I knew I would come home from Celtic Summer Camp with new stuff.  I just wasn’t aware how much I would come home with.  I didn’t get by without spending any money this year, but Crazy Lanea’s (the basket of clothes for friends for which the blog is named, not the blog) covered my shopping bills.  I bought a fair amount of good linen, of course, because I am going to need to make a lot of clothes for a particular friend.  You’ll see why. 

This gem of a birchbark box came from Viking Scott, of course.  Birch is very important to me, so I’m a sucker whenever I see it.  I always go to Viking u Like prepared to spend.  How could I not?  But this year, Viking Scott came at me with a present.  We were talking about research and craft, and I mentioned that  a couple of people were really encouraging me to study Finnish culture.  So he gave me this:

It’s a repro of a women’s necklace from Finland.  It’s a horse/sea serpent/goose/dragon/something.  It’s bronze.  I love it.  I am going to have to make things to wear with it.  And maybe I have to weave something for Viking Scott . . . see how this goes?

I ordered something special a while back from Shrew, and it was waiting for me.

The lower piece is my new drinking horn.  Etaine drew the image for me a while back.  I haven’t managed to get the tattoo (because I’m a scaredy cat, and because I had a minor medical thing to deal with first), but I have the horn now.  I’m actually a bit paranoid even posting a photo, I so hate the idea of someone swiping the image . . . guh.  So don’t steal it, dammit.  The upper horn is for blowing, and it sounds amazing.  That’s a stag on it.  It’s so purty. 

So, then wishing started to get me into real trouble.  When my friend Brogan from Tuatha de Bhriain showed up at camp, he mentioned that he brought me more stuff to bribe me into making him clothes.  The madness started last year, when he walked off with about a dozen garments and left me with a wad of cash, which I almost immediately gave to friends of ours who sell pretty shiny bits.  Some time after camp last year, Brogan read here on the blog that I really really like bone needles.  And then he showed up at Beltaine with a leather case full of bone needles, and a bunch of other vintage needles.  I promised to make him a bunch of clothes, and we discussed having a tailor take his measurements, and I tried to get some color preferences out of him ("not ugly" seems to be his favorite color).  So when he showed up at camp with this strange look in his eye, and I started hearing from Cellagh that I was going to really like what Brogan  brought, I knew I was in trouble.  Yeah.  I’m in trouble. 

That’s the full stock of cases and a cardboard case with additional needles.  The top two were the first delivery, back in the spring.  I should point out that Brogan hates that first leather case and would probably like me to return it to him so he can burn it.  I explained that if I did that, the knitters I know would be really really angry and the destruction of something so lovely and useful.  He still wants to destroy it.  The two new cases are, of course, perfected.  The seams are stick straight.  The end caps, again, are cherry.  Careful, lovely workmanship.   That pile of cases has brought me the following:

These are handmade wooden needles of indeterminate age, vintage Paton’s needles, and vintage sock needles.  Next: the real trouble:

It’s insane, I say!  Look at all of those bone needles.  If they weren’t so, you know, needley I would roll in them.  There are sets of DPNs in various sizes, many of which are nice and long, which is ideal for hats and sweaters.  And there are sock-sized DPNs.  When these came out, the lovely Ruadhan (who taught me to knit) was sitting with us.  I was gob-smacked, and mentioned that there were actually too many needles for any one knitter, and the lovely, generous, anti-greedy Ruadhan said: "You should give me some of those needles, please."

Frankly, I can’t refuse her.  How could I?  Look at all the freaking bone needles.  And she taught me to knit.  It’s all her fault, really.  I have since made up a package of delight for her.

But the needles weren’t the end of the insanity.  Brogan also brought me this:

It’s a briefcase Charka. 

Crap.  I am going to be sewing until the end of the world for him.  I just know it.  So Crazy Lanea’s has a new policy: if your name isn’t Brogan or Scott or Lanea, get to the end of the line and wait patiently for your opportunity to ask for clothes, but prepare for refusal. 

And then we got home, and I had a discussion with Juno about wool.  And I admitted I didn’t have any unprocessed wool in the house except felting materials.  And, of course, she sent me this beautiful CVM.

She’s so pretttttttyyyyy!  Yarrow wants to marry her.  I might let him gently wallow in the box, supervised of course, for just a little while before I start scouring.  True love cannot be denied. 

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