The theme for me lately seems to be intense bursts of activity, followed by sitting around watching TV for a couple of days, and somewhere remembering to blog about said activity.

Here’s what I’ve been up to lately:

Fool’s War. I have this photo of the CG and she looks really really great, except for the cooler in the background.

But otherwise, really authentic! The yarn she is spinning on that beautiful wheel is likewise beautiful, but in a different sort of way. (I’d have more photos of things, but crappy camera refused to take more than the one).

Then, using my weird, fashion-sized dressform, I came up with a proto-solution to the ghagra mystery:

Basically, it’s a length of fabric draped around the dummy nivi-style, only without the pallu and knotted at the waist. However, it achieves what I want it to, which is the weird pointy silhouette you see in Mewari miniatures from the 16th century. I have no idea how to get the patka to work with this, but I feel it’s a useful exercise. My other solution (which I currently use) is to bunch the fabric in the front of the skirt, along the drawstring, which seems to work in a similar fashion, only not as voluminous and not as neatly.

This is the fun part of costuming, right?

Anyway. So then, yesterday, I got frustrated waiting for 4th Wednesday illumination class to roll around, and I was too lazy to drive anywhere, so I went to Sam Flax, bought myself some gouache, and am now nearly finished with my first “original” illumination:

(Crappy camera is crappy. So are crappy photos. Sorry.)

I can see how real gold leaf will help in the future. My goal with this is to find the language for an OVO scroll, and modify this to match the  initial letter of that, plus incorporate an owl instead of that rockin’ peacock (which I love, but is not as appropriate). Or, I’ll keep the peacock and work on the first letter of a different scroll. I will have to find somebody to do the calligraphy, as I have not done any since 7th grade art class, but it’s a good start!

And then I bought some kumquats to share at Fool’s War, only they’re really an acquired taste, so I went home with lots of kumquats. So I brought them to work and at the end of the day, there were lots of kumquats. I thought a witty and charming illustration would help. I made one:

By 2pm, they were all gone! I don’t know if they got eaten or were thrown away, but I don’t have to worry about them any more.

This weekend is Coronation, which will either be warm or cold, so I’m packing some garb options. I am kind of hoping it’s warm. I forgot how much I love my Hindu garb.