Travelling Time and Space

Master.

Has fallen from the face of the earth again.

Please return if found.

Thank you :o) 

It's done - the lilac and pink watered silk Bia de Medici dress for my friend's daughter is finally done and looks very adorable in its candy-colored playfulness.

The past couple of days have seen me buzzing about productively and I feel content with accomplishments. I have taught a nice little shoe workshop at our Shire meeting with part II following in August [we had to move and now we have only a mere hour before the library we meet at closes and we have to leave which is why the workshop has to be slit into two parts] and besides finishing the dress I also managed to prepare 8 scroll blanks for tomorrow's Scribal Tea. 

My friend's little girl is due back from her summer vacation tomorrow and I can't wait to see if it a) fits and b) how she likes it so let's keep our collective fingers crossed. She has seen both fabric and painting for inspiration before I started sewing but that's always different from the real thing.

Tomorrow's Scribal tea might see 2 new faces as well since some newbies expressed interest on thursday and I immediately invited them over to join us. Muhahaha, come and join the dark inkstained side of life ! *G* 

Oh, and the reason this post sounds like jumbled ramblings of a scatter brain is because I'm scatter brained after tasting hubby's latest experiments in brewing : a hard cider and a nicely spiced mead with lemon and ginger and cinnamon. Yum ! However, that usually leads to some serious loss of language skills on my part so please forgive me :o)

I'll try to write more coherently tomorrow ... or monday :o)
 

The first babystep toward spiffening up your encampment is hiding everything and anything that does not look remotely medieval. And all you need to do that is ... <drum roll>

A rectangle of fabric !

• A simple rectangular piece of fabric covers up that glaringly modern ice chest and hides it from plain view.
• Tossed over a modern folding table the eyesore-ness of plastic vanishes from sight and so do all things you can fit under that table like your trash bag, your nylon armor bag and if you run short on fabric your cooler chest too.
• Draped over your folding chair it adds style to your encampment
• Small rectangles of fabric sewn to tubes cover up soda cans or bottles fi you can't be ....well, if you don't want to pour your modern drink into a period-looking container
• 2 small rectangles of fabric sewn together on three of four sides create a little pouch for your cellphone or your radio or your camera
• A rectangle of fabric decorated with a bit of trim or maybe painted if the muse hits you over the head with a big stick make nice backdrops and/or camp walls behind which you can hide your mundane tent
  
• You could also use rectangles of fabric to cover up the green and white striped plastic cover of your modern sunshade
• Rectangles of fabric of course make all kinds of banners and flags and if you aren't the artsy type either barter for somebody to do it for you, to provide the linedrawing that you can paint in or just "fly" one of your heraldic colors instead.
• A rectangle of fabric can also do wonders as a makeshift cloak hiding your modern bathing suit on your way to and fro the lake :o) It could also be a spare blanket at night or a picnic blanket during the day

- finished Master-assigned homework

- sewed a pair of pointed-toe shoes with a wool upper instead of leather which was a lot nicer and gentler on my poor fingers [note to self : seam ripper makes an excellent awl-substitute]

- bound 4 out of 6 Pennsic books

- made notecards with names for various Pennsic Royal Giftbasket contributions

- packed Pennsic Royal Giftbasket contributions into box to mail to Royal Gifts Coordinator on monday or tuesday

- Bia de Medici dress for Kate is hemmed and only needs the sleeves attached. Deadline for the lilac "princess" dress is the coming weekend with Kate returning from her summer vacation  

- modified my wooden pattens [they were really too long and looked -huge-]

- completed calligraphy on two more scrolls that Darlene turned in [She did the linedrawing and illumination on one of the two all by herself with no prompting on my part which tickles me the brightest shade of pink because until recently she held on to the "I can't draw" mantra from hell *G*]

Pictures to come *S* Really :o)  but it's first things first and that means I'm off to bed !

That, gentle readers, is a german saying translating literally to "the devil is in the detail" meaning that it's usually a detail, a small thing that makes the difference between good or bad.

Currently there is an interesting discussion going on on our kingdom mailinglist about how to improve the period atmosphere at events. It appears - and unfortunately that appears to be a Known Worlde wide trend, almost - that people have gotten a bit too casual in their approach of medieval recreation at times.

The SCA's greatest strength is as always its greatest weakness. In order to be active in the SCA you don't have to be a paind member and all you have to do is an "attempt at pre-16th century clothing", great for those just getting their first taste of historical recreation. At your leasure you can improve your kit and get more involved and nobody is giong to call you on wearing the wrong buttons with the wrong shoes and that your favorite outfit is made from printed cotton rather than a silk brocade. There is no police, no authenticity check before you are allowed in. If anything there is peer pressure [nope, not necessarily the ones with the capital 'p' *L*].

The same goes for your gear for camping and all kinds of activities as well as for manners. Lately all those fields seem to have taken on a slow decline in quality: sodas don't get poured into mugs or pitchers anymore, the cooler chest remains naked in its blatant mundanety, plastic squad chairs bar any throw litter the camp sites and line the listfield. Ladies have to load their own cars and find their way around all alone. Playing at courtsies and reverence are starting to feel more and more akward as does the mockery of people eating from paperplates upon the sight of your own wooden bowl and spoon. "Half-garb" seems to be trying to become the norm and only a few are holding the fort of dress accessories and head coverings.

Did we stop caring ? Why are we still playing if we don't care about the things that make our game anymore ? Are we waking up from our dream ? 

I hope not, and finally people appear to be noticing and willing to talk about this trend. Now, the devil is in the details and if we start with the details going back to the wisdom of the Known World Handbook that tells us to cover up our modern bottles or fill our modern drink into pitchers or wine skins, that tells us how to make simple chairs or how to disguise our glaringly modern cooler chests we're going to gain ground in this slightly uphill battle.

Then garb and its scrumptious details. The motto is quality and not quantity. Spiffen up your wardrobe not by yet another dress but add all those wonderful details : wild hats and gauzy veils, jewelry, embroidery, purses and bags, belts and bezants and bells, shoes, shoes, shoes, and hosen and garters - oh my ! Discover how a simple apron can add a world of simple peasant 'bling' to your outfit and the coquettish chic of a hat worn at a rakish angle. Look at how Disney does it : every single one of their costumes comes with proper shoes, a headcovering, jewelry and a purse ! We're better than that :o)

It does not take a trailer full of stuff to breathe life into the Dream again.

All it takes is a newfound love for detail.

The fleamarket find :o)

There are magical places in this world and one of them are definitely fleamarkets.

The magic of fleamarkets works in strange ways and requires you to listen closely for its gently beckoning call. If you don't listen carefully you'll find yourself running to fleamarkets and never finding anything it seems while others appear to brush past picking up treasure after treasure. It took me a while to figure out those unspoken rules of fleamarkets and in the beginning they were driving me crazy ["I -need- a sewing machine -now- ! Why can't I find one ? You go to the fleamarket all the time and you always come back with at least one !"] and maybe this will also explain why I now can accompany anybody to the fleamarket helping them to be found by little interesting things they like and want but never thought about without buying anything myself.

* Don't go looking to find.

* Go looking to be found.

* If you feel you absolutely positively -have- to go to a fleamarket, go. Something is waiting to find you there.

* Forget the thing you want to find. It will find you when the time is right.

Yesterday despite or because of the bad news on friday I decided I had to follow through with our original plan of going to the fleamarket this weekend. I absolutely -had- to go, nevermind the fact there isn't anything I'm looking for right now. Our feastgear is updated and has more pieces than necessary for all of us to last us through a whole weekend with regular meals without having to do any dishes and I have plenty of supplies and books for all kinds of projects. Well, yeah, maybe a certain kind of brooch but since the dress for that isn't even on the cutting table yet this would be fairly premature for my taste.

But I -had- to go and so I sneaked out of the house leaving hubby to watch over the Finndragon while I enjoyed some simple me-time. Off I went to the fleamarket. I love fleamarkets, love to see what it is that people no longer need and try to find a new home for. Trash, treasures, junk, curiosities - everything's there. I saw a couple of things that sparked a little interest [neat porcelaine plates and matching mugs reminiscient of 16th century german china, a little table that could be "norse-ified", a wooden bucket, tools] but none of it felt 'right'.

They weren't the thing that wanted me to find it. 3 rows later I knew I'd been found. There it was: a little wooden scribal tabletop desk, cute as a button and beautiful in its simple lines and with its pretty hinges. The writing slope opens up to a small storage compartment. Nothing I'd been looking for at all because frankly I never expected to find anything like this at a fleamarket. $5 later it was all mine :o) Picture will follow [I'm recharging the batteries of the digital camera right now].

The quiet and gently beckoning tug I'd felt all day vanished and was replaced with a feeling of peace.

I love fleamarkets.

I had a long entry all typed up but since I don't believe in pouring out my heart over death and grief and other pathetic worries on the internet I deleted it. It just doesn't belong here.

Sorry.

Y'all have a great weekend. Take your loved ones in your arms and tell them you love them. Laugh, cry, go out and catch fireflies or dig your toes into the sand on the beach or the juicy fresh dewy grass of a lawn. That's all that matters.

Really. 

Happy (belated) birthday to you

Happy (belated) birthday to you

Happy (belated) biiiiiiiiiiiiirthday, dear Mistress Ysabela Celestina Manrique de Palma y Majorca,

Happy (belated) birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu !

3 feathers and a chopped up thumb later I have two very usuable quills for writing and the first test runs show no discernable difference to my favorite metal nib dip pen. In fact, the quills draw finer lines if you pivot them just right than the metal dip pen does.

Now, how cool is that ? 

So I finally got around to get started on the homework assignment my Master sent with his last mail to me. Yep, no kidding. I got a homework assignment. The first since I was apprenticed a whooping 3 years ago, by the way. I have a tendency to keep myself busy, obviuosly. Heh :o)

Said homework assignment consists of a bunch of goose and swan feathers that I'm supposed to cut into quills in order to write an abecedarian sentence in every script I have learned so far. Instead of writing out the commonly known "The quick brown fox .... " I discovered period aka 8th century abecedarian sentences in Marc Drogin's "Medieval Calligraphy - its history and technique" [pg 12] and picked one of those :o)

So now it's off to cutting quills :o)

[PS : I managed to finish a total of 4 pilloow covers and a tablecloth as well as covering the seats of the dining room chairs with the same striped fabric during Finndragon's naptime so our living area has now a springtime fresh new look :o) Yay me !] 

At least that's what I think got me down after sunday's Cookies picnic - the sun.

On sunday the Castlemere Cookies Dinner Club met in St Augustine for a medieval picnic with 14th century fingerfoods. It was yummy, the day and the location were beautiful but obviously there was a lot more sun than we all realized and quite a few came down with sun exhaustion after spending 4 hours in the shade. Funny, eh ?

I began to feel crummy after we came home, went to bed early only to wake up with the ghost of a headache behind my eyes and the sweet promise of nausea attacks on my tongue. Seriously, if I didn't know it any better I'd say I'm pregnant because that sums it up pretty nicely. The first three months of my pregnancy with Finndragon felt like that. Being pretty sure that hardly any deity would choose me to give birth to any godly representative I'm sure that what I'm feeling is a stomach flu of some sort and not a second pregnancy :o)~ It is slowly subsiding but I've beena  bit careful with food the last couple of days which is not too bad either. Makes the clothes fit better ;o)~

So, all together, I haven't been doing much the last couple of days. Keeping up with Finndragon sucked my last energy reserves out of me. I'm thinking about sewing up some new pillows for our livingroom couch out of the cute striped fabric I discovered and a matching tablerunner for the dining area today, and of course I have to prep the Pennsic booklets for pick-up on thursday night.

And as usual my brain is running wild with all kinds of ideas for activities and projects :o) 

It turns out that there were a few more elusive dress pictures hiding in my 15th century german folder and so I pulled them out. it appears that it is indeed a variation on the houppelande from the first quarter of the 15th century with just a somewhat unusual shape of sleeve.

Here is one with a totally different shape neckline too, but it does have the smale short butterfly sleeves I was looking for. Interesting ladder lacing at the neckline, too, and check out the beaded pillbox hat she's wearing.

Check out the lady to the left :o) Here we have an example of a fur lined dress with short butterfly sleeves. I like the understated headdress. Looks like my recently favored upper merchant class couture to me :o)

 Here we go all fancy in regards to the sleeves. Not only short and butterfly but also with a dagged edge. Of course, this fashionable german lady wears a crown which is an accessory I'm not entitled to.

Check out the lady that the skeleton is oogling. She is wearing another one of the ladder-laced versions with short butterfly sleeves or at least that's what I'm seeing.

Here's another picture of my elusive dress :o)

It's the one to the right. Notice the short but long butterfly sleeves ? I'd go for a different style head dress though ... heh

And here is another one :o) 

When we were in PA for christmas my wonderful mother-in-law drove me over to a small fabric store tucked into the back yard of some old and mostly abandoned lot of an industrial building. Amidst many nice but contemporary upholstery fabrics I found a bolt of the most amazing gold brocade with a little geometric pattern [I should really try to scan it and show it off]. I -had- to have it but I feared it'd cost an arm, a leg and my firstborn and I was hesitant to ask. Well, I did ask and I got the whole bolt [about 15 yards] for a total of $50. And no, I'm not kidding :o)

I try not to buy fabric if I don't have a definite idea for a dress but this was too good a deal to pass on so here it is, sitting neatly folded in my fabric drawer waiting for its metamorphosis from golden cloth to cloth of gold.

Since I've been doing late 15th/early 16th century lately I've been contemplating a burgundian dress thinking the gold brocade would look really nice with some chocolate brown silk lining and some mink fur I've stashed away but somehow I've got this wild idea of a Houppelande style dress with short but wide butterfly "over" sleeves and tight fitted "under" sleeves [from a kirtle style underdress]. And I'd like to make beaded cauls for headwear *scratches head* However, this dress appears to be rather elusive when it comes to documenting it. I'm apparently only able to procure pictures of houppelandes with long butterfly sleeves, Houppelandes with long butterfly sleeves and a slit so you can poke your arms through and they 'appear' shorter allowing more of your fitted sleeves to show but unfortunately that's not the thing that my brain has spun up. Or has it not ? Is there a picture out there with the dress I have in mind ? I have no clue :o/ It should be early 1400s ...

Kind of like this one in the Arnolfini Wedding painting

 Pointers ? Hints ? I really don't want to make another 16th century german dress at this point :o)

The gist as a list :o)

- 242 people in attendance
- a good  list of classes from costuming to scribal arts and lectures to hands-on
  including Mistress Mairi Ceilidh's all-day open fire cooking and Master Thomas's forge
- a great crested helmet tournament organized by Master Sebastian
- good food all day long
- some 38 or 39 entries in a great variety of categories
- an unprecedented 4 Non-Pareils for
  1.) Poem "The Calling of George": Baroness Cirroco
  2.) The various uses of Mastics: Jutta die Haberlinne [I think ]
  3.) An Egyptian veil: HL Koshka
  4.) Hydromel by ?
- another unusual number of Laurel Acclaims namely 2 for
1.) Poem "The Calling of George" by Baroness Cirocco
2.) The various uses of Mastics by Jutta die Haberlinne

Master Octavio de Flores won the Populace Acclaim for his pweter casting display, Lord Dmitri was awarded "Defender of the Arts & Sciences" and the Shire of Starhaven too the award as Patron of the arts & Science home this summer.
And Congratulations to our Koshka for receiving the Coronet's Acclaim for her gauze veil. What a beautiful piece !

Both Innis and I did well with our entries. We received trinkets of appreciation and admiration from all kinds of people and scored 34 [Innis] and 43.5 [Maeva] points out of 45. Innis placed second in the crested helm tournament which was a lot of fun to watch.

It was a great event with a lot of fun and thanks to all the lush trees at Weechi Wachee not too hot.

Now on to Winter art-Sci which is sounding to be a LOT of fun with archery novelty shoots and a new Art-Sci challenge where you receive a list of 10 ingredients and you need to use 7 for your project [creativity allowed and encouraged] :o)