Things that have kept me busy the last few weeks; preparing for the day of amateur arts (dag van de amateurkunst) with Amersical. That was a great way to start the season again. This year we'll be playing The Mama Mia Musical; an edited version of the official musical (everything in Dutch). We'll hear who gets to play which part this week. I applied for Tanja or Rosa, Donna's friends.

Then there was the wig and headdress course I've been taking at Faces in Gorinchem. Three Mondays with the last day this past Monday. We had to make a wig out of wool (sewn to a wig cap liner strand by strand (or in bunches)), one out of hemp (Rococo style) and a headdress from somewhere between 1200 and 1450. The hemp wig was mainly made on the second day of the course and finished at home, the other two projects were homework. And my goodness what a lot of work! But the results were so worth it. I'm still waiting for the official pictures, but I took some of my hemp wig and made it a project at Cut Out and Keep. We had a photo shoot with an amateur photographer last Monday with matching costumes to the wigs/headdress. The Rococo costume was entirely improvised from newspapers (for the bustles and a frame to work on) and fabric. So no sewing at all, just tacking and pinning. Oh, and make-up of course. When I finally get the photos (somewhere in November) I'll post some here.

I also reinstalled windows 7 on my computer. Took me more than a day to get everything up and running again. We improved the walls of our Sahara tent by adding mud flaps to keep out the rain (which bothered us a lot last Summoning) and we added a bit of fabric to our tarp so that it now matches our small green tent better without leaving a gap for the rain to pour through. This will all be tested next week. This weekend we have Charm for which we will lend out our tent and the week after that we'll be sleeping in it at the Moots.

I've also entered a contest at Urban Threads with a vest with 3 embroidered designs on it. Took me 1,5 day to get it finished. I was really nervous about embroidering the designs on fleece because these designs are really densely stitched and fleece is stretchy. But as long as you don't embroider on pieces that need to stretch (like the body) it will work out. The embroidery is a bit stiff which is especially notable at the right sleeve (where the mermaid lives) but it is not uncomfortable to wear. I love my machine!! Next challenge: try to make lace. Oh, and finish the 'portfolio' with thread listings and embroidery time for each design I already bought so it is easier to plan a design on a piece of work.

Another thing that happened, though it didn't take up much time, was that I found a new job. My first work day is tomorrow (aaahh.. nerves!). I put a semi-desperate add on Marktplaats asking if someone could give me a chance without any prior experience in their field of work. This was on a Sunday. The Tuesday after that I had an e-mail and on Wednesday I was in Utrecht for a job interview at Covers Housing. A week later we had signed the contract. It's a 24 hours a week job and for a while I'll be combining it with my mail-girl work for Sandd. Until I can decide if this new job suits me well enough to keep at it. (Hey, it's a first for me.. working in administration) Then I'll end my job at Sandd (a month notice time...) and hopefully after that I can get my own business up and running. Which has been stagnating a bit because of above reasons (yes, yes, priorities..).

Today I plan to do some shopping for some more decent clothes to wear to work. My new shoes have already come in, now I need some longsleeves or blouses to combine with other stuff. I don't much like shopping for clothes, but it is sunny and cheery outside so I'll live. So, here we go!