Thoughts on my teaching...

So this weekend I taught a dance class at the Ithra held in Terra Pomeria.  Ithra is a highly organized, kingdom wide "college" that has funding and management set up to help groups put together classes based events.  It has aspects both admirable and annoying, but this isn't really the time to go into it.

The class I taught was "Easy English Country Dance: Three Dance to get Your Feet Wet."  I taught three of the easiest dances I know, all from Playford.  I chose Rufty Tufty, Black Nag, and Gathering Peascods.  These dances are relatively simple, all have similar structures.  The handouts I put together included a brief set of definitions, some information about where the dances came from, and cheat sheets created by a Laurel in the East.  Along with the handout, I gave out a CD with the music for the three dances on it.  The Boy helped me teach, which was so helpful, not only because he compliments my teaching style, but we only had four students, and needed six people for the last two dances.  The four students represented a wide range of interest and experience in dance, but they all worked hard to learn the dances, and performed them well.  We went through the steps first, explaining what was common and what I would be likely to say when calling the parts of the dances.  We then set up the first dance, walked through the steps, then ran through with music and minimal calling.  Once they performed the dance without trouble, we went on to the second dance and treated it the same way.  They also danced that one well without my needing to call the steps after a few runs through, and we danced the third dance.  After running through the third dance we ran through all three dances as though they were a set at a ball.  The students were awesome!  They got the dances pretty easily, and seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Ithra has a student evaluation form so the class can let those running Ithra know if a teacher is any good.  Since it wasn't a secure method, I got to sneak a peek and my students thought I was a good teacher, so that made me happy.  However, one of the students asked me about something I hadn't considered, but when I told her I'd be happy to send the information her way, she told me she just wasn't that interested in the subject.  I'm running into that quite a bit in the SCA, plenty of people enjoy dancing, they're just not interested in actually learning the dances.  They're fine with a run through right before doing the dance, instead of actually knowing how to do it, and I'm not sure there's a way to change that.  I have one or two people that really want to practice dances until they know them.  But there aren't enough to change the local group.

Ah well.  I'm excited to continue teaching, and I'll do my best to be upbeat and high energy whenever I'm dancing or teaching dance.  I'm just feeling the frustration that my interests aren't shared by a majority of people.

The other subject I keep trying to teach about is hair styling.  I haven't had much turnout for hair classes lately, but it's a topic that I'm passionate about.  I realize that my specialty is Roman and therefore not everyone's interest, but I haven't taught a class on Roman hairstyles.  I'm hoping to branch out into more specific hairstyles instead of generic medieval and renaissance styles, but without someone's impetus, I'm likely to look into it.  I need to work on prepping more step by step tutorials for this blog, it's a way of getting info out without specific teaching events.  I'm working on a step by step for my method of Italian Hairtaping.  If anyone has any artwork or images they'd like help deciphering the hairstyles, shoot me a copy of the picture, I'd love to help!

I've also got an idea for a class taught in tandem with Miriam from The Sinister Spinster.  She's known in the area for info about the Cap of Saint Brigit, and I thought it would be interesting to teach a class on Hairstyle and Headdresses.  I'd work on hairstyles that form the base of some common styles, and she'd talk about the caps and veils used to create that style.  I'm hoping that we'll get cross interest from each other's subject matter.  I'm just not sure when we'll get to teach this, there's a bit of an upheaval going on in my mundane life.

Sorry folks, haven't had much to say lately...

Although I just found out Janet Stephens is planning more hair styling videos on YouTube, this time around with live models in period style clothing!  Here's the video of what she's planning for the future with exciting tibits about which styles she's going to show!  There are some styles she's already done on mannequins and some styles she's discussed in her article and some styles that are "new" from her.

And she's planning to do the Livia style I did for Midwinters!  I'm giddily excited for that video to come out, as I can already see some differences in her version from the way I interpreted it.  I'm hoping that one comes out soon.

The Cleopatra style she put up a month ago oddly disappoints me.  I look at the images she shows to accompany the style and give the basis for her recreations and I see a vastly different style.  She even comments near the end of the video that people will be confused that the style isn't more difficult.  And I have to agree with hypothetical other viewers, I think the hair should be twisted sections like a melon hairstyle, similar to the technique used to create the Plautilla hairstyle (the Hundred-Strand Braid style).  There is also more of a pouf to the hair along the forehead that she doesn't address at all, and an impression of a twist along the hairline near the ears.  Stephens credits all this to naturally curly hair, and does use a model with natural curl to her hair to produce the style, but I think that if the texture present in the coin is accurate, the model's natural curl needed to be emphasized somehow.  I need to do more research into oiling hair, I think that might be useful to create more defined curl instead of stretched-out, slightly frizzy curl.

As said before, I'm SO looking forward to new videos.  I realized earlier during my nerdgasms that I'm lusting for her work more than I've ever lusted for any man.  (Sorry honey)  I think I might end up "reviewing" them as I notice they come out.  I would love to have a conversation with her about why she chooses some things over others, I would so love to be her apprentice!

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 one and only image I've found that might indicate French Braiding is Period...

So I haven't found much proof  that augmentation braids are appropriate for medieval hairstyles.  A vast majority of hairdressing is covered for the final image, usually with a variety of veils, but sometimes with hats; however, I have come across a singular image that appears to be a French braided style.  The trouble is, I only have the one image, and the website I found it on doesn't give much information on the source.  The webpage belongs to The Medieval Combat Society, a reenactor group in the UK that specializes in 13th and 14th century.  They have a huge collection of images for Female Civilian Clothing, composed of tomb effigies and grave brasses.

French Braids? 

The specific brass that appears to be French Braiding dates to 1335, depicts Elizabeth de Northwood, and should reside in Minster Abbey.  There is one extremely confusing word in the extremely brief description, the word copy.  This word causes me to question the actual date of the brass, but unfortunately it has gotten very late, and I've had a long day, so my Google-fu isn't what I would wish it to be.

Elizabeth's hair has some natural wave to it and is braided from the temples like many other hairstyles for this period, but the exciting part is the way the braids start off tiny at the top of her head and grow larger as they braid towards her ears.  This seems to indicate that more hair is added to the strands as they pass over each other.  The V-point within the braid is a bit of a conundrum, because it would normally indicate a french braid.  (Duth or cornrows have an upward point instead of a downward.)  However, gathering the hair in a normal French Braid doesn't result in the sharply defined edge of braid as in the image.  See the smooth sections in the below image, stolen from long-haircuts.com, as they join with the previous strand, no clearly defined edge of the braid.

There are some techniques for braiding that will cause the braid to flip over and give a clearly defined edge; it  is created by only augmenting the braid from one side of the head.

It is a baffling image for me, and the source is just as confusing.  What does it mean copy?  Every time I come across the image online it is the same one, but there is no description of the image past what the Medieval Combat Society has. How are these braids accomplished?  The loose hair between the braids and the face on either side creates a challenge to recreating the style if it is an augmentation braid, as the hair is left loose enough to maintain its wave, not impossible to do, but not the sturdiest of styles.

There is also a simpler explanation, that the braids are actually being drawn from the back of the head down by her ears and are tapering out at the top.  A plain braid follows more accurately the myriad of other examples from the time period, but I'm still looking for the elusive proof of French Braiding in the Medieval Period.

Having trouble writing up my classes...

I've promised (and eventually sent in the info about) two classes on hair that I'll be teaching at Egils, but right now I'm having trouble figuring out what exactly to talk about in these classes.  The first, boringly titled, "French Braiding For Beginners," is a hands on tutorial on how to do augmentation braids, (French, Dutch and Cornrows).  It'll have a brief bit of explanation and demonstration before letting the students at each other's hair.  I haven't figured out if there will be any kind of handout, as I don't really want to spend money.

The second class is the one that's really holding me up.  The Boy and I talked about it on the way back home from the event we attended on Saturday.  I knew I wanted the class to be about authentic hairstyles, since French braiding hasn't been documented for most periods.  Unfortunately, authentic hairstyles is a very broad subject, and one I'm not as well versed as I would like to be, since my specialty is Roman.  The Boy suggested that I do a tutorial on hair sewing, but I was having a hard time envisioning the subject as a full class.  I get rather short sighted on things that I do well, and often don't realize that it may not be obvious to everyone how to accomplish some of the things I do.  So, talking through the class with Himself, we decided the class should have a brief discussion of the historical plausibility of sewing hairstyles together, followed by a basic tutorial in a hairstyle or two.  The Boy suggested my Norse braid loops, since they're simple, many ladies up her wear Norse, and, provided the student has long enough hair, can be accomplished on their own hair.

Odd how often my "attentive"
photos seem "surly"

The other option I'm thinking about for a tutorial in hair sewing is hair taping.  I've gotten pretty good at doing hair taping on myself, and fully believe this style was done by middle class women because it can be done to one's own hair with a minimum of effort.  I also believe it to be the structural basis for some hat styles, especially late period styles.  My introduction to hair taping was through Faoiltighearna's webpage on taping, but I've developed a few theories of my own since then.  The image below from her page of examples shows a woman wearing a cap similar to the style worn throughout several countries and centuries.

Those are my thoughts so far on the classes I'll be teaching at Egils.  Now to try to figure out what to say in my discussion without gushing enormously over the ancient hairstyle goddess Janet Stephens.  Check out her YouTube Channel, it's awesome!

Trying something new...

So I'm going to try doing something new here on the blog, a period hairstyle of the month, every other week or so, maybe if I'm really dedicated it'll be a weekly occurrence.  I'd like to showcase a style, with citations of sources, and briefly explain how I believe the style was accomplished.  And of course, there will be photos!

I'd like to start with the style my hair is in currently, one I'm calling Norse Braid Loops. I first came across this style from the Viking Answer Lady's website on hairstyles when looking for proof of braided pigtails existence about a year ago. I know many women will wear their hair in braided pigtails with their Nordic clothing, and wanted to prove this was accurate.  Gunnvör mentioned, "women with their hair worn in two braids, falling to either side of the head beside the cheeks" depicted on carved stones from Cumbria.

So I decided I had to look them up.  I found W.G. Collingwood's article on Google Books, and copied the photographs.  I had only a passing interest in Collingwood's article about the stones, and skimmed it to see what he had to say about the hairstyles.  He says, "They have long plaits of hair curled at the ends (not aureoles nor hoods) which suggests that they are meant for female figures."  I took his paper with a decent dose of salt as it was printed in 1907.  It is clear from the images that the figures have their hair in either one or two sections, some show evidence to texture carved in, probably to indicate braiding, and many have a curl at the end of the tail.

Do follow the link to Collingwood's paper, the images there have more detail than is available in these copies.

Looking at the images, I interpret the style as the hair of the ladies with pigtails being parted down the center.  I took the hatching on the stone to mean the sections are braided.  My hair is extremely straight; I have a hard time getting it to hold a curl, and the women's hair I know that is curly doesn't curl in the same perfect loop.  Also the carving that indicates braiding is etched into part of the loop.  This lead me to believe that the loop isn't simply the end of the braid left natural, and had to be coerced into this shape.

For my recreations of this style, I begin by parting my hair down the center and braiding each section to create pigtails.  I use modern clear hair elastics to bind the ends when I get to the bottom. Then I use a large blunt needle, labeled in stores as a tapestry needle, and thick black cotton thread to sew the tail of my hair to itself in a loop. 

This is a photo from last year, a slightly surly (maybe attentive?) expression from the back of court at Egils, but it shows my Norse get up and the loops at the end of the braids.  I've learned that the loops at the bottom need to be joined for at least an inch above the elastic. This helps preserve the round shape.

Hope this give people an option for wearing their hair with their "Viking" clothing.  It's a cute style that I like, though friends have threatened to stick the loops onto things.  The uniqueness of the style helps to complete the look of my garb, and allows me to feel just a little more finished.

A&S Entries...

I'm working on getting my A&S docs up here for my winning! A&S entries.  Which should go first, Housebook or Roman Hair?

tonight is not the night for My Love...

Himself is supposed to be cooking a feast for today's Midwinter's Feast.  That titular feast in fact.  And tonight, after the last grocery run, the notebook with every scrap of information on the feast, has disappeared.  For the last three hours, Himself has been driving around trying to find it, tearing the car and the house apart.

And right when he gave up hope and resigned himself to not finding it....


He found half the bread for tomorrow had gone moldy.  He's now started baking.  At 2:20am, when we need to leave the house at 8:30.

I'm of course not done with my A&S entry, but if I were, it wouldn't be a real entry would it?

An attempt at a Roman hairstyle is forthcoming...

So I'm planning an A&S project for February-ish, which is recreating a Roman hairstyle without Janet Stephens having done it first!  I'm working on my recreation right now, and photographing the steps in perhaps more detail than is really necessary.  I'm hoping to get a basic write up done either tonight (yeah right!) or in the next couple days.  It's not exactly easy, because it is hard to juggle the hair and the camera in the tiny overheated bathroom, but I'm trying.  I can see why Janet Stephens uses a cosmetology head and video camera for her demos, once it's set up on the stand and tripod, you don't have to move them so much.

I wish I could just ask The Boy, but he found out earlier that the paper he thought was due on Monday, is in fact due tomorrow morning.  But this is my last guaranteed free night for a while, so I thought'd I'd get some use out of it.  Tomorrow, I go sign the paperwork for my NEW JOB!

That's right, new job.  It's not an amazing job, in fact I wouldn't have considered it back in January, but being without work for seven months has done a number on my self worth, and having any job has made me feel validated.  The hours aren't great, lots of extremely early mornings, late nights and weekends, but the paycheck will help us out so much.  And that's really all I feel I can say.  There's some strict policies about mentioning the company online, and I don't want a stray post to come back to bite me.

A little more water and back to the heat of the bathroom.

In Service to the Hair,

P

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.

Prep for An Tir/West War...

So next weekend is An Tir West War, or A&W War, which has led me to the nickname Root-beer War.  It totally makes me want root beer floats.

Anyway, I'm working on a couple new items for The Boy and myself for next weekend. It's only a four day event, so I don't have the same dread/motivation/inspiration that I used to before Gulf Wars. The weather is a little more predictable here, and it's supposed to be gorgeous, warm during the day and chilly at night. (Of course now I've jinxed it!) I'm packing all the good things in my wardrobe, as usual, but there are a couple new things that I do have the fabric for, (curses on my continued unemployment).

New for this event are a pair of Viking Baggy Trousers properly known as Påsbyxor (don't ask me to pronounce that one!) The inspiration for these was the blog, Eva's Thoughts, where she made a gorgeous set for her hubby in a thin wool based on the pattern from  Historiska Världar. The Boy had a large chunk of dark navy linen/rayon which was supposed to be black, (there's a story there) which I happily cut up into the pattern yesterday. Her blog and linked photos on Picasa were immensely helpful in figuring out how to construct the pants, and why the parts went where they do. I threw them together ridiculously fast, the pleating of nearly three yards per leg taking more time than the actual sewing. The pattern is a little different than what I've made in the past, in that they don't have a drawstring, nor do they have a fly of any kind. They're designed to have belt loops and be just large enough to slip on, then belt in the last bit of the fullness of the waist. The only trouble I've run into is that I estimated the draped length of the leg while Himself was napping, and I overestimated by at least 6 inches, which was extremely frustrating last night as I didn't realize it until after I'd sewn it all together. So the pleating around the knees, about 85-90 inches down to 17" that took two hours to get done, all had to be ripped out. As soon as I get off my butt, I'll repleat them and sew them back into the calf pieces.  

I'll need to figure out some kind of winnegas, the woolen leg wraps, to cover the calf piece. I think I've got some pretty brown wool scraps that'll do for now, but I'd really love something

patterned in the future. I mean, even if it isn't Himself's period, I should at least make the outfit awesome anyway, right? Eventually I'll scan my doodle plans, or perhaps sketch out a new, clean version, and post the "pattern" for the pants, with the measurements that I used, since Eva's are in centimeters and don't include the measurements for every dimension, which forced me to be resourceful and figure stuff out for myself.

I'm working on a new Roman dress, though I haven't decided on a style yet. The Wifey sent me a lovely book about Pompeii a little while back when she sent me the fabric for the hat she commissioned. I noticed a trend among the ladies of Pompeian murals for aqua dresses, and promptly decided I must have one! While sifting through the fabric for a friend a while back I found a lovely aqua cotton shirting that has an interesting texture from Jo-Ann's that was originally purchased for a friend. I need to go back through the book to see if that helps me decide what style I want to make it in, though I'm thinking gathered shoulders is probably the easiest.  I eventually want a banded style, but I think I need a thinner fabric for it.  A voile perhaps.


I'm also assisting our friend Elena with a set of Romans for the war, and since she's been roped into being Waterbearer-in-charge I'll probably be spending a decent amount of time carrying water for fighters. Ah well, it'll keep me busy.


I'm planning a new internet project that'll need to take photos of at war.  I want to create a couple pages of Medieval hairstyle tutorials, with step by step photos on how to accomplish simple styles that are appropriate to various periods.  I've been really interested in the various Roman and Greek hairstyle archaeology that I've been coming across lately, and would like to educate more people in how easy it is to do some medieval hairstyles, and I think this might help.  I know I haven't found anything worth looking at when I Google "Medieval hairstyle" and it gives me a little thrill to think that something I'm doing might pop up on a search.  Of course I don't know anything about websites, but I'll get to that once I've got the tutorial figured out.


I've rambled long enough, time to post this silly thing.

Thinking of future Hair things...

I'm tossing around the idea of doing a Long Hair Roundtable for an indoor event sometime in the future.  Kind of like a cross between a class and social, more like a panel, I want to see if I can't get several people committed to helping me with it, as far as conversation goes.  I'm currently thinking of it being open to everyone, with those that have longer hair being of higher authority.  It would hopefully be a question and answer session, with people learning about modern hair care, methods for styling and arranging that are good for hair, and tips on how to grow out one's hair.

I hope to do some research on period hair care and products, because I'm thinking hair may have to be my "thing" up here.  I'd like to turn that research into an A&S project for future events.  And at some point in the future I probably ought to teach a french braiding class, regardless of whether or not it's period.  So many people want to know how, and it does look nicer than throwing it into a ponytail at events.

I'm not sure why I keep coming up with ideas for classes and teaching.  I'm not a good public speaker and don't really like to be the center of attention, but I want my words to carry some authority, and evidently teaching gives one automatic authority.  I've come out of my shell enough to want to be "Someone Important," and now I have to find a way of making myself thus.

I'm finding more people's pictures of Roman busts, and some of them are smart enough to get photos of the backside of the head too.  So I'm adding to my list of hairstyles that I can do at events, if only I can find enough Roman women to braid.  I've decided to pimp out Roman as often as I can, cause it is so totally more awesome than other periods.  Aw yeah.

Ancestors weren't dumb instance #347...

I haven't really been keeping track, but it's fun to randomly number things...

So I taught my class on basic braided styles for SCA periods, and I mentioned that hairpins aren't period, the proper method would be to sew the hair, either to tie off the braid or to arrange it in the various styles.  This was suggested to me through a Youtube video by Janet Stephens for a specific Roman Hairstyle, which then suggested for further reading an article of hers called "On (hair)Pins and Needles," which gave further information about Roman hairstyling.  This idea should be obvious, but requires a little mental rebooting to wrap your mind around it.  Hair taping is something I've done before, completely without pins, but sewing with a thread that matches the hair hadn't occurred to me as an alternative to pins.  Last weekend I got to try sewing hair for several styles, and of course I didn't get any pictures, but I can at least describe the styles and why the sewing worked so well.

Bust of Marie de France (1327–41)

First style I sewed that day was a 14th century Templers style, also known as the puppy dog ears.  It's the one that has the two braids on either side of the face,  that are folded up once they get to chin length.  Idonia was the recipient of this style, and her hair is no longer than waist length.  I believe that this is long enough if you can get the braids started in the correct place on the head.  If the hair was longer, thigh or longer, the braids could be crossed behind and then brought up to the temples.  As it was I eventually got the braids started in the right place, braided down as far as I could and ended up with tails about 5-6" long.  I folded the braid about in half, which made it fall from temple to chin.  I took the sewing thread and sewed the braid in half, tucking the tails against the face, which I believe to be an appropriate recreation of this image. The original bust most likely had an elaborate crown that would attach to it.  The tails ended up tickling her and getting in the way, so Idonia tucked them back, and the sewn braids stayed put longer than she really wanted, so she had to have a friend pick out the threads.  The braids ended up being piled on her head, but the style lasted for at least a day.

The second head I sewed last weekend was for Aoife.  Her hair is much shorter, just past shoulder, and a bit finer.  She only wanted the front part pulled back in regular braids, not french, and then pinned in a bun.  The pins just weren't working, partially from the short hair, and partially from the style of braid.  I got fed up with the pins not cooperating and sewed her bun in place.  It stayed through Saturday, and she had me take it down on Sunday.


The last, and most squee worthy, was Isadora.  She doesn't play very often, but she's working on a Greek persona.  I'm going to try to get her to come over to the Roman side.  Since I had a braiding booth set up for merchanting on Saturday, and no one was coming by, she decided to try to drum me up a little business.  And for that kindness, she got a gorgeous Roman style based on these images.  Her hair was shortish for these styles, past the shoulder but not past the shoulder blade.  She got cornrows, though fewer than these images.  She had six across the front of her head, and six across the bottom.  The dozen little braids were then sewn together however I could get them arranged neatly with the tails tucked in to create the open centered, voluminous buns like the Roman busts.  I couldn't get all the braids to twist the same directions, but they all curled nicely in the end.  I last saw her on Monday, and the style was still secure, if a bit fuzzy.  I'm looking forward to the day I convert more people to Roman garb, and can do these styles on more people, though they do take a good long amount of time to arrange.