Everyone knows if I promise something as a Christmas present...

not to expect it before March....

I cut out the roommate's apron-dress tonight.  I'm hoping to have it all sewn up tonight or tomorrow and wrapped for her to open when she gets back on the 26th.  The apron is a good probability, it's all cut out and made of a thick lush teal wool from Pendleton, so I don't have to finish the seams.  I've also read somewhere the theory that Norse sewed their seam allowances on the outside of a garment and the decorative seam treatments are designed to finish the edges in a visible way.  It's an interesting theory and I'm giving it some thought, although not for Wednesday.  The garment is intended for An Tir's 12th night, so I also need to get the under dress cut out next week.

Extant Houppelande 1396

Also somewhere in the next couple months I promised The Boy a floor length, angel-wing sleeved houppelande as his Christmas present.  I have the wool, I just haven't quite figured out the cutting pattern I want to use.  The circle style has its advantages in simplicity, but isn't really fabric efficient.  Also the extant example is believed to be made from multiple "wedges" cut much like gores are cut for other dresses.  Of course I can't find the website I saw that on before...  I'm thinking about doing the wedges because the fabric I'm using is a plain blue wool which means I don't have to worry about an up and a down on it.

I'd like to finish it before 12th Night, but I'm not sure.  I've got a pair of braies mostly finished, and a shirt cut out and partially sewn. I'd really like to get a pair of hose to go with it finished, and a doublet to go under, since that would be most accurate, but I don't know how likely the doublet is any time soon.  I have a heavy red linen that I think would look good for the hose, I just need to find the time to pattern them, and eventually I'll get them sewn.  I'm thinking maybe a green or black linen doublet for under the blue houp, because those colors would look really good with the red hose.

April

August

My wifey sent me some gorgeous gold brocade and fifty bells to make himself a baldric out of.  The Boy is a fan of the Tres Riches styles so I'm planning a shoulder drape like the one in April or August's miniatures, and I'll see how far down his back I can make the bells go.  I might have to find some other kind of findings to spread out the bells.

I really should get back to the sewing.  How to Train Your Dragon is on, some how I find that to be a perfect accompaniment to sewing Norse clothing.

Time for another hairstyle showcase...

Warmer weathers bring out the early period in many a Scadian, and having a Roman persona means I'm pushing heavily for chitons and tunicas.  Last year at An Tir/West War, I craftily managed to instigate a Roman day.  Since Idonia was going to be up in Court on our Roman Day, I pushed her to have a fancy hairstyle.  After all that meant her hair would be seen by probably a dozen sets of sitting royalty.

Portrait of Plautilla

 This is a hairstyle seen on Plautilla, unwanted wife of Emperor Caracalla, who married him in 202 AD.  I first came across this bust, which is housed in the J. Paul Getty Museum, in Janet Stephens paper, Ancient Roman hairdressing: on (hair)pins and needles.  She gives step by step instructions on how she recreates the style, and it's relatively simple.

Idonia's hair is about waist length, but this style can be done with hair that is slightly shorter, at least mid back length.

Stephens calls this style the 100-strand braid, due to the woven look of the finished style.  It begins by parting the hair vertically from brow to nape, then sectioning a small portion along the center, french braiding that narrow section and finishing the braid to the tips.  The portions of hair on either side of that narrow braid are parted into four vertical sections on either side of the narrow braid, for a total of eight sections.  It is easiest to part the sections as you'll be using them, instead of all at once.  Each section will be twisted instead of braided against the scalp, and once it reaches the nape, separate into a three strand braid.  For symmetry's sake, I twisted strands toward center, so sections on her left were twisted to the right, and sections on the right were twisted left.  Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of doing the scalp portions, maybe in the future.

After all the sections are braided, the nine braids are sewn together to form a flat panel.  I did this with a tapestry needle and cotton weaving thread, but historically it would be done with large bone needles and woolen thread.  Once all the braids are sewn together the panel is folded up, the tips are tucked in, and the top of the panel is sewn to the top of the french braided section.  The passes of the french braid prevent the panel from weighing down the hair on the scalp and sliding down, as they would have if the panel was sewn to a twisted section alone.

This style did impress the royals, and because it's sewn together instead of pinned, it's very comfortable to sleep on.  Idonia was in fact stuck in the style until I could get to her the Tuesday after to unsew her.

Hopefully this is helpful to those that are seeking an interesting and unique hairstyle to complete their Roman garb.

The Toga wool has arrived!

I'm so excited.  The wool for The Boy's toga arrived yesterday.  I ordered it from a website I'd never seen before, and shipping took a little over a week, which feels slow thanks to the ridiculously speedy delivery from Fabric-store.com I'm used to, but the result is so worth it.  Fabric Mart Fabrics has a somewhat limited selection of fabrics (keeping in mind that I only want natural fibers), but the prices are ridiculously nice, and they take the time to describe not only the weight of the fabric, but how it drapes.  There are suggested ideas of what to use the fabric for, but I don't know that they really pay attention to what they're saying, as they suggest making scarves out of gabardine.

I ordered this ivory wool crepe.  It's gorgeous, lightweight and drapey, and extra wide which I didn't realize before.  I'm looking forward to cutting it into it to make the curved edge, but I'm not sure if I should wash it or not.  I'm worried about it shrinking and getting much thicker than it is now.  The only piece of crepe I've worked with in the past got thick and felted after repeated washing, and I definitely don't want that for this wool.

I suppose I could cut the extra off first, and try washing the extra pieces to see how it washes up before deciding to wash it in the future.  I need to test it, since I want to dye some of the fabric to make the stripe on  the edge.

At least I have the giddy thrill awaiting me tomorrow of having a washer and dryer being delivered!  For the first time since I moved to Oregon, I'll be able to do laundry in my own home!

On today's to-do list, aside from dishes, I need to figure out the classes I'll be teaching at Egils this year.  I have had people ask if I'd teach how to french braid, and, although it isn't period, braided hair is better than a modern style. I'm also trying to figure out what I'm going to say for my more accurate hair styling class.  I think it will be titled "Sewn Hairstyles, Yet Another Thing to Do with a Needle and Thread."  Also on the Egil's front, some friends of ours, and their friends, will be joining us, making our own little camping group this year.  We need to get land reservations in tomorrow, and get to figure out what equipment we have for cooking.  It'll be exciting.

Ah well, lots to do today.  At least last night I made a little progress on the Overly Ambitious Embroidery Project of DOOM! I finished the dark gold color last night.  I need to go buy more skeins of thread, I'm running out of nearly every color.

Keeping Busy,
L

Been a heck of a while...

The new job has taken a lot out of me.  Long, ridiculous hours meant most of August and September I was either working or sleeping.  There was a little time spent eating and eventing, but very little in comparison.

I know I promised a tutorial on Livia's hairstyle, but there are computery issues preventing that for right now.  But it is not forgotten, that particular hairstyle has been on my mind for quite a while.  The Boy and I entered the Summits' Coronet Lysts last month, and I wore that particular hairstyle to show off.  I looked fantastically Roman, enough that the Prince (a Roman Persona himself) gave The Boy approval for having a Roman lady on his arm.

I'm also turning that recreation into a full on A&S entry for the Baronial Championship in January.  I'm going to try to keep the cloak in the family so to speak.  I'm getting started on documentation now, partially because I want to do it right, and mostly because I'm currently motivated.

Also in the time that I've failed to post I was given two awards at the Barony's fall event.  The Baronial Brownie, Adiantum's first tier service award, a recognition of attendance, support, and promotion of the Barony.  Kind of like a Baronial AoA.  I was also given the Fern and Quill, the Barony's arts award, specifically for skill and generosity with hairdressing.  The current B&B will be stepping down in a few months, and I believe that Morrghan, the Baroness, wanted to be the one who gave me this award.  There was mention of how recently we'd moved into the barony, and if we were to move she'd steal the alternator from the car.  It's wonderful to be recognized for the hair styling up here.  I hadn't done much research into authentic styles back in Ansteorra, but was mostly a "get it off my neck" hairdresser.

We (The Boy, a few friends and I) went up to Honor Feast last weekend, hosted by the Portland group.  The event was fun, if a bit common as far as events go.  The "ball" was more of a class, but fun despite it's short time frame. The Boy and I made contacts with the Dance Master/Mistresses from up northerly way, and got to help with their issues with Parson's Farewell.  They were trying to reconstruct it and were getting caught in a couple sections, so we taught it the way we'd learned it in Ansteorra.  They seemed giddy to discover we knew the dance, and we kind of blew apart the ball right there in order to teach it to them.  We're now plotting to start up a dance night in the Salem group, so that the dancers from Eugene and Portland can descend upon a central area and take over.  I also got my hairdressing name out there further, hopefully people will recognize me in the future.  I chose to wear the 1515 Florentine for the day, not something I usually wear, but I looked damn good that day.

Hope to have more to say in the coming months, and more time to say it.

Dance Practice!

I get to lead tomorrow night's Dance Practice, so I thought I'd squee a little over how much I enjoy dance practice, and post the list of dances that we'll be working on.

Nika Nika Bransle
Half Hannikin
Petit Riens
Black Nag
Heart's Ease
Rufty Tufty
Parson's Farewell

This is pretty much just what we did last month, but some of it is new to this group, so we should go through it again, especially since we only met once a month.

I'm willing to take requests, should they arise, and I've promised Idonia, that should we have an inordinately large number of people, we will do Trenchmore.

I survived An Tir/West War (and long post is long)...

It is of course a couple days after returning home, but the photos are still popping up on Facebook.

The site for war is gorgeous and awful at the same time.  Vast fields that usually support hay and animals, the grounds were covered with hay that had been mown only a few days prior to the event.  The soil was incredibly uneven, making it hard to walk without twisting ankles.  I'm surprised no one broke an ankle, though I guess that's only because people were walking more carefully than they would normally.

It was hot and sunny, with deliciously cool breezes, and everyone in our camp got a little sunburned.

Our friend Aoife had been put in charge of Waterbearing at the last minute (well technically two weeks before the event, but in planning that's totally last minute) so The Boy and I brought the coolers and bottles down to the event Thursday night.  We arrived around 10:30/11 and drove around site trying to understand the map at gate when we found Chris and Andrew who we were camping with.  They guided us to the roads we should have been on (Chris by hopping in my lap in the front seat of our packed minivan), and we set up the pavillion by the headlights of the car.  We collapsed into bed, and didn't know anything till morning.

Friday was pretty much a bachelor's camp for the four of us.  Andrew made eggs and bacon and eventually The Boy and I tried to figure out where to deliver the waterbearing equipment.  Wow was that painful.  This was the first time at this war for the two of us, and we didn't even know where the battle field was.  There wasn't a large fake castle or anything obvious.  We made our way to parking, asked the sweet young lady working the gate where the field was, which was right next to us.  We then went in search of the tent that had been promised us, and more specific directions on where to set up waterbearing point.  It was at this moment that I became more annoyed with the people that were supposedly in charge.  I ask a simple question, "where should we set things up?" and they dither on and on about not being the person in charge, and not knowing where we should put things until I wanted to shake them.  A simple I don't know, this is whom you should talk to would have sufficed.  I asked Lucius if the tent we were borrowing from the Prinicpality was available, and I got a more direct answer of "the person with the trailer isn't on site yet, we'll set it up when she gets here."  Thank goodness for frank gentlemen.

We left the table and coolers on the point above the field that we finally deduced as right from talking to the autocrat (after driving around looking lost by the field again) and I went to water the Rapier fighters that had a list field set up in the middle of the merchants.  After the short "early bird" tourney was over The Boy came to collect me and we went to find someone that The Boy could borrow a gauntlet from for the Unbelted Tourney, since he doesn't own one, and his shield is still busted.  Chris, Aoife's Boy, lugged water for me in five gallon coolers from the pump that was a long way away.  A trip took at least ten minutes, and he brought me twenty gallons easily.  Between his trips to the hose, he helped  me to distribute water to the field of 60 some odd fighters for the tournament, which lasted three and a half hours in the baking sun.  We ended up gaining a couple more volunteers during, but it wasn't easy.

Not a whole lot happened that evening, the rest of our crew arrived, we talked for a bit and The Boy and I headed to bed early.

We got up on Saturday and after breakfast and a bit of early morning hair braiding, we lugged all the stuff back to the overlook where Waterbearing was set up, and there was an Easy-Up set up for us to start. After Aoife got things in hand, I wandered back to camp to get dressed, (I'd been wandering around in my "big brother's tunic" and plaid jammie pants) and the Baroness wandered into camp for a visit.  I finished braiding my hair, and braided hers, then took myself back down to the warfield for more waterbearing in my new tunica.  We were adaptive and made use of the volunteers we got by sending one of the water coolers to the opposite side of the field as our "mobile watering unit".  We were given the use of a period wheelbarrow and two smaller 5 gallon jugs by one of our lovely waterbearing volunteers, and a dolley from our camp neighbors so that we didn't completely wear out the boys in our camp from hauling water.  It was a lot of up the hill, down the hill, water the fighters, get halfway across the field and run out of water, go back up the hill to refill and run out again halfway across.  Trying to carry my parasol at the same time was ridiculous.  I eventually went to refill one of the jugs with the use of the wheelbarrow, and as I was returning the iron tire on the wooden wheel fell off.

That's right, I got a flat on an iron tire.  Or I suppose I should say I got an oblong?  Anyway the tire wasn't going to be shoved back onto the wheel.  Someone from our camp happened along on another water refilling mission, carried the water back to the point and helped me carry the wheelbarrow to the camp next to ours, Rampant Squirrels, where Brezio helped to repair a wheelbarrow for someone he'd never met before using his own supplies.  He punched holes in the iron tire, banged it a little more into shape so it would fit again, and pounded nails through the holes to hold it all together.  I returned it to the field, and carried more water.  Eventually the battles ended, and we returned everything to camp.  The "fee" for the use of the wheelbarrow and extra jugs was that I would fill both jugs and return them to the camp they belonged to.  I was exhausted, but must have whined a little too much, because The Boy forcefully took the wheelbarrow from my hands and we walked together to the camp where they belonged.  The lady that owned them had just stepped out of her camp to look for her things when we arrived.  As we were walking away we heard her loudly exclaim "You fixed my wheelbarrow!"  Evidently the tire had been falling off for quite some time.

We went to court, watched a local be Knighted, came back to camp and ate dinner, and sat around talking for a bit.  The Boy and I were exhausted once again, so we went to sleep Saturday night and knew nothing again till the next morning.

Sunday I was forbidden to go down to waterbear.  Probably because I was complaining about how tired I was, how much my feet hurt and were swollen, and a goodly portion because The Boy loves me.  So I spent the morning helping the ladies of my camp get all Roman-ified, since they'd all decided to make a roman dress of some kind before war.  I promise it was only at gentle urging on my part.  We got all decked out, played with the various jewelry collections to see who's what went with which outfit.  Everyone got their hair braided and sewn up for the day save myself, since I couldn't seem to find the time to do anything but pin up my braids.  Aoife went to waterbearing, Rose went off to A&S for something and Idonia, Kelly and I wandered through merchants.  Kelly is not a full time SCAdian, so she borrowed an old wool tunica that Idonia had made years back so she could play along with our Roman silliness.  I braided her hair in a completely made up roman-esque fashion, since she didn't believe I could braid hair as short as hers.  Idonia and I joked with her that because she was blonde and less elaborately dressed, she must have been our serving girl.

After lunch I mostly hung around camp while Aoife and The Boy worked on their Seige Cooking Competition entry.  I putzed around a bit went to find something down at waterbearing, couldn't find it, came back, it had already been brought back.  Idonia came back to camp a bit before court that evening, and since she'd have to go up for a presentation, I decided to do her hair in a much fancier and more Roman style than it had been.

Sewing the braids together

The finished front

The finished back

We were only a little late to court, where Idonia got to hand out prizes for Sock Wars, and evidently her hair impressed the Royals.  Aoife got her AoA, which is well deserved though a little surprising, since none of us had put in our recommendations yet!  She was told that it was an onsite rec, and the Princess of the Summits was a little sad, because she had wanted to be the one to give Aoife her award.  After court we took some pictures of our Roman Day outfits, which were colorful and looked really great together.

l-r: Idonia, Rose, Aoife, Petra

After court I went down the road a bit to visit with Egan and Matea, when The Boy came to fetch me for dinner.  We made plans to do a bit of wandering that evening with them, since we were all a teensy bit less exhausted than we'd been the previous days.  We met up at the West encampment, drank some lovely raspberry mead, and then they had something that needed attending to, so we went to see if we couldn't find our other camp mates for some wanderings.  When Matea returned to the West camp later, we found out that her wedding band had disappeared.  That mostly called a halt to the evenings festivities as The Boy went with Egan to see if there was anything to be seen where the dishwater had been dumped in camp, and I stayed to comfort Matea.  After a long walk back to her camp, we waited for the boys who we'd probably missed in passing, and chatted and joked a bit to try to cheer her.  Egan returned without her band, but oh-so-sweetly handed his to her, with all the attendant gallantry and love.  It was disgustingly sweet, and made me happy to be friends with such a loving couple.  I suggested that they could have a party when she got a new ring, which means that The Boy and I can celebrate with them, since we didn't know them when they got married.

Eventually we wandered back to our own beds.

Monday we woke up, The Boy made omelettes for breakfast and we eventually packed up.  We left site around oneish, took the wrongish turn back to Eugene and I slept most of the way back.

Last night at A&S night, I let Idonia out of her braids, and she presented me with a lovely piece of wool as a thank you present for braiding hair all weekend!  It was startling, because I've never been thanked that way before.  Braiding is fun, and being the "authority" on hair is a good stroke to my ego.  But now I have some lovely wool to work on a 15th century german dress to go with my fringey hat!  I just have to find a time and place to dye it.

And I know I left out a good bit of the enjoyable conversations that were had, the laughter, and the merkin game!  Alas, there is always too much to tell.