This weekend we held the Griffin Needle Challenge in Jararvellir and, now that I have slept a bit, I would like to offer a report and thanks. Apologies for any inaccuracies or omissions – some details doubtless have escaped me from tiredness…

 

We had nine teams compete in the Challenge. In the Intermediate category, we had the Handmaidens (and Huscarl) of Doom created a reproduction of the Skjoldeham find,the Flying Monkeys created an Italian gown, and the Byzantine Bobbins created their interpretation of Theodora’s outfit from the mosaic at Ravenna. In the Advanced category, Their Royal Highnesses’ Pleasure took on TWO outfits, making a gown and sideless surcoat for Her Highness and matching outfit for His Highness, and the House of Thornes sewed a German woman’s outfit. Lastly, in the Pyxis Division, Oni-Saru made a man’s Japanese outfit, G Force: Death, Dark, Blood made outfit including a coat and jupon _also_ for His Highness, Equestrians and Company created a Middle Eastern woman’s outfit, and Rusty Nails and Regular Beatings created a Pictish woman’s outfit.

 

There are already pictures up on Facebook and I am sure Shava will have hers up shortly.

 

First, I would like to thank my staff. Thanks to Shava and her staff who manned the gate and to the gate staff, Greta, Josceline and the others who acted as chatelaines as our presence garnered attention from all the hotel guests who came to Madison for the Badger’s Homecoming game and were surprised to find a sewing competition. Greatest thanks to Iohanna and her food-prep helpers - we were well fed all night and all day with tasty, nutritious, low-stain potential options and lots of munchies. Special thanks to the Judges – Ivan Matfeevich Rezansky, Robert the Stout, Roxelana Bramante, Cassandra of the Western Green, Marwen, and Niccolo Falconetto. In many ways, I think your jobs were the hardest! Lastly, thank you to all the competitors! This event, by definition, cannot happen without you. It was an exhausting, insane, AMAZING time and I hope you all had as good a time as I did!  

 

Oh, and while winning is not the point of the Challenge, the winner in each division is listed last in the above list. There were small prizes for the winners, but the real prize is the bragging rights, so congrats to Byzantine Bobbins, House of Thornes, and Rusty Nails and Regular Beatings!

 

For those of you who were unable to make it, you missed a wonderful event and a great display of the talents we have among us. Take a look at the pictures, talk to the folks who competed, and consider joining us next year!

 

Once again, thank you all… Now I’m off to sleep…

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It’s been a fortnight or more since I posted anything of consequence, so this is a general update-y post because it has been a busy few weeks.

 

On the last weekend of August, I traveled up to Windhaven with roxelana0com . They were hosting an Arts and Sciences Day - she was asked to teach C&I and I was asked to teach Research and Documentation. The class ran somewhat longer than it usually does, but there were a lot of questions and a lot of newer folks with a genuine interest in research. Squee!

 

When I got home, my mom came to visit, sadly not for a joyful reason. One of her best friends from college, the lady I was named after, in fact, had died rather suddenly. She had lived in McFarland, so my place was a good place to crash for the night before going to the funeral Monday morning. Unfortunately, I had a down-to-the-wire report to do at work, so I was not able to attend with her.

 

At the very end of the month, I found out at a particular Viking from Border Downs lost his job and so resolved to move to Madison. The loss of the job does not precisely please me, but I am looking forward to the relocation.

 

I am a spoiled girl and I have a ton of vacation, so when I realized that I could use 16 hours of PTO to avoid 18 hours of driving, I decided to go to Gimli, but then stay out in the West until Coronation. The original plan was to go out with TRM and return with TRM, but not the same people. ;) For a variety of reasons, I ended up coming back with cass_lee , though.

TRM dropped me off in Fargo and I joined missdoom and Mr S for the rest of the trip north. We stopped at the Hjemkomst Center since I’d never been there. It was neat to see the reconstruction of a Viking Ship that sailed to Norway in the 80’s but it was sort of disappointing to see all the modern stuff they left on the decks. And of course they wouldn’t let you get on board either. :P I actually liked the Viking Stave Church even better, I think. It was just gorgeous and I really wish we had geekage like that in Madison. Thanks in part to a fellow we met over the weekend, we are probably going to go up for the Viking weekend at the museum next June. Mmmmm… geeking en masse.

 

This was my first Gimli and it was a very good time… except for the mosquitos! Yipes! I swear they were swarming in the thousands! I didn’t really do much at the event other than hang out with folks and socialize and drink and sew. Granted, I did a lot of each of those! In all, a nice long weekend.

 

The week between Gimli and Coronation passed quickly, with sewing, a trip to Vermillion to pester Count Hagan for part of a project, sewing, a day up in Aberdeen, and more sewing. However, on the drive up to Fargo I discovered that even I have a limit and deciding to add 40’ of last-minute extra sewing was just too much for my shoulder. Hurray for back squishes, vitamin I, hot tubs, and Scotch!

 

Coronation went well and smoothly, at least as far as I could tell. sirzig and mightyjesse were safely installed as our next King and Queen and they were predictably adorable and squishy. The garb was done and looked pretty good. (All wool, silk, or linen, handsewn, hand embroidered, blah, blah, blah...) Thanks to the folks from Korsvag who wove all the trim on short notice! The weather was beautiful, if a tad too warm, but there was fighting to be had outdoors and all sorts of crafts indoors. I was a good little muffin and didn’t sew anything, but I did work a bit on an illumination that mysie drew and let me color. Yay! Coloring!

 

Saturday night there was much merrymaking and talking well into the night. It was a hard, hard thing to get up and leave early Sunday morning. cass_lee was merciful enough to allow me a waking-up waffle, but then we were on the road. I didn’t stay awake as much as I should have, largely due to the late night and the lack of homecoming project. Once back in Madison, we made a quick stop at my place, pitched out my stuff from the weekend, and then proceeded to Don G’s birthday party. Ooof. It was fun, but I didn’t even last until 10PM before I needed to bail and get to bed.

 

Luckily, I still had Monday off to recover. I also did a ton of laundry, cleaned the garage with devikat , had the Sears contractors over for an estimate and a guy over to tune the piano, so it was not a complete slacker day, but it was relaxing and ended with a lovely dinner with Blue.

 

Whew! Busy, but happy!

The project that has been consuming almost literally every waking minute for tha last week is done.

Pictures to follow, probably next week.

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...