Mi Contra Fa

Distraction: Book of Kells gown

Although stylized, the image of the Virgin Mary in the Book of Kells is surprisingly detailed, and could serve as the basis for a nice reconstruction.  Finnican Dub has a great primer on Irish evidence for early clothing which helps put some of the garments into context.  And Christian de Holacombe has an article on the use of metallic spangles on garb, documented to England as early as the mid-12th century.  So it might not actually be unreasonable that those three-dot patterns on Mary's mantel were actual real-life decorations, as opposed to a flourish of the illuminator.

I need to finish (start) the garb projects I already have fabric for, but maybe one day...

The headpiece seems to be a yellow/golden veil with the bit around the face trimmed with something.  A band across the top, turning to scallops lower down.  I thought the scallops were hair at first, but if so, the lavender/pink hood/lining? is under her hair.  There's an additional golden band across the forehead, marked with dots - maybe a fillet. Dub reads the pink layer as a hood coming off the leine (tunic) layer, and since it merges with the layer on her chest, that seems right.  The yellow veil's draping is drawn very clearly.

A white undertunic is visible high on the neck.  The top line (dividing the tunic from her flesh) is black; two additional lines are red.  Are these decorations or wrinkles?

Between the white undertunic and the lavender/pink leine is a bit of knotwork, gold on a black background.  It's got a border around it, indicating that it's a completed piece.  Could be a decorative flourish (this is the Book of Kells, after all) or a legitimate piece of embroidery on the leine.  Some kind of metallic possament is possible, but I'm not aware of any evidence for metalwork decoration of that type in the isles.  Maybe jewelry - a necklet in the Byzantine style, only... well, those were usually collections of round things, not a solid bar.  A brooch?

What's weird is the pleating going on right underneath it.  There are a lot of thin folds of the leine gathering around the neck, mostly running vertically - except right under the knotwork, there are a pair of folds running horizontally.  Is that some sort of tie at a keyhold neck, gathering all this fabric into pleats?  If so, the knotwork can't be sewn in place on the lavender/pink fabric.

There's an odd random line on the left side of the Virgin's face, right at eye level.  Is her neck actually white and not peach-colored?  That might be a wimple.  Then the little white oval is... a lock of hair?  A coif?

The lavender/pink garment visible at the neck seems to be the same one forming her skirt.  If the outline of her legs is indicative, it's very fine.  (Then again, her breasts are explicitly drawn under her brat, and that ought to be a heavier garment. But then-then again, that might be the monks making sure we understand that we're looking at a woman.)  The hem is edged with a golden band.

Her arm, though, is in a darker blue sleeve.  Dub interprets this as a sort of jacket, which is certainly agreeable to me.  I loves me my caftans.  Two bands, dark and light gold (or orange and yellow), edge the sleeve.  There's a final dark colored band - I think I'd interpret that as decorative appliques set back from the actual sleeve hem.  But the final dark band does seem to be closer to the body than the rest of the sleeve.  Could be the gold/orange bands have some sort of wrist clasp to narrow the sleeve?  Or it's yet another layer, but that seems excessive.  We've already got the white undertunic, the lavender/pink leine, and the dark blue caftan.

Finally, the wine-colored brat, edged with a gold band and decorated with small silver spangles.  It's fastened with a triangular kite brooch.  (Like this one, I think, which is the news article that got me started down this path in the first place!)  Interesting notch detail in the brat hem.

Unsurprisingly, this whole 'look' isn't far from the Anglo-Saxon stuff I've been working on.  Different in the details, naturally, but the undertunic/tunic/jacket/cloak look, topped with a draped rectangular veil, is very familiar at this point.

Nalbinding socks

I've been working on my socks.  The first one is almost long enough for me to start on the heel.  I've learned that if I make the stitches quite small, it looks very neat, but isn't as squooshy.

I also started a second sock.  Shelagh Lewins recommends working on socks in pairs, so you don't forget what you did way back when you started Sock 1.  Sock 2 has a lot of catching up to do.  I've gotten 3 or 4 initial spirals, and I seem to have increased too quickly.  It doesn't lie flat (just right) or make a cone (not increasing enough) - it makes a sort of a saddle-point shape.  I pinched the excess together and nalbound over the wrinkle.  Theoretically, I could cut the excess away and stitch the slit shut, as the nalbinding isn't supposed to unravel.  If I made sure that seam was always on the top of my foot, it shouldn't rub.

Ooooor I could start Sock 2 again. For the third time, actually.  I forget what the problem with the first one was but... yeah.  I apparently got lucky on Sock 1.

Reverse Engineering Music

I went to a great Greek sandwich shop for dinner last night.  Greek pop music played.

I say "Greek pop music" because 1) I'm making an assumption, based on the fact that I was in a Greek restaurant and 2) the music had pop-sounding elements as well as features I associate with Greek/east Mediterranean folk music.  Some of the percussive rhythms, the types of vocalizations used (you know, like how Americans tend to go "ohhhhh yeaaaah," British Invasion might go "oh oh oh" and Irish trad goes "Faldaradeeraloo"), maybe some of the melodic sequences or cadences.  I can't really do good analysis by ear, but it Sounded Sort of Greek.

I thought it was interesting to try and consider the problem of constructing Greek Traditional Music using only modern Greek pop and some 'generic' Western pop.  Find the features that Sound Like Pop and remove them, and you should have the features that Sound Like Greek Trad.

If one were to do this, I suspect you'd come up with something sort of like, but not actually representative of, Greek traditional music.

I thought the problem was interesting because I've thought about trying to do the same thing to reverse engineer 'lost music' - to compare early English liturgical music to Continental and see if there are reliable English features unique to the island, or even to look for hints of old practices that might be fossilized in folk music.  (Sequentia did this for their Edda recording, using Sounds Like Icelandic Folk Music features mixed in with Sounds Like Early Music features.)

I still think it's a reasonable approach to take - it's better than silence - but the results have to be taken with so, so much salt.  It certainly won't be any more reliable than trying to construct Greek folk dances from the material on their Top 40 Countdown.

 

Medieval @ IKEA

I'd like a packable, period-oid table for camping or even just under dayshades and whatnot.  Break-down trestles are the obvious solution, and I could save up money to buy them from a woodworker.  I could try to make them myself, but I don't really have much woodworking skill, and it's not a process I especially enjoy.

I do want to support artisans, so there is definitely something to the idea of saving up.  But a way to test-drive the design concept, to see if it actually works for me, without dropping $150 or so on a pair of trestles, would be nice.

Enter ODDVALD.

ODDWALD trestle from IKEA

It's $15, solid (cheap, soft) wood, and assembles with six fasteners.  The ugly bolts at the top would be hidden by the tabletop, I think.  It's a four-legged trestle, not three-legged like all the medieval examples I've seen, but it's just very hard to beat that price.  It only seems to come in black - I assume that plasticky lacquer stuff IKEA puts on everything - but some spray primer and a bright heraldic paint color (I like red, personally) would perk it right up.  Maybe stencil some interlace on the legs or something.

For the tabletop, I am thinking two 12-inch boards of a length that will fit comfortably in my car. Some 1x1 screwed or nailed to the bottom, to corral the trestles, and then hinge them somehow. Actual hinges, or even just some tablet-woven webbing stapled on.  Half to keep them together in storage, half to prevent one half of the tabletop from trying to escape.