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.

Pooh Tunics are DONE.

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.

I entered Caleb’s armor into Baronial A&S Championships last weekend.  It’s done except for the hosen.

Read more here.

Alianor de Ravenglas.  Device.  Argent, a bend azure between two ravens, a chief sable.

and

Matatias filius Lie Blunde.  Device.  Argent, a Hebrew letter “resh” and a chief sable.

This is clear of the device of Arthur of the Fen, Argent, a fleam sable and in dexter three gouttes de sang one and two, reblazoned elsewhere in this letter. There is a CD for the addition of the chief and a CD for the removal of the three gouttes, which are large enough in this case to be considered secondaries.
There were some commenters who called for this submission to be returned because the character is not drawn as an actual resh symbol, since the ascender is not perfectly vertical. Some research turns up a 13th century Ashkenazic Haggadah (at http://www.library.yale.edu/judaica/exhibits/haggadah/image16.html), which has non-horizontal ascenders for all the characters, other medieval Haggadah which have curved ascenders, and an immediately post-period “Venice” Haggadah (http://www.library.yale.edu/judaica/images/Venice/HVeniceTPage.jpg) has the resh characters very nearly matching this submission. They are definitely not lameds, which also appear in the text. Since the character is an abstract symbol, which we do not grant difference between, and it is close enough to period depictions of the character, it is registerable.
Please inform the submitter that they may wish to draw a more vertical ascender on the character in future depictions.

M is sure to grump about the commentary on his, but hey – they both passed, hooray!

Did I get your attention?

Here are Caleb’s braies.  I did them in the “quick and dirty” style – a wide center panel with legs attached, as pictured here.  This is how I did braies when I first started making them – they give the right impression, ESPECIALLY when worn with hosen, but are pretty fast to make and don’t require draping them on the wearer.  I leave a small portion of the front seams open for access to the drawstring; it’s left open on both sides so that we can attach points directly to the drawstring and leave them there for the duration.

I haven’t seen them on him yet, but he tells me that the fit very well.  If Alicia can make it to textile guild next week, we’re going to drape his hosen pattern.

I did a quick drive-by at practice tonight to let Caleb try on his fencing undergarment and to deliver his braies.  The undertunic is put together pretty much the same way as Shoshanna’s coat – this was not my initial intention but I messed up the math on the gores so that they didn’t reach into the sleeves like I wanted them to.  I’ll correct this on the overtunic for sure.  The garment fits him perfectly – I just have to fix the neckline because M’s head is much smaller than Caleb’s.

For the second year in a row, the Canton of Beau Fleuve has hosted spring Coronation – this year, though, the new Royals are from our own Barony!  So we went, of course, because I love Coronations – almost as much as I love Crown Tournaments.

It was a very fun day.  I entered the Kingdom Arts and Sciences Championship – the theme was largesse and entries were to be donated to the Crown for distribution during the reign.  I entered the two award medallions that I had finished recently and the pelican cushion – rather than it languishing in the closet like it has been for the last six years.  At one point during the day it really dawned on me that I would not be taking it home with me.  I really am fine with it, but it was such a labor of love that I would be lying if I said it was easy to part with it.  In addition to the Crown’s choice (which was John Michael Thorpe, who does beautiful meatalwork), they recognized the Laurels’ choice, populace choice, and outgoing champion’s choice.

As it turns out, the middle weekend of April is a pretty good weekend for me to go to an event.  Six years ago, I was apprenticed to Eilis and got my Maunche at Balfar’s Challenge (which was today, too).  Today, I was the outgoing champion’s choice of the folks entered in the A&S championships (prize: a lovely buff-colored kidney pouch).  I received a token as a seamstress to the Crown, and I received my Sycamore.  (For the non-Ae folks, that’s the A0A level A&S award.)  I had suspected that something was up because I’d been getting a lot of weird questions from various folks.  Obviously I didn’t know WHAT they were up to or when anything might be happening, but I was not completely shocked.  What I didn’t expect was that Matatias had written the scroll text!  I love that – each of my Kingdom A&S awards comes from him, since he made my Maunche medallion as well.  Sadly, he had to be at work this afternoon so he couldn’t be there for court, but Irene says that she got good pictures.