With the 2006 event season, I can think about projects to work on for next year with colgaffneyis. It is unlikely I will finish all of these, and certainly other things will come up. However, this is what comes to mind now.

Clothes:

• Maintenance (patching) of plaids
• Summer weight doublet/coat
• Alterations on my winter weight coat
• Cut hose (sewn from woven fabric, not knitted)
• Belted Plaid experiments (See the last two articles referenced here).
• Summer weight bonnet.
• Trews (not breeches, though eventually I may make another pair of those as well).

Woodworking:

1. Another chest for period camping gear. Yes, we have a perfectly good chest already. However, we now have considerably more stuff than it can hold.
2. A full size shaving horse. The portable model I have works OK, but its capacity is limited.
3. Better transport for tools and supplies. I have been using a copy of Roy Underhill’s tool tote (What he carries in the opening scene of the The Woodwright’s Shop). Like the chest, this has worked well for years. However, I need to supplement it, to provide more organization and capacity.
4. Tools for mia_mcdavid‘s fabric arts. The niddy-noddy I made her works fine (and I am working on another for rillaspins). Coming up: a swift.
5. More spoons, and possibly other stuff for the kitchen.
6. Finish the cane I started at Des Moines, just so I can say it is done.

All of these projects have a constraint: We must be able to transport them to events in our current vehicles, the larger of which is a Ford Escort Station wagon. The shaving horse will be a challenge, but I think I can make it work.

One more thing, which is a prerequisite to all the rest:

1. Clear the clutter on my workbench.

Leatherwork:

• Repair or replace my heavy jerkin.
• A baldric for my Mortuary Hilt sword.
• Another belt.
• An ionar (Irish jacket).

I also have some reading research projects. I need to update my article about the social status of the belted plaid with another Gaelic source. Some members of colgaffneyis have challenged my thesis there, but without producing any evidence. Such contemporary statements to the contrary that I have seen all reflect Lowland prejudice, rather than what the Highlanders themselves believed.