Tail end of Winter, dawn of Spring and the Sakura Matsuri

My "little leather life" as of late has been fairly busy, though I've not been blogging it. Instead of attempting to catch up, I'll just make a brief note of our travels yesterday and other upcoming events, some Leather, others being more seasonally inspired.

Sir and I headed down into Washington D.C. yesterday for the Crucible's 18th biannual LF&P (Leather Flea and Play,) which as I've noted here before when writing about it, is more commonly referred to as the "elephant pee," hence the elephant logo.

We had originally thought we might be bringing a friend along with us this Spring but travel plans fell through and it turned into a nice event for just the two of us.

It was well into the afternoon by the time we arrived, a slight drizzle was coming down, but it seemed plenty crowded none-the-less.

I was on a mission of sorts, after some rope. We're going to make it to Shibaricon this year come hell or high water (after our thwarted attempt last year), so this was going to be one of my last chances to catch Rainbow Rope in person before we head towards Chicago.

We found some nice blue MFP for Sir, and a nice 50' piece of Blue and Black all of which came home with us. Afterwards we wandered a bit, looked at knives, but didn't quite see anything that felt quite right.

At one point, I did see someone across the room that we had met at Black Rose last Autumn, but by the time we had come back around she was nowhere to be seen. So this was yet another flea where we weren't really finding familiar faces.

We stumbled headlong into a happy surprise as we made our way towards the door. When we had come in through the library area it had been a mob scene and so we figured we'd come back through on our way out. Well sure enough, just as we were getting ready to leave we finally stumbled headlong into the "unique" and custom that I try to keep my eyes out for when we go to the Fleas.

Wooden canes (among other tools) with bone handles. Lovely, natural materials with soft leather work carefully bringing the pieces together. Sir said they felt really good in his hand and the balance felt wonderful.

My ex-wife and I used to discuss the importance of tools and how it was not merely about feeling amazing on the "receiving" end of a whip, but also about how a tool feels in the hand of one who wields it. Those conversations led her to create an incredibly special whip, one that will never be used on anyone else. It remains as a physical legacy of our time together.

These canes embodied that same spirit. One is long, the shaft a carefully polished hickory, the other a much shorter purple heartwood, perfect for intimate work. Stumbling into special pieces like these is precisely part of the reason we go to the fleas and vendors rooms at events.

I protected our newfound treasures from the rain as we wandered back to our vehicle. All notions of a trip to the National Arboretum or even a quick drive around the tidal basin to see how far along the sakura blossoms were fell by the wayside in the bleakness of the rainy afternoon.

Instead, we stopped back by one of my old neighborhoods for good pizza and beer and just plain spending some time together, talking on into the evening. The drive back home in the rain made a perfect end to the day.

In other news, we are looking forward to DC and Philly's Sakura Matsuri both this month and in April. (Click here to see more information about this year's DC featured poster artist, Carol Tomasik. I love this year's design!)

We celebrate every year, welcoming the cherry blossoms and marking the occasion is part of our Household. Along our way back home yesterday, we saw a few trees already in bloom, so I suppose I can at long last break out the Sakura incense.

For just a few short weeks each year the whole house smells of the blossoms and incense, and I take long hot baths in Sakura bath salts. The tub gets filled with pink water and I listen to lots of koto and shakuhachi music. It is all part of how we shake off the last of Winter. For now, I'm trying to decide what events over the course of the festivals we'll actually make it to.

We have also made the decision to go to the (first ever!) Charm City Fetish Fair near Baltimore. I'm actually very excited about the event, in part because I'll be having a number of friends from out of state coming in for the event. We're working to schedule meals and possibly sleepovers, and other such around the edges of the event. It should be a good time.

So we've been keeping busy.

January and February have also been important months in terms of my "little Leather life", but I will leave those stories to another post.

Spring LF&P, artisans and community

So yesterday was the Crucible's Spring Leather Flea and Play (LF&P,) affectionately referred to as "elephant pee". (Yes, you can go back and see what I blogged about last Autumn's LF&P too.)

I had originally thought we might attend and take a friend with us, then head out to dinner, but he decided he wasn't going to make it. At that point we hemmed and hawed and eventually came to the conclusion we'd decide whether or not to attend based on how our day went.

Naturally getting up and out on Saturday took longer than expected, and travel through DC was just as screwed up as it tends to be these days, but we did get to watch one hell of a storm front coming in. Fortunately, we reached the Crucible before the afternoon rains.

We entered and wandered about a bit. The vendors seemed pretty much the same as last fall. I wasn't finding much by way of tools that interested me. I know there are still a few real artisans doing whip work, but finding them rarely seems as simple as wandering a flea.

I remember when you might see a whip maker at an event not with piles of already produced whips ready for same day sale, but instead the artist would bring out some examples of their best work. You could go and talk with them, examine their work, and if you had the money (which of course I never did) you could decide on the details of how you would like your custom whip or floggers to be carefully braided; what kinds of hides (here, feel this, this is elk. I get these from a hunter tanner friend of mine, I've only got 3 of them, but if you want, I can custom dye this to match your Leathers), how full a mop, the braid on the handle, whether or not you wanted it shot loaded, etc. Most importantly, they would see how you hold a tool, how you use it, where the balance point on the handle was unique to your hand. Then you paid sometimes upfront, sometimes a portion upfront, and within a month or two you arranged to meet and the final result was finally in your hands. These were special- and you treated them as such.

There's probably a blog post in here somewhere about how whip making went from something individuals either learned or turned to their local tack shop for, on through to a few artists around the country, on towards 'manufacturers' and mass marketing and sort of 'brand name' floggers, on into quantity, not necessarily quality floggers. Carpal Tunnel has taken many a whip maker out of such, and there almost seems to be a few year 'workspan' or 'career' for many whip makers.

Those who sometimes do the best work, do only a few, but as such are sometimes very expensive. To actually find floggers not only custom made, but balanced to your particular hand is wonderful, but becoming ever more rare, particularly when whips are so often bought sight unseen, over the net. In any case, there are whips made by certain artisans, many of which no longer do that work, but the pieces live on, and get passed along, provided they aren't destroyed by devout relatives upon an owner's death.

We are fortunate enough to have a set of floggers custom made to Sir's hand, beautiful tools, but our friend no longer braids and while they are special, such are also becoming increasingly rare. The set he had made had never been used on anyone, and when we first came together as a couple he honoured me by using his whips on me. It meant a very great deal to me, and to this day, they still do.

In any case, yes you can find basic, simply braided pieces at fleas. To some extent you can also find some interesting pieces done in small batches by a leatherworker. But while you may be able to custom order pieces from vendors there, seeking out specialists who make custom pieces unique to you, to your hand can often be a bit more complicated. It can mean traveling to them, or seeking them out word of mouth in communities, rather than webpages. Some already have more work than you'd expect just by word of mouth. And longevity in braiding usually means pacing projects as to avoid injury.

As I said though, those who braid don't do so forever. If you find an artist whose work you love, it is often better to get what you can while you can, before injury or time constraints, family obligations or other aspects of 'real life' lead them to stop. Given a choice between a quality handmade flogger and almost any piece of mass market gear, I'd chose the whip.

But I digress. So this Spring, unlike last Autumn, surprisingly, we stumbled into a sort of 'friend of the family', one of Sir's exs. She had not seen him in quite some time, and when he walked over and said hello to her, she did a very amusing double take. Sir in his Leather jacket, dressed in black, hair pulled back neatly, wearing the wide black belt I gave him. It took her a moment to realize it was really him.

Other than one or two of the vendors we recognized from 'back in the day', she was the only person 'from our time' we saw at the Flea. In the end, we agreed to meet after the Flea for dinner. She was with a friend and intended to return for the 'Play' portion of the evening, we on the other hand intended to head home.

So we split up, and I wandered the booths. In the end, I settled upon a Catherine Coatney shirt that would go well with two of my skirts. Otherwise, I was remarkably bored. We looked the booths over twice, to be sure we weren't missing anything, perhaps that one unique little item perhaps we overlooked our first trip around, but no. No such luck. It's odd to be surrounded by fetish-y, BDSM-y goodness and yet not able to find anything that I quite felt need to come home with us. Admittedly that 'best sex toy' is between the ears, but I seem to be going through kind of an odd period, one wherein I find myself surrounded by tools and uninspired by such.

I still seem to 'quest' for the original, the inspired, the careful handcrafted, the unique, but as of late, I never seem to quite find it, whatever 'it' might be.

But part of the Flea is just to see what all is afoot, to wander and be among others who share one's proclivities, and yes sometimes even happen across someone else who remembers another time, and so off to dinner the four of us went. A marvelous dinner, actually. Good to be with an old friend and meet a new one, and all over an excellent meal.

We laughed, and caught up on one another's lives and even spoke of where the folks from back in the day have disappeared to? Her conclusion, from a somewhat different vantage point, is essentially the same as mine- a version of 'underground'.

Commercialization down to the organizational level, the 'net', and attempts at learning skills via Google searches, all have changed the ground out from under us. Lots of us still do what we do, just not publicly, and not in party settings. Many of us have found our partners (and no, by such I'm not saying 'paired', I'm saying people we do this with, some our life partners, some part time lovers, some 'thirds' and some in various cities scattered,) have our few friends we can talk about these things with, and from time to time perhaps attend an 'event', often far from home. 'Scale' has changed.

And we've all seen a lot of really stupid behaviour from people who should know better, it's driven so many of us into more private settings.

Sad in a sense, but it is the picture many of us are beginning to see.

Upcoming Events

As usual, I haven't 'caught up' on my writings here, but as life continues on, I'll jump back and forth narrative-wise from time to time. So, in that spirit, here's where I find myself this week;

We're preparing to have a houseguest for part of next week and that's leading to some complicated scheduling.

BESS is going to be doing a Wed night educational meeting on S/switches-S/switching, naturally the one week I may or may not be able to make it! (It's not their fault.) Still, I may try to set Wed. evening aside and go by myself or some such. We'll have to wait and see.

Saturday the 20th Black Rose is going to do a "History of Black Rose" workshop at the Crucible and I'm very interested in trying to make that.

And finally, the other major news is that Sir and I have spoken at length and finally decided (not made any reservations or anything yet, merely decided so far) to attend Black Rose XX in DC.

(The last two items on this 'laundry list' deserve a post all their own, but that will have to wait for another day.)

In short, it's the kinky busy season!

"Elephant Pee"

So today, Sir and I headed down to the "Leather Flea and Play" or LF&P, (which yes, gets transmogrified into "Elephant Pee") at the Crucible in DC. They throw this little shopping expedition and playtime twice a year. Sir and I, this time around anyway, decided to stick with the shopping. Maybe, if we knew a few more folks or some as of yet indeterminate 'something', come next march we might consider getting a nice hotel in the area and yeah, staying for the "play" (Oh how I LOATHE that term in this context). This time out though, we made just a small trip of it.

We saw all of two people we recognized, and no, I don't think either recognized us. In the decade or so we've been away from some of what grew in DC lots of people have moved on- not surprising, but interesting, in that there are so FEW left.

I spent the night before polishing Sir's boots to a nice shine, so he woke up to them in the morning. It seemed to make him happy. For me, on some level, it's just what I do, but on another level, I take a certain pride in doing these things and doing them well for him. It sort of occurred to me at some point, as I was working with the saddle soap, that even were another girl come into our household and become an ongoing part of our lives, I'm not sure I want anyone other than myself working on Sir's boots. An odd thought really.

In any case, shopping at the elephant pee wasn't particularly interesting. The only high quality whips I had any interest in were at Passional's area, and honestly, were too similar to pieces we already had, and seemed "too light" to my hand. I'm really starting to wonder who's still making good solid quality whips, and whether or not they make public appearances on this coast? I'd still like to 'finish out' Sir's set, but I haven't found anyone I'd trust to get it right.

But, we found some micro panic snaps, which, size-wise struck us both as perhaps useful. I picked up an extremely basic little knife and many, many yards of "Raspberry" MFP rope, and finally some in the thinner diameter, too. We picked up more of the black pallet wrap and a couple of rolls of purple vetrap, just on good measure- replenishing supplies after the Floating World, so to speak.

So we had a nice afternoon; we wandered, we half-heartedly watched a girl experience a suckee bed for the first time, and we talked a little with the 'newcomer' volunteer with BESS, the Baltimore Education and Social Society. BESS is a little too "SSC" for my taste, but it looks like we're finally going to at least wander into a meeting and see what we make of it. It always weirds me out when someone asks "which mailing list did you hear about us on?" because, of course, that's not how I learned about the group. Turns out they're 6 years along now. They fall squarely into that time after I had left Baltimore.

Sir and I had already decided to attend their meeting on the 19th, when they are doing their 1/2 hour newcomer orientation followed by a "knifeplay 201" workshop. So I guess we'll see what we see.

One of the main things about the LF&P that struck us both? How young the crowd was. And in my case, well, how Het the crowd was- some exceptions, but not enough.