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.

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!

Pondering Future Projects...

So I now have five yards of a lovely cream colored wool coating.  I'd like to make it into a 15th Cent German dress to match my lovely fringe-y hat which is full of awesome because I don't think I've seen anyone else with one.  Have I ever posted a picture of my hat?  I don't think I did.  Let me do that now, because the hat is so cute!  Anyway, back to the dress.

My primary inspiration
for both hat and dress

I obviously want to dye the fabric because a cream colored dress is really just asking for something to happen to it.  I'm thinking either a blue or green color, though I haven't really decided, since the fabric was sprung on me so wonderfully by surprise.  I also have an interesting piece of textured cotton/rayon/linen/? that I'd like to dye to an olive green for The Boy, to make a Persian or Turkish Coat for Habib, Himself's middle eastern persona.  Lately Habib has been getting some very nice clothes.

But in the meantime, I was a moron who left her giant dye pot in Houston, thinking that it for some reason wasn't a good idea to bring it.  Alas.  My father is contemplating a road trip to visit sometime next month, maybe I can get him to bring it then.  Otherwise, I've been told that there is a place in town that will let you rent the space to dye fabric, so I looked into it today. The Eugene Textile Center rents out the dye kitchen for $10 a half day.  I think that should be long enough to dye the two large pieces of fabric I have.  I'm not usually concerned with achieving a specific color, so long as the color is relatively uniform and in the range of what I wanted.

So I'm thinking of finding out if there are any equipment fees I'm missing, and if not, I might go over and dye some fabric.  Anyone wanna go with me?

New Project...

So I've been "commissioned" to start a new project, which is always exciting, though the reason for this specific commission is a sad one.  My wifey has asked me to make her a black pillbox hat to wear for her grandmother's funeral.  Her grandmother hasn't passed yet, but has been given only a few weeks.  So tonight I'm making the buckram frame, and she'll have to send me the silk velvet she wants to cover it.

After I get the frame done, then I get to work on drafting sleeve patterns for The Boy's gambeson.  He's specifically requested that I complete all the mock ups before moving onto the real fabrics because of how important fit is in this project.  I can handle the request I suppose.  So I'll have to pull out the drafting skillz.

My friend and her boy are hanging out with me and The Boy today, so she and I are working on sewing while The Boy is making lasagna.

Off to work...

I found the Hat...

I found a website where someone has done TONS of research on 15th century german clothing and they had a huge collection of images from the Housebook Master, who has bunches of the fringed german hats I love!  And because I love it so, here's a few new images of it.  I love the image of the two lovers, the woman carries the hat in her hand.  The four images at the bottom require a little more searching for the hat, there's usually only one or so.

Well....

After a bit of dithering, and a little unnecessary internet searching, the two 15th cent fringed german hats are done.  Pictures soonish.

I'm sending one down to Ansteorra to my best friend, whom I miss unbearably.  She may not really need at double layer wool hat, but that isn't going to to stop her!  The hats need to washed a couple times to full them some, they're made from wool crepe which isn't really good for felting, but will felt up eventually.

Must get something accomplished today...

I think I'll work on the cute 15th century german fringed hats.  One for the best friend and one for the Etsy.

I'm still having trouble locating more images of this hat.  It seems like it ought to be relatively easy to find, since the hat is ridiculously easy make.  If it's easy, there should be tons of them right?  Right?  Not so far.  I've stolen this image from Eva's Costuming Page's A&S 50 Stash Challenge.

I need to take a picture of my hat, which is ridiculously cute, and I just have to figure out what garb to wear with it.  I'm going to have to make something, which wouldn't be so bad if I had some fabric to make it out of.

Also, I want to make some rag dolls, but I don't have any fabric that I really want to make the bodies out of, and no real money to spend on it.  I might make them out of white fabric, but I'm worried about them getting dirty, since I'd like to make some of them for largess.  We'll see how the first one turns out.