Travelling Time and Space

Still working on the documentation :)

Must be that sudden case of braindeath I'm experiencing at the moment ;o)

So I'm still stuck between the laptop, my documentation and a truckload of books for quotes trying to write up a not-tome that will get me good grades without being ... well, just 'overboard'. I'm starting to have some doubts though that a think like that exists *g*

On another note, the stupid bulgecap for my german renaissance dress is done. It's hilarious but it gives the dress my much desired "step out of painting" quality. There are a few dress items I would like to get done by next week to wear at Art-Sci but I'm fairly relaxed about it : what doesn't get done, doesn't get done :)

Anyhow, I've got to get dressed for tonight's Shire Meeting. Talk to you later !

It's done ! Finally :)

Yesterday I finished The Scroll. The background cost me a couple of nerves and several layers of paint since the background pattern didn't seem to want to come out the way I wanted it to but in the end it all came together and now I do like the endresult.

I'll get the scans uploaded later today so you can all take a look *S*

Now it's back to working on the documentation. I think it might have been too long since I last had to write up a paper on something and I'm getting sidetracked left and right which makes it somewhat difficult to organize the paper. I guess between my Master and ubby editing the heck out of my scribbles I'll be fine though ;)

I finally got started on my documentation for The Scroll.

So far I've a little introduction, a blurp on my design research and results and the bit on the language I used with the scroll text in early modern high german, modern german and modern english and I'm already at 5 pages :) and I haven't touched the BIG subject of materials used and the procedure yet.

I'm pretty sure I can beat 30 pages total ;)

About halfway between Jacksonville and St. Augustine, close to the river there lies Maggie's Herb Farm. It's a beautiful weedy place blooming in the brightest colors from all the herbs and plants the lady grows and you get to see an abundance of butterflies with an occasional dragonfly and , of course, bees.

We went there today together with a couple we're friends with and bought a whole variety of herbs for our porch, respectively their yard :)

Since I already had bought herbs when I started setting up the porch I only bought a handful of different things to fill in the gap : mint, cammomile, lavender and a little passionflower to climb the other side of the porch. Next time I'll have to bring a book about herbs or else I'll have to ask the lady that runs the place way too many questions and that'd make me feel akward. Many of the herbs I'd never seen, some names I'd never heard and frankly there were many where I didn't have a clue what they're good for. Then again, I don't want to fill up the porch too much because I'd like to be able to find some room out there to put my feet *g*

I should dig through my books and see what kind of plants could be used by scribes to make paints - that'd be fun :)

Now we're back home, I'll get dinner started soon and then I plan on spending the last daylight hours of today on the porch in the sun with a glass of crisp cool white wine [prolly working on my documentation ;) ]

Life is good *S*

... because the van is making odd noises and so we decided to turn him in at the garage to have the van checked instead of trying our luck driving it 2h south.

Better luck next time :/ I'm just sorry I'm going to miss Christelle being a Consort at her very first SCA event.

Both tophalves of my sleevelets are attached to the dress now. Yay me :) To connect both halves of each sleevelet I'm going to use lacing so now I'll have to sew a good number of little rings to either side of the sleevelet and since that sounds soo ... uh, laboriously I think I might put some hours into "The Scroll" instead.

I need to
- paint the angel's dress and start working on the details
- work on the documentation

It's nice when you can alternate between two projects :)

Yesterday's and today's sparetime have been used for fiddling with the purple dress but now it's ccoming together rather nicely. At first I'd spaced the little strips that make the puff of the upper sleeve too far apart and it just looked very odd. So I doubled the number of strips to make the sleeve, filled the gaps and it's starting to look a lot nicer ;)

Another nice side effect is that I might be able to skip the smock and wear a tiny peasant shirt instead, 'faking' the right look while forgoing the extra layer of garment which will be a lifesaver in trimarian climate, really. As soon as winter is back, all layers are back too :)

Magic *g*

So here's a list of events and planned trips. It's more of a wishlist because I don't know if we can make it :)


- April : St. George's Fair / daytrip only

- May : Spring Arts & Sciences Fair / full weekend

- May :TMT Coronation / saturday-sunday

- September : Trimaris XX Anniversary Event / full weekend

- October : Panhandle Skirmishes / full weekend

- October : Fall Arts & Sciences Fair / full weekend


And the kingdom calendar is here : http://www.trimaris.org

And for all people out there wondering about this gap between june and august - that's trimarian summer to you *S* It's just too hot and humid for anything but indoor events and those are usually one-day-events. Oh, and august is Pennsic month and there's not really anything out there that can sompete with Pennsic. Those who stay at home throw Pennsic Pity Parties but that's it as far as events go :)

*bangs head on desk repeatedly*

Last night was fun *S*

Since it was the 3rd tuesday it was yet another A&S Night at our place with another installment of the norse garb workshop. This time we took a look at the aprondress for the women and pants for the men and wee got a good deal of work done.
Darlene managed to cut and sew her aprondress and only needs to hem and decorate it next time. Susan watched while fitting Woody's tunic and we took her measurements so she can tackle hers at home.

While some dear old faces stayed decided to stay away, new ones joined us and it was a lot of fun. Innis supplied us with encampment stories and ideas and some fun facts about kilts and Shanna lost track of time learning how to use a sewing machine and how to fit the bodice to her smaller built.

All in all, a very nice night :)

And a very late one at that too *L*

Sloooowly getting there *S*

Today I found the nerve to start painting The Scroll :)

So far it's looking good : the gold stuck to the gesso, the paint ie pigment and gum arabic look great and don't seem to want to come off the page again and the black looks even darker than on my little test-swatch of pergamenata.

Life is good ;)

I figure I won't get much scribal stuff done this weekend with hubby's parents and his brother staying over for a long-due visit so I did whatever I could in what little time was left between dinner-preparation [my friend, the crockpot, is taking care of most of it :) ], last-minute emergency cleanings [I can't believe the cat tried to kill the flowers again ...] and ordinary everyday chores.

I grabbed glair and gum arabic and my pigments and made a color chart to compare the two binders. Result : I like the gum arabic a lot better, it distributes more evenly, the colors look richer and it has a nice pretty shine. Glair-bound paints look pretty flat.

Then I mixed up the gesso but before being able to give it a first shot I had to bottle it up because time was up :o) hopefully it'll keep *g*

More on sunday, I figure :o)

... Yes :)

So I'll give a quick definition of the language used on the scroll along with its characteristics and then provide three versions of the text next to each other for comparison : one in early new high german, modern high german and english.


Simple enough ;)

And too good not to post *S*

By Master Aethstan of Wortham, OP, Kingdom of Drachenwald
You asked for advice for newcomers? Well, here's a few specialities of Drachenwald:

1) We have castles, but don't event in them as often as the rest of the world thinks - they are expensive and, if not ruined, are usually occupied by a hotel or a pub at least. So, if you get a chance for a castle event, grab it!
2) We have a fast-changing population in some areas (especially Germany and Italy), so new folks don't stand out. Never be afraid to say "I am new here, what's going on?"
3) We don't have many drummers and bellydancers, and we have no Tuchuks, Vampires or Vulcans. In general we are more "medieval" (you might say "authentic") than most kingdoms. Our best are not better than other kingdom's best, but our lowest level is usually better. There is a huge medieval scene here, many of whom are very accurate, and it even rubs off on the SCA. ;)
4) We have one giant pink rabbit with a coronet, but only after midnight.
5) We party harder and later than many places I have been (the late worms are usually still partying when the early birds are getting up), and are perhaps less family-oriented because we often don't need to be. However, we are happy to make provision for kids, quiet areas and so on - but you might need to ask.
6) We have the best looking Earl Marshal in the Known World.
6a) Really. He's a vision.
7) Because we are small and widely spread, some activities that you might be used to are perhaps rare here. There is very limited seige engine and equestrian activity. Organised youth combat is in it's infancy. There is no coursing that I know of. On the other hand we are strong on garb and groovy medieval encapments and coming up fast in dancing.
8) We travel a lot. We carpool a lot. Fortunately, there are some very cheap airlines in Europe like ryanair.com and easyjet.com . More and more folks are using these services rather than drive long distances. It is often possible to fly hundreds of miles for the price of a taxi fare, if you book long in advance or get lucky.
9) We have a lot of different languages and cultures. This makes our regional differences very strong, but certainly adds to our special atmosphere.
10) We have Real Beer.
11)We have few baronies. Our basic unit is the Shire.
12) Some of us have the usual Europe/U.S. differences in attitudes to stuff like casual sex, alcohol and young people, nudity, patriotism, guns and especially legal liability. As some area of our Kingdom are basically American, and most of it is thoroughly European, these differences operate on a local level as well as an inter-Kingdom one.
13) You will gasp at the price of duct tape and gasoline/petrol. Leather is also suprisingly hard to get - no Tandy.
14) There are museums everywhere. The nearest one is usually your village church.

Will I have to document the language of the scroll as well ?

Not bad for bare bones, hm ? You can still see the nails that held the parchment all stretched taut on my craft table along the bottom edge that's untrimmed because it'll be rolled up to hold the kingdom seal :)

I did it ! Finally !

I managed to get the calligraphy done on my super-period scroll and aside from the megalength of the text tiring my hand and brain [it is in early neu high german, after all] it was a breeze to do, the parchment cooperated and the whole thing turned out to be a walk through the calligraphy park.

*dancies*

I'm scanning it at the moment for all you curious folks out there *GRINS*

So now I have this truckload of text for the scroll and the draft of the coat of arms illumination and a rather smallish piece of parchment to calligle and paint everything on. That's one of those moments when you realize that sometimes size does matter. I double checked the webpage that has writs and charters along with a little ruler at the bottom that allows you to estimate the size and funny enough, most writs weren't that big. My piece of parchment is a mere 2 cm less wide than the originals ... I'd always thought they were bigger.

Granted, there are big writs out there but I guess people just pay more attention to the big flashy things than the small ordinary ones.

For now, I'll give the small one a shot. If it doesn't work out the way I want it to then I still have the bigger piece to work with :)

I LOVE IT !

Being one of the not so patient kind I sat down this evening, plucked out all those nails and admired my very flat piece of drumskin. I then trimmed it to a square and used the scraps for some test-doodle-calligraphy.

AND I LOVE IT !

No smearing, no blotching instead crips details and very fine lines, even on the hair-side.

Yum !

The skin is drying nice and flat and so far hasn't tried to pull the nails out of the craft table. Heh :)
I gave it a little first scrub with pumice stone and it looks all nice and soft, well, as nice and soft as a well-scrubbed peasant *G*

So far, things seem to be working :)

Somebody once mentioned to me that natural drumskins are technically parchment albeit a bit on the rough side. -And- they are a lot cheaper than ready to write parchment you can buy online.
Put those two together and you have the perfect stuff for experiments.

Last saturday my first order of drumskins arrived in the mail. I'd ordered two 8" diameter [drumskins are round, d'uh] pieces and a 16" diameter piece [which they traded for a 18' diameter piee for the same price; talk about service :) ] of goatskin from Pakistan in thin-medium strength. They are a tad thicker than normal parchment for calligraphy, however, I don't think that's a bad thing since we tend to produce single leaf artwork ie a scroll/writ and so being a bit thicker, sturdier might be a good thing. Since saturday was scribal tea day, I had to wait until sunday to read up a bit on preparing parchment for writing and today I decided to take it a step further.

Since the drumskins were a bit wobbly which doesn't matter if you're just bopping it with you hands for percussion effects but sucks when you want to write on it I decided to start over with the last rinse of parchment preparation. IF I screw up, I srew up $5 *G* That's not too bad.

Soooo after a not that deep a breath [because it makes me cough and sniffle] I rinsed the skin under lukewarm water until it started to soften up and felt like those chewed-to-soggy-death dog bones made from hide *g* Then I unceremoniously nailed it to my craft table *L* No kidding. If I can find my camera I will take a picture, promised. The cleaned but still wet parchment needs to be stretched or else it'll roll up and turn into the frog of parchments : a hide bone for your dog. In order to keep ot from doing that you need to stretch it. The period method would have been a wooden frame, ropes and pegs but the piece I have is not that big and round on top of that and I figured nailing it might work. It's worth a shot.

So far, it looks all nice and flat :)

I catch a cold. Like clockwork. Right now I'm dealing with no. 1 *sigh*

There're times when it sucks to be me *L* The last two weeks, for example.

Anyways, off to chicken soup and a hot bath while the babydragon is taking his nap :)

Still needs some finishing touches but so far I and the rest of the gang like the new look better :)

http://www.timgibbons.net/scribes/" title="http://www.timgibbons.net/scribes/" target="_blank"http://www.timgibbons.net/scr...

Look here

http://photobucket.com/albums/y18/cscribes/M aeva" title="http://photobucket.com/albums/y18/cscribes/M aeva" target="_blank"http://photobucket.com/albums...%20Eiriksdottir/

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

The Harlequin You scored 39% Cardinal, 41% Monk, 50% Lady, and 40% Knight!

You are a mystery, a jack-of-all-trades. You have the king's ear, but also listen to murmurings of the common folk. You believe in the value of force and also literature. Truly you are the puzzlement of the age.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 73% on Cardinal You scored higher than 33% on Monk You scored higher than 49% on Lady You scored higher than 34% on Knight

Link: The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test written by KnightlyKnave on Ok Cupid

Yesterday we met for a fun-loaded april scribal tea and tell you what ? It rocked !

First, after meeting at my plae, we took a stroll through the park to the Karpeles Manuscript library to take a look at their exhibition on earl period worldmaps, stuff from the 1400s and 1500s. It was very neat and I hope the pictures I took turn out fine. We got to see some very very droolworthy calligraphy :) and it actually made my hands twitch with the desire to try it myself. So delicate, so intricate - Yum !

When we returned we sat down for a quick and very italian lunch on the sunny porch : french bread, antipasti tomatoes and mozzarella balls and olives and salads to go with it. Hmmmmmm :)

After that we felt strong and revived enough to tackle some scrolls . It's so much fun to paint and chat and chat and paint and time just flew by. All of the sudden it was dark, at least outside, because inside Darlene was beaming brightly with pride when she finally understood what I'd been trying to explain to her and managed details and textures in abundance, secure in the knowledge that if you don't like it you simply paint over it and start anew. It was great ! I'll get the scans uploaded later today so you can see for yourself :)

We ended the day with a long and rich Bar-B-Q and some red wine and lots of talk of plans and ideas and projects. More of that ! That's the spirit :)

So the service guy who managed to give us our video on demand back on wednesday somehow ruined out internet connection and even swapping the modem didn't do the trick so we had to wait a few days for another service appointment.

With the same service guy.
Who didn't manage to fix the internet connection.
And simply left.

What the ** ???

Well, he showed up again a day later [Hellooooo ??] but by then I'd already called customer service and the guy I got on the phone talked me and himself through the process of getting us back online.
For an hour and a half.

Fortunately now, both internet and vod are working now just fine :)

Yesterday I tried my german renaissance dresses on with the half-finished pleated underdress I'm working and what do you say : I'm impressed !

No seriously ! I managed to sew two dresses that fit and look properly and are just too cute for words :) and I'm very happy about that, especially considering that except for Bridget's instructions I never got any 'formal' education on how to sew garnments.

The first dress makes me look like a Disney version of Snowwhite probably because of the combination of periwinkle blue, white and black linen, cotton and velvet *L* It is simple except for the slashed cuffs. You can find pictures of it in my gallery if you follow the link on the left :)

The second one still needs sleeves [sleevelets to be correct, everything else is just going to be too warm here] but already looks nice. It's a Cranach-style dress done in my heraldic colors of purple and white with black as an accent, and except for the black velvet it's all cotton muslin because I was afraid to use 'real' ie expensive fabric for my first try. A nice side-effect though is, it's light and airy and will work just fine with warmer weather. While I can wear both dresses without a supporting corset underneath, they fit so much nicer with the right underpinnings so in the end I'll sit down and sew a corset for them as well.

Kenet brought her brandnew GW corset to our little lunch meeting yesterday and managed to cinch me into a 28" waist with no problem at all and the cut of the corset still allowed me to breath [Yay !] and move, even sit down and wave my arms, with no problem at all. Awesome ! So we're going to copy the pattern, do a few changes to make it fit even better and - voila ! - underpinnings.

I'm going to take pictures of the purple dress sometime later this week and hope to upload them soon so you can take a peek ;o)

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER - by Erma Bombeck

(written after she found out she was dying from cancer).


I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would
go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in
storage.

I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or
the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less
about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his
youth.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day
because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have sat on the lawn with my grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while
watching life.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't
show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every
moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in
life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go
get washed up for dinner." There would have been more "I love you's." More "I'm
sorry's."

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute...look at
it and really see it .. live it .and never give it back. Stop sweating the small
stuff.

Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what.

Instead, let's cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us.

Let's think about what we are blessed us with. And what we are doing each day
to promote ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally. I hope you all have a
blessed day.

If you ask me what's the best about the SCA and what continues to fascinate me there's - aside from things like friends and magic moments at events - one thing that pops right into my mind :

The best about the SCA is that it gives you the chance to discover skills and talents you never knew you had or could develop.

Never in my wildest dreams would I've thought that one day I'd try my hand at calligraphy or medieval illumination. Or medieval cooking. Or sewing a medieval tent. Or spending a weekend in freezing rain to come home happy, relaxed and delighted as if I'd spent a month on a caribbean island. Or embroidery. Or smocking. I'd have never thought I'd learn how to sew. That one day I'd create a dress based on german renaissance paintings along with all the accessories. That I'd be using a torch to make my own glassbeads. That I'd cast pewter and carve soapstone casts.

What brought this to mind today ? Well, Finn woke up early, Tim gets to sleep in on saturdays and after playing with Finn for a few hours he was ready for his before-noon nap and now I'm here outside on the porch enjoying a beautiful sunny saturday morning with a cup of tea on the table in front of me and embroidering the smocked collar of a shirt on my lap.

Fun, eh :)

If you go to my Trimaris scrolls 2005 folder in my photobucket gallery you'll find the first 4 new illuminations I was talking about in my earlier entry .

Enjoy :o)

I don't like the whole april's fool idea, really. It's too much of a 'duty' to be a real fun to me :)

However, this month started with the pure fun of painting :) Yes, you read it right, I'm back to drawing and painting scrolls - something I have abstained from for quite a while now because the spark of inspiration was missing. It seems to be back and oh wonder, the onept of "details, details, details" that I've been preaching to any and all scribes in my vicinity has finally sunk into my slow scribal brain too *G* And then there is still my scribal New Year's Resolution to do more detailed scrolls to begin with. And it seems to be working. While the three designs I did last night are in itself rather small and simple I added details, details, details and plenty of shading and they look really good. I'm very satisfied with my work so far :)

Scans to follow later for those of you of a curious nature ;)