couple of years and ugh, I’ve been spoiled! Non-theme weekends are busy enough to lend the air of a bustling market, but not so busy that you want to start throwing elbows when there’s a traffic bottleneck. Even closing weekend last year didn’t feel as busy as this. But alas, some of my favorite shows only come during the first couple of weeks. Life is so hard, I know.)

I bought two skeins of yarn, which I will defend by telling you that they’re blue at least. Blue isn’t hugely represented in my various crafting stashes, if you can believe it. One of the reasons I decided to make a costume for Rabbit was to use up all the weird blue fat quarters that were taking up space, hah! So I also don’t have much in the way of blue yarn, and I want to knit up a pair of mitts and maybe also a hat. I also splurged finally on one of the glass dip pens. I always eye them longingly, but end up listening to my friends who say “You can buy those cheaper online.” Yeah, well, I never have bought one online, so I finally indulged. Plus it has the added bonus of being with me here and now, as opposed to in 7 to 10 business days, or whenever the shipper decides. Also, it was only a few dollars more than what I was looking at online, plus the shopkeeper recommended a pen rest (I know it’s upselling but at least it was useful upselling!) and gave me recommendations on the kind of inks to use and how to clean the pen. Yes, I could look that up myself, but it was also nice to just get it all in one go!

…Yes, I am strangely defensive of my pen.

I also was extremely pleased with how my garb held up! I had two struggles: my shirt ties and my hat. I wanted two ties to hold the collar shut, but I stupidly used synthetic grosgrain ribbon which tied up nicely and then wriggled loose at the first provocation. Less of a catastrophic structural failure and more of an annoyance. And my hat: I was feeling a bit burnt out after finishing the doublet and reconfiguring the waistband of my breeches, so I decided that a proper hat could wait for another day, or even–ooooh, so naughty–I could buy one at the faire if something caught my eye. But I’d also knit a beret with the thought of wearing it as Rabbit. Well, I started the blocking process and realized that I had no idea where my T-pins were. So I ended up wearing my awkwardly sized beret, which was fine… it just wasn’t Great.

I’ve got plans to head back on pirate’s weekend (oops, another theme weekend!), so I have a new to-do list for the next two weeks, ranked by importance:

1. Make some new ties for my shirt
   1a. Maybe finish the second shirt–but first I need to figure out if I’ve accidentally been working with a poly-cotton
2. Make a split-brimmed beret
3. Add in the lacing strip to the doublet that I foolishly skipped over
4. Possibly contemplate a soft belt with hidden elastic?
5. Break in Rabbit’s boots so I don’t have to wear my hiking boots

And as always… did I get a picture of my outfit? Nope 😉