FEET!

I have an HP "Photosmart" printer. It has worked very well for normal needs requiring 8 1/2" x 11" paper. One thing this printer called "Photosmart" isn't very good at is actually printing photos. First off, it won't print a 4x6 photo from the computer. It keeps claiming a size mismatch and jams. So I remembered from doing the 2FLOWR license plate I had to transfer the files to an SD card and put that card in the printer. With the license plate it worked well enough that after a few tries I got what I wanted.

This time, however, I wanted to print a pair of legs with the feet in colorful socks. Even after I remembered about putting the pics on the SD card, it still jammed several times running. Finally I decided to give it one last try. It actually printed, but cut off one heel and the toes on the other foot.

So I tried reducing the image a little bit and reprinting after remembering to put a white layer under the image because the canvas size was still 4x6 and transparancies print black which tends to be very thick and bleeds into the wanted image.

Nope, jam, jam, jam.

Forget it. Not being a particular fan of frustration, I decided to go up the street to Walgreens with my SD card. I needed bread and TP anyway.

Walgreens was a much better experience, at least so far. Their photo printing computer was very easy to use. I've never used it before but had very little trouble figuring it out. I ordered 10 of the two images in this post. Fortunately I had realized early in my planning that any image that went on one side would have to be reversed for the other if I wanted all the feet facing the right way.

The photos should be ready in about 15 minutes or so. Maybe I'll give it a little extra time. It cost me $5.80. I haven't decided whether I should cut the image out from the background or just leave the white there. I'll be mounting them in a piece of black cloth which will help hide the wheels a bit although not completely. The front wheels, being on rotating casters, stick out on one side or the other during turns.

TEETH!

I haven't been posting much on progress toward getting ready for Faerieworlds, partly because I've no amateur crastinator, I'm a pro. Also I've been doing a little of this, a little of that, but not, frankly, enough so far.

Today, at least has been different, as it had to be with only six days to get everything together. That's counting through Wednesday. Thursday morning I pick up the rental car, load up and head to Faerieworlds to help set up Three Moons Emporium's booth near the gate between the main field and the Inner Circle camping area.

Today was devoted to giving The Luggage it's teeth. As one of the little things I'd done earlier, I'd shaped a bunch of craft sticks by giving each end a point. The plan was to cut them in two later, so each stick = two teeth. They were very sharp, though, and I was concerned about installing them that way.

Today one of the first things I did was cut off and sand the points so I wouldn't impale myself (or some inquisitive kid) on the points. I'd figured out how to mount them, generally, and today worked out the specifics.

I'd bought six cheap covered wagon kits for the wheels for the faerie vardos. Left over were 18 pieces of wood for the wagon sides. I had just about enough to use four sets of two of them glued together to attach to the inside of The Luggage about an inch below the top of the front side. I also used four more wagon sides to glued to the top of the lid. I had discovered I would need to offset the teeth instead of just gluing them inside the lid because they'd hit the side when they came down. With the four small boards, the top teeth cleared the front nicely.

The bottom teeth needed the two small boards time four so the top teeth would overlap the bottom teeth. That worked nicely on the left side where I started gluing bottom teeth, but not so great on the right side. The lid alignment is off just enough to make the top and bottom teeth hit. I found that by gluing another craft stick between the eight right teeth and the two wagon sides, things worked much better. Guess that's to be expected with the inexact art of bodgering - the trunk was never meant to have teeth. Or wheels, either.

So there it is, with freshly-painted teeth done with antique white acrylic paint. That's a piece of 2x4 holding the lid up to show both sets of teeth. I think they came out nice and kind of ragged, which is what I was going for. The flash probably makes the teeth look a bit whiter than they really are.

Next I need to add the red webbing, then get something to use as a rope to pull it along.

The Legend of the Map - Faerieworlds

Today on the Faerieworlds Facebook page, Sylver asked if there was a list of vendors for this year's event. I had just posted a link to that list along with a link to the map showing where vendors, stages, etc. will be located. So I meant to post the exhibitor list, but first posted the map link instead, that being the last URL I'd copied. I realized I hadn't posted the right answer, and was correcting it when Sylver posted another comment in the thread: "Is there a legend to that map?" After posting the exhibitor list, I got to thinking about his question in another sense than he meant it. This was the result:

The Legend of the Map

Many years ago, in the far-off land of Arizona, a group of fae folk known as Woodland made music. Being a sharing folk, they used arcane methods to put their music on a magical disk, The Disk of CeeDee. This magical Disk of CeeDee was called "Twilight" - a title later stolen by the scribing Witch of Forks for her stories about sparkling vampires.

The Illustrious Brian of Froud

This magical Disk of CeeDee was made even more enchanted when Woodland entreated the illustrious faerie artist in the Land of Devon across the Great Ocean for the use of his faerie painting "The Faerie Who Was Kissed by the Pixies." Brian of Froud, being a kind and generous sort, granted this boon to Woodland.

The Woodland fae made it known to friends of faeries in their region of the land of Arizona that their magical Disk of CeeDee would be released unto the world on a certain date. On that momentous occasion, Robert of Gould, he of the City of Angeles and representative on this side of the Great Ocean for Brian of Froud, contacted Emilio of Miller-Lopez and his enchantress, Kelly, to enquire as to progress of the event.

"Robert!" Emilio cried, "There's over two hundred people in faerie costumes outside and I've never met any of them! Thus was the idea of a special celebration of fae folk and their friends born. This celebration came to be known far and wide as Faerieworlds.

The Musical Fae of Woodland

Not long after, the fae folk of Woodland left the land of Arizona for the land of much Winter rain and abundant Summer Sun known as Oregon. Faerieworlds opened the door between the Fae and the Humans in an enchanted place known to Humans as Horning's Hideout. The Faerieworlds door opened for two days in the year of 2004.

The next manifestation of Faerieworlds happened in the Summer of 2005 near another enchanted place, the site of the Oregon Country Fair, itself known for attracting magickal and fae folks. For four Summers, the Winery of the Secret House, which, despite it's name, was well-known among both Humans and Fae, was the site of the annual Faerieworlds celebration. It expanded to three days in 2008.

The Stone Circle of Faerieworlds

Alas, the Winery was unable to host the fae celebration in 2009, but with the cooperation of the good folk in the County of Lane, Faerieworlds swiftly relocated to the Enchanted Arboretum of Mount Pisgah, where revelers were able to erect their temporary domes of pleasure and rest for the three days of merry-making. In 2010, a Stone Circle consisting of eight Standing Stones, each representing a Celtic Feast Day, appeared in the field, signifying that the Fae and their Human friends intended to create their magickal world for three enchanting and entrancing day each glorious Summer.

The Great Map of Faerieworlds on the Tubes of Inter.

Through the magic of the Tubes of Inter, a Great Map of Faerieworlds was born to assist Humans in navigating their way amongst the purveyors of clothing, faerie art, and wondrous foodstuffs while magickal and enchanted performers of music, including Woodland, kept the spirits of the fae revelry alive.

The Fae and their Human friends will gather at the Enchanted Arboretum of Mount Pisgah near Eugene, Oregon from Friday the 27th of August through Sunday the 29th.

Where I'll Be at Faerieworlds 2012

 

I just did a bit of poking around on the Faerieworlds website to see if the site map had been updated (the actual layout of the area, not the website map). I found the 2012 map here - Three Moons Emporium is booth #2219. It's in the lower left corner of the magenta area on the left, putting it just outside the gate between the main area and Inner Circle camping. There should be a lot of people going back and forth by the booth, which is good as long as they stop by now and then. I'm not sure what the white square at the gate is for. I think at one time it was going to be the big pyramid, but I think that has been relocated.

In two weeks I'll be there and I still have a lot of stuff to do. Gotta get off the Intertoobs more and make stuff. I have got a couple of strings of battery-powered lights on my black wizard robe for wearing after sunset. It needs two more strings, one for each cuff (they're six feet around!) and a couple of strings for the wizard hat with all the faeries. They're excited about that! That's high on my agenda for today, along with a few modifications to the Sorting Hat and the Jedi robe for the Rincewind outfit. The bucket hat arrived last week and I've been wearing it when I go out. It's comfortable and keeps the Sun off my head.

Beca, the person in charge of Three Moons Emporium is from the Seattle area. She had thought until today that she'd be taking the train to Portland and a bus to Eugene. I'd offered to meet her at the train station in Portland. But friends of hers have room for her and her stuff, so I'll see her in the Realm two weeks from today. That will, of course, work out far better for her.

Since the booth is at a corner, I hope I'll have room for my tent fairly near to the booth. I got a 25' extension cord to run from the booth to the tent and I'll have colored lights strung on the tent.

I've been thinking beyond Faerieworlds for craft stuff - faerie houses, faerie vardos, steampunk hats, etc. I may put stuff up online if I get good results at FW.

Off for a bit more shopping. They're supposed to be turning off the water for a few hours around now, so it'll be prudent not to be here. I've never lived in a place where the water has been turned off so often, but then, I've lived here continuously longer than anywhere else since 1970.

Music for Celtic Faeries and Friends

Music for Celtic Faeries and Friends

A couple of weeks ago, one of my Facebook friends, Sylver, who is also a member of A Circle of Merry Folk, made a mix on MixCloud for folks to listen to as they make preparations for Faerieworlds. I thought about all the music I have and have written about and thought it might be fun to make my own mix. After all, I was once host of a couple of folk shows on WICN, a public radio station in Worcester, MA.

I've been busy with my own FW preparations, but I did join MixCloud back after I had listened to some of Sylver's "Crispy Crow Radio." Even without having uploaded a mix, I got four followers. Seemed like I should put together something and upload it. (The caption under the photo is a link to the results. Why not listen while you read?)

Fortunately, one of the programs MixCloud recommends for creating mixes is Audacity and it come in a Linux version. I didn't know a whole lot about it, but this morning I plunged in to put something together. It ended up taking most of the day. Choosing the music was the easiest part. Figuring out how to add stuff and arrange it so it didn't all play at once took a little learning. Quite frankly, Audacity's Help wasn't much help at all. I found myself searching the Intertoobs to get my questions answered. But I muddled through and learned how to timeshift selections and position them so they flow pretty evenly with no big gaps.

Some of the files I used were off of YouTube, including Chiftitelli by Adam Hurst, the resident Gypsy Cello player of Faerieworlds. It was only uploaded by Adam on June 18 and I really wanted to include it, so I had to find out about using YouTube sound. More learning.

Eventually I got 24 tracks of music from Faerieworlds performers and other Celtic performers I like. I thought I had everything in the right place, so then it was off to the Intertoobs again to figure out how to upload the results to MixCloud. Their Help wasn't very informative either, but I realized I had to convert the whole mix into one MP3 file. Once I figure out how to get that going, it looked like it was going to take nearly three hours. In the end, it took less time.

Ready to upload? Well, I thought so. So I uploaded the big file. While it was uploading, I created a list of the tracks. Now, if I really knew what I was doing, each track, while being played, would be highlighted. But the option of marking where one track ends and another starts later was offered, so I passed for now. With a few more bits of info filled in, and with the upload finished while I was creating the track list, I was ready to listen.

So, I sent a tweet about it, then used the link in it to start my first mix. The first few tracks went through just fine. Then suddenly there was this big silence. A really big silence. Then the next track started. To make matters worse, partway through that track, the track that was supposed to follow it started. Uh-oh.

I went back to Audacity and saw that those files I thought I'd so carefully arranged had gotten moved around. So I stopped the mix, deleted my tweet and the Facebook message the tweet had created and figured out how to delete the mix from MixCloud.

Back to Audacity, where I had to do quite a bit of timeshifting. I figured out how to select every track from the first misplaced one to the end and shifted the whole lot. The next time I found a misplaced track, I tried it again, but for some reason only the first file I wanted to move moved. I don't know why. From then on I moved them individually, attempting to place them so they'd flow pretty well. After I got them moved, I sampled the end of a selection with the beginning of the next all the way back to the beginning. To my old radio host ears, it wasn't bad although one of two transitions could've used improvement, but I'd been at it for hours and any gaps were small. Many tracks include a few seconds of silence at the end, and I got most of that overlapped with the next track. Then I saved the file and double-checked. Then it was time to upload the MP3 file again and recreate the track list, which went much easier the second time, of course.

I could've done without having to basically recreate the file placement and uploading, but I did learn more stuff during that part. I've been listening to the results as I've been typing this. Nearly halfway through and so far so good.

I may not do any more mixes until after Faerieworlds, but at least I have something up on MixCloud.

Still More Stuff, More Bodgering

Craft Warehouse had coupons for Monday through Friday this week for 40% off one item each day and 50% off one item on Wednesday. The only day I didn't go was Tuesday. I've kept finding things, so it has been worth the trips. After yesterday, I thought it might be a while before I'd return, but with a change in plans, I made a trip today.

Earlier I had gotten two sets of small wheels at $2.97 a set to be used for the faerie vardos. Another alternative was to buy a small covered wagon kit for $2.99 each which included four spoked wheels. With a difference of $5.94 vs. $17.94, I went for the less expensive option. During the week Bill Cass, a puppeter from Washington state, uploaded some pictures of a wagon/vardo he'd made to serve as a mobile stage for Nymbolnuts, his main puppet character and his friends. It got me to thinking that the small wheels I'd gotten just weren't right. So late this morning I got the packages and went back to Craft Warehouse, where I returned them and instead got six covered wagon kits.

I'm mainly interested in the wheels, of course, but some of the other parts will be useful, if not on the faerie vardos then somewhere else. I'd gotten some 1/4" dowels for axles. I'd also gotten some decorative nails for use on The Luggage. Turns out that sticking them through the holes in the center of the wheels and then into the end of a piece of dowel works out great getting the wheels set up to attach to the vardo. The dowel/axle and the nail/hub don't rotate, but the wheels do. The fancy brass nail heads look pretty good on the spoked wheels, and they'll probably look better once the wheels get painted. I cut a couple of small pieces of the kit (the metal-handled knife is pointing at one in the picture) into two. I'll glue those to the axles and then to the bottom of the vardo.

I just did a little measuring on a couple of the faeries on the wizard hat and realized these faerie vardos are scaled just about right for them. I wonder if I'll be able to find any more of the same kind of faeries anywhere. It's been a few years since I got them. After some searching online, none of my faeries showed up, but of course there are probably thousands of different ones available.

[Much, much later] Sheesh! I wrote this on Saturday. Here it is late Sunday and I find I never published it. CRS at work.

Getting More Stuff

Some days start late for me and don't get moving very fast. Gotta work on overcoming that for the next three weeks if I expect to get the costumes modified, The Luggage done and faerie houses and vardos made. First I checked the mailbox. My Coleman air pump and bucket hat, each mailed separately had arrived together and a day earlier than Amazon estimated, so I went back to the apt. to drop them off, but decided to wear the hat to check it out. It's fine.

I set off again intending to get my Tri-Met pass from the MAX stop across the street (easily done), then walk to the bus stop about 1/4 mile south to go to Harbor Freight for tools to make faerie house windows, get a free flashlight, and cheap tarp and see what else I might find. I'd cut some coupons from the AARP Bulletin for this purpose. But as I approached the bus stop, at just a bit to far to try hurrying up to catch it, the eastbound bus went by. So I then decided I'd wait for the bus in the other direction to go to Home Depot to get the nuts and bolt. That bus didn't take long to come and I didn't spend a lot of time in HD. I found the nuts, the bolt and a couple of eye bolts to attach a rope for pulling The Luggage.

I went back up to catch the same bus line in the eastbound direction. Something must've happened to a bus because it took nearly half an hour of waiting before one came. Meanwhile I saw two buses for another line cross the intersection to the west and I'm pretty sure they run at the same frequency. The bus the eventually came was full as though that one bus was carrying the load of two. It's about a seven mile ride, so along with the wait, there was the time involved just getting out to Harbor Freight.

Once there, I got everything mentioned above plus a short 32-LED flashlight that I may try to see if I can mount on my staff between its top and the glass crystal I mounted atop it several years ago. The idea is to have the light shine up from the flat side and refract all over. I'll have to take things apart to see what the effect will be, then rig up some kind of lever to push on the button at the back of the light which will be against the top of the staff. It may take a bit of bodgering up.

Just for the exercise, I decided to walk the mile or so down to either another bus line or to the end of the MAX line. So I stopped in across the way at Burgerville, a local chain that is far superior to the national burger chains. I don't do that very often, but I hadn't eaten much so far and it was around 4:30, more than two hours since I'd started out.

When I got down to Division Street, I realized the bus would have to go into the Gresham Transit Center and then I'd have to pick up another bus of a different line to continue down Division Street heading west to Craft Warehouse to use a coupon for 40% off one item. So instead, I walked and it was a bit more walking than I thought it would be. Once there I got some acrylic gloss sealer for The Luggage and looked around a bit to see what I could get at similar discounts the rest of the week. Since the walk had taken quite a while, it was now 6 o'clock and they had a special of 20% off on the whole purchase from 6 to 8, so I got some foam brushes. I got more than I'd need just for Faerieworlds preparations since I'm thinking of continuing to do craft stuff beyond then.

So by the time I got back home, I was (and am) pretty tired. I made sure the nuts would work on the bolts, loosely spun them on and tightened a few, but the body isn't liking a lot of bending over right now.

Tomorrow I'll try to get an earlier start to things. I may go back to Craft Warehouse. I was a bit disappointed to realize that the moss sheets I thought I'd buy there are actually something sold at JoAnn's. I was hoping to pick up some at a nice discount, but no such luck, I guess.

Earlier to bed than usual tonight, although as always around the 4th, the neighborhood sounds like a war zone and probably will for at least a couple of hours.