Mi Contra Fa

I could have timed this better

Guess whose voice is a squeaking, croaking mess, with a sore throat that makes it painful to speak?

If you said, "The re-enactor who's supposed to give an hour lecture, two performances and a Q&A session for Pentathalon tomorrow," step up to claim your prize!

*facepalm*

Maybe it'll get better.  But I've got my mineral balls and instrumental lyre music as my backups.

Neat links

Iron finds from Sarre and Bifrons found to have inlaid gold and silver wirework:

http://new.archaeologyuk.org/x-rays-reveal-secrets-of-kent-anglo-saxon-graves

Index of the entire run of Archaeologia Cantiana, the old Kentish archaeological society (I've found at least some of their old publications digitized on Google Books):

http://www.kafs.co.uk/pdf/ArchaeologiaCantiana.pdf

Archaeologica vol 98 table of contents, shopping cart to buy articles:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?jid=ACH&volumeId=98&issueId=-1&seriesId=2#

(or I could go to the freaking library...)

Thunor's Wedding: Beat-by-Beat Analysis

I think... I think my documentation is done.  Whew.*  My blow-by-blow comparison of 'Thunor's Wedding' to its source material is below the cut.

And my giraffe-hatted muse continues to frolic wildly in the fields of not-performance: I've finally run across the Trewhiddle Hoard. Which includes a "knitted" silver wire four-tailed scourge.  Has someone done a re-creation of this?  I've never seen one, which seems very strange for the SCA. 

It was found with a silver chalice, some coins and other fittings; makes me wonder if it was a churchman's implement?  For some sort of ritual mortification of the flesh?

All the same, I see an "in the box" A&S display somewhere in my future, with this and the infamous Leather Object from a few years back...

*For a given value of 'done.'  My citations are lazy (no page numbers). I do not have the energy to correct this.

The Tale of Guðrún: Beat Analysis

Sometimes, I sell myself short when it comes to determining the difficulty of creating a performance.  "Oh, it's not hard.  I read a period story, play with it a little, and tell it in my own words."

 

Yah. Well.  I reread my two main sources for 'The Tale of Guðrún' today, and was suprised at some of the ways it varied from the story as I now tell it.  And when I thought about it, I could see that in 80-90% of the cases, the changes I had made specifically served the slightly different point of view and narrative goal that I had chosen.  (A little bit here and there was oversight, small details I'd forgotten.)

 

And hey. I actually had a few different motifs running through the piece, some purposeful repetitions and callbacks, and an honest-to-goodness artistic purpose.  Sometimes, I'm writing to spec: write a song about this theme, use that form, those images, turn the crank and go.  This actually fits with the broader themes of... hey wait, I already wrote that post under 'Performance-Based Research.'  Okay, never mind. Moving on.

 

I've put the beat analysis under a cut, because it's a wall of text.  I'm even going to go into the HTML and try to put in the lj-cut.

 

Kentish Robe: Postscript

Decided to implement a silk-wrapped version of the "button loops" from Walton Rogers (Baroness Sylvie la chardonniere goes into some detail here).  Instead of using 20-30 fine linen threads, I plopped down two heavy ones and buttonholed them with the silk thread I was using on this project.  (Technically, these have been found - if they've been found - on the underdress layer, not the overdress layer. I'm going to call it a period-appropriate solution.)

They'll be easy to remove if I later decide to go ahead with adding a tablet woven band instead.

*waves to Grazia*

I found your blog!  I went to go add it to my blogroll and found that it's been so many years since I've updated that thing, they no longer support the original user interface.  I have to delete it and recreate it with the new interface. O.o

After Penthathalon!

Busy snow day

I wrote three complete research reports on the overdress, vitta, and belt today.

Oooof.

Kentish Robe: Done! (For now?)

The last gusset just required one more round of "pick out and redo."  I'd picked up too much fabric (again) and just had to be reaaaally careful.

I looked at the Grand Robe:

and I think the lifty-up parts at the sides are the gores, folded in half.  I cut a bit off the bottom to even everything out and round the 'tips' of the gores, but didn't hack everything back to the perpendicular length of the gore.  (That would seem to defeat the purpose of cutting the fabric so economically, wouldn't it?)

Finished and pressed all seams, did the hem.  :p  Don't much like hemming.

I sort of winced when I went to pin it together, sticking the pin through the silk band.  So I went and flipped through Walton-Rogers (Cloth and Clothing in Early AS England) and lo, those pins frequently have mineralized bits of tablet woven band on the back.  You stick the pin through the bands.

I could sew on some small tags of band... or I could do up trim.  Or do neither right now, and do the trim after KASF (marking it as Future Work in the docs, natch).  I've ordered some linen thread to maybe do this belt pattern in blues and cream, to go with the linen and contrast with the silk.  I am not going to literally lose sleep over this, but if it comes together ahead of KASF, yay!  If it doesn't... oh well.

EDIT: Ah, Ms. Lewins says that band is very thick and stiff and would make poor trim. Hrm...

--------

On an administrative note, I think maybe I'll start making one post per project, and then editing with new information as I go.  Maybe?  That'll be more unwieldy in some ways, but also doesn't have the problem of trying to sort back through old posts to find everything relevant to a given project.

Kentish Robe: Almost done

The Required Fly in the Ointment

So, back when I said I had almost remembered to not overdo the seam finishing?

Both gores and one gusset have gone in beautifully.  The gusset where I overzealously finished the seams to the arm has some issues.  I picked out the stitching at the three affected points and redid it; that resolved the issue for two of them.  One is still wonky, and I'll try taking out more stitching tomorrow. 

Part of the problem may be that I changed seam allowances: 5/8" when I sewed the gusset to the sleeve, but then because the sleeves were snugger than I wanted, 1/2" on the sleeves.

Yeah, About Those Sleeves

The sleeves were cut 15" wide, I think.  (It may have been 15" + seam allowance; I wrote it down!)  I took the measurement from my red robe, which fits me well but yeah, have snug sleeves.  I like them a bit on the close side because I'm short and fat, and lots and lots of folds of fabric are not really a good look on me.

These are really skating on the edge of too snug for an overdress.  I have tried the gown on over a linen tunic and it works, but In The Future, I think another inch or so wouldn't hurt.

Silk Trim Is All On

Meisterin Johanna held a sewing circle yesterday; I went and got good advice on getting the silk band to lay around the neckline.  At the width I had it, it was never going to happen with the narrow edge sewn down (she recommended sewing down the far edge, gathering the near edge into the curve, and then steaming the gathers flat).  So I turned the fabric under gradually from my clavicle-ish area up to the neck, and it mostly lays all right.  There's a little pucker at each side of the neck which isn't really noticeable and just makes the collar stand up.  Totally fine by me.

I had to put a little tuck in the band where the V-neck ended.  I tried to make sure I had the tucks on either side lined up but nnnnnope.  It's not off by much, but it's visible off.  Happily, that's where the pin goes!  (I did make sure the tucks both laid the same way. Huzzah!)

Another Trick

At the sewing circle, we talked about how to start a sewing thread.  I usually knot, but Grazia (and I think... Gwenhyfar?) mentioned sewing back over a tail of thread to secure it.  That was really useful after I picked apart the gusset stitching - I sewed down over the stitches I didn't pick out to keep it (I hope) from unraveling any farther, since I couldn't retie the sewing thread.

Hemming

Once the gusset is put to rest (one way or another) and that arm seam finished, there's just the hem.  I have to decide whether or not to try to make a nice smooth circular-ish hem, or let the hem follow the lines of the garment.  I think I will see if I can tell what the Grand Robe of Bathilde does.

Excited!

Pretty sure this is a personal best in garb-making for me.  It looks pretty awesome and I'm very excited!

Bling!

See this:

Timeline Auctions 8th-10th century Anglo-Saxon ring, estimate $2,900 - $3,900

Buy this:

Mirabelle gold-plated brass ring with garnet cabochon,  £45... wait,  £37.50?

It was  £45 a couple of hours ago.  :<

Still, either way, it's a heck of a lot less than $3,000.  :)