Travelling Time and Space

Here's my list of finished projects of the past 3 months. Not bad onsidering how little time I actually have to do SCA stuff *G*

January
********
1 caparison [full-body horse barding]
1 tourney billet [wooden placque with Coat of Arms]
11 scrolls for C&C layout, calligraphy
3 scrolls for C&C painted
3 articles for CastleLore [recipe, quill-cutting, book review]

February
*********
7 award scrolls [linedrawing, calligraphy & illumination] turned in to kingdom
1 woolen tunic for a child
1 woolen tabbard for a child
1 workshop on booklets with illuminated cover in japanese stabbinding w/ scribal group as donation for GW and Royal giftbaskets
4 booklets in japanese stabbinding for HRH's children
15 handpainted drawstring-pouches filled with glass- and metallbeads and sewing kits for the GW giftbaskets


March
*****
1 norse underdress
2 german renaissance dresses
1 Wulsthaube w/ veil "Steuchlein"
1 coif
2 recipes for Castlelore
3 articles for Castlelore [norse-men, paints, ink]
1 class "a witch's kitchen" at Scribal Tea
1 class "norse underdress & decorative stitches" at A&S Night

And now - after all those horrible fights between parents and husband - we have to listen to endless debates over a topic that is as personal as somebody's fingerprint !

Gah ! Let it end, good Lord !

Just for your records : if I'm so very brain-damaged that parts of my brains have turned into liquid and there is no chance on recovery to a halfway normal lifestyle ie getting around in a wheechair and being able to articulate wishes, desires, hopes and thoughts, then please, please, please pull the plug ! Do not let me suffer for 15 years ! Not even for 10 ! or 5 ! Just let me go.

And don't forget to burn my corpse. I'd hate to rot in dirt, really.

May you and all of your family finally find peace.




And on a sidenote, I'll put my 'wish' into writing.

... and spend life on the porch !

Today the weather was truely gorgeous and even warm enough for Finn to run around just wearing his diaper and splashing in a bucket of water. Piece of cake, considering we had almost 30 degrees Celsius :o)

The porch is a great place to spend those sunny warm days. It's shaded from the sun by a nice roof and gets partial sun in the afternoon. A little breee catches between the pillars carrying the roof and even the plants like it out here, blooming and growing prettily. It's quiet out there and you can let your gaze travel over the other old Florida houses in our street, the palms and other trees flanking the road and the quiet green of Klutho Park.

K. stopped by to do some MoAS talk and it was fun :) I managed to dig through my brain to give her a list of things I knew people have done to start rocking the kingdom with detailed report. Why is it like pulling teeth when you're asking people to contribute to things like reports or newsletters or webpages ? I mean we're talking about things that cconcern your favorite pastime and -not- your daily job drudgery, folks ! C'mon, participate, share, have fun !

today went without any accident !

Wow, my luck might be looking up again. It's been a rotten week with plenty of annoying moodswings, a nastily pulled muscle and a half-broken nose that I'm just hoping and keeping my fingers crossed that it's over :) Hubby is hoping too since he is the one I usually end up taking it out on. Sowwy :(

Anyhow, it's been rather nice today : I got to chat with my girlfriends online, well one of them that is, the other got caught up in a telephoncall and then Finn woke up and I had to get offline again to entertain my little man *S* I sewed the first curtain for the kitchen windows and even added a few glassbeads to make it look all pretty and guess what ? I like it :)

Yesterday was a gorgeous windblown day. It was sunny with bright blue skies over which the few windtorn clouds raced driven by incredible winds. Winds that made me take down the flowerpots from the porch railing for fear of them ending up blown away and crashing to pieces on the stone stairs below.

I got a lot of cleaning done despite my back's occasional protests. Moving around actually helped softening that pulled muscle even more and so I'm almost back to normal. That is until Finn broke my nose, kinda. He was bouning on my knees when we were taking a break from doing truckloads of laundry and at one point he bounced backwards when I leaned forward to reach for ... I totally forgot what I was reaching for when my head exploded in bright white pain when my nose connected with Finn's head. Oy ! It even bled a bit and while my nose doesn't look like there's anything wrong with it [Phew ! Thanks Boss ! I really appreciate that !] it feels stuffy and is very tender.

*sigh*

Sometimes it sucks to be me, really

Nope, I won't :) Drop dead, that is but as of today I'm drop dead deputy to our Shire MoAS.

And there's so much to do ...

I just realized I've been blogging for more than a year, a year and a month to be exact. Amazing how time flies by when you are having fun, are frustrated, are raving and ranting and venting and brooding and planning and simply sharing all the little things that life dishes out for you :)

Just wanted to say, it's been a great fun and I've been more consistent in my efforts to sit down and write a bit every day than I've ever been writing diaries *G*

Happy Easter !

It's finally here, the weekend, along with lots of rain, grey skies and no sun. God only knows what's wrong with the weather. However, it's the perfect "stay in bed all weekend" kind of weather and I think this is exactly what we are going to end up doing this saturday and sunday.

My back still hurts quite a bit and protests incredibly at certain moves but as long as I keep it straight and continue to move around it's not too bad. Nothing in comparison to that hot-poker-stabbing pain of yesterday. Hallelujah !

You know, looking out of the windows you might think we're in the very center of a jungle. The wet and warm weather of the past week has given the half-hibernating trees and shrubs and vines and weeds the last wake-up call and everything's been burting into green sprouts. It's green, green, green, so very green it's mindblowing and breathtaking. Dense, juicy green thicket behind the house, palmtrees swaying lightly in the wind enclosed by greedy vines climbing up their slender trunks. It's gorgeous.

I've started decorating our pretty porch and already got a first batch of flowers to fill up the empty spots in my planter boxes. The old apartment's porch got sun-fried all day, from the first light in the morning to the last rays of sun in the evening and all that could survive the constant heat and glare of the sun were cacti - so not my favorite and definitely not toddler-friendly. The new porch is so much more user- and plant-friendly and my plants now actually have a chance at surviving summer :) Wheeee !

Well, guys and gals, I'm off to do some stuff. I've been cleaning up my email-box and finishing up some old quick projects - spring cleaning as it is :) and there're a few things I need to do.

Talk to you later :)

And it's still hurting. Funny though, since I removed the heat band aid it's hurting not so bad anymore. Almost as if it didn't like the heat in the end ... heh.

Anyhow, I move around very slooooowly but I managed to get Finn into and out of the bathtub tonight so I have now a squeaky-clean baby snoozing in his crib next door :) So there, back, take this ! Bah !

Our nextdoor neighbours finally came home *sigh* Hurray ! We were woken up rather abruptly this morning at 5am by some very loud dog howling : Max and Myles, our nextdoor neighbour's dogs. They didn't stop until an hour later at which point Finn was awake and kept boucning around until 7am. I then decided to call it a night, then the backthing happened.
It turned out that our neighbours weren't at home and hadn't been at home since yesterday, leaving the dogs in the backyard. That wouldn't have been a problem at all if the weather had stayed the same as yesterday : sunny, dry and a light breeze. This morning however, it was raining cats and dogs, there was even thunder roaring in the distance and it didn't stop until way after 3pm. By then Max and Myles had already given up howling and whining knowing nobody would let them in :(

Well, at 6:45pm they finally came back and while I think that having to towel off two dogs stinking very much like wet dog is punishment enough for this kind of misbehaviour of petowners, maybe my postcard with a very soggy sheep soaked in rain and the gentle words about their dogs misfortune along with the offer to doggysit should the need arise will take care of situations like this in the future ...

What'cha think ?

This morning while hoisting Finn up on a box so he could see out the window I blew my back to the point of tunnelvision and nausea because of the stabbing pain.

2 1/2 hours later I can move around slowly again and I have one of those nifty hot-compresses sticking to my back. It still hurts a lot but not quite as much as long as I keep moving ... *sigh* I'm getting old ... old and creaky-boned

http://n.ethz.ch/student/mkos/pinguin.swf

Click the mousebutton once to make the penguin jump, then click again to make the Yeti swing his club ;)

Enjoy !

The skirt is attached, the lining is whipstitched into place and the facing for the smock's neckline is cut out :) I'm making good progress considering I haven't got a clue what I'm actually doing here *L*

Now, just how to embellish it ? Hmmm ... I mean I'm even less of an embroiderer than I'm a seamstress *L*

And then there're all the other insane ideas I have that want to be let out and brought into reality. It's scary, I tell you.

I might rethink thing about the fellowship ...
Would you want to make a small medieval-looking tent if I could keep the costs down to probably $ 50,- and a weekend's worth of work ? I have an idea, I just need to figure out if it works....
And then there is this furniture-making weekend idea I need to talk about with Paul since he's got the workshop and the tool-knowledge...

Oh boy :) If I only had my old gang with me as backup and co-cheerleaders :)

Renaissance dress no. 2 is coming along nicely :)

Today I changed the shape of the shoulderstraps of the bodice and fitted the whole bodice a bit better. I'd rather not wear a corset underneath beause of the trimarian climate and my bustszie is just riiiight at the maximum size for this kind of adventure. I think I got it to work though :)
I finished pleating the skirt and pinned it to the bodice - looks and worked out great too. And I got started on the smock. It's stitched together already and only needs facing around the neckline and the whole nine yards of decoration ie smocking and embroidery. Well, we'll see how far I can take it, being the textile-arts-challenged person that I am. As soon as that is done I can get back to doing the stupid hat-thingies and I'll have a very basic german renaissance wardrobe ready to go for Art-Sci in may. I'm really looking forward to this event despite my 'fears' about actually entering into the competition *S*

Guess we'll see :)

And I need to get back to my illumination and calligraphy although that's quite some ... I dunno ... ordeal ? at the moment. I don't know if it's the ongoing scroll rallye competition on who creates the most scrolls in our fair kingdom is that makes me not want to paint and calligle or if I'm just going through one of my "I don't feel like getting close to paint and paper " spells. I do know though that I love doing personalized scrolls for people I know at least a name of a LOT more than doing blanks, one after the other. Bridget was so sweet to say that I have improved *g* but I just don't know where or I just can't see it, being my own worst critic. Hach ! Oh woe is me :)

I miss you guys ...

Still a-stitching.

The lining is now attached to the inside of the bodice, the brustfleck got sewn to one side of the bodice and I already got started on appliquing the white stripes to the purple skirt panels. Wheeeee !

On top of that I got the porch plant pots all set up and cleaned and re-arranged despite Finn's attempts to be helpful *L* He had to take a bath after that and was out cold at bedtime tonight.

Sooooo .... I realized that before I could continue working on german renaissance no. 2 I had to line the bodice part *sigh* which you can only do if you handstitch it. This is what I've been doing the past 5 hourse : whipstitching the lining to the inside of the bodice of the purple and white dress. Thank God, it's almost done, but some of my fingers are now pretty sore, almost raw and I even drew blood. So much about me being a seamstress, heh :)

However, as soon as that is out of the way I can start working on the skirt and the funky slashed sleeves and other dress items and that's the cool part about it.

Nothing's going on on the mailinglists anyhow and hearing about what they want covered and how deep in the documentation of an A&S entry I'm growing more and more reluctant to actually enter ... I dunno, bleh. Research is all good and well but somehow some of these things just sound like going overboard to me ... *scratches head* I'm just glad that entry isn't just an entry project but a backlog scroll for somebody real. I'd hate to see that much effort and work go into something that'll only collect dust on a shelf or end up being stashed away in some rubbermaid bin in our SCA closet.

I'm still not very happy with my SCA 'life' here. Mostly I'm missing this feeling of "belonging". After a good year and quite some attempts I still do not feel like I belong. I don't think I've developed any ties and that is really frustrating at times. I feel like floating, hanging in mid-air, and I don't know what else to do.

Anyhow, time to go to bed *S* I'll see you tomorrow :) Good Night and sweet dreams !

We have had yet another laaaazy weekend. And for the first time in weeks finally one with balmy early-summer weather with bright blue skies and lots of sun and a light breeze, enough to make sitting in the shade a little too fresh and to make one enjoy the sun a bit more.

JW who stayed with us from friday to saturday grumbled over the weather until he boarded his flight. It had been miserable all week and only on saturday did the sun finally return. Of course, that was the day he was levaing again for his colder home desitination ;) Life messing with you at its best, what an I say :)

I'm still dabbling with various projects and toying with several ideas for upcoming bouts of sparetime. There's still the entry for spring art-sci but the more I ask about the requirements of documentation the more it starts to sound like I have to turn in a truckload of paperwork to explain why the originals my entry is based on ame into existence to begin with. Little wonder many people don't feel tempted in any way to participate in art-sci competitions ... Now I do understand one girl asking when do you know that you've overdocumented your work. Having to explain all the ittibitty bits along the way actually encourages you to drift off into explaining and documenting everything to the tiniest bit and sometimes that bit isn't really pertaining to your actual entry anymore [Do you have to explain where a seamstress would have gotten her needle or bought it or made it if you're entering a dress ? Not if you ask me, but what do I know ?]

Well, I'm still in the research stage and properly writing down notes and quotes and references. I'll try to not go overboard on the whole documentation; afterall, I'm not aiming for a high-five victory in my first art-sci entry, just some solid basic work and craftmanship.

Speaking of craftmanship, I need to finish moving my project-area. It used to be in the den but since we want to use that more as a guestroom type place I thought moving all my craftstuff into another area in the house would be a good idea. That way I'd still have a designated work-area even with family or friends staying over. I piked our underutilized butler's pantry and aside from missing outlets that we worked around with by simply using extension cords it's perfect. It has built in shelving and closets, a window and it's bright and light and airy.

If you go here

http://photobucket.com/albums/v53/miolfhiodh a/" title="http://photobucket.com/albums/v53/miolfhiodh a/" target="_blank"http://photobucket.com/albums...


you'll find a couple of new pictures :


- in the album "Finn" pictures of Finn, of course :)

- in the album "other projects" pictures of my Gulf Wars giftbasket contributions, the Castlemere Scribes"s contribution to the Gulf War giftbaskets in form of handmade and illuminated booklets in japanese stabbinding, the little booklets I made for the children of our Royal Highnesses and pictures of my messy scribal desk when working on a scroll

- in the album "german renaissance dress" a picture of the almost finished dress [still needs the lining inside the bodice] and a picture of when I was slashing the fabric in the flower-petal pattern [you can see cut-out petals as well as the chalked in design and the various layers of perriwinkle blue cotton, white linnen and black cotton velvet]

I have to figure out how to only scan the picture without that big white nothing around it *scratches head* if only the computer the scanned is hooked up to weren't so slooooooow

This is Florida at its worst : it's grey and cold and raining without let-up. Perfect hot-chocolate and wooly socks weather but who is looking for that moving to Florida of all places ?

Bah !

And it's already mid-march !

*grumblegrumble*

I'm cold ...

Last night we had this month's second A&S Night and again it was lots of fun. We actually got some work done this time and while some will have to finish sewing their underdress at home we now have cut and fit all underdresses and are ready to move on to the aprondress and pants next time we meet.
Once that is done we'll do a class on dress decoration and sit down and decorate both, aprondress and gown/tunic and then there's the much looked forward to class on jewelry ;)

The Castlemere Cookies, our medieval dinner club, is slooowly getting into gear. With Gulf Wars raging a lot of people are away and it's very quiet. Our first cookout is probably going to happen at Darlene's house and frankly, right now the weather is not playing towards a picni anytime soon. It's warm and muggy and humid and -very- rainy one day, gorgeous with brightblue skies and lots of sunshine another, and there's nothing that'd warn you of those rollercoaster weather changes enough in advance.

The next A&S Night is on the 5th of april which gives me plenty of time to sit down, work on my own projects and prepare handouts for the next classes. Life is good ;)

My first german renaissance dress is done !

Unfortunately one dress is not nearly enough and certainly not enough to call it a wardrobe. Since I'm planning on wearing german renaissance fashion at Spring Art-Sci on the second weekend of may I need a few more dress items before I can call it a wardrobe.

I'd like to have
****************

- 1 daydress [done, in perriwinkle blue with white linnen showing in the slashes and black cotton velvet accents]
- 1 court dress in the fancier Cranach-gown style [I got started on this one which is going to be purple, black and white which are my heraldic colors. It's not going to be a 100% authentic since I'm using cotton for the dress but I don't have an extra allowance on really exquisite fabric this or the next month and it's the first dress of this style and messing it up while using cotton won't hurt as bad *g*]
- 1 smock [got started on that one already too. It's going to have honeycomb smocking and one sleeve is already done]
- 2 kinds of headovering [I made an elizabethan muffin cap and gave the Wulsthaube a first try]
- socks [another of those 'would be nice to have but not lifethreatening if I don't have it'
- gloves [see 'socks']
- apron [a must-have, definitely. I picked a nice almost magenta-red linen for that one and it will 'pop']
- shoes [uh-oh ... I'll look around for those]
- jewelry [that's something for the next thriftstore fieldtrip ;)]

What a list ...

Yesterday we had our march Scribal Tea and it was a lot of fun. Chrystelle and her daughter Amber attended it for the first time and enjoyed learning about period art supplies.

Yep, last night I held a workshop called "A witch's kitchen" and we cut quills from goose and duck feathers, made ink following a medieval recipe that calls for soot, gum arabic and honey and combined various binders and pigment to paints. They had to cut feathers, grind pigments with pestle and mortar, disolve gum arabic clumps and whisk eggwhite to froth for glair.

It was messy, it was colorful and it was fun :)

And now we know how much work was involved making all the supplies needed to write and illuminate those beautiful books and can appreciate using storebought ink and gouache paint and return to our normal work ;)

Why is "potatoe vine" allowed to look like it's producing oakgalls ?

Baaaaah :(

People are applauding my artwork and telling me how good my 'stuff' is, well worth entering it into an A&S competition, and here I sit, looking at my latest works in calligraphy and illumination and I'm thinking that it's still all pretty mediocre :/

I'm just my own worst critic, and man, I'm good at it *L*

I'm so critical about my calligraphy and illumination skills that I consider entering a smocked apron [one of my german renaissance dress aessories] at Spring Art-Sci instead of one of my scrolls because I fear I might be a touchy artsy fart who cannot deal with this kind of criticism coming from a stranger confirming my own dark thoughts. I suck ! *L*

My german renaissance dress, however, doesn't. Yes, there are a few minor details that need some tweaking but for a first attempt it turned out magnificently. Honestly, I'm impressed considering I had no help at all save for a few helpful emails from two ladies on the german renaissance mailinglist who helped me sort out the various layers that make a typical german renaissance dress. Since I went with the early 1500s I got to skip the corset and instead just fitted the bodice a bit tighter for support. Yesterday I added the second sleeve and whipstitched over the edges inside the bodice since I skipped the lining due to the climate over here and voila, it's done. Now it's on to the smock which I've already cut out and then a proper version of the stupid Wulsthaube *rollseyes* I have to remind myself constantly that while it is a stupid looking hat, it just looks 'right' when worn with the dress and it really looks like something out of a painting, nevermind the fact that the whole hat-concept is mightily silly *L*
Pictures are soon to follow; the film is at the lab for developing :)

Sunday is Scribal Tea Day, and while I haven't prepared the hand-out for my witch's kitchen class yet I'm looking forward to meeting with my scribal gang again *S* Up until I signed up with the SCA all my friends have been of the male kind. It was only when I met girls with funky hobbies and less interested in celebrities/fashion/etc. that I started to hang out with other females. Most females still scare me and I have a hard time understanding their language [no kidding, there is a male language and a female language, trust me] but it's getting better.
So this sunday we'll be messing around with pigments and binders and if I'm lucky and those odd things I saw downstairs in the backalley are what I think they are we'll be making ink from oakgalls *L* Those odd things look a bit like potatoes and are just a lot bigger than any oakgall I've ever seen in germany BUT I found them right underneath a disheveled oaktree and the climate here makes things grow bigger ... besides, who'd discard little potatoes in a backalley ?

*giggle*

More on that later; I'm off to pick some up for a test ;)

Aside from dabbling a bit with sorting the scans of various scrolls I did throughout the past years and updating my gallery on photobucket [realizing it would indeed have been nice to have scanned -all- of my scrolls instead of scanning a few here, forgetting some along the way and scanning a few there] all I did today so far has been mundane stuff while entertaining and taking care of our babydragon, of course.

Finn has grown to love fabrics, paper, pens of all kinds, scissors and since he is a boy, sticks and stones of every kind. We have little stacks of sticks all over the place because Finn collects them whenever we go downstairs into the Park and contrary to his thing for stones he refuses to leave them downstairs. Instead he brings them into the house and carries them around all day, occasionally piling them up here and there and oftentimes entertaining [no, not whacking] the kitten by wriggling the smaller ones in front of her. His reward is a tomkitten happilky swatting at the wriggly stick and my reward is a heartfelt and very contagious giggle from an 18 1/2 months old toddler.

Just before dinner and getting ready for bed we both and the tomkitten in tow, hung out in the den, me cutting fabric for some more pillows for the couch and Finn drawing with crayons on some scrap paper he found happily babbling away. There're some words recognizable in his bi-lingual chatting now. Well, I -think- *L* He understands so much in both languages, but he is not big on talking yet. In some respect he reminds me of Corbin, a friend's son, who acted the same : understood a lot, didn't talk much until one day - poof - the knot broke and he started talking - a LOT *L*

Finn says things like "Bu" for Buch/book and "ko" for Komm/Come when calling the kitten, he says "Mama" and "Papa" and "Mis" for milch/milk and "heiss" for both /heiss/hot and kalt/cold *L* Oh, and you get to hear a lot of "ja" [yes] and "nein" [no] :) So while he is not the big talker yet I'm not worried at all that he'll catch up. Afterall, he is learning two languages at once.

Anyhow, time to hop under the shower and do some final cleaning up before hubby comes home from work :) Talk to you later !

We officially proclaim this day as "stupid hat day". I don't know what was wrong with people in the dark, middle and high medieval ages as well as in the renaissance but hats that make you look good are definitely a modern invention.

I've always wanted the "stepped out of a painting" look which is fairly hard to achieve when you are primarily doing viking [heh] which is probably one of the many reason that got me hooked on the german renaissance dres. There are paintings from which you can learn the right look down to the smallest accessories and then some.

Take a look at these pictures; they were my dress inspirations





So I made an elizabethan muffin cap which is cute but the 'thing' that really should go with this style of dress is the so-called "Wulsthaube mit Steuchlein", literally "bulgecap with veil" *sigh* And man, that's one of the oddest constructs I've ever seen *L* It certainly doesn't go with jeans and t-shirt ;)

However, it does go well with the dress. Go, figure. I stitched the testversion together last night, stuffed the odd fabric sausage with polyfill [yes, yes, very authentic, I know *g*] and tried the same thin, sort of pleated looking fabric that I'm using for the underdress as a makeshift veil and well, it's got the right look. It still makes me look really funny but at least I no longer resemble snowwhite, heh *L*

I was right, I do look like Disney's snowwhite wearing it. A more womanly rounded version of snowwhite but still snowwhite *L* I think it's the perriwinkle blue that causes that effect but all in all for my first try at german renaissance dress this isn't bad at all : the bodice lines up properly and fits and after deciding to go with the suggestion of sewing the sleeves only to the top of the bodice-armhole and leaving the bottom part unattached I have the range of movement I need and like and it still looks right. You can only see it when I lift my arms over my head whih rarely ever happens *G* It's so unladylike, heh ;)

Now it's on to the smock. The fabric is washed and only needs some ironing before I can get started on it. Instead, I sewed new curtains for our livingroom yesterday :) They look pretty and were so simple to make.

I used a white pintucked sheer fabric and light sage green ribbons to tie them and they turned out to be the perfect kind of compromise between my "I love those old windows and especially the trellissed top so I don't want to cover them" and hubby's " Can we have curtains ? The windows look so naked " *S* Now you can see the trellis-top of the window because the fabric is sheer [not to mention that now they look like oldfashioned lead glass windows because of the pintuck-diamond-pattern of the sheer] and they are still covered and no longer 'naked' [the sheers unfurl to cover the whole window, not just half of it; all you have to do is loosen the ribbons].
The next livingroom project is sewing new covers for the couch cushions. I found some nice unkitschy [no kidding!] ladybug tapestry fabric with lots of nice sage greens, a bit of dark red and some soft yellow in it and I have some mellow yellow upholstery fabric to make accent pillows for 'the punch' line :) It's coming together nicely and looks cosy.

... you had enough bookshelves the libary has its annual book sale *heavy sigh*

Of course we went on thursday, the friends-of-the-library-on ly day, and Tim did a follow-up visit on friday together with his brother who came all the way from Orlando to hunt down another 100 cheap books.

So much about the bookworms in our family *G*

I got a few really nice books despite the history and art sections being relatively small :) More on those once I get around to reading them.

The skirt is sewn to the bodice.
The skirt is hemmed.
The sleeves are sewn and got deorated with slashes [Pretty, they look like flowers].

Now I have to figure out how to attach the sleeves to the bodie, ie sew or lace, and then it's on to the smock and the dress acessories :)

I do have the feeling though, that once the dress is ready, I'll look like a Disney version of snow white wearing it *G*

Soooo  I finally gave in to temptation and despite my meager sewing abilities started sewing a german renaissance dress :o)

No kidding ! I had yards and yards of a very nice, very heavy brushed cotton in perriwinkle blue kicking around and it was just screaming at me to do something with it; after surfing a few websites and reading, well, looking at the pictures in books about the german renaissance I actually sat down and tackled the task

For me, it's an immense task, you know; I can't really sew and I do not really have any idea what it is I'm doing with fabric - I construct clothes, I don't sew *G*

Anyhow, the first bodice turned out too - ahem - tight and still had points which I both managed to eliminate in bodice no 2

That one actually looks really nice, especially after struggling through adding the black cotton velvet trim :)

Last night I pleated and attached the skirt and while doing it discovered that I had just about enough fabric for the project *chuckles* Yay ! One thing less to worry about *L*

The things I still need to do :

- sew skirt to bodice

- hem skirt

- add eyelets and hooks to bodice

- sew sleeves

- attach sleeves to bodice

- sew smock

- pleat and decorate smock

- make headcovering and maybe even socks with garters ;)

 

After all of this I can tackle something suitable for court *G*

 

I'm still doing scrolls for my first Kingdom, the fair Kingdom of Drachenwald, and I've been sending off a nice stack of scrolls to Lady Bridget, the Signet Clerk, of scrolls I'd been assigned to before I moved and that got somewhat mega-delayed.

However, they are now on their way :)

- AoA Muelech Mac Mouireagh
- AoA Katla Aasir Aaswald
- AoA Usvajaerven Ilmakka
- AoA Kamel el din Maruda
- AoA Hilde
- AoA Ormswyn of Oakley
- AoA Tiara of Castle d'Or
- AoA Laurentius Astronomus Andreae
- AoA Adrienne de Pourquoi
- AoA Johanna of Sarfinore
- Panache Cormac Longius Blackburn
- Lindquistring Mohammed al-Kasy

copy blank scroll to scan and print for
- 1x Order of the Panache
- 2x Order of the Silver Guard

Some of those awards were given out almost 10 unbelievable years ago and despite having started on backlog scrolls 2 1/2 years ago I'm still amazed that at one point awards were presented without the scroll to go with it. I was lucky. When I got my AoA, Lady Bridget provided for me an absolutely stunning scroll and I can't imagine what it must be like to not have a reminder of that moment decorating the wall in my nest *S*

I have 3 more assignments, 2 County scrolls whih are already laid out and penciled in and 1 Court Barony where I'm in the last stages of research *S*

It's a great change from doing blanks for my new kingdom all the time. I love doing personalized scrolls where everything fits together :)