I have wanted a late peri-oid female performing costume for a while, and am hoping for some input from all ye who are much better versed in matters of garb than I. I want something with a big skirt, with an apron or belt into which I can tuck up part of the skirt, and then something bloomer-like to wear under the skirt and flash at people when I toss clubs under my leg, try to balance on a slack line and fall off, etc. Now I know bloomers aren't period, but I really don't know much about later period undies. Would something like braes fancied up with some lace to make them more interesting be an OK attempt at a compromise for performing purposes? Should I just stick with bloomers and figure, oh well, they are OOP but it is a costume? Any suggestions? I am looking for ideas for the whole costume, not just the undies. :-)

My car is in the shop. Looks like it is just the air conditioner compressor having issues (crosses fingers). Luckily it got us back down from Lionhearts before deciding to have issues.

If you didn't notice, I am not at the war. This is ostensibly because we are going to be putting the roof on this week & weekend. In reality, we are going to be preparing to put the roof on and doing as much as we can without the pieces that the stupid roofing company didn't send us. OMG so frikkin' frustrating. We ordered a metal roofing kit from this place that is supposed to be awesome for DIY people like us. But then they forgot to send us most of the panels that go over the eves of the house. Which we need to put on first. Grrr. Oh, and they lost our order when they were delivering it too. Sigh.

On the happier side of things, my goblet class is going well. I boxed two footed glasses on Tuesday, and they both went really well. I was definitely in the groove and everything I did with smooth, flowed, and precise. An excellent feeling. This evening, one of the people from my class and I are going to have another shot at making footed cups in my studio. Hopefully it goes well...

how jedi are you? :: by lawrie malen

Envision a blood red goblet arcing across the room and separating into three distinct pieces, moving as if in slow motion towards the instructors, um.. you know... while he calmly pulls himself up onto the marver and out of the way. Suddenly the pieces of glass meet the floor in a dramatically bouncing then smash-tinkling explosion of ruby glitter. We all managed to loose our pieces last night (maybe some sort of weird after-effect of the conference, a week off and too much booze?) but mine was certainly the most spectacular... ;-)

Rules: Post 3 things you've done that you believe nobody else on your F-list has done. Indulge in remorse if someone calls you out on a listed item.

Ok, so this one is way too easy for me in some ways.... while predictable, here is my juggling version of this meme:

1. Juggled one cat and two bean bags. Yup, that would be Theo, shortly after I adopted him. 'Cause it had to be done.

2. Won the raw egg juggling endurance competition at the Portland Juggling Festival (1995?)

3. Balanced on top of a board on top of three tankards on a rolling board while spinning a plate on a stick in my mouth while juggling 3 knives and wearing a codpiece

Apparently a bunch of galleries are staying open late on Friday for a Gallery Hop associated with the Glass Arts Conference. This is open to the public. Here is the blurb:

Today their are glass blowing demonstrations open to the public from 9am to 4pm at Elements Glass in Portland. They are running a "day of glass" which is open to the public before the Glass Arts Society Conference begins tomorrow.

Ok, so it doesn't have a stem, but it has an avolio and a blown foot. Woot! It feels all light and goblety drinking out of it too...

It is day 9 of the cold from hell.... Ick... Day 2 was the worst. Days 3 & 4 were still pretty icky. And now it just keeps hanging on... :-P Today I finally resumed exercise. More specifically I resumed the couch to 5k running program, from which I have been on hiatus during the frikkin' cold. I had to take a couple coughing breaks and blow my nose a lot, but I did the program, didn't throw up, and didn't kill the dog. And I feel better about having done *something*.

In other news, I am looking at MFA programs in Sculpture and Glass again. I am also looking at certificate programs in welding and machine shop stuff (that would be a technical term, "machine shop stuff"...). I am not sure if I am going to pursue either option, but I am thinking about them.

Next week is the Glass Art Society conference, here in Portland. The glass blowing demonstraitions are all being held at the shop where I am taking classes, so everyone is running around crazily painting, cleaning, building ramps and moving shelves. I am looking forward to the various activities and demos. So who else will be there?

Today I started doing some solo glass blowing for the first time. Pretty neat, and it looks like I will be able to make quite a bit of stuff by myself. I am going to be updating my medievalglass lj more often with my glass blowing notes and pictures. I spent a few hours out there today, and hope to go back out in a bit, though I am still feeling a bit icky because of the cold of doom. So far today I have made one prototype viking cloth smoother thing and a beaker that sadly has a broken bottom. I am itching to get back out and finish a whole beaker... 

That cold that is kickin' everyone in the butt? Just got me too.... Spent today home on the couch. I had a bit of a scratchy throat yesterday, and decided to go to fighter practice in Stromgard anyway, which was maybe not such a good idea but lots of fun. Hope I didn't share the cold... I had fun seeing and hitting peeps! 

I woke up yesterday with a very sore neck, only to touch the back and realize I have a HUGE spider bite, perfectly centered on the back of my neck. As someone put it last night,"You camped out for 3 days, only to come home and get a bug bite?" Yup. Luckily, I already had a dermetologist appointment for 10am, so I freaked out about the spider bite for only a few hours, then went to the doctor, who gave me a variety of interesting creams to anoint myself with. At least the vicious elfa-eating spider had good timing. I went to fighter practice last night, despite the fact that my gorget rubs on the spider bite, only to be disappointed to discover that I had not gained any super powers over night. Lame!!! Maybe if I round up the household spiders and inject them with Tjorkill DNA...  

Our cat, Pip, is a hunter. Possibly not in the traditional sense of the word, since I have never seen him attack any living prey. But in the past, he has taken down bags of sour dough bread, vanquished grilled chicken breasts, and left offerings of freshly grilled steak (when we had not recently had steak) on our back deck. Today was apparently a day for new game. A few minutes ago I went to let him in from the back deck, because he was meowing loudly. He was situated under our umbrella awning, complaining about the rain, and noshing on a slice of pizza. Apparently the rain interrupted his dinner. Need I mention that we didn't have pizza today?

Ursula was inducted into the Order of the Laurel on Saturday afternoon court at June Faire! Yay!!! She looked awesome, and is now bling-tastic! :-)

Robert Asprin passed away yesterday. I have always been a fan of some good comic relief, and his books have always been just the thing to bring me out of a funk. I just finished reading his newest book, Dragon's Gold (April 2008), three days ago. Very sad to have someone who brought joy to so many people die so comparatively young (62), but he will be remembered. This weekend raise your glasses to Yang the Nauseating!

I convinced a couple other students in my glass blowing designs class that they want to learn to make goblets, so starting a week from Tuesday I will be taking a goblet-making class! It will happen at the same time as the regular designs class, but our group of three students will be focusing on goblet making techniques. I am pretty excited, since I have wanted to do this for a long time. Now I will have to get together the equipment to do goblets at our studio (mostly we need a garage - a place to "park" the various goblet components and keep them warm until we are ready to assemble them).

Speaking of our studio, my work there has been on hold for a few weeks, due to our crucible being cracked and having to oreder new ones, and then Georgie's being out of the size kiln shelf we needed. We finally gave up on the shelf and dad constructed a couple of trays to place under the crucible (so we don't stick the crucible to the bottom of the furnace when we drip glass over the edge). Of course this weekend is the Grand Thing, and the next weekend is Ursula's elevation at June Fair, so I won't get out there again until the weekend after that to do more glass blowing. Which means I am falling even more behind on commissions and trades, since I don't want to rent time to finish them up, it being more expensive than making things at our shop.... sorry... patience is a virtue, right? ;-) We will, however, have a pipe warmer working by then, so making claw beakers should be a bit more reasonable. Of course it will probably be smokin' hot out by the time we get the studio going again, so we may need to shift to a nighttime glass blowing schedule.

Yesterday was Hank's birthday, and in honor of the occasion he took the day off work and spent it playing video games and eating chocolate mousse. Now I have made chocolate mouse for him before, and consider it to be a pain, so I purchased some from Whole Foods. Because of our "lovely" weather that ended up also being a pain, mostly due to high traffic volume on 99 as people traveled to the coast, and the insanity and road rage that heat and heavy traffic inspire in the general population. Being smart (at times) I keep a small cooler in the trunk of my car, so I was able to successfully transport the sacred mousse home on a bed of ice. When I reached our home, I moved the mousse, cooler and all, into the kitchen, and then nestled the tulip-shaped cups of chocolate mousse elaborately topped with three types of berries and white chocolate straws, into the refrigerator. As I am completing this operation I begin to hear a loud crunching noise. I move on to unpacking the other groceries and the crunching continues. And continues. For like 5 minutes. Of course it was the dog eating the ice. She often will eat an ice cube if we drop one on the floor, but this time she was chowing down on the cooler full of ice like it was cat food. What a freak... Anyway, today I gave up and filled half her water bowl with ice since she kept looking around for the cooler and I am a sucker. 

Had to share this 'cause I know that [Unknown LJ tag] among others will appreciate it....

Tiki Glass Blowing Video