King's Landing

Dear Knittah,

Eep! Noricum is click-happy with her camera! We weeded down the photos some, and then split them between her blog and this one. But still... there are *so* many photos! After you're done here, if you aren't tired of King's Landing, check out Noricum's post.

In summary: we had a fantastic time at King's Landing! Now for the photos...

This was our chariot for the weekend:

We made sure to document it (licence plate too) in case we had trouble finding it again. ;) (It turns out we needn't have worried... we were the *last* people leaving, so the parking lot was just as empty as when we arrived. We were so late out the door that they had to turn the credit-card machine back on so Noricum could buy some books.)

I was the navigator... but I had trouble seeing over the dashboard, and our map didn't extend beyond Fredericton.

However, we made it there and back despite my difficulties! See:

(We just happened to take different routes there and back... oh well... at least we made it!)



We tried to take lots of fiber-related photos for you. In this shot, one lady is sewing bits of wool felt on a backing for a rug. These bits of felt were too small to be used for other things, but *nothing* was wasted back then.



Aside: You see those wooden things in the background? We saw then in a few houses, but couldn't figure out what they were. The one lady we asked didn't know... she was new. We forgot to ask anyone else.
Aside 2: The wreath in the photo contains human hair. (Nothing wasted!) Um... ew.

See this house?

That's the second story. A lot of houses were built into hillsides. That way they could have cool larders without a lot of digging, plus save the flat land for farming. Again, *nothing* wasted!

Signs of spinning were everywhere!


Here's some weaving of suspenders:

(Another shot with actual suspenders comes later.)

A peddler!

He said that if we had come a day earlier we could have bought his horse. That would have been more fun than a rental car! But slower... and that would likely have meant less time at King's Landing. :(

The weaver wasn't in when we stopped by here:

But her cloth was pretty.

(She was using commercially produced cotton, though.)



Look at the lovely colours of natually dyed yarn!


This one was dyed with ferns and alum as a mordant. It is *much* prettier in person. The camera really doesn't do it justice.

This friendly lady let Noricum try her spinning wheel. She had so much fun! However, she couldn't manage treadling and spinning at the same time, so the lady spun the wheel while Noricum drafted. Treadling is much harder than it looks. When Noricum took her photo, she managed to catch her when the wool got tangled:

So we made sure to get proof that her spinning is much nicer than the previous photo shows:

She was very impressed with Noricum's ability to spin (even though she can't treadle), and says that Noricum definitely deserves to have a wheel. ;) Noricum also demonstrated how to use the drop spindle, since these two ladies hadn't been shown properly, and couldn't figure it out. They didn't try it while she was there, but appreciated being shown. Leaving the house, Noricum heard some thuds and giggles. ;)

The food at the King's Head Inn was *delicious*!!! We had salmon chowder with a biscuit and lemonade:

Followed by warm gingerbread cake with real whipped cream:

Lunch was to *die* for!







All the doorstops were these pretty woven-cloth covered bricks:


Noricum and I like this photo:

Don't you think it would make a pretty card?









We got to see flax processing demonstrated! Neat!


Here piggy, piggy, piggy!

You can't tell from these photos, but that's one big piggy!

What a neat stove!

This was in one of the churches.







This is the photo with the suspenders:






These fellows were big too:

And look at those horns! Don't mess with them!





Hey... these are by the same artist that did the ones for city hall:


Well... was that enough photos for you? We have more. ;)

King's Landing is neat... all of the houses are ones that would have been flooded when the hydro dam was built, so they were all moved to this location and set up as a living history museum. Each house represents a specific time period, so you get to see how things changed over time... from open hearth cooking to fancy stoves, etc. The cabin housing the flax demonstration was just a single room with an unused loft. Other houses were practically mansions. It was really neat. One day wasn't enough to see everything!

Love,
Swatchy