A couple new projects in the works...

and just about a week to finish them.  On the 15th, I'm headed up to Beaverton, (just outside of Portland) because a friend invited me up to dance, and I just happen to have that day off work.

Jen Thompson's gorgeous dress

I'm making new sleeves to go with my Florentine from three years ago.  As with the vast majority of people who have made this dress, I was inspired by Jen Thompson of Festive Attyre, whose information is currently in transition from one incarnation of her site to a new one.  The photos that aren't of me are from the website Sophie Stitches that has a collection of images for her research.

I did the dress out of Jo-ann cotton velveteen, and it's pretty enough that I'm still happy with the results.  I made the corded corset, and the giant puffy sleeves, and the striped turban, just like Jen's.  But I've had two yards of the velveteen floating around in my stash, and those matching sleeves with the beaded tassels have been drifting around in my head for years.

The Preaching of Saint John
 the Baptist, 1520, Bacchiacca

Portrait of the Artist's Wife, 
1513-1514, Andrea del Sarto

Me, photo by hubby for my portfolio

So, I'm making the sleeves to wear next weekend.  I'm down to just hand sewing, but that's flat felling internal seams, tacking down the chocolate silk trim, making the beaded tassels (still have to figure out what I'm going to do for the tassels, shredding the silk fabric isn't working well...), tacking down the bias facing on the sleeve heads and adding lacing rings.  I didn't line the sleeves since I didn't have anything I thought would look good as a lining, and I didn't really want to spend any money on these sleeves.

However, the sleeves are on the back burner as far as sewing goes right now.  I'm working on a gift for a friend's birthday, which is also the 15th.  I'm working on a semi secret gift, I'll try to get pictures of the finished project to post, but right now I'm working on the embroidery that's a cross between between the Mammen embroideries and her coat of arms.  It'll be pretty simple, dark blue silk outlines in back/stem stitch on white linen.  I'm hoping to finish it soon.

The other project that I'm working on is an exciting development for my whole house.  I was graciously gifted with a copy of Sally Pointer's book on cosmetics, The Artifice of Beauty, for a wedding present.  I've been interested in historical cosmetics, specifically Roman cosmetics, due to my interest in the duties of an ornatrix.  Sally Pointer's one of the few people that I've come across so far with information on Roman cosmetics.

For the Jule event on the 15th they're having a largess competition, and my super sekrit entry will be a batch of her Alkanet Lip Paint.  It's interesting, right now I've got a jar of chopped alkanet root soaking in sweet almond oil to draw out the color, and The Boy has been playing with a variety of methods for creating a tincture of myrrh. Either Thursday or Friday this week I'll be blending the alkanet oil with some beeswax and a little myrrh tincture and then putting them in little jars.  It's probably old hat for other herbalists, but I'm excited to be branching out into new realms for myself.

That's what I'm up to right now, I'm hoping for new pictures soon. Here's hoping...

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.

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.