Edith and I trundled off today to Autumn Collegium in Beau Fleuve, at a site that is about as far as you can get from home and still be in the Barony (travel time: approximately an hour). For me, at least, it was a very relaxing day. I taught my socks class, which now has the official title, “Banish the Tube Socks”, to a captive audience of five. Honnoria had cornered me sometime before the class and asked if I needed a victim model; I said yes and now there’s a mostly-finished hosen pattern for her in a box in my kitchen to be finished up at a later date. So we talked the theory of socks and then I demonstrated how to drape a pattern for them. As we were talking, I realized that there’s really no way to explain men’s hosen without explaining braies. So now I’m thinking about a two-hour class entitled “13th century men from the waist down”. Mistress Alicia asked me if I could do it at Three Ravens.
In addition to teaching my class, I went to Mistress Alicia’s class on documentation which just served to remind me that, as I put it to her, I have an attitude problem about A&S competitions. And I’m not scared of documentation (which we knew). And in my continuing class to spend as much time as possible in places where goldwork embroidery is happening (as if that will magically imbue me with the ability to do it), I audited Mistress Yvianne’s Or Nué class. No, it’s not opus anglicanum, but the technique for the application of the metal threads is very similar so I absorbed more today. I think that after the first of the year I will be brave enough to order some gold and stranded silk and have a go at it for real.
The dayboard was spectacular, there was good company, and it was all in all a relaxing day and I was home cooking dinner for a very affectionate five year old girl by 5 pm.
Found in Georgia! Not woven, probably knotted. Dyed in fun colors, too. (NPR story)
I keep going back and forth between being glad I’m taking a year off from Pennsic this year (we’re going to help out with our new niece instead) and sad that I’m going to miss it.
Have fun, kill many!
Her Majesty’s Pooh Tunic: > 3/4 assembled (one side complete, the other not).
His Majesty’s Pooh Tunic: 1/2 to assembled.
TRM came by on Monday to check necklines (I’m soooo paranoid about necklines) and a good thing, too, because I need to put bigger gussets in His Majesty’s sleeves.
If I am a good little worker bee I should be able to have them done by the middle of next week.
This pile of “Pooh” colored linen (Shoshanna’s color-description, not mine) is destined to be tunics for TRM, to be worn either solo or under their Viking overlayers. To be done by Pennsic (eep!). Good thing I’m machine-sewing them! :)
Interrupted? Anyway… Pax was our only chance to camp this summer, since we’re not going to Pennsic. Somehow we had never managed to get to Pax over the last three years despite it being only an hour away.
So we headed out Friday afternoon, got all set up and did some visiting on Friday night before we had to wrestle Shoshanna into bed. Saturday we got up, did more visiting, and M went off to fence. S and I wandered about and played with the various friends she had made and then she crashed for a nap by 11:30 am. After she woke up M was done fencing and we headed up to the field to watch the fighting and hang out with friends up there. While we were doing all that Catlin, aka Tall Child and the poor sad post-surgical Kip made it to the event so they joined in the hanging-out. I think Kip made friends with every person on site.
I also started teaching Shoshanna stem stitch embroidery, which she is really enjoying. I’ll have to scan her first “project” when she finishes it.
Several months ago I agreed to put front & back gores in an otherwise-finished tunic for HRM Maynard. It’s something I’ve done lots of times but I had never been totally satisfied with how it came out. I can DO it, I just don’t LIKE it.
Then Tasha posted her instructions for setting a gore in a slit. Tasha, it must be said, is a lifesaver, because while this is not anything that I hadn’t seen before, she put it in a way that I could make sense of. (And I think having the instructions to refer back to really helped, too. Previously I’ve only been SHOWN how to do it.) And the gores, they came out beautifully. Sadly, I didn’t manage to get any good pictures of them but HRM wore the tunic for court at Pax and it looked great, at least from afar.
I counted this for my A&S 50 because, while I didn’t do the whole garment, the re-learning how to do center gores was a pretty big thing for me and definitely will have an impact on how I go about constructing 13th century clothing.
What does this say about the Chivalry?
A discussion started the other day in a friend’s LiveJournal about the … lack of transparency involved in elevation to the Peerages, particularly to the Order of the Laurel (in large part because the friend who started the discussion is herself a Laurel). I’m still attempting to work through my thoughts on the matter… it’s been a REALLY interesting discussion. My slightly more coherent thoughts are behind the jump. Continue Reading »
