I've been doing A LOT of online research the past week or so and some of it I just HAVE to share and some I am recording for my own later use.

Viking Hoard, including some interesting "buttons" and associated silks in Dunmore, County Kilkenny - Info here, here, and here. Sadly, limited info for now. However, since it is not related to the current question, I'll have to chase down more info later. (Note to self: Medieval Clothing and Textiles 2, Netherton and Owen Crocker page 30 has citations for these items.
I have found some neat stuff while cleaning out my storage spaces, but not a Viking sword!

There are some really neat finds from the Old Scatness Broch - I just with they had more info online! Related research - including Orkney, Shetland, Faroe islands.

A newly-discovered cache of saint's relics in a portable altar. Very cool.

A living Luttrell Psalter video.

And an online gallery of manuscripts at the Philadelphia Library

As if the Tudor Tailor was not tasty enough, they have come out with a second book - The King's Servants - a book on men's clothing at the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII. Drool. Not to be published until June, dammit.

And two print sources:

I found a new citation for the Trewiddle Horde - David M. Wilson, Catalogue of Antiquities of the Later Saxon Period (London: British Museum Publications, 1964), no. 91. Does anybody have that by any chance?

Plus a similar technique used as a garment edging in 189 James Graham-Campbell, "Tenth-century Graves: The Viking-age Artefacts and their Significance," in Excavations on St. Patrick's Isle, Peel, Isle of Man. Can I just declare my love for Mr. Graham-Campbell right now and be done with it. The man puts out some particularly tasty books and articles, I'm just saying...

...I used a machine to topstitch a garment. *dies* I am justifying it to myself that it is on a heavy armor doublet where handstitching may not be sturdy enough and likely would not be nearly well enough appreciated. :P Still... it burns, my precious! The visible stitching, it hurts us...

This is stoopid hour to be awake sewing and packing for a War I'm not going to... although it is amusing to play midnight Dial-a-Laurel Sewing Crisis Helpline. ;)  At least I know I am not alone in this madness...

Anyway. Tired. Bed now. Pictures tomorrow. Those of you getting GW deliveries, feel loved and all that. Nuh-night.

Tonight, I finished the promised wardrobe for War:



One commercial linen tunic repaired
Three linen tunics constructed (two from Thing a Day, maybe one more before GW if I have time)
Two linen coifs

All handsewn with linen or silk thread with whipcorded ties. Geektastic, since it is for the Apprentice Spawn. :)

I am often cold and so have long lusted after goldfrog’s tasty wool Viking coat. I finally had a chance to make one of my own. I used my standard Pictish gown pattern, with a few little modifications: additional ease, a v-neckline, and a front split.

 

The wool is a gorgeous red-purple I have had on hand for some time and just never got around to using. When washed, it only shrunk a little, but fulled up nicely. I am not certain, but based on the descriptions I’ve read, I think it may be close to the highly-prized Irish red-purple. The black is remnants off a project so old I don’t remember what it was (maybe a cloak for corvusjoyous? whymc?). The whole garment is hand-sewn with silk thread in the construction and linen embroidery floss for the accent embroidery.

 

The front-fastening pin is purchased and modern-ish, but in a Viking design. I’ll look into upgrading at War. ;)

 

While I hate back-documenting, I realized partway through the project that there IS evidence that the Picts wore outerwear similar to Viking coats, a seen on this Pictish stone at the Meffan Institute.

 

 

My coat is lengthened from a man's short jacket to a woman's full coat, of course, and this is clearly still not great documentation, it's just that, while I am generally pretty comfortable with stealing from neighbor-cultures due to the limited information on Pictish clothing, this makes me feel somewhat better about the whole thing... Besides, while it will generally be worn with my Pictish finery, I think it completes the Viking look quite nicely. :)

Warning - apprentic brag - Of course, what REALLY completes the look are my sexy, sexy Coppergate socks that were a birthday present from the lovely and talented mightyjesse :

I have been interested in the A&S 50 challenge for some time and just needed some time to get off my duff and get started. The cliff notes version is that it is a challenge to complete 50 Art and/or Science items in a category before AS 50, with the categories being depth (50 of the same thing), breadth (50 different things), or persona (50 things your persona would have done/known/used). Some optional additional refinements that have been offered include attack_laurel's suggestion that the 50 things be made out of your current stash. I'm doing a persona challenge, but making it a broad Northern European challenge including Pictish, Dal Riadic, Northumbrian, and Viking items (and possibly some Anglo-Saxon), since there is a limited number of Pictish items that I can document well and I want to play with cooking and some other things where straight-up Pictish evidence is poor to non-existant. I'm making up for my lack of specificity with additional anal-retentiveness in construction and materials.

I didn't get everything done for this weekend like I had wanted, but I did get a start, so I'm beginning my reports.

#1 - Norse hat - handwoven wool diamond twill with a linen lining and real fur brim, entirely hand sewn and hand embellished with linen thread.
#2 - Pictish gown - linen dyed with onion skins as one of my Pennsic dyeing experiments, my Pictish pattern, hand sewn and hand embellished with linen thread.
#3 - Norse gown - wool tabby in a natural and madder/iron red, using the very flattering gored pattern (and example of which is found here),  hand sewn and hand embellished with linen thread.



The necklaces and chest-strands were either pre-existing or recently re-threaded necklaces of glass beads (many made for me by THL Moira ni Connell the Strongbow), amber, and copal. The earrings were made for me years ago by Cnut's man-at-arms Olav and, to my delight, I recently acquired a matching ring to replace the one I'd lost some time ago. Bracelets of silver and/or amber by other Northshield artisans, brooches kindly lent by goldfrog, and leather turn shoes completed the outfit.

I'm actually really very pleased by the outfit and just ordered some brooches of my own from Raymond's Quiet Press and I can't wait to finish the coat. As a bonus, I think I like the pigtail braids look and may need to start making a habit of that. :)

Twelfth Night was lovely, if crazy, crazy busy.

I got on site bright and early and hauled in my four tons of stuff. In addition to the Twelfth Night gifties and the ubiquitous linen, I also had stuff for the Laureling and the Seekrit Projekt. I had decided that, since swords_and_pens  had asked for help with a doublet pattern, I would use the pattern to make him a new suit of clothes. On site. The day of the elevation. Handsewn. :) I enlisted a number of competant, speedy sewers and felt that it would be tight, but that I was in pretty good shape.

Unfortunately, the tourneys got started a little late,  so by the time swords_and_pens  was put on vigil, I only had a few minutes to cut the first pieces of his outfit before the Laurel meeting started. By the time that was done, it was already 12:30 and court was scheduled for 4:30. Since many of the people who knew about the project were not able to make it to the event after all, I was a little short handed and didn't know if we could pull it off, but I decided to go for it anyway. Unfortunately, by 4PM, it was clear we were not going to make it, although we did get the doublet, sleeves, and pants all about halfway done. I'll finish them over the next few weeks and deliver it to him later... Not as spiff as getting Laureled in the outfit, but I think there were a solid dozen or more people who contributed to the project so they could have a special hand in it. I should have put out a Sweatshop Guest Book so I could keep track of all who contributed, but thank you to everyone who helped!

While I was terribly excited and enthusiastic about the Seekrit Projekt, I really should not do such things at events I already know are going to be busy. :P I never have enough time to hang out at these sorts of events and this year was no different. I didn't even LOOK at the raffle, beyond what I saw when I dropped off my contributions and only was in the fighting hall while looking for gate. :P My apologies if you wanted to chat and I was either short on time or missed you altogether.

Dinner out with folks from across the Kingdom was really nice, though. Heh. I am comfy enough in my garb that when we went to the Chinese buffet and some lady asked me about my costume, it took me a beat and a half to remember I was still in Viking. :P She thought it was neat, though, and was really amused at our "raid" of the buffet. I even had NEW garb (or at least some new pieces) for the event! I'll post more about it tomorrow, but I was amused that people apparently had difficulty recognizing me because of the hat, overdress, and/or colors I was wearing - I heard comments about some combination of  those factors all day long. Sadly, the wool caftan did not get completed, but I did make excellent progress on it over the weekend.

Sunday was a lovely raid on SR Harris and I got to assist a number of folks in their shopping but was really pretty conservative in my own purchases. I think ilaifire  owes me more for his pieces than I spent on myself. As a bonus, lovely, lovely C brought me a nifty campfire cookpot that she acquired on sale and I just can't wait to use... Sadly, I had to say goodbye all too soon to folks headed home and turn my own car east as well. :/ Visiting is so lovely and it is hard to part such good company...  At least I had mightyjesse to keep me company, since my original rider punked out on me. I may have not been the best company by the end of the ride, but it was an enjoyable, relaxing end to a packed and pleasant weekend.

Attention all sewing geeks - two geektastic options in the near future!

The Midrealm finally has the Golden Seamstress competition on their website. It will be held in Detroit on February 20-21. Who can make it and wants to play? It's sort of short notice at this point, but there's still a month and more for planning!

As a warm-up of sorts (or as a consolation to those who cannot make GS), I will be hosting some sewing dorkishness at Nordskogen's Twelfth Night this weekend. I am envisioning something like an abbreviated Tailor's Shop at Lilies or Griffin Needle Challenge. My goal is to complete a full outfit in one day, ideally all handsewn and certainly all handfinished. I believe we will have a space where we will be able to observe the fighting and such. Please email me if you are interested or stop by on the day of the event - short term assistance and good company welcome!

Come play with string!

So, I had a lovely, beautiful red Viking apron dress that I made a few years ago, primarily as a component of a Hel costume for Halloween, and I wanted to make a nice warm coat to go over it, much like the one goldfrog  wears. I even made a cute little "bumper" hat on Wednesday to complete the look. Hurray! Wooly and furry Viking warmth, right? Right!?!?!

...except that I made the dress a few years ago... as in before my costuming standards significantly improved. *sigh* The fabric is wrong, the color is wrong, the cut is wrong... it's awful. *pout*

On the other hand, that means I got motivated enough to cut some of my lovely Harris Tweed and I now have a mostly-finished apron dress in an iron-mordanted madder color cut according to better pattern. (Although this Tweed is a tabby, not a twill - horrors!) Tomorrow will be some minor fitting/seam completion, hemming, and hopefully seam decoration. THEN I can start thinking about that coat...  



(General note: Yes, I'm a freak about my clothing. I know. I don't care if you're not... unless, of course, you're interested in seeing some research I have over here... ;P)

Clothes Make The Man:  Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe
Valerie Hotchkiss
ISBN:  0815323697 / 9780815323693
OCLC: 33983482.
UW Madison Memorial Library call number: HQ77 H67 1996

Well, I had a full, long weekend.

Thursday after work I drove up to Columbus and picked up newperspectives  at the train station. The evening was reasonably quiet - a quick dinner out, some library appreciation and chatting before she headed to bed. I quickly finished up my classnotes for Clothiers' Seminar and headed to bed myself.

Friday, we got up at a reasonably early hour and drove up to the Cities. Happily, lunchtime occurred right around Osseo and so we made a stop at the Norske Nook. (Nom nom nom). First stop in the Cities proper was IKEA... Gas was super cheap this weekend, but I certainly made up for that in IKEA... The next stop at S.R. Harris hardly helped that either. *sigh* Ah well, I have some lovely stuff and have now almost finished my Holiday shopping. (Granted, there is still afair bit of "assembly" to do on many of the gifts. :P) This was newperspective 's first trip, so it was fun to see her in the new fiber playground. Well, and it was fun not to be the big spender for once. ;) After a long, hard, day of shopping, we retired to the hotel for a beer and a soak in the hot tub, where we were joined by ingusmoen , zarhooie , and mightyjesse .

Saturday was the Clothier's Seminar. The day went pretty quickly - I was teaching during the first period, attended a pattern drafting class in the second period and then quickly ate lunch before being mobbed for linen. I did my major deliveries from the latest order and sold some of the overages to other interested gentles out of my trunk in the parking lot. Hurray for dealing in the parking lot! (And also, thanks to goldfrog  for taking my deliveries out West!) The afternoon was more mixed - he walk through history was fun as usual and I really enjoyed spending time fondlingkatrionans 's NESAT books. The event was over entirely too soon, however. I can always take more classes about string! ;) newperspectives , mightyjesse , teffan , some other lady, and I all went out for dinner at Khan's before returning to the hotel for another hot tub session. 

Sunday was an early morning trip to take newperspectives  to her early morning train, then a little nap before checking out of the hotel. After breakfast, mightyjesse  and I met up with Their Highnesses and did some reign-related shopping at SR Harris. Well, mostly reign related.mightyjesse  and I bought a ton of cheap-o wool in the hopes of dyeing it to a more acceptable color. Their Highnesses, on the other hand, got some truly lovely fabric in Kingdom colors - very, very tasty. The drive home was pretty quick and uneventful.

Fun, educational, and new toys to play with - what more could one ask for in a girls' weekend?

Bright and early on Friday morning, cass_lee  showed up at my house to head to Minot for Crown Tourney. I was even mostly ready, save feeding the birdies and collecting my electronics that had been charging overnight. Sadly, I did NOT have the car packed to the gills with linen - the order never came! I contacted the warehouse today and should have an answer soon. Once hopes they do not simply misplace 500 yards of linen! I managed to be good company for a few hours before getting a little nap. I am not a morning person and early morning car ride = sleepy Eithni. The trip out was essentially unremarkable except for our stop at the Perkins of Fail. We stopped for dinner at Perkins in Jamestown, ND and discovered that their WiFi was defective, their ladies' room had plumbing issues, the waiter had SERIOUS B.O., and the roast beef was an iridescent green. Luckily, cass_lee  noticed before either of us had eaten much. (I'd had one piece, she'd had none.) The manager replaced the roast beef dinners with whatever we wanted - she ordered a pasta bowl, but they were temporarily out of the pot pies that were my second choice, so I ended up with a plate of fried mozzarella sticks for dinner. I figured something deep fried ought to be pretty safe and I'd been craving melty cheesy goodness anyway. We got into Minot around 9:30, got checked into the hotel, and then cass_lee  got ready for bed while I went to investigate whether there was any trouble to be gotten into. Sadly, we were at the Super 8 and most of the other folks were at the Holiday Inn, so there was no trouble to be had. My bedside lamp was bright enough cass_lee  could not sleep with it on, so I couldn't read in bed either, until I remembered that I had downloaded The Complete Works of William Shakespeare onto my dorkPhone. dorkPhone FTW! Somewhere around midnight I turned it off and went to sleep since we had to be up tragically early on Saturday.

Saturday indeed came early, but we had Perkins' muffins for breakfast and then headed out. Sadly, the MapQuest directions cass_lee  had downloaded bore no resemblance to reality and we ended up staring at some residential homes when it told us we were at our destination. dorkPhone again to the rescue! It got us to the site, but we did not immediately recognize it since, for some odd reason, the directions brought us to the back of the building. However, upon checking the name of the site, we quickly were able to recover and get inside. Then there was a flurry of prep work to complete, a run off-site for some essentials, and a quick polish of the crowns, which were in an appalling state. So, when morning court started, I was still in my mundanes, covered in metal polish and tarnish goo. Nummy. Oh well, His Majesty had been a big fat meanie and said I couldn't carry the axe anyway. ;P I quickly got cleaned up, dressed, and was on hand by the time any run-and-fetch-it services were needed, so we were just fine. I don't think I missed more than the Fealties, anyway. After the presentations, I spent a little time schmoozing with folks, delivering the items I had to give/return to folks, and apologizing to the folks who were expecting linen. Luckily, only one person from the West had ordered linen, so I'll send her share via SCA mail at some point (probably Rythym and Bruise) and the rest of the folks will be at or have representatives at Clothiers.

Then I checked in with cass_lee  and when she did not require any immediate assistance, set up my Evil Web. I was gratified to catch my first victi... er... student quite quickly and then spent the rest of the day teaching a series of people how to do whipcording. There were even a few people who asked about it after I had cut down my web and I simply sent home with a kit, but now there is an online tutorial for folks to use, even if they have not gotten an in-person lesson! Squee! Geekage! The rest of the day, except for an unfortunate interlude, was happily spent schmoozing, geeking, and trying to help out.

But, back to the purpose of the day! My attention was not on all of the bouts, especially the early ones or the ones when I had a shiny new student, but I did try to pay attention if Roisin or Stephen were fighting. As we got toward the end, I yielded to more geeky impulses and posted updates on the Northshield and Jara Halls from the dorkPhone. Therefore, I was able to announce the results of the finals before the crowns were on TRH's heads. :) Vivant to TRH Stephen and Ailleanne! It will be a busy year in Jara!

One of my most important tasks of the event was to make a presentation in Court. My lovely and wonderful foster-apprentice mightyjesse  had worked on a few projects for goldfrog  but could not be at the event and could not wait to have them presented. TRM's allowed me into court, giant grin and all, and I explained that as a Laurel, I felt I should teach my apprenti to support the Kingdom with their Arts - whereupon I happily presented goldfrog  with a bar of homemade soap that mightyjesse  made, including a wool baggie to be used as an abrasive scrubby. (The joke here being that goldfrog gets her own weight in soap over the course of a reign and really doesn't need another bar.) goldfrog  was gracious, but suspicious, since she knows that I am full aware of the volume of soap she recieves, so I continued to explain that, while a Queen is rarely stinky, she very often needs to be clothed, and presented the Viking gown I had concealed behind my back under my brat. *grin* The splendidness of mightyjesse 's work was displayed and I explained to the crowd that the dress was handsewn and hand embellished with linen, that that fabric itself was handwoven and the weft handspun. The crowd and HrRM were suitably impressed. :)




There are more photos of the presentation on the Northshield Gallery or at mightyjesse 's entry.

After all the meetings and court, the idea was that I would find some folks to go out to dinner with while feast went on, since I did not get feast. As it was, the couch in the Royalty Room was calling my name and I had a little nappy-nap instead. After feast, we packed up TRM's stuff, Roisin threw some of her stuff into my car, and I took cass_lee  back to the hotel. She was beat, but I, feeling better after my nap, went out to the Holiday Inn to postrevel. I had misunderstood the location of the hotel - I thought I had seen the State Fair Grounds on the way into town, but I had actually seen the State Fair OFFICES, with no Holiday Inn in sight. So I stopped by the site again to get better directions, which were indeed obtained, but then had the everliving crap scared out of me as I tried to leave. You know how when you reach for a door and it suddenly swings open just as your hand should hit it and you are surprised when there is someone there? Now imagine being a little on the tired side and it being a back-lit ingusmoen  on the other side of the door. Yipes! ;) It was funny as soon as my heart stopped going 4,000 beats per minute!

The Postrevel was good. Very good, actually. :) I had brought a bottle of good Scotch, I got to spend casual time with TRM, I got to hang out with a lot of my favorite people (including some I see quite rarely), I got to engage in some truly geeky conversations about the Picts and assorted other research topics, and otherwise had a jolly good time. There was a little bit of mystifying drama at the end of the night too, but overall, the postrevel was, I think, a splendid win. We'll see what comes of the various conversations and contacts, but - if nothing else - I think there will be good fun and geeking as a dividend.

Sunday came altogether too soon, even though I was in bed and sleep at a reasonably respectable hour, cass_lee  wanted to leave early and we did, but we fought snow and wind and other yuck for much of North Dakota. Minnesota was better and by the time we crossed the Wisconsin state border, the weather was downright lovely. The colors of the fall foliage and the nice warm breezes were a welcome change from the sleet and dark we left in Minot. :P

Monday, by some happy accident, I had off from work. I usually do not work Fridays, but my coworker needed this Friday off, so I offered to trade. I got a recovery day, she got her needed day off, we both got a four day weekend - wins all around! I spent the day sleeping in, reading in bed, taking an appallingly long shower, reading in bed, sewing my mom's Christmas present (which took entirely longer than it ought to have, ugh!), catching up on email, watching the Daily Show/Colbert Report, posting here, and soon I'll be to bed for one last round of reading in bed before going to sleep at a decent hour.

A very long, but lovely four days! 

Here's a photo of my garb for Coronation. If you look closely, the outer layer has green, red, and purple froggies! Squee!



So... I realized that this outfit made me a Japano-Scot.... Even worse, I may have been JaPictanese. ;)




( And photos of Katlyn's apprenticing under the cut! )

Patterns of Fashion 4: The cut and construction of linen shirts, smocks, neckwear, headwear and accessories for men and women c. 1540 - 1660: 4

I'll be placing an order in the next few days. Let me know if you want in to save on shipping... It is usually 30 pounds but it is on sale at amazon.co.uk for 15 pounds - even after shipping, that is the cheapest I have found. I think it will be about $35 after tax, shipping, et al and we should have them by Boar's Head.

Nom nom nom... Tasty linen...

Many of you have seen these on the Gallery, but I have interested folks who do not have access, so I am reproducing my favorites here, including one of each of the team portraits. Thanks to shavasue for being the photographer!

Who wants to talk about forming a team(s) for Golden Seamstresses? I think Northshield could go en masse and really rock the competition. It's usually in February and, now that you've all had your first hit, I think we'll be jonesing for another by then...

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If interested, respond with best skills, favorite time period(s), level of sewer/crafter (novice/intermediate/advanced) and home group. I'll try to organize responses rationally and form multiple teams if needed. :)

First of all, thanks to all of you who came out to the Griffin's Needle Challenge. It was an amazing time and, while I am still not fully unpacked nor caught up on sleep, I am already looking forward to next year.

I got to site Friday afternoon to do the initial walk-through and plan the precise layout of the hall. I had a general idea of how I wanted things to look, but I could not remember exactly how the electrical outlets were distributed and I wanted to be reasonably equitable in providing juice for the teams. This turned out to be something of an irrelevant point, since 2/3 of the teams did not use sewing machines at all. However, I settled on a giant U across the back of the hall so that each team had access to at least one set of outlets, lots of space, and still could see all of the other teams as they worked. The other end of the hall was divided into thirds: food area, movie area/Eithni's command center, and ironing center. (I had one attendee who didn't like the policy of a separate ironing center so far from where her team was based, but I think that is an important safety consideration and, if the event grows, a good way to avoid circuit overloads and other disasters.) There was a separate air conditioned room for sleeping and a lobby for use as a Troll/commons area. I started unloading my car and setting up the little, light stuff so by 5PM when several set-up helpers showed us, we were able to quickly set up the remaining tables and larger items well before the 6PM opening time for gate. (Thanks to damej, berzerker_prime, shavasue, and others!) It turned out that 6PM was probably a bit early to have gate open as most teams were still on the road and even the local teams were still gathering their stuff to get to site.

I really would have loved to use a site in/closer to Madison, but the demands of the event made that difficult. (Let me know if anyone finds a site with a large cement or hard floor, lots of outlets and sturdy circuits, that allows us to bring in food and is available on weekends for cheap. :P) The two biggest problems with the site were the heat (since there was no AC in most of the site) and the stoopid people who were there for the charity walk. I had been warned by the site people that they had rescheduled the walk to our weekend because it had been flooded out earlier this spring, but they had billed it as a relay walk that would have a steady by modest stream of people just pass by the front door on their route... Not hundreds of people who kept wanting to come into or walk through the building, regardless of the signs telling them not to do so, the dozens of cars parked in the lot we were supposed to have exclusive use of, and the loud, bad band playing into the evening. Frustrating. We eventually just locked the front doors unless there was someone at the gate to monitor the situation since the walkers were apparently illiterate and rude. :P There still were a few that seemed mystified that the doors wouldn't open, no matter how hard they tugged. *headdesk* However, they were locked outside and therefore not our problem.

At 9:45 we had five teams on site, the rules were read and the competition began. A few hours in, the Calontiri team came in, bringing the final total of teams to six. We had, at one point, ten teams signed up but we had lost several to home purchases and assorted other Life., plus one no-show team. I was slightly disappointed in the lower attendance, but as it was pointed out, it is a first time event, so hopefully we will grow next year. This year's teams were: We Have a Notion (men's 15th century English), Mother-Daughter Mayhem (women's 16th c. Italian), Persian Griffins (male AND female 16th c. Persian), Apprenti and Friends (women's 16th c. Russian), The Gilded Lilies of Calontir (boy's 14th c. English), and Equestrians and Company (women's 14th c. French).  (Team names and entries from memory... I'll look it over again to check for accuracy when I've had more sleep.) Some people stayed up the entire night, others took advantage of the sleeping room or simply the floor by their team and passed out for a few hours. I was particularly pleased that of the six teams in attendance, only two used machines for their garb, but the Persian Griffins were making garb for two people with only five team members (Master Gevehard was on their team, so he counted as two team member equivalents and they were not allowed a sixth body) and the Mother-Daughter Mayhem team was just that - only two people and it was the mother's very first event! The other geek-pleasing detail of the event was that the teams all chose wonderful fibers for their projects - I only saw one cotton I wished had been a linen (primarily because the rest of the outfit made such good use of linens, silks and brocades) and a "linen" that I have my doubts about. It seemed that all the teams were having fun, there seemed to be only minimal team friction and I was not aware of any meltdowns. I was something of a failure at taking pictures, but that was in part because I knew shavasue was there and recording it for posterity. I did snap a few with my phone, though, so here is a quick shot of the last few minutes of sewing insanity - note the nifty, nearly-finished outfits and the gigantic mess explosions. :)



I had warned the teams that I was instructing the judges to score pretty conservatively - I dislike competitions where everybody gets all eights, nines, and tens and there are tears if they get anything lower. We set the scale so that a five out of ten was a "B" - something to be happy with and about what we expected to see out of a team competing in that division. A seven was meant to be a "A" and reserved for really excellent work, whereas a 10 was to be reserved only for extremely rocktastic, knock-your-socks-off work. There were six categories in which the teams were scored on a one to ten scale: Documentation, Materials and Methods, Workmanship, Fit, Completeness of Outfit (i.e. how careful were they to plan a full outfit and accessories), and degree of Completion (i.e. how finished were they at Needles Down). The seventh category was Judges discretion - essentially up to ten points the judge could award for whatever reason they thought appropriate. I was happy with the judging - we seemed to hold to that scale well, with most teams scoring a total in the mid thirties to low forties, depending on the division. I don't think we awarded any 10s at all, and even 8s were relatively rare but I was OK with that. I was usually the "mean" judge, scoring about 4 points below the average but there were "nice" judges who scored 4-5 points above the average and we were all pretty internally consistent, so the averages worked out. I did, however, abstain from judging the Apprenti and Friends team. With mightyjesse, jinglymushroom, devikat, ilaifire, lostvirtue, and my mom all on one team, even if I were to remain objective, it would not look good. :P

In the end, each team walked away with an excellent, usually essentially completed, outfit. I was very, very impressed with a lot of the preliminary work done, but a lot of the teams had difficulty expressing their research to the judges, so I think I'll work up some documentation guidelines or examples for next year. I've also decided to eliminate the requirement to have patterns drafted on-site even in the higher divisions - speed drafting is intimidating and I would rather teams come away with a good experience and a beautiful garment that fits well than a needlessly stressful experience and/or a garment that *almost* fits. We Have a Notion were brave and worked on a handsewing project even though most of the team was newer folks and 1/4 of the team did not show up until morning, Mother-Daughter Mayhem had some wonderful research portraits and remained committed to turning out quality garments even when they realized they would need to sacrifice completing the whole project, the Persian Griffins included great details like makeup and armor, the Apprenti and Friends attempted some really ambitious beadwork but was realistic about abandoning it when they needed to move on, The Gilded Lilies of Calontir attempted an interesting hooded jacket that was something very fun and different, and Equestrians and Company completely rocked with the accessories. Choosing winners was hard, but We have a Notion won the Novice division, The Persian Griffins won in the Intermediate division, and Apprenti and Friends won the Pyxis division. Vivant to those teams and all the competitors!

Clean-up went quickly except that, despite serving leftovers from breakfast and lunch for dinner, there was still piles of yummy food to be distributed or disposed of. relativelylucidalways cooks the tastiest things and had worked hard at feeing us yummy, period, low-stain risk items but the attendance was low and apparently seamstresses just don't eat as much as fighter-boys. ;) Thanks again to all of my staff, from set-up to clean-up everything went beautifully! And thanks to all the attendees, both competitors and spectators! I had a blast and I hope you did too!


**********************************************************************************

Notes for next year:
Cooler time of year or site with AC
Schedule further away from Pennsic
Better guidelines of what we want to see for documentation
Consider eliminating the Advanced division
Allowing pre-drafted patterns
Think about alternate time schedules
Masking tape/glow tape for sleeping room
Bring library - Moda, Tudor Tailor, Stepping through time, etc
Bring a comfy chair for ME
Publish suggestions for documentation
Have teams introduce themselves and their projects at the outset
Introduce judges

Please comment with further suggestions, especially if you attended!

What a lovely weekend! I was full of fail for a huge chunk of the weekend and still managed to have a great time.

Friday, I met up with goldfrog, Mistress S and cass_lee and started driving for Montello. I had forgotten one or two minor things, which already had me feeling dum, but for which we had found workable solutions.... when I realized I had outsmarted myself. I had put the Sleeve in the one place that I could not, would not forget it - in a safe pocket in my car. Problem: I had at the last minute decided to carpool with the ladies and neglected to move said garment into cass_lee's van. Fail. Epic Fail. Since we were already significantly on our way, we tried to problem solve. We decided to press on, since we were almost there and fish was calling... While we were enjoying the best fish fry in the Midwest, the lovely mightyjesse stopped where I had the car parked to check whether I had actually locked it. Sadly, yup, I had actually succeeded with that. :P We were discussing driving back to Madison when I got an idea - I convinced AAA that it would be OK for them to open up my vehicle for my roommate fencingkitty even if I was not there. The operator was not thrilled with this plan, but was ble to be cajoled. Happily, that plan worked.... except that my car apparently has an alarm on it (who knew? :P) and it went off as soon as they opened the car and would not allow the car to be relocked. I thought about it a bit and decided that I didn't care that it remain unlocked - the most expensive thing I had in there was $50 worth of linen and the only person in that neighborhood who would know or care was already int he van with me. That problem solved, the rest of the night proceeded happily and with little to no incident. I chatted with a collection of most excellent ladies while I finished goldfrog's gown - the wonderful arebekah kindly did the hateful, hateful buttonholes, but the rest is all hand-finished in blind stitches. (I have the dress back for some minor improvements/seam finishings, so if I have time, I think I'll hand cover the buttonholes...) I got to bed at a reasonable hour (at least by my reckoning) but late enough to have had quality fun.

Saturday, I got up and enjoyed a lovely breakfast with ladies from the Bad Baroness apartments before dressing myself and goldfrogfor the Princess' Sleeve Tourney. As always, it was a wonderful tourney to watch and I particularly liked her method of choosing her Sleeveholder. In the end, Vincent had the day and I hope he serves her well. After the tourney, we had a wondrous lunch provided by arebekah and former_callixte and then I watched a bit more fencing since the melees had started and spent some time delivering gifties and lost and found items. Then, it was clearly time to send Eithni home. Marion had a nice little nap and then appeared down by the field in time to watch the last of the pick up fights. Then there was the Baronesses' Happy Hour with chocolate Martinis for all, followed by a lovely dinner in the restaurant. damej alluded to a drink related incident in her account of the evening: I ordered with dinner, as is often my wont, both an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic option, in this case a mojito and a Diet Coke. The very new waitress somehow convinced dear Lazarus Gage that one of his friends had seriously ordered a "mojito-and-Diet-Coke." When it arrived, I promptly asked to have it rectified, but the mistake drink was passed around. It actually was not too bad, tasting something like an alcoholic Diet Coke with lime, but 'Rigo decided this was Just The Thing and proceeded to order several of the new drinks... We dubbed the drink a Co-jito and the version the most wise Don Gauge mixed up for Rigo a Rigo-jito. ;)

The evening party was lovely - ego_id_non_feci did a wonderful job - there is a special mix of laughter, starlight, and fire that always makes for a good evening. Many partook of the gambling and other pursuits, but while Marion may sometimes be a bad girl, she is at heart a good English Protestant girl and was appropriately scandalized at the goings on... Gambling and loose women! Marion may be very naughty, but even she is no man's doxy!

When the mosquitoes got to us, we moved indoors, where townies and a bachelorette party provided ample entertainment. Also as alluded to by damej here is a photo of the freakish item of the night - the Phallus of Unusual Size.



goldfrog and I decided to send it to R to see what his Shinto persona would make of it. ;) The night wound down earlier than I would have expected, but in a pleasantly drama-free sort of way. The worst behavior was probably 'Rigo eating a pine cone... you had to be there...

Sunday began, as it often does, somewhat later than the schedule implied. fencingkitty's melee scenario went off wonderfully. Yup, thats the story. ;) There were some successful authorizations that morning, though, including the lovely and talented ego_id_non_feci! Congrats, lady! Then the Open School Challenge was held, with many good bouts and a win for the School of Tyranny, thanks to their mercenary forces from the Midrealm. At that point, the Bad Baronesses decided to pack up and head for home. We considered driving to Milwaukee to meet up with gwyneth1362, but decided we all needed a shower and a nap and less time in the car, so after an appropriate interval, we reconvened at my house for tacos, to be joined by all their respective men as they were available, since R and Sir D were off at Ages and delayed by the black hole of time and money that is SR Harris...

Today, I spent the better part of the day toiling under the sun like a fool with my hired minion, bookotgrove. He was a rented mule for the day, and I worked him accordingly. :P However, he was good natured about it (even bringing me Strongbow!) and we got really rather a lot of work done in the yard and garage. (More work needs doing, though, and I need a babysitter to make sure the bees don't get me dead, so if any of you are looking for minionage (payable in cash, linen, or other barter), let me know...) After a very long, very hot, very well deserved shower, I had a HUGE and utterly gratuitous bacon cheddar burger at Red Robin with fencertand mightyjesse. Round out the night with drinks and conversation at my place with those two plus fencingkitty and you have the makings of a very good, if tiring, weekend. Thank you to everyone who made it possible and delightful!

This weekend was Jararvellir's 35th Anniversary and May Day Event and it was a most joyful celebration.

On Friday, I came home from work later than usual thanks to the previously mentioned issues at work, so I was already a bit behind. Unfortunately, this meant I skipped out of set-up because I would not have arrived before the bulk of the work was done. Luckily, I had given the banners to damej on Wednesday and I been pretty efficient all week long, so I was in reasonably good shape with the rest of my projects. I quickly did the last bit of cleaning, some detail work on my new garb, final court-tweaks, grocery shopping for the postrevel and last-minute packing. It was a busy evening, but ego_id_non_feci kept me company, so the evening flew. An interesting commentary on my life - when it became clear that I was not going to find my favorite linen chemise without an intensive search, I whipped out a new one. :P Granted, it was less finished than I generally would consider acceptable, but noone was going to check whether I hand-finished the seams when all the sewn bits were hidden by the doublet. Shhh... my little secret - I still use a machine - even on the visible bits - when I'm in a hurry. ;)

Saturday morning started quite early - I'm not a morning person and never will be - but the drive down to Stoughton was pleasant. corvusjoyous, T, teffan, and a few other folks helped me haul things in and set up with all speed. (Thanks also to the houseguests who brought me my forgotten shoes and necklace later in the morning.) With teffan's further help, I stuffed myself into my new birthday dress and properly started the day.




As was usual for a Jara event, I had many commitments throughout the day, but I did get to attend several classes, including both by Bob Charron/Duke Conn. I also got to visit with our visitors from afar - hbevert, Heinrich, and frausensei- and many folks we do not see nearly often enough these days. As a special treat, ALL of Northshield's Baronage was in attendance - not just a representative from each Barony - ALL of the Baronage. There was a multitude of jokes about drawing up charters in the absence of the Crown. Sadly, it did not occur to me to request a family picture until some of my cousins had already left.

Court was a splendid delight. Their Majesties had granted me the power to bestow Awards of Arms and I was most pleased to be the one to recognize jinglymushroom and lostvirtue. In particular, it was a lot of fun to "get" Mushroom. We set it up so that she thought I was going to torture her brother, ilaifire (which we got into the deal as well, but that was incidental) and ensured she was in court and unable to hide when her presence was requested. I had specially commissioned a scroll to be done by CW, one of my favorite scribes, with the wording translated into Russian and read into court by rezansky. As part of the day's activities, several Baronial Championships were held - relativelylucid is the new Arts and Sciences Champion, Robert the Stout will serve as Armored Champion, and Hroswitha as the Rapier Champion - I had considered both the entrant's performance on their respective field of endeavor and, in the spirit of the event's theme of trying something new, whether they participated in other activities as well, particularly during the One Kingdom hour. The Baronage of Northshield each came forward with lovely gifts for the Barony of Jararvellir - everything from largess to food and drink to knowledge in the form of paying the honorarium for the guest speaker. A few old scrolls were also delivered, I ran through the Baronial business, and there were a few more items of amusement/abuse, in particular of a particular Jara Duke with a dislike for combat archery. ;) A good and most satisfying Court. Sometimes I truly love my job.

After court we had the May Pole dance to kick off the Dance Ball. While I had received many recommendations to makeilaifire the new May Queen, I decided that would look like favoritism, no matter how much it amused me, and so I had ego_id_non_feci brought out of the kitchen and announced as the new May Queen. She was stunning in her new blue Italian and the floral wreath suited her well.

Just before feast, the Jara choir performed and provided a very emotional performance - Owen's Evensong always stirs the melancholy in my soul but the Jara fight song (in Latin and English) always amuses and delights me. Feast was GOOD and there was plenty to eat of all. As is my habit, I tried just a tiny little nibble of everything and a bit more of my favorites and still left the feast stuffed and happy that I had changed out of the corset beforehand. After gathering my things and doing some basic clean-up, I headed home to open up for the postrevel. Before long, the living room was full of rowdy goodness. I was exhausted, however, and so nodded off for a bit... Happily, this meant that I was reinvigorated later in the evening and even hit the Inferno for about an hour.

This morning, I got up early and headed back to site for clean up. I was by no means the first one there, but I endeavored to be helpful nonetheless. damej and I got breakfast while waiting for the site steward to return and inspect our cleanup work. Once back in Madison I crashed hard. (I'm not entirely certain I ought to have been driving those last few miles :P) I think I am in love with ego_id_non_feci - while I was comatose, she reset the guest room and washed the party dishes. There were not too many this time, but it still was a godsend. The afternoon was spent in goodbyes and preliminary clean-up, then Jara's General Meeting. After a dinner with kumakun and fencingkitty, some birdie crazy time, and some email catch-up, I am ready for a shower, then bed. The rest of the clean up will have to wait until tomorrow. It is now time to end a lovely weekend - thank you to everyone who came and made this a special event for the Barony!

The latter half of this past week passed in a blur!

Thursday, I went to ego_id_non_feci's class again. The theme for class this day was plants and how they eat, drink, and grow. Unfortunately, they were indeed little monsters - for some reason they were very keyed up and more interested in talking and torturing one another than on my previous visits. (I, in part, blame myself - there were no explosions this time. ;P) However, it was fortuitous since there was a lot of touchy-feely hands on sorts of things to play with and eat and many of the "experiments" were things that were to be observed in the classroom over the coming days or weeks. So, even if learning was minimal that day, they hopefully will get the intended exposure as the flowers and peas complete their experiments. Thursday evening I worked on finishing the machine-sewing parts of my projects for the weekend as well as working on my own garb for the 35th Anniversary. This time, I got the bitty chemise sewn without impaling myself... but I did wait to sew until there were other people home. Sadly, the doublet I was working on was not so successful and I am hoping arebekah will be able to help me straighten out the pattern tomorrow.

Friday, I did a half day at work and then went home to catch a ride with gflower and Cerian up to Bardic Madness. Other than some small amount of fog, the ride went smoothly and pleasantly. Once we got to site, however, it began to rain and HAIL with considerable force. Yipes! All that white on the ground? Hail. The snow came later...





I was selfishly glad that we were inside and prayed for the safety of those still on the road. The evening passes happily with lots of singing and storytelling. I am much more of a patron of the Bardic Arts than a performer, but I appreciated the soundtrack as I sewed and baked.

Yes, I went to Bardic to bake! I always request to be the patron for "Authenticity's Delight" and so I like to have a very nice, period token for the participants of that challenge. This year I decided I would make bread, so I have been working on a recipe for bread that only makes use of ingredients I know to have been available in Pictish Scotland. My one cheat is using prepackaged yeast as I do not have an authentic starter and am not too convinced about trying to make one from scratch. (If I ever go to Scotland and have the chance to pick up some local wild yeast, maybe...) I even did my best to do it right in the other details - I changed out of my modern clothes and into my garb (including headcovering and apron - valkyr8 would have been proud), used my feast gear/baking kit instead of measuring cups, and left it to rise in a Finnr bowl. I had to use a modern oven, though, since the school would have frowned on my making a fire in the parking lot. ;P For the bread itself, I used spelt for the wheat and flax seed oil for the fat, so it is super healthy and has a rich, nutty flavor. On the other hand, it was also a little expensive and difficult - I was using a stone ground spelt which is naturally lower in gluten than regular bread, so it took some playing to make the bread more edible than high-fiber lumps. The final results I was getting at home were light and soft and super tasty. Sadly, site was pretty chilly, so the bread did not rise quite as much as I would have liked and my tokens were a bit heavier than intended. It still was very tasty however, and even moreso when topped with the tasty cloudberry jam (a period Scottish fruit!) that Constanza was so kind as to bring to me from IKEA.

On Saturday proper, the event was just marvelous! The night before we had slept in a gym that was freezing and apparently had a poltergeist, but once we got up and moving, all was well. The Fyts were wonderful, the schedule ran on time, everyone arrived safely, and much fun was had by all. His Majesty was there and seemed to have a splendid time himself - watching the Fyts and participating in at least two of the classes. He even performed in the Triads Challenge, so that was extra keen. I only had four entrants in Authenticity's Delight, and while that was lower than usual, it is often an underpopulated Challenge. (Because period stuff is too scary, dontchaknow! :P Silly people.) However, this meant that there were extras to be shared with people interested in dorky bread and there were enough curious folk that it was all eaten up by the end of the Fyt, even though it was just after lunch.

After the Fyts, there was a meeting of the Northshield College of Bards. I decided to stick around and eavesdrop and somehow got voted onto the Council. :P Yes, another job, but a small one... And my very first suggestion to the Council was instantly unanimously approved, so I feel pretty good about it. Feast was lovely and tasty... and I performed a canzone I wrote! (Eeep!) An idea for the Royal Challenge had occurred to me the night before, so I ran with it. (I don't know why Court-type speaking doesn't phase me a whit, but performance does... brain weasels attack again...) Anyway, I certainly was not the best, but I received wonderful positive feedback from a person whose Bardic opinion I highly value, so I'll call it a success. Once of mine own (and a past Jararvellir Bardic Champion) was chosen to be the Bardic Champion, however, so greatest congratulations to Jose. The night ended with a nice, but dry, Bardic Circle. I certainly understand and appreciate the difficulty of finding a site, but it always seems wrong to have a dry or indoor circle. Bardic endeavors are best pursued out of doors, around a fire, with some good Scotch to hand. Granted, the snow would have put a bit of a damper on it... we just would have needed a bigger fire and more Scotch!

Over the course of the weekend, I had a spectacular sewing output: hand finishing a tiny chemise, handsewing a bitty hat, an apron, a bag, a headscarf, and two adult hats, weaving all the cord for the above projects, weaving a rope, and hand turning a veil for ysolt. Sadly, none of that includes time on the ride home, as a nasty migraine meant I slept most of the long ride home. I am fond of the new apron (which when combined with the headcovering, my garb and a bowl full of dough made someone remark that I looked just like an illumination walking down the hall), but my favorite project for the week was a little dress and chemise for Niamh.



I made it to hopefully fit soon, but include extra seams to be easily let out as the baby grows and some sections that lace to allow for even more growing room. Thanks to bebe_lily (and her mommy) for being the model!




The dress itself (but not the odd construction or the generic chemise) was based off the baby's outfit in Holbein's The Artist's Family: