I … didn’t really do much. Participated in the Bergental Combat Costuming Brigade, which got Pagan dressed for her elevation. Went to various meetings related to being KMOAS. Watched some battles, watched some fencing. Rapier Champs was the best-fought, most chivalrous champions tourney I’ve ever seen.

The A&S display was… mind boggling, as always. Baronsteffan has pics in his Flickr stream starting here and going backwards. The personaly highlight for me was Magistra Sigrid Briansdotter’s display that included SIXTEENTH CENTURY BRAS! She constructed them based on finds in Innsbruck, Austria (as detailed here). The most pertinent quote from that abstract… the one that makes me squeal delightedly, is this one.

Amid them were several nearly complete linen bras and fragments of corselettes, some rather coarsely made others more elaborately decorated with plaited borders and sprang worked parts. One of the bras even has a rather modern look.

Other than that… it was a lovely relaxing week with rather good weather (HOT in the beginning of the week, some rain but most of it at night, and then cooler) and lots of hanging out with friends and seeing LOADS of people get recognized for good work… Pagan of course, and also Tristan de Warrel being inducted into the Order of the Laurel, as well as Honnoria getting a Court Baroncy, Katryne and Isolda getting Fleurs, and Izabetta getting a Sycamore. And I’m sure I’m forgetting others as well.

No, I’m not scrambling to do a million things before we go. Neither of us need major new clothing. I’m working on a couple of new sherts for Matatias. Last night I mended 2 pairs of his hosen (I swear his feet are made of files). I need to look over my clothes and see what needs mending but probably I’ll do the actual mending once we’re there.

Basically, even though for the first time in ages I have to actually make myself a calendar for my vacation (consequences of being a Kingdom Officer and all), I’m not going crazy about it.

As I loaded the car Friday afternoon I was baffled by how full the car is for just a weekend event. Note that there’s barely room for Shoshanna in the car! But then I realized that most of the big stuff we take for a weekend event is the same stuff we take for Pennsic (the tent and the fencing bag being the, er, big offenders).

Shoshanna loves Pax. It’s the perfect camping event for us… close to home, low-key. And this year was no exception. We left after camp/work on Friday and stopped for dinner near site. As we were driving around the new-to-us, FABULOUS camping areas, at the second campsite I happened to see Cadlin and asked if we could crash their site. She said yes and I gotta say – I am very glad that she did. Shoshanna and Miss R played happily for the entire weekend. Seriously. All of Saturday morning while Cadlin and Sig were off doing the things that they needed to do, the girls stayed with me and there was literally ZERO conflict.

Other than the girls playing, M fenced, I sat in camp sewing and chatting with everybody who wandered by (which was a lot of people because we were on the road between gate and the field). Went to court where lots of cool people got recognized and I very nearly finished the central figures on my embroidery.

Oh, and Jenny got her finished tunic.

As you can see, though, Jenny’s clothes (somehow she still only has the set that she came with) are not really very medieval. And that is why I’m sitting here, the night before we leave to go to Pax for the weekend, hemming a tiny blue tunic made from raw silk.

I’ll post measurements for the doll and the garment later.

So good work Odrianna, Elss, and all of the teachers!

That feeling hasn’t come even close to wearing off yet. Whenever a Laurel asks me something, I want to prove how much I know. And at the same time I’m now in the position of evaluating others, and I want to do it in a way that doesn’t make them feel like they are under a microscope.

Or maybe I’m just weird.

So last week I put together the smock that I cut out six months ago. And just for fun, I decided to see how long it took, because I’m ALWAYS getting asked “How long does it take to DO that?” and I wanted to actually have an answer.

• Cutting: probably half an hour
• Machine sewing & finishing: 2 hours on the nose
• Hand finishing: three Merlins (another 2 hours)

So… for a kid’s garment, 4 1/2 hours. I don’t know how much scaling for an adult would add. Maybe I’ll test that theory next time.

We had a pretty darn good day, too. Doing an event solo with the kid is always challenging, and even more so when the reason you’re going is that you’ve got Official Commitments. So Shoshanna helped Irene set up her A&S display while I went to my first-ever Laurel meeting and then she and I hung out in the barn at Artisans Playtime, which was Katla’s very brilliant brainchild instead of a traditional A&S display or even an Artisans’ Forum. Both Katla and I thought it was a smashing success so Aethelmearc should look for similar activities in the future. Shoshanna even participated, doing some weaving with Mahin, trying her hand at kumihimo, playing with Dagonell’s puppets, and learning to draw a labyrinth.

Since Shoshanna was pretty darn patient all morning, I let her pick what we did all afternoon. So we played on the playground, went to family activities, walked down to the lake so she could see it and watched some folks doing ironwork on the way back up. I was reminded that I am so glad that we camp at the top of the hill rather than the bottom… Shoshanna whined a LOT on the way back up and we stopped off at Runestone Hill to pester Broom and have a rest under a tree. And during court Shoshanna started on a new embroidery. I’ll have to scan it; the change in her skill from the first project to this one is astounding.

And here is another gratuitously cute picture.

So.  It was my first ID as MoAS… which means picking Minister’s Choice, which was actually very fun.  And conflict-of-interest-laden, because I wanted to recognize the kids as well… but Shoshanna had entered her viking beads and her flower embroidery.  And I wanted more brains to throw at it so I had Katla and Odrianna help me but Katla’s daughter’s boyfriend entered in the older youth category.  So. I looked at the older youth and Katla looked at the younger youth and  Odrianna looked at both (actually she had Alethea help her, which was totally appropriate and awesome).  Good thing, too, because the favorites in the younger category were the flower embroidery and the viking beads and the favorite in the older category was the painted pouch.  And you can probably guess which kids were responsible for those objects. The adult choices were a fabulous horn comb and a baldric featuring embossed copper plates.

I also ended up judging three categories: Curiosa (just one entry – Fredeburg’s ink ball, which was a super-cool project), Costuming to 1400 (two entries – a hood and a linen gown) and Costuming 1400 to end of period (many entries… two Polish garments, a child’s waffenrock, an Elizabethan smock with blackworked collar and cuffs, and a full Elizabethan outfit.  THAT took a lot of brainpower for me to judge…

Shoshanna also played the part of the wizard in Dagonell’s childrens’ play which was a folktale about why fish don’t make noise. It was very cute.

I was super-excited to get to chat with Muriel de Chimay who I hadn’t seen in several years. I realized after the fact… she’d never even laid EYES on Shoshanna!

And court was sooooo long. I got to go up for my first Laurel elevation, so I’m not the baby anymore. We did our bit right after intermission and then bugged out… which meant I missed Irene being utterly poleaxed when she got a Fleur.

Oh, I also dropped off two new embroidered award medallions. Once I’m done with the blackwork sweet bag that I picked back up after almost 7 years I’m going to finally take the plunge and get some real gold and stranded silk to try OA for real. Eep!

I’m really fortunate this time that the Crown chose to recognize me at a moment when I feel like I’m on an upswing in my SCA work. I just took the KMoAS office and I’m really excited about that, people are starting to be really interested in 13th century clothes and wearing 13th century underwear, and I have all these great projects that I want to do in my mind. So yes – I WILL be displaying (not entering) the St. Francis smock at Ice Dragon this weekend. I have a huge queue of clothing to make… now that I have a fillet hat I want to try making one (but probably not for myself… I don’t need two Ridiculous Hats). I feel like I’m FINALLY brave enough to try real opus anglicanum embroidery, and I just rediscovered and bought more thread for a blackwork sweetbag that I was working on when I was pregnant. And of course I’m going to keep working on my A&S 50 challenge (next up: new smock for the kiddo, since probably 90% of the time she decides that she’s hot and ends up running around events in her underwear anyway).

So… that’s what’s next.