Mi Contra Fa

KASF Waffling

I reaaaaally seem to be looking for reasons to try to do Pentathalon, so what the heck.  But I'm not making any garb, I think.

Let's say the persona is an Englishman eorl living in the Danelaw region, c. 1000 - 1066.

1. Beowulf performance.  (Category 5) Already done.
2. Golden banner. (Category 2 or Category 7: it is embroidery but also semi-heraldic display)  Already done.
3. Nalbinding sock, based on Coppergate sock.  (Category 2). Getting closer to done.
4. Pamphlet of poetry and songs (Category 1)  Not done at all.
5. A seat cushion or a six-board box or a piece of weaving or something.  Not done at all.

I was looking for images of boxes in the Bayeux tapestry when I noticed the seat cushions.  Seat cushions are found frequently in women's wills; I suppose it might not belong to our lord here, but he'd be sitting on it.

Early grave finds attest to linen tabby, linen tabby repp, linen diamond twill, and colored wool twills.  The Bayeux tapestry shows patterns which might be diamond twills (especially King Edward's cushion) but William is sitting on something with a checkerboard pattern. Maybe embroidered?  Cotton MS Claudius B IV mostly shows cushions as heavily cross-hatched (a coarse fabric, as suggested here?); pharaoh sits on a plush red cushion, and one cushion seems to be held to the chair with blue and white striped bands. Either I weave the fabric and make a simple cushion, or I make an embroidered one out of existing linen.  Because stuffing a linen square with feathers just doesn't seem like a sufficient project.  But which approach would be better?

Webcast concept: One Simple Thing

Cart before the horse, here. I haven't even managed to turn my existing classes into webcasts yet.

BUT.

I like the idea of a video series that explores Art 101 for a variety of useful SCA arts, with a goal of giving the view the skills to perform those tasks at a basic level, with as little exotic equipment as possible. 

Make a T-tunic with fabric, scissors, needle and thread.
Stem stitch embroidery
Threaded-in tablet weaving
Calligraphy
Make a cold lunch
Make a hot supper
Make small talk
Brew a tasty beverage
Carve a spoon
Dance a bransle
Write a rhyming couplet
Play a whistle
Sing a song
Play a game
Make a leather belt
Pack for a camping trip

Something to think about!

Goat Story

I just couldn't say no.

Goat Story coffee mug

I bought a Goat Story coffee mug.  Because it looks like a drinking horn.  In black, the horrible plastic-ness of it is slightly less evident.  It is supposedly watertight, even upside down (as long as the coffee is not, I quote from the instructions it came with, "steaming hot," so... kinda hot? fairly warm?).  In theory, one could make coffee, put it in this, drive to the event, and drink it.  As opposed to making coffee and putting it in a Thermos and then putting it into a mug, or buying Starbucks, DD or McDs and doing the same.  (Or drinking out of the paper cup, which I'm pretty sure I've done a few times.)

Haven't test-driven it yet.  I'll check back with a review later.

Developing a Research Program: Skill levels

Been thinking about bigger-picture stuff than my research and documentation class.  I touch on it a little in that class, under the general heading of 'pick projects that support your long-term goals,' but that's it.

A little bit of thinking, and I decided that I think your self-determined 'research program' is going to depend on where you are in your journey.  So first, a breakdown on that, then I'll see if I can't say anything more sensible about developing a program. All references to apprentice and master, below, are generic small-a and small-m, not references to Laurels and their students.

Novice/apprentice: Your job is to try a little of everything that seems interesting.  Take classes, ask people what they are doing, read a book or two. Dabble.  You may want to focus on projects that are short duration, with a reasonable payoff - it can be demotivating to sink a lot of time into something if you don't know how it's going to turn out.  Play. Play is important to keep your spirits up; it can be very hard to be a novice. You want to do All the Cool Things, but your skill isn't up to it yet.  All your work looks like crap.  There's nothing for it - you have to do the crap to make the good stuff - but it's emotionally hard, sometimes.  Taking a playful approach can reduce the stakes and remind you that there's supposed to be joy in this.  Your tools are probably not very good, because you're just dabbling, and you don't want to sink a ton of money into this yet. That's fine.

You're done being an apprentice when: You understand the general shape of your field - it is no longer "I like calligraphy!" but more "I like early round hands, but some of the late Renaissance stuff is nice, too."  You have a basic set of skills - you can execute a project from start to finish, even if it isn't as nice as you'd like.  You are running into the limitations imposed by the poor tools you are using, and you are ready to get better ones.

Journeyman/woman: You are probably past the 101 classes most frequently offered at Universities and scholas.  You are going to need to develop your research skills to go and find the information you need to create the projects you want to do.  You upgrade your tools to fit your increased skills.  You may feel capable of teaching 101 classes.  You are probably known in your local area as somebody who does (Your Art).  You are more satisfied with your work, but you still have things you want to do, but can't.  Look out for the classic error at this level - thinking you know more than you do, with more certainty than is warranted.  You will know a lot more than a novice, but if you think you have it all figured out, you are almost certainly wrong.

You're done being a journeyman when: The traditional test is a masterwork.  To my mind, that means you've created a thing that you are completely satisfied with.  It is correct in all its parts, demonstrates technical proficiency, is executed beautifully, and fits your image of the kind of art you set out wanting to make.  You may also be at the point of needing even better tools, as you now have so much experience you have preferences for slightly different tools for slightly different needs - and they make a difference to you.

Master: Ironically, mastery is generally when you realize how little you actually know.  You actually know quite a lot about your field and can speak about it fluently, but you are also aware of all of things touching on it that you have yet to learn about in-depth.  Your skills are well-developed, and you create noteworthy art.  You are the go-to person for your art in your local area, and you are probably known outside of it as well.  You may teach or write guides (or you may not - being able to teach or explain is its own skill set, and being a master of an art doesn't guarantee that you can teach it well).  The chief hazard of mastery is ossification - resting on your laurels, as it were.  Keep learning, and keep an open mind.

Both journeymen and masters may have a problem with the sunk cost fallacy.  Sometimes, the art we thought we wanted to do loses its appeal.  While there is an entirely different essay to be written about the difference between tenacity and foolish stubbornness, let us assume for the moment that you can tell you have actually lost interest in an art, and you're not just avoiding it because you fear failure.  Don't keep doing the thing. It's tempting, because you're good at it, people expect you to do it, they praise you when you do it well.  But if you are not enjoying it, what is now an imposition will become a burden, and you will come to resent the burden, and you may flame out of the SCA, riding the winds of a bitter Facebook post complaining how you haven't had any fun in years.

This ought to be enjoyable for you. Play. It may not always be "wheeee!" fun, but it should at least be satisfying and rewarding.  If it isn't, why do it?

 

Taking a pass on Pentathalon

January is half gone, and I haven't gotten anything done.  I really don't like rushing to get entries done for competitions; it stresses the whole family out.  And I don't think the result would be a very strong entry, nor would it be a body of work that I could get useful critique from. So I'd be entering just to enter, and that doesn't seem like a good use of my time or the judges' time.

And I finally won a bardic competition that was not for baronial bard!  At Feast of Fools last night, I did 'Put the Devil into Hell' and had a great showing.  I won a lovely belled liripipe for my efforts - boiled wool, lined with linen, in white and green. It looks appropriately foolishly overlarge if I roll the face-opening to turn it into a hat.  Much fun!

Nalbinding continues - heels

The nalbinding went missing over the holidays - it was hiding in a laundry basket.  I've picked it back up and kept working on the heels.  Last night, one got to a decision stage.

Decision 1: How do I size this? I know I need to leave room for the wool to felt up and such, but it's also a stretchy fabric.  If I pull it on loosely, I have a few more rows to do. If I pull it on firmly, it's done.

Decision 2: How am I going to handle the heel?

I think I didn't decrease fast enough.  I was more or less following the 45-degree line on the side of my (modern) sock, but the width of the sole is still much wider than the bottom of my foot.  For the construction method I meant to use, I think I need for the sole to be the width of my heel -at the end of my heel,- and then I bend the work 90-degrees and start increasing as I go vertically up the back of my foot, to wrap around to the decreasing work already done.  As it is now, it curves up on either side of my foot even right at the end of the heel (when I pull the sock of firmly).

I could:

1. Use a looser fit (so I can add a row or two or three to the sole) and drastically reduce the next couple rows, to see if I can get the width down to where it needs to be.
2. Sort of ad-lib some pattern to fill things in and make a sock shape
3. Cut (!) the existing nalbinding down to be the right width.  Magistra Sigrun said it doesn't unravel when you cut it, but she was applying that to cutting a loop into a rectangle.  How well can you cut this stuff to shape?  I have the little bootie I used to practice the toe and heel techniques on - I could see what happens if I cut that.

I think I should see just how many rows I have to reduce by, and how much space I have to do it it, before I decide.  1) seems like the best option, if I can swing it without puckering everything up.  3) is viable if I can actually trim nalbinding to size.  2) is my least favorite, but also is simple and likely to work.

Christmas Loot

So I did get my earrings:

Polyhedral earrings from the Met Museum Store

And something else...

A persona-appropriate period pocketwatch

That is a reproduction of a 10th century portable sundial from Canterbury Cathedral.  I saw a reference to the sundial somewhere on the Internet, and quickly found that a jeweler had made a (souvenir?) reproduction in the mid 1970s.  It's a little blinged out - there are tiny gemstones at the marker-dots that were just indentations in the original - but otherwise really, really accurately detailed.

Using the timepiece

You put the attached peg into one of the three holes on either side.  Each hole corresponds to two months of the year.  Point yourself at the sun, and the shadow of the stick gives a rough estimate of time.  It's thought it was used to help time prayers at the cathedral.

Lookit the widdle biddle biting animal heads!

Are pin beaters spindles?

I seem to remember reading somewhere that somebody couldn't figure out why you'd need a double-ended pin beater.  (Maybe it was one of these reports from U of Copenhagen?)  You'd only be using one end at a time, right?  So... why work down the other end as well? Maybe you'd save time - every time you pick it up, you have a pointy bit ready.  But on the other hand, there's no way to suspend it for ready access.  Well, no way that leaves a trace, like a hole through the unpointy end.  Maybe a couple half-hitches around the middle would do it.

I saw this image today, and whaddya know, they're not labled as pin beaters. They're spindles.

A cursory look around the Internet is turning up objects of roughly similar dimensions classed as either spindles or pin beaters.  I don't know how one would disambiguate.  Wear marks? Find context, maybe? Both are textile production tools.  If you weren't going to ply the yarn, would there be any reason to even take it off the spindle before weaving with it?  (Looks like: yes, if you wanted to skein it and wash it to set the twist you'd spun into it. I wonder how critical that step is? Can you work with unwashed spun threads?)

Of course, the simplest answer might be to embrace the power of "and."  Textile workers might have had multiple uses for thin, double-ended rods - spindles, beaters, who knows what else.