Random Thoughts

I just saw on the local SCA listserv that the National Geographic Museum has asked us to do a demo for the Staffordshire Hoard exhibit that's coming!

YAAAAAAYYY!!!

I gots to start practicing with my lyre now!

I field tested my new red veil on Saturday. The "straight edge over the crown" look seems to suit me better than the "oval gathered onto the forehead" look.

I think most of the weight was being held by the fillet for most of the day, and it wasn't uncomfortable. I had an auxiliary strap which was supposed to pass from the nape of my neck over the temples and then up the crown, to secure the veil in the center and help support the weight. That didn't work so well. As has been my experience with modern elastic circular headbands meant to be worn the same way, the thing slipped off the back of my head repeatedly. Didn't matter if I fastened it over or under my hair. I wasn't careful about pinning it to the fillet at the temples; maybe that's the trick.

The obvious options are 1) try again with better pinning, 2) do away with it or 3) use a chin-strap/wimple instead. I'm not sure when the wimple starts showing up, but I believe Walton Rogers shows it in her book (which covers the era up to 700 CE) as a possibility. I believe I will try options 1 and 2 first, as I am not a big fan of things on my neck, particularly in the heat.

Upon an amblere esily she sat,
Ywympled wel, and on hir heed an hat
As brood as is a bokeler or a targe.
- Chaucer describes the Wife of Bath on her horse, wearing a wimple and a hat as big as a small shield

My log for the Arnegunde coat is fairly non-existent. I feel like I should keep Mi Contra Fa for performing arts research only. Should I get a separate log for artifact research or expand the log I already have? It is to ponder.

( Docco in brief, before I forget any more. )

I successfully did the interfacing at the neck of the Arnegunde coat I'm making. Finally! I made a neckline that isn't deformed and the contrasting fabric on the interfacing ended up right-side out! Woo!

...okay, so two of the gores are wrong-side out, but the seams are finished very nicely (thankyouverymuch) and I'll just sew them flat and pretend like it's embellishment.

So. All going quite well. Going to bind the cuffs in satin, sew up the sides, slice down the front and then bind the raw edges in more satin. Hem the bottom, more satin optional, and it's done.

And guess who has started rejecting the breast at feeding time? It's been 50/50 the past three days whether or not Ben will nurse. I think he prefers the instant gratification of the bottle, or maybe he's just more used to it now - on an average workday, he gets one, maybe two feedings from me.

I mean, it'll be a nice overtunic regardless. It's just very *headdesk*y that the person for whose benefit the garment is being made is now mooting its purpose.

So using the RIT dye was not so hard. There was a lot of babysitting the washing machine to reset dials, but that was all. The machine doesn't appear to be at all pink. Unfortunately, the fabric didn't change color either. I have a scrap of "before" to compare to "after" and they look identical.

I'm wondering what this stuff is. I knew it wasn't "100% wool," but I had assumed it was a 97/3 wool/Lycra blend; that seems pretty common as suiting. Now I'm wondering if it's totally synthetic. Time to Google "burn test for fabric," I think...

I want to make some nursing garb. I've zeroed in on an open-fronted Kentish coat (in the style of this Frankish example) worn over a tunic with nursing slits. I think I can, working in small time units, complete a coat before the next event I'm attending (Highland Foorde Moose Collegium). But the tunic?

Hey! I have an old tunic that's starting to fray at the seams, and the neck is kind of lopsided, and I've been saying I should make a new one anyway. Rather than make a new undertunic with nursing slits, I could cut slits in this old one and then, later, make a new one without. So when I no longer need nursing garb, I'm not retiring a new item!

...okay, there's no reason I couldn't wear a nursing tunic while I wasn't nursing. It's not like anyone can see it under the coat or an overtunic. But this way I don't have to make two pieces of garb! And it gives me a stronger reason to finally making more undertunics later. (I've had the linen in my fabric box for... four or five years now?)

Must remind myself...

The Persona Pentathlon is tomorrow. The deficiencies in my entries loom larger in my mind than their virtues because, as a perfectionist, I still feel like I should have fixed them.

It's okay that the tafl board uses wooden craft knobs.
It's okay that the music isn't in perfect period style.
It's okay that it's a capella.
It's okay that the veil isn't hand-stitched.
It's okay that the woven band is only faux-brocaded instead of really brocaded.
It's okay that the pins are not 100% authentic.
It's okay that not everything is absolutely authenticable to precisely the ninth century.

It is okay. It really is. It will even be okay after I get back the judging forms telling me that I need to fix all of the above, even though it will make me feel like I need to go to all the judges and say, "I knew that!" because heaven forbid anyone think that I'm not clever.

The embroidery on the tafl board is really striking.
The pieces looks rather elegant.
I actually hope to play a game with it soon.
I'm growing my Anglo-Saxon bardic repertoire.
The songs sound good.
They probably ought to be a capella, even if harp/lyre would look/sound cool.
The veil looks so much more appropriate than my current 12th century Norman one.
The veil is red. Awesome!
I did my first leatherworking project - will shoes be next? I hope so!

Interminable embroidering of black lines aside, I had a lot of fun working on the projects and I learned a good bit. The rest is gravy.

There is really not much to the veil project. Take long rectangle, hem. Pin to band on head. Done. So it seems like a good place to go all period technique, doing that long hem by hand.

If there is something I have learned working on a smaller silk veil, it's that I don't especially like hand-sewing. Especially long, boring projects. Like an 8' long hem. I know that if this weren't a scored competition, I would not even think twice about zipping this through the sewing machine.

So, that's what I'm going to do. Whether or not it's hand-sewed is not important to me. (If it ever does become important, I can rip out the machine hem and do it over, too. It's not like I'm welding it in place.) So, I'm not going to spend precious hours working on something I don't care diddley-squat about, all to squeeze another point out of a competition.

I finished another project yesterday, by far the most fun one I'm doing for the run-up to Kingdom Arts and Sciences Festival (KASF). I made a book.

I want to display all the stuff I did this past year as Poeta Atlantiae, and if there's one thing I've learned recently, it's that poetry and music displays like... well, like boring pieces of paper next to all the beautiful arts. So I decided to bind my collected output. I did a little light reading but didn't make the binding itself into a major A&S effort. It was fun!

I harvested the pressboard covers from an old binder. Some scrap wool left over from my Owl and Apple cloak serves for a binding. Between the beading and the leatherworking, I had two skeins of linen thread to pick from to stitch the folio together (and the leatherworking awl was helpful there, too). A piece of Bristol board from my calligraphy efforts went to be the end-papers. I had some wire around from my non-SCA jewelry-making, and twisted it into a frame and compass star (my heraldic primary charge) for the cover. Metallic thread from the sewing box - couched the wire-work onto the cover. I used my felt-tipped calligraphy pen to write a cover sheet (insular miniscule), but printed the rest of the poetry out on the computer. Then, Elmer's Glue-All and some heavy books to put it all together!

It didn't take long and the result is spiffy. I could easily see doing this for all kinds of compilations.