So I got out today! Just for a little, and not in full on rangery costume - but I did make a bit of a morning of it by trading out my normal top for a wool tunic and trying out a paenula/ruana/poncho pattern I've been playing with.
Brief side note on the cloak: it's basically an oval paenula pattern with a ruana-style slit all the way up the front and a hood. I generally quite like the concept, but I'm still working out how long I want it to be. Presently unhemmed it falls just below knee length in front and about midcalf in back. That feels just a bit too long, but I'm kinda terrified of cutting it off too short so haven't been able to bring myself to get the scissors back out yet. Anyhow, I had no problems going up or down a steep hill in about a foot of snow, so the extra length is at least so far not much of a hindrance. Summer grass might be a different story. We'll see. Oh - and the weather station said it was about 26F (-3C), which sounds about right. I was perfectly comfortable even in just the tunic, although it was dry and there was no wind to speak of.
ANYHOW... the reason for the outing - I wanted a stick.
Last year I saw Fandabi Dozi's staff video (
link), and the way he did up one of his walking sticks with a feather and some carving was just lovely. And I realized I haven't had a walking stick in like - decades. And that someday we'll have to leave the farm - and that I won't be walking so great when that day comes I imagine - so it seemed like a good idea to make something nice now to hold the memories later.
I'd vaguely remembered that the right time for cutting was February-ish - but didn't think about it until I started going over calendar stuff this morning and realized...
... that THIS VERY MORNING was the first day of the first new moon of midwinter.
I figured it couldn't get more auspicious than that, so since I was ahead of schedule on everything else from working weekends, I played hookey this morning to go play in the woods.
- merf-forest.jpg (66.31 KiB) Viewed 4162 times
Rowan and (sadly, now) ash aren't exactly easy finds in our woods. But, I thought... I'm North American, I live in North American... maple was a pretty darn good choice. It's a lovely New Englandy wood. So I got some goodies and set out and found a nice straight maple tree in the perfect spot.
It was tall and straight, but it was really crowding another maple. Win/win - I get a stick, and the remaining tree gets more breathing space to grow nice and big someday.
I folded up my cloak and used it as a groundcloth on the snow, and spent a midwinter morning cleaning off the bark. (I *thought* that was right thing to keep it from checking? I've sealed and bound the ends while I wait for it to dry).
(As an aside, the presently UNtreated wool tweed I used was perfectly dry in a foot of powdered snow. No problems whatsoever)
For now, it's drying in storage. I'm thinking about midsummer (if I haven't screwed something up) it will be dry enough I can finish carving it, then have it ready for some forest playtime this fall!
