Mi Contra Fa

Spinning notes and flax

I have been working on my spindle.  It's just a dowel with a large glass bead on it (low whorl).  Version 1 had a notch cut into the top, like the Oseberg spindle, and that worked if I wanted to do a half-hitch.  But I'm intrigued by all the medieval spindles that are just long and pointy at the top - no notch, no obvious place to secure a half-hitch.  I went back to 15th Century Spinning and worked a bit more at trying to copy her technique.  I think I get it - you loosely hold the spindle between middle and ring finger, while thumb and pointer finger spin it.  Now the need for a tapered top becomes clear, as the 0.25" dowel did not want to spin easily between my fingers.  I whittled it down and did a little supported spinning - I will need practice before I can spin it between my fingers but not drop it.

I had the opportunity last week to stop by the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown (formerly the Yorktown Victory Center).  They are rebuilding the whole facility with a grand opening in the spring, but I did get to stop by the colonial farm for the flax processing demonstration.  (They also have a pig butchering-and-salting demo on Thanksgiving weekend, which would be really need to see!)  The flax processing had six steps.  (These are mostly notes to myself and my own memory - if you are reading this, you can Google "breaking flax" or "scutching flax" to see the equipment that's used.)

• Harvest, followed by drying
• Retting (rotting, essentially) in water
• Drying again
• Breaking.  This was the first demonstrated step.  The breaker is a wooden gizmo about waist height, hinged at one end.  The colonial-garbed docent first crushed the flax stalks between two flat surfaces at the open end of the breaker to crack the outer material. He said some people skip that step, but he thinks it's effective.  Then, he laid the flax stalks across the "teeth" of the breaker and slammed the handle down.  Lift, pull the flax a little towards himself, slam. Lift, pull, slam.  Lift, pull, slam.  Then he turned the bundle of flax around so he could smash the ends he'd been holding.  
• Breaking results in exposed flax fibers and a bunch of crunchy stalk bits.  The scutching board is next - a flat, vertical wooden board.  Hold the flax against the board and use a dull wooden scutching knife to scrape down, removing the worst of the crunchy stalk bits.
• Finally, the hackle. It's like a big toothy dog brush.  The docent liked to lay the flax through the teeth at about a 45 degree angle, but then pulled straight back towards himself, so that the fibers pulled more strongly against the teeth.  Just as you would do for long hair, he did the tips, then a little up from the tips, the half the bundle, and so on.  The short flax fibers and crunchy bits caught in the hackle are what he said are "tow," lower-quality flax that can be spun for lower-quality linen.  In his hand was the long-staple flax for making good linen.  And I got to take the flax home!

Only weird bit - the docent told me that linseed oil was toxic, so you had to be careful with the retting water and handling the linen itself.  Now, it does not surprise me that water which has had plants rotting in it isn't healthful to drink, but I thought traditional spinners often ran the flax over their lips to wet it?  Well yes, perhaps, said the docent, but it isn't good for you.

After I left, I remembered that oil-rich flax seeds are sold as a health food.  So I did some Googling.  Linseed oil is perfectly safe in normal doses.  Yeah, if you take a megadose of supplements, it can have some bad side effects, like doing straight shots of oil tends to have on a body!  The museum oddly does not have an email contact address, so I think I will write them a short note thanking them for the experience (it's a really cool museum and re-construction!) but also pointing out that maybe they should double-check that part of the docent script.

Fall University this weekend

I'm teaching two classes, the notes for which I'll post soon: A Guided Tour of Medieval and Renaissance Music, and Early Period Music Theory.

The Guided Tour has holes in it, as any attempt to summarize all of music across our period would.  I grabbed a lot of my favorites, pieces with melodies congenial to the modern ear, and most with pleasing accompaniment.  The class notes have a discography as well as links to YouTube videos (posted by artists) with the same or similar music for those playing along at home. Bonus: I have a sweet medieval mix CD for the car.

Every time I think I've got medieval music theory down pretty well, I learn that nope, there's some subtlety I got wrong.  This iteration of the class is much better than the previous one.  Or will be - I still have to gut and redo the section on organum.  But it's almost ready to go.

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

So it's been pretty quiet around here!  Two reasons for that: one, I was working on research for Sword, Stitch and Song (formerly Revenge of the Stitch, formerly Garb Wars). Two, after SwStSo, I went on a two-week business trip to Sweden and England.

I'll be posting both of my Garb Wars-related documents soon, I think.  And I got shiny, shiny loot in Sweden that I want to showcase when I have some pictures of it.  But this post is about pilgrimage.

I managed to make three non-business-related stops in Stockholm: to the Swedish History Museum (blurry pictures), to Aifur (I wore garb and yes, there  are pictures), and to the island of Birka (also many pictures).  I made a stop at the V&A in London, which I'd never visited before and was super cool, but it wasn't as personally significant as the Swedish History Museum or Birka. 

Part of the allure of pilgrimage - aside from Chaucer's cheeky assertion that it's just an excuse to travel - is making a personal connection with something transcendent.  It's experiential, rather than knowledge-based.  I know that there are spindle whorls and card-weaving tablets extant.  I've seen pictures in books.  I've seen charts of the patterns of the gold brocades found in the Birka graves.

None of that is the same, for some reason, as standing in front of a particular spindle whorl and wondering who used it.  What was she like? Was she kind or cruel, bitter or sweet, young or old?  What did she make from the thread she spun, and who wore it?

There it is, there's the gold brocade from Birka Grave 824!  I'd leaned on Grave 824 in my SwStSo documentation, and - there was a real thing from it!  Over a thousand years old, and I could see the patterns left by the tie-downs on the golden threads.  It was delicate and beautiful and more real than when it was just a thing I knew about.  Now I knew it.  And again I wonder - who wore this?  Did its beauty and richness gladden her heart in the cold of winter?  Or did she - like most of us - grow accustomed to the blessings in her life, and it ceased to bring joy after a while?  It stops being a fact, and idea and becomes real, an artifact, a thing

At Birka, my imagination wasn't caught by the grave mounds, rising under our feet, nor the distant valley where the 'Black Earth' held the remains of the trading center.  It was the small, flat area where postholes indicate a longhouse stood.  I walked over it - pacing it, 55' or 60' long, perhaps half as wide - and wondered.  A garrison of elite warriors, possible returned  Varangian Guards, had lived here, defending Birka.  I've rented tents bigger than this, but it would have been palatial in its time.  They lived, and fought, and possibly died - the last layer of remains show an intense fire and arrowheads shot into the wood - right here.  Right where I'm walking.

This is why some people go to Civil War battlefields, and other visit the graves of loved ones, and still others travel to Jerusalem or Canterbury.  The sense of connection.

 

 

Beka loom; tapestry weaving; Novice Tournament

Beka Loom

I am becoming convinced that the Beka loom is a toy, not because of its small size or rigid heddle, but because its tensioning system is crap.  On the plus side, I have been learning the importance of consistent warp tension, and what variation in tension does to woven fabric.

Tapestry Weaving

I wove a small tapestry on Saturday, having almost no idea what I was doing.  I wound pearl cotton thread around a small (5" x 7") wooden picture frame as snugly as I could, but tying it off was hard.  The last few warp threads were more slack that I'd have liked.  Then I used my bone folder (from book-binding) as a pick-up stick/shed-making device, and started passing various colored yarns through.  I thought I'd seen looms set up with two shed sticks in the warp so you didn't have to pick the warp up every time, but I couldn't figure out how to get that to work.  But on a piece of this tiny size, re-doing the shed each time wasn't so bad. In some places, it was easier to use a tapestry needle to just sew the thread around the warps.  When not using a needle, I bundled the yarn into tiny butterflies - but I think bobbins will be an early upgrade purchase.  Towards the end, the shed got smaller and smaller.  Eventually, I (carefully) slid the work down around the bottom of the frame, to get more empty warp up top. That helped.

I used one of the women/valkyries in the Oseberg tapestry as my cartoon.  I couldn't figure out the soumak technique to do the outlining and just went with color blocks.  It looks... about like you'd expect a first attempt to look, but it isn't entirely unrecognizable.

I had no idea how to start/finish threads. I used knots in some places and sewed them down on the reverse of the piece in others.  I suspect neither is correct.  (Edit: Now I find an article on using half-hitches to start/finish...)

It was fun! It seems kind of odd, now that I think about it, that I haven't seen much tapestry weaving in the SCA at all.

(Edit: Overhogdal tapestry, Baldishol tapestry)

Novice Tournament

I can't go to Novice this weekend, but I want to display my string stuff.  So I safety pinned my first weaving, naalbinding, and tapestry to a tea towel and slapped on some labels.  If I can get someone from SENEA to take it and set it out, it's an all-in-one A&S display. 

No more 'Sideline Research'

When I started this blog in 2008, it was far and away focused on music and poetry.  What work I did on other arts (e.g., for KASF 2009) I posted to my LiveJournal.

I eventually decided that was a silly and artifical split.  This blog is 99% for me - it's not like I have an actual large audience, waiting for irregular posts on amateur early music interpretation.  Nobody was there to complain if I started including other projects, so I did, under the new organizational category "Sideline Research."

That's worked well, but doesn't work well any longer.  I feel that I'm doing enough, on a variety of projects, to start breaking them down. I've added Accessories, Calligraphy and Illumination, Clothing, Embroidery, Gear (camping gear, feast gear, etc.), Tablet-Weaving and Weaving.  That covers most of what I've been up to; I should think about some "other" category.  I've also added "Loot," as a place to blog about things I've bought or otherwise acquired, rather than made.

I'm slowly working my way backwards through the old Sideline Research posts and re-categorizing them.  When I've completed it, I'll remove the Sideline Research category.

Assorted Notes

I managed to volunteer for a retreat at church which is the same day as KASF.  Guess I don't have to worry about Pentathalon this year.

I discovered FabicMart.com.  They were having a super-sale on wool suiting, and I scored some lightweight "cornsilk"-colored herringbone twill.  I thought it was a solid, but as it arrived today, I see that the warp and weft are different colors (white and 'cornsilk').  I keep putting 'cornsilk' in quotes because it looked like a warm butter yellow online, but is really a cool, almost greyish light yellow.  Still, it's fine. I have 3 yards of 61" wide fabric.  Some of it is destined for a new version of my Harley Psalter bag.

I'm trying laid and couched work in a wool version of the battle flag.  Not sure I'm getting it right - do the laid threads go all the way across?  I'm getting confused between what I'm seeing online and what I vaguely remember Mistress Aenor showing me, in between classes at a University, like four years ago. I will ask Baroness Janina, next I see her.

I found Heroic Age, a peer-reviewed free online journal specializing in early northwestern European studies.  Since the Early Northern European Working Group starts meeting this month, this is a happy coincidence.

 

Chalice Report

It was a most satisfactory showing, even if I didn't win anything.

My Beowulf-with-lyre went splendidly.  I realized on Friday, in the car, that I actually could get through my entire selection confidently, even if perhaps some of the words were not spot-on.  In performance, I made two errors - flipped some words around in one case (minor, and I didn't even blink as I covered) and a worse one where what was supposed to be a sentence came out as a random clause.  I didn't try to fix it and just bulled on.  Woo!  Judging sheets were uniformly positive.  All told, that's very much the sort of thing I've been driving toward since 2007 or so.

I was selected to proceed to the final round - there were only three of us, and everyone was fantastic in different ways.  Don't envy the judges their decision.  I performed my piece I wrote for the event, "I Drank of Mnemosyne," the music for which was composed on-site and which I still didn't have solid as I performed it.  Considering that it was essentially improv?  I'm pretty dang pleased.  Better, at least two gentles complimented me afterwards on the impact of the lyrics.  Lord Ulfarr from Stierback won the chalice of chocolate for his song remembering his first Pennsic - it was far more polished than mine, with a MUCH more interesting melody, and he sang it exceedingly well.  Kudos!

Similarly, the banner did not win in A&S, but the woodcut that did TOTALLY deserved it.  It was fabulous.  The feedback for the banner was positive, ranging from "somewhat above average" to "well above average."  For the first time possibly ever, my documentation was ranked consistently lower than my craftsmanship!  Considering that this is the first embroidery I've done since... college?  Twenty years ago?  and the first time I've ever done couching at all, I'm pretty pleased with that.  Also, the banner rocks, and I'm pleased to have made it.

The hang-up on the documentation and authenticity seemed to be (if I can judge the few sentences of feedback) whether or not my goldworked banner was appropriate, or if it should have been made of humbler wool.  That's fair - I used Beowulf as my basis for making a golden standard as a status object, since so many of the other gift-objects in Beowulf have direct evidence as archaeological finds as well.  But, like the heralds say not to use fiction to source your name, one could argue that this wasn't the strongest basis for an artifact. 

My seven-year old had a pretty good time of it, except for during the bardic round one, which was unimaginable boring torture for him.  Ponte Alto has a great basket of toys and a small wooden castle which amused him for literally hours, and he played a bit with some other kids.  We had an emergency iPad tucked away in case of critical boredom, but we didn't have to get it out. Hurrah!

So, what's next?

Various things on my plate to prioritize:

Things already started:

• Online SCA artist community development
• Lyre how-to videos
• Scroll text competition
• Revise and expand documentation for current performance practice
• Update website
• Organize Storvik PerfArts nights

New things/Old things coming back:

• Sew hangerok/smokkr (Class for this at Sergeants and Scholars, but it's not til May)
• Make linen band for new gown
• Pick up calligraphy again?
• Try embroidery (maybe ask Janina for a lesson?)
• Mark 3 mineral ball

...as much as the "new things" are very shiny, I think I need to address the open projects first. It's a lot of admin stuff, but I keep putting it off so it never gets done.

KASF 2014 Persona Pentathalon

It's that time again!  And KASF is really nearby.  I want to do something.  6th or 7th cen. Kentish, I think.

Kentish robe - that I've been wanting to make anyway.

Kentish gold-brocaded headband - ditto.

Guthrun performance - okay, this is a stretch to the 6th cen, but any performance would be.

A book?  Calligraphy in the book?  Or embroidery on the robe. Or that crystal ball, but that's hardly worth an entry.  The joined pin suite?  Very modern materials.

Post-Pennsic Ponderings

Gearing up for Pennsic, I practiced my 'How to Do Research' spiel over and over, and realized it was time to do some goal-setting of my own.  (Related: also discovered that my class handout is seven years old and badly in need of an update!)

My usual trouble with goal-setting is that I try to set ALL THE GOALS and then fail to make much progress on any of them.  For example, looking ahead I could see two... no, three major things I could try to work on in the coming year.  (These are not necessarily research goals.)

1. Get together a program of performance suitable for next Pennsic's Performing Arts schedule.
2. Begin podcasting or YouTubing various useful things.
3. Finish the Lyre Handbook.

I don't even know where to start prioritizing.  I want to get back to performance... I want to provide a needed resource to the lyre community. 

The temptation is to create an uber-project that addresses all these thing - perhaps a web-based Lyre Handbook that includes embedded YouTube videos of performances?  That gets at all of these goals, but necessarily means progress on all of them will be slower than if I concentrated on them specifically. 

On the other hand, something like YouTube that allows one to show rather than just tell about instrument playing techniques is a huge advantage that should be considered.