Ha, I crack myself up. My google fu is not with me tonight. I found my own website while looking for something completely different.

I am undertaking the making of Regalia for the Barony of Ayreton--baldrics for the archery, A&S, rapier, and heavy combat Baronial Champions. I cant seem to locate the specific badge for an archery champ.

And the search goes on.

G'night

I have Identified the Mystery Dragon

This weekend, I found the dragon picture from my Sept 27 post in the book The Cultural Atlas of the Viking World edited by James Graham-Campbell, on page 139. I was browsing the book looking for pictures of bead necklaces (only had one small pic). Luckily this book is wise enough to include a thourough and detailed List of Illustrations in the back, and our dragon can be found at the Cambridge University Library, call number MS Ff 1.23, f. 37v.
Sadly Cambridge has not digitized all their manuscripts, but according to the website, items in the "double letter" collection are not restricted and can be looked at freely as long they are not being restored. Great, I'll phone British Airways right now... Just kidding. :)

An Exciting New Position!

Saturday at the Canton of Grey Gargoyles' Stone Dog Inn event, the Barony of Ayreton held its first Baronial Court. I received the exciting position of (principal) A&S Baronial Champion!

I have alot of ideas to try out over the next year.... woo hoo!

Maroon Elizabethan Dress Diary Part 3

Wednesday night Mistress Arrienne stopped by to help wrangle the skirt panels onto the now finished bodice. A had made a new hoop shirt with a 3.5 yard bottom circumference. It is sortof my training- farthingale. Arrienne had me one with a 5.5 circumference, but I think I need to work my way up to that big girl farthingale.

Tragically we discovered my skirt panels must have been originally cut for a lower middle class dress without farthingale. But over the spring I had collected some snazzy trim and taffeta linings, so that bumped it up to a more upper middle class-low noble status dress--farthingale required. This can be fixed with some guards--I have a small length of black wool i just need to dig around for. So I was was rather sad that even with a sewing frenzy Thursday night, it would not have been near ready for Saturday. Besides, Indian Summer is in full force, and it will be 80F on Satuday. So wool might not be the best thing to wear that lovely day.

There are 3 more local events in 7 weeks, so there will be more opportunities for the dress to make its debut. That gives me more time to redo the undersleeves, the matching forepart, make an underskirt to attach the forepart to, and possibly mail order a custom tall hat.

Last night I worked on a pair of Elizabethan venetians for The Boy. Lets just say 12 year olds are not thrilled with having things pinned on them sewn, put back on, and so forth. I took a shortcut with these--at Goodwill I found a pair of black ladies petite capri pants. I dont think they were even worn--the front pockets were still basted shut. Most important they had no back pockets so, but the front pockets were easier to hide in the pleating. So all I had to do is make a casing around the bottom hem, ran a ribbon through, and I think these should be good for a couple years. I had to take the waist in a bit, but they can be let out as he grows. Major score--$5, 30 minute boys Elizabethan pants.

With it, he can finally wear last year's Goodwill experiment of a $7 ladies linen blouse, which I shortened the sleeves, took the buttons off, butted the front seam together, covered the button holes with machine embroidery, and embelished the front of the blouse with more machine embroidery. He can borrow one of dad's flat caps, and I got some girls black knee socks, and he is ready to go. I just wont tell him ALL his clothes began life in the ladies and girls department. :)

I'm Published

I recently wrote up an article about the Opening Ceremonies garb that Mistress Sarafina Sinclair's Sewing Group worked on over the summer. Here is the link directly to the article:
http://danscomputing.com/MidrealmAS/opening.html

Mistress Sarafina, Lady Jane the Tall, Lady Ann of Walton Woods, and Lady Margrett Norwoode and I all had a great time working on the outfits for their Majesties Radagaisus and Ceinwen.

A Look at all the other issues of the "unofficial" A&S monthly newsletter here:
http://danscomputing.com/MidrealmAS/

Maroon Elizabethan Dress Diary part 2

Confined myself to the craft lair yesterday and bound the amscyes, hand stitched layer 1 of the trim, & sewed up the pair of tie on sleeves for the Elizabethan. The bias cut sleeves and lining gave me fits because the linen lining is streching too much and poofing out top and bottom of the sleeves.
Movies watched: disc... 2-directors cut of Kingdom of Heaven, then Ever After and Knights Tale were on TV. Excellent!

Can anyone identify the source?

The only information I have for this picture is "Ringerike style Dragon from illuminated manuscript 11th century CE, England"

Can anyone help locate the exact source? I checked through a few of the English online manuscript databases, and can't locate the MSS source for this image.

Maroon Dress Diary-part 1

Sewed the Elizabethan bodice last night, but the front closure is not laying as flat as I want. I am using heavy duty hook and eye tape to close. (See below) Its just basted on now, so it can be fixed. Hints? Other options for front closure? Will it lay flatter when I use smaller more sturdy stiches?

Jumbo Hook & Eye- Black/Nickle :: Jumbo Hook & Eye :: Hook & Loop

I am inserting it on the Underside...its not meant to be visible. But I am still getting slight gappage where the two sides of the dress meet.

Saturday:I beat it into submission....and I think it turned out ok! I just needed to yank that corset a little tighter, and also the loose basting stiches werent helping. Heres to 2 rows of machine stiching on the tape edge and then another hand sewn seam on the hook side.

Italian thoughts & 2 months of Crafting Time

Looking at my SCA calendar, it looks like I have no Event related deadlines until November! That means I can retreat to my craft lair--or pit of despair depending on how messy it is :)


I have a wool middle class Elizabethan that was cut out last winter. But then the summer came with award scrolls, the Great Pennsic Royal Garb Project, gift basket projects, and other things that took more priority. When I start putting the Burgandy 'Bethan together, (shortly I hope) I will show you my progress.


I have also been knocking around the idea of doing some sort of Flemish or Italian peaseant-esque kitchen dress. I will be co feast-o-crat for the first time for 12th night, and it could be something I can wear. I have the linen for a nice Flemish stocked, but I actually dont think I would like the chance getting that stained.


So I will turn to my fabric stash, and see what mystery fabric is really there (But that means I hafta clean the attic, WAH!) to see if there is someting suitable for a different garb experiment.

I think i want to try an Italian. The paintings of Vincenzo Campi were the first place i started, but I am not sure I really want that late of a style. For some reason, I think the ruffled blouse seems to fussy, and the dresses have too many doo-dads and poofs to be good in the kitchen. See:
http://www.festiveattyre.com/research/wkclass/portfolio.html

I think I want something a bit sleeker. So I found this very interesting set of pictures from the same site, but from about 100 years earlier, around 1475.

A. http://www.festiveattyre.com/research/earlyflor/3flor16.html
B. http://www.festiveattyre.com/research/earlyflor/3flor17.html

C. http://www.festiveattyre.com/research/earlyflor/3flor15.html

I kind of like the chemise peeking out of the sleeve gaps. I think I would go with a cap and side lacing like in picture A.

But what about the chemise? I will have to do some more research on it because this set of instructions

http://www.festiveattyre.com/research/chemise.html

http://www.festiveattyre.com/research/diary/diary3.html
seems to be for a later period-more poofier chemise-and not the slim fitting ones shown in the pictures above.

A Pretty Cool weekend: Yard Sale, Pennsic Bed, and Rush!

On Saturday, I held a yard sale. It wasn't very big, but I got rid of a lot of toys, kids clothes, new and like new housewares, and a bike that never fit me right. I think one of the fun parts is chatting with the folks that come by. I didnt make a huge amount of money, but enough to fund a shopping trip to Ikea to get a Pennsic camping bed.

I wanted to upgrade from sleeping on an air mattress on the ground at Pennsic to having a "real" bed. Knowing that we are running short on time (and woodworking skills), I found a new model at Ikea that looks pretty simplistic, looked like it will break down into smaller parts in the car, and that will give a more period feel:
Presenting Fjellse: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80185066

All wood, ready to be finished or left plain. Later, I think I want to do some woodburned vine work, but that will wait to be a winter project. I have been coveting the sheepskin rugs they sell also, to use as blankets, but even the largest sheepskin rug would not have covered the bed. So I chose a flokati rug. Very comfortable and snuggly but half the price. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10093942

The bed needs a base to support the mattress. We decided against this, http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/75844609, because it is actually two strips of slats, the center support of the bed is only 1 inch wide, and I was fearful of a collapse should the two strips slats ever began to spread apart and fall off the center support. So, we went to Menards Sunday after the 4th of July parade, and bought 16 1"x3"x8' furring strips for about $22, and Mark cut them to fit the bed frame. That way they lay across the center support as well. We had to get an new air mattress because our queen double high would not have fit the frame. Menards had the single high air matresses too. Lastly, to protect the air mattress from splinters, I got 3 cheap rug runners with rubber backing there to lay across the slats. The rubber backing helped to keep the slats from shifting as well. Also, runners can be rolled up and packed upright in the car better than a big long rug.

The test run Sunday night worked! My new medievaloid bed gets two thumbs up from me.

Monday night, we went downtown to see my all time favorite band in the world, Rush! I think this was the 14th time I have seen them since 1988.
Not so great: The venue, Charter One pavilion at Northerly Island, a tacky outdoor arena covered in spiders and rickety seating--even though its only a few years old.
Horrible: Our seats, could not even see Neil or the video screen at the back of the stage.

And then something happened at intermission...

Awesome: An employee came around our section and passed out tickets to the people who didnt get up, to go sit in the empty VIP boxes instead!
Flippin Awesome: The rest of the show, 2 more hours worth of rocking from in front of the stage. They celebrated the 30th anniversary of the album Moving Pictures by playing it in its entirety. Sweet! What a show!

And that is the tale of my pretty cool weekend

Gulf Wars

Well this has been one heckuva year, and I am dying for a vacation. So its official---Bridget and I signed up and were going to Gulf Wars!

I think the trip would be really far out.

I still cant figure out what the weather would be in Mississippi in March. I have heard accounts that the weather at Gulf wars can be everthing up to 90, down to 17, rain, and even snow. Pack every piece of garb and hope for the best I guess.

Here is link to one weather site:

http://countrystudies.us/united-states/weather/mississippi/hattiesburg.htm
and another:
http://hattiesburgamerican.weather.gannettonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=WEATHER01&City=Hattiesburg&State=MS

Time to make some wooly garb!