All the frantic sewing I've been doing (and not posting about - 'cause, ya know, I've been like sewing) actually has a real oh-my-gosh-totally-soon deadline -- TRM choose Calum and I to succeed Milesent and Edward as the next Baron and Baroness of Cleftlands!

*SQUEE!!!*BOUNCE!*BOUNCE!*SQUEE!* :-D

We step up on April 14th (eek!). I will be frantically busy, just as soon as I get home from Italy... (yes, I know, you all hate me and I totally deserve it ;-) )  So I suspect I won't catch up on all the grande assiette posts that I owe y'all until after that point -- but rest assured, I have been taking "in progress" photos, and I will be posting... just not in anything approaching "real time" :-)

I was browsing though the Fashioning the Early Modern website (fascinating stuff, btw) and ran into the 1540-1560 Cinnamon Cane:

http://www.fashioningtheearlymodern.ac.uk/object-in-focus/the-swedish-kings-cinnamon-cane/

And it occurred to me that scents (i.e. olfactory smells) are something that fantasy authors always leave out of their descriptions of conspicuous consumption in pseudo-medieval and pseudo-renaissance and even pseudo-rococo aristocratic cultures. Wouldn’t it be interesting if they included it? What a rich fantasy world that would be!

Just a thought. The idea of strutting around with a gigantic cinnamon stick has tickled my fancy. What if magic had smells and aristocrats carried pomanders to hide what they were doing and/or to baffle opponents? There ought to be a story there…*scheme*

The older I get the more I gravitate to the books about redemption. Don’t get me wrong, I still like a nice coming of age tale – which is good, since that’s 90% of what SciFi/Fantasy is filled with. But I find now that it doesn’t resonate with me the way it used to. The books I find myself rereading (and emotionally clinging to) are the ones where the hero/heroine has *@#!&# up royally – betraying themselves in the process (which is always painful to watch) and how they again come to a sense of self worth. It’s these stories that now resonate with me. I dunno. The older I get the more chances I’ve had to betray myself, and the more I need redemption?

Unfortunately, I haven’t found very many SciFi/Fantasy novels that fit this bill – is it just that the genre is a young person’s genre? Or that this story is not one of the classic arcs of the genre? Or that it requires a strong character-driven story and that's already a small-ish subset of the genre? Or is it just that I’m looking in the wrong places? The ones I’ve found are:

• Lois McMaster Bujold’s Memory
• Lois McMaster Bujold’s Paladin of Souls
• Jim Bucher’s Ghost Story
  Robin McKinley's Sunshine 
• Ann Aguirre's Grimspace (maybe... I think I need to go re-read this one to be sure)

There must be more!

So I had more fittings for Calum's grande assiette cote today. 

Here are pictures from the pattern I draped in my first attempt (the one I wasn't that happy with) -- I got it to fit reasonably well... but I still was not pleased... it did not have the characteristic shape to the front gore:

 

Happily, both my Reconstructing History pattern and Tasha's book showed up, plus I found this rather useful article: http://thescholarsgarret.com/artifact/aissiette/

They all actually ended up looking very very similar, so before the fitting I had scheduled today I cut out the Reconstructing History version - which went together very easily - and after much (expected) adjusting to Calum's figure I'm extremely happy with the results:

 
(no, there's not a center back seam; there's just a lot of fabric to be removed from the center back...)

There's still another round of fitting/patterning to go, but I think I'm finally on the right track! :-D Of course, choosing to go back to the drawing board with the patten means I'm probably a week behind where I wanted to be; but it's better to be happy with the result then to be on-schedule, right?

For those of you who aren’t local SCA folks, Calum and I put our names in the hat to become the next Baron and Baroness of Cleftlands. We won’t actually know who’s selected until April, and the investiture will be April 14, so it behooves me to start on possible “stepping up” garb just in case. It feels incredibly presumptuous of me to do this, but I’m not sure what other choice there is… (Given that I feel it’s very important to do honor to the Cleftlands by dressing appropriately for the ceremony if we are selected.) Anyway it turns out, it’ll be good to make Calum nice garb – I’ve been meaning to do so for years and years. :-)

My initial ideas for what to make Calum were all thrown out the window, as his Burgundian doublet no longer fits. I probably made it too small initially. *disappointed sigh* At least that means I get to re-do the doublet properly – I didn’t have the research with me when I patterned it 4? years ago, which meant I made a lot of mistakes that constantly made me cringe to think about. So, looking on the bright side - I’ll be happier with the finished result. Unfortunately, that means I pretty much get to start his outfit from scratch. I’m not sure why this means I’ve changed time periods, but I have.

Instead of doing 1470s Burgundian I’m now looking at doing 1400-1410 French. There are some really cool outfits… At first I was thinking a really long houpelande to make the most of his height, like the blue and gold houplande you see in Tres Riche Heures. However, the more I looked at manuscripts the more I was drawn to an overgown that looks to me like a short lived style – it’s got grande assiette sleeves but they’re calf-length bag sleeves (called bombards in Illuminating Fashion) rather than the tight sleeves of the Charles de Blois pourpoint. The chest/body is rather more in the shape of a cote then a houpelande, although it has the high neck seen on most overgowns (houps or otherwise) and the hem flares and goes to mid-calf, with front and aft slits for riding. Calum chose this second style as (slightly) more practical. It’s at least a little more fabric-conscious then the houpelande would be ;-). Plus, it will be such fun to try to pattern! *squee* (I tried very hard not to bias his choice; after all, I’d already limited the choices based on what I wanted to wear. Don’t know that I succeeded all that well, though…)

  

So the outfit will involve:

• Undershirt
• Hose
• Cotte (I honestly have no idea what to call this layer… so I’m going with Cotte because that’s what Tasha Kelly McGann uses in http://www.cottesimple.com/ )
• Overgown

In doing my rather rushed research job, I’ve decided that the pourpoint of Charles du Blois is a decent starting point for the cotte. It’s dated to 1365, but there does seem to be some question about that attribution, as the style really is very similar to the late fourteenth century styles… and the shape looks a lot like the few pictures of the cottes I found from the first decade of the 15th century. (Except that there are a lot of sleeve variations in the 1400-1410 cottes – are they loose around the bicep or tight? Do they have a ruffle/drape covering the hand? Are they actually bloused with a cuff? etc.) I’m not sure any of the cotte pictures I found have sleeves that look like the sleeves of any of the other pictures… but the grande assiette, the slightly padded chest, the basic shape of the body of the garment, and its general shortness are all the same as the Charles du Blois pourpoint.

  

So, I started to drape a grande assiette cotte for Calum last night. OMG are those sleeves difficult. I think it took me 4 hours to do… and I am not 100% satisfied with the results. I declared victory as I think I achieved something close – but in comparison to the Charles du Blois pourpoint I had to add an extra gore; plus the front is splayed oddly. I’m not sure I’m getting quite the right smooth line from the armpit though the front pectoral muscle. I’m pretty happy with the back, though – even if I did have to unpin it a billion times because I kept pulling the CB line or the neck out of alignment. I’ll have to do another patterning/fitting for it this weekend. Maybe my copy of Tasha Kelly’s The Pourpoint of Charles de Blois will have arrived by then, or my Reconstructing History pattern. I desperately need some more input on how to drape this style…

Of course, I forgot to take pictures. (I was punchy-tired by the time I declared a partial victory…) I will try to remember to take pictures of the next fitting/patterning session. Sorry!

I finally finished my last YWU’d paper on the black velvet titanic-era evening dress! Yeah!!! *Happy Dance!* I’m so tired of this paper… the dress turned out to be very difficult to pattern and document. Which I predicted it would be – I thought it would be a nice challenge. It was beyond challenging. I am exhausted. I’d say, I never want to see it again, except that now that I’ve finally got the paper finished I keep thinking it’d be fun to actually make the thing in my size:



Obviously I’m a masochist.

On the other hand, I am really looking forward to having time to devote to sewing! I feel like it’s been forever. Of course I have no idea what I’m going to work on. I probably should go back to the 1475 English Burgandian style since I finished the underdress for Pennsic. But I’m not feeling very inspired. The side tummy wrinkles that I couldn’t get rid of really annoy me in the underdress. *grump* I’m certainly going back to my embroidery test project; but I really hate the thread I’m currently testing with. I think it would probably be beautiful to couch with, but it is problematic to do chain stitch with, and it doesn’t even look really good to make up for the aggravation of working with it.

Speaking of projects, how feasible is it really for me to compete in the A&S pentathlon? I’m being nagged to do it… I could do the following:

• Division 1 – Dance - European: I’ve already told Sibylla that I’d perform Candida Luna dance with her at Red Dragon… I just need to learn the dance ;-)
• Division 2 – Embroidery – Free Form: Embroidery floss tests... I don't think this will score very well, as it's an experiment piece rather then a finished product... but the A&S competitions don't have a category for "experiments". Personally, I think they should!
• Division 2 – Costume 1451 - 1600: The only one that really makes sense is to do the full outfit for the 1475 Burgundian… unless I do Calum’s Maciejowski tunic as “costume single component”… The bliaut would be fun, but I don’t have time to do the T-tunic experimentation that I want to do first. Of course, the criteria for this entry are not very friendly to pre-Elizabethan outfits… *sigh*
• Division 3 – Research: Clothing in the Maciejowski Bible (I’d have to go though and expand on the underwear paper I’ve already done. But I was intending to do that anyway)
• Division 5 – Cooking - Single Dish: Stewed lamb recipe or the figs recipe from the Standard Bearer’s feast I just did.

That’s not too bad really… Mostly I’d be doing these anyway. I just need to write stuff up for them (and prioritize finishing up the Maciejowski research.) It actually seems feasible. I must be hallucinating. That can’t really be true, can it? Of course, I’d have to bite the bullet and actually enter a A&S competition, which I’ve been very reluctant to do – I’ve only ever entered one (6 years ago!) and I’m still hurt and bitter from the comments. I dunno if I’m cut out to compete… plus, these entries aren't designed to please the A&S criteria, but to please me... so they probably won't do that well, anyway...

I meant to post this last week... but being sick really put a crimp in all my plans last week :-( Anyway, after starting feast planning back in 2007 I finally did it! For the Cleftlands’ Standardbearer’s Tournament the weekend before last I did a feast from the 1529 Spanish Cookbook, Libro de Cozina. (Which makes the very first artsy-craftsy thing I’ve ever done in from the time and place of my SCA name! *personal squee*! ) Anyway, the menu did change slightly from 2007, it ended up being:

1. (on the table) Bread & butter
2. Figs in the French Style (e.g. dried figs backed in white wine)
3. A Modern Pottage (spinach with bacon and raisons)
4. Roast Chicken sauced with Cilantro Pottage (chicken with a green sauce)
5. Rice Pottage
6. Stewed Lamb (stewed lamb fried in a honey and vinegar glaze and garnished with fruit)
7. Genovese Tort (a nut and fruit torte)

I’d never redacted a recipe before, so figuring out the recipes was initially my biggest concern especially since I was running behind as my Your Wardrobe Unlock’d articles turned out to be much more difficult/time consuming then I expected – but eestep held my hands though the process so it all went surprisingly smoothly. I am not at all sure about the documentation, however. I mean, for the cilantro pottage and the spinach dish we ended up mixing and matching elements from 2-3 similar recipes in the book, and the torte had a long section of the recipe that read like it was “how to create an oven when all you have is a fire” … so I just used an oven. I know how much leeway I allow myself with costumes and interpreting evidence, but I don’t even know how much leeway I’ve taken with the recipes. I mean, what’s considered perfectly good practice, and what is stretching things? Anyway, the recipes (if you can call them that) should be up on the Cleftlands cook’s guild site sometime soon…

Anyway, the actual cooking and feast kitchen stuff again went surprisingly (imo) well – for which I credit the extremely experienced crew who volunteered to help :-). The weekend before the event, eestep and I got together and made the torte. I did a significant amount of shopping at Costco after work on Monday, and then I took the Friday before the event off of work in order to do the rest of the grocery shopping (for which I was slightly over budget *pout* but the event still made money so all is good). Then, that Friday afternoon coffeekitten  and efrda1  and Jehanne came over and we made the lamb.

So, by the time we got to the event there were only 4 dishes to make (and the figs were so easy they barely count – put stuff in pot and cook. Done. ). A couple hours were spent cleaning the kitchen and organizing stuff, maybe another hour chopping stuff, and then we all wandered around feeling like something was wrong since there wasn’t really anything else to do until about 2pm!

Sergei (sp?) did a wonderful job organizing the servers (and it was his first time too!) – he and efrda1 planned out all the plates and marked their order, while Aiden and Eli did the decorating. And boy, were the results pretty! It’s not a skill I have, but I am in awe. :-) And then, suddenly it was all pretty much done. We actually stopped and got some eating in! (Even more happily, the clean-up afterwards just magically happened, thanks to Calum and Sorcha and Aiden and Eli and Dmitrii and probably others I’m forgetting or didn’t see. It was so very nice, since I was completely exhausted by that point! I’m not really sure why… I mean, most of the time I was pretty superfluous. Although it’s not like I usually spend all day on my feet… I think I chopped half of half a dozen different things, and maybe washed 2 dishes… other then that I just hovered and set things in motion. *shrug*

The thing I was most concerned about for the day-of turned out not to be a problem at all – I was worried because we had to bring ALL the kitchen tools we used… I was worried we’d not have stuff we needed or I’d forget something. But it really wasn’t a problem, probably because of Sarra and Clariel’s amazing forethought in bringing dishes and pots and pans and such. The only note to myself if I have to deal with this situation again is to bring lots of bowls for holding chopped things – happily disposable bowls worked great for this.

I am really bowled over by all the really nice things people did for me – I mean, Sorcha came from work, and had to go back to work after the event, but still spent most of the afternoon doing dishes! Dame Alys unexpectedly brought decorative marzipan squares and candied orange peels – both OH SO YUMMIE! *happy sigh*. Sarra not only made almost all of the bread, but made the kitchen staff lunch too! (And it was very good, and highly appreciated!) Aiden and Eli brought herbs from their garden for decoration (as well as other decorative touches I never would’ve thought of!) and Calum & Angharad even drove back and forth to the site twice because the pies were forgotten. Plus, Sergei played music for us in the kitchen! I am incredibly blessed by my friends :-D

So much for sticking with the 15th century this year: I’m back to playing with the bliaut thing (mainly because I’ve slowly been putting my project binder together for my unfinished/unstarted projects and the bliaut page with the associated fabric has really been inspiring me! :-) ) . So, I thought I’d do the easy stuff first: the embroidery.

Yes, I know, my definitions are skewed, but I figure I’ll need to do a lot of testing regarding the cut/construction of the bliaut… sooooo… the embroidery was supposed to be relatively uncomplicated – just time consuming. However, embroidery adds such BLING – plus, I’ve never seen anyone do really dense embroidery as decoration on a bliaut – usually trim is used for that effect… and I just don’t like the way trim looks. I’m not sure I can explain why, it’s something about having to finesse the straight trim into the neckline; the design on the trim doesn’t adjust to the curves or the keyhole even if you get the trim itself to lie neatly. Also… I haven’t seen trim recently that has the right decorative feel vis-à-vis the design. I suppose both of those could be addressed using card weaving or something like that… but all the examples I’ve seen of those are quite bulky -- great for belts, less so for dress trimming. (Plus I have no idea how to do card weaving, so my ability to judge feasibility is quite deficient.)

Anyway, to cut a long story short I decided to trim my bliaut with embroidery. Unfortunately I am having a lot of trouble finding the information I want on early medieval embroidery for garments. I’m most interested in the third quarter of the 12th century (obviously) but I actually haven’t found much of any answers to the following questions for the pre-renaissance period:

Anyway, soon I’ll post pictures of my test pieces – I’ve got 3 of the 4 done. Although I’m contemplating adding a couple more thread types… I’ve been playing with 100% wool threads and 50%-50% wool and silk. I’m thinking I should try a 100% silk too… although I don’t really like the 100% silk options at my local needlework store… they look good for the “painting with silk” style but I’m really skeptical regarding their suitability for my purposes *pout* (Of course, the thread I like best right now is the most expensive one. *sigh* Maybe I’ll scope out options at Pennsic – but how available will they be to me post-Pennsic when I need to order a whole bunch, not just a skein of each color?)

Have I mentioned how much I’m enjoying doing the embroidery? It’s completely mindless – which is exactly what I need right now; I’m working 10-14 hour days lately and when I get home, I just want to put my audio book on and zone. I really really should be working on the second half of my next Your Wardrobe Unlock’d paper… but that totally needs a brain and I don’t have one these days. *rueful smile*

I was hit with inspiration when I was unlacing my GFD:
With the GFD partially unlaced it auto-magically follows the shape of the V-ish neckline in (some of) the English Burgundian pictures:

I find this quite suggestive – at least as a potential source of inspiration that c1470s English women might’ve had for creating the V’d neckline. :-)

 I feel like yesterday was all about me :-D -- this weekend was one of my local SCA group's BIG yearly events - Northern Oaken War Maneuvers. In the morning gwacie  took me as her apprentice *squee!* (despite my being late for my own ceremony -- I got a flat tire *sigh*).  

The ceremony was relatively informal - it involved: