Plan-er-ating

With only 20 days left til Crown (AAAH) its time to get cracking.

Project Man-Sew Update

So far I have patterned Gilbert for his doublet and hose. Just waiting for him to get the fabric to me so I can get started.

Keg's undershirt is finished. I need measurements before I can get started on the tunic, cote and hood. The hose are getting there - will need help putting the feet in though :P

Tent update

Still nothing D: I have decided where I'm getting the canvas from though, so I just have to get down there at some point and get it. Pantera has offered to help with the woodwork - need to organize a time with him before it gets too late as I don't want to inconvenience him.

Ball Dress Update

I have decided that the dress consists of a chemise, a black underdress (side or back lacing) and the silk overdress (front lacing with opening). Still haven't found any other pics that I could base the bottom half and sleeves off.

So my layers will consist of:

1. A linen chemise with stem-stitched embroidery. It will have a square neckline with rounded corners. Haven't decided on the sleeves yet - depends on what the over-sleeves will be like.

2. Black linen petticoat. Probably just interlined with heavy-weight linen or canvas. Box pleated skirt. Side lacing or back lacing? Can't really decide. Probably side.

3. Silk overdress. I have some nice grey silk I will use. I will interline with heavy-weight linen or canvas, and line it with linen. The skirt will probably be fully lined as the silk is really fine. The embroidery will be done by couching some gold cord I bought ages ago. I may only get to the stage of the two straight lines around the edge of the bodice - I think with the time I have I am happy for this to be an ongoing project (I'm learning to remember my limits). I plan to do most of this on the train. I am probably going to buy these for the lacing rings.

Here's what I'm thinking about the bodice and sleeves so far. The back of the bodice with be square. I'm imagining the bodice is straight along the bottom, with the opening the same width all the way down not altogether unlike this Italian one. I don't want a train. From what I can see of the sleeves they don't look overly fitted. However, that could just be the way she is holding her right hand up - they could then be fitted. AAh this is so hard! Other Spanish images from the same period show both fitted and loose detachable sleeves. It's possible that this is part of an arrangement similar to these ones and this is an underdress with fitted sleeves to go over an overdress with baggy sleeves. I do like the sleeves on the woman in the bottom right of the picture with her back to us. However, it seems rather ornamental for an underdress, and people didn't normally have their portraits painted in underdresses, right? Another possibility is this one with some kind of baggy sleeves.

Banner!

Last week I designed my guidon and today I painted it. Yay! I ended up going with Essylt's suggestion of "mens animosa, mollis animus" for the motto because I really like the symmetry in it and it fit really nicely into the space I had for it. Plus it does a pretty good job of conveying the message, and it doesn't have to be glaringly obvious - I know the joke is there :D

My previous attempts at silk painting (now stuffed away in a box somewhere) left me somewhat terrified of the whole procedure but it went swimmingly, mostly due to Duenna Catalina's guidance. She has it down to an art - gutta in the morning, go out for lunch (mmm Ikea meatballs), then come back and do the painting. Also we have better paints and silk than the last time I tried. My gutta is a bit thin in places and I had some bleeding over the lines but its no worse than most other people's. Yay - I silk painted and it didn't kerplode!

Progress shot and finished shot following. The banner on the other half of the silk belongs to William Montrose (and is rather awesome, I must say).

I still need to put the hoist on it and hem it maybe - we tried putting thick fabric paint around the edges plus fray stop but looking at the frayed ends of the banners of people who have used this method before it might be worthwhile hemming it as well, I don't know.

Also Catalina helped out with my petticoat/hoops. Looking at the inspiration pic (which I should probably scan in) it has a really wide bottom guard. So seeing as the problem was it being way too short in the front I'm just going to cut it short all the way around and make a contrasting guard. It doesn't look like much yet, but here's a progress shot:

Festival garb update

So far for festival I have made:

A new chemise (needs me to decide whats happening with the sleeve embroidery and finish it though), its square necked with straight sleeves out of quilter's muslin and has a simple blackwork design around the neckline:

An OMG YELLOW linen petticoat. All handsewn apart from boning channels and skirt seam :D No pictures of this yet, but it's super comfy :D

An OMG apple green linen kirtle. Same again with the handsewing, on this one though I machined the skirt seams and the hem binding.

OMG pink silk sleeves and sash (sleeves reversible to silver).

A linen hat from the Tudor Tailor (all of these are being worn in this teeny pic from Saturday night, though you can't see them all. Really need to remember to get pictures taken)
Also I have made a plain linen coif and a black woolen hood which isn't quite finished (needs the lining sewed down and a bit of jiggling to get the wire sitting in the right spots, maybe will adorn with some beads like the one on the right in this painting.

Next up is a brown kirtle and a woolen waistcoat. I was going to dye one of the funky 70s woolen maternity dresses I bought but I've decided its all too hard at the moment and will instead buy the expensive wool from Spotlight with the voucher I've been saving since Christmas. Also this week I'd like to make another pair of reversible sleeves (OMG ORANGE!) and another sash, and a woolen flat cap. *sigh* Biting off more than I can chew is a talent of mine, it seems.

Second College A&S Night

Summary of happenings last night

Morgaine patterned a cotehardie with Baroness Branwen and made a coif
Baron Kilic worked on his armour
Elizabeth had her corset patterned by me and she started cutting it out
Cara worked on her cushion cover, appliqueing a contrasting square onto the front
James (newcomer) began taping his sword
Alanna made a tafl game board
Keg made a polearm
Renonys started embroidering a St Basil the Great tower onto her bodice
Gilbert planned outfits
Three newcomer boys went to Spotlight and were never heard from again :P (they planned to go home afterwards so hopefully they're not still lost in there)
I did a bit of work on my coif

It was an ok night, but we still haven't got very far with garbing the Newcomers. Ah well, there will be enough loaner garb for them for the Newcomers Feast next week, then we can really get started.

Unfortunately no photos of this "enthusiasmpocalypse" (as Keg refers to it) as I've lost my camera! *sobs*

First (on campus) College A&S Night of the year

This Thursday night we had our first on campus A&S night for the Semester. There is a large room in the (top floor urgh) Guild Building that we can use for free so that is very good as its quite central, and good for residential students.

Summary of things that went on:
3 new guys decided to make tunics and we figured out how much fabric they needed so they could buy it during the week
One of them started making a coif
Alanna did some planning for the Newcomer's Feast on the 13th of March
Renonys worked on her outfit for the Newcomer's Feast (Black and White themed)
Cara started making a Tudor bonnet
Morgaine made a (very cute) circular drawstring coin purse as a favour for her Lord
Elizabeth traced a pattern for an Elizabethan corset then did some braiding
Keg, Edmund and Gilbert "researched" on the computer :D
I worked on my petticoat
People threw things at the fans and generally died of the ridiculous heat
Icecream was procured from the 24 hour Caltex
Icecream was enjoyed

Unfortunately I couldn't find my camera so I was unable to document the madness productiveness :D

St Basil the Great Orientation Day

About a fortnight ago the College had a planning meeting for Oday, we set a number of goals, arranged for the prep for those goals to be done during the two weeks and that we'd have a big day of getting stuff finished at Alexander's house (St Lazarus Seneschal who happens to live within walking distance of UWA and has two St Basilites living there) the Thursday before, and all sleep over so that we could all set up together at stupid-o'clock and what not.

Our goals were:
Make our black and white pop-up cover
Update flyers from last year and make new ones
Get a blackboard to put demo times on
Make campus card stickers for members
Make a best club *random medieval year* sign to upstage the wanky drinking clubs who win Best Club awards
Make a photo board
Update last year's membership forms and print more.
Update the website
And it makes me super impressed and happy to say that WE DID IT ALL! Sure the pav cover took until 3am the morning of Oday to get finished, but it was still done!
Busy bee photos:

Top to bottom: Renonys floor-sewing admirably, Alanna and Cara working on the "Best Club 1096" Banner (Alanna is good for knowing trivia like the year Oxford was established) and Elizabeth teaching Gilbert how to fingerloop braid.

We all dragged ourselves out of bed/couches/floor the next morning and headed over with about 4 carloads of stuff. We always get a special spot thats on a corner so we have an extra patch to put the list field on but with our 4m pav it still isn't big enough. Next year we shall have to make them give us a double bay because we really don't get enough frontage for both the pav and the listfield.

We had the pav with two tables, one with flyers, bookmarks and membership forms, and the other with show and tell stuff - armour, garb, shoes, hats, books, other creations etc. We also had the photo board and a dress dummy with my court Tudor on it, as well as a list field with banners, the blackboard which we used to advertise when the demos would be and Baron Nathan put up his tent behind the list field to hide our mundane stuff and add atmosphere.

During the day we had fighting demos (both heavy and rapier), Elizabeth sat outside weaving and Baroness Branwen embroidering, we did some dancing, had people wandering around in front of our display showing stuff off and giving spiels, did a little singing (but only close range because ODay is very loud).

Sexy pav cover!People watching a fighting demo

Dancing demo, including James (yellow shirt) who wagged the orientation speech to come hang out with us earlier, hung out with us all day and is an ex-ballroom dancer and picked up about 4 or 5 dances on the spot!

We signed up about 80 new members, making it the biggest Oday I've ever been involved in, with almost 20 people involved in spruiking the club. Seeing as last year we only signed up 40 and had the biggest year in a long time, I'm both excited and terrified about the coming weeks! I have sent a HELP email out to the WASCAL list, hope people can lend us some time or spare gear to help get the Newcomers started.

More photos can be found in my Facebook album here
Also check out the new St Basil the Great Website, first created in 2006 and untouched since then. Newly revamped by Dylan Kerr with the help of Aoife and Alanna

The next task is to sign all the new members up to the mailing list and get prepared for training on Tuesday and Thursday, and the first on-campus A&S night of the year on Thursday.

All Hallow's Eve Masque Ball

Aneala's yearly Ball this year was a masque, and we were encouraged to have a go at the "fantastical masque" styles of the late 16th century. Of course I just had to, as the styles are completely different from anything we do normally and looked like a lot of fun.

I took my inspiration from this Inigo Jones sketch (http://http//www.elizabethancostume.net/masque/index.html) of a masquer playing a River Nymph.

I decided that the components of my costume would be a bodiced petticoat with a faux chemise over the top (affectionately referred to as the "midriff chemise"), a petticoat skirt (changed at the last minute to be a blue petticoat with a lace overskirt), a half length petticoat skirt, and an underbust corset with triangles of lacy stuff hanging off it. I mostly tried to use fabric I already had and would never use for anything else.

For the mask, I wasn't sure what to do. In the inspiration picture she isn't wearing a mask, and I think this is because the theory was that for these types of things, the whole costume was the mask, more of a whole body disguise than just a face covering. So I wanted to make the face covering reflect the rest of the costume. In the end I made a tiara type thing and attached big drapes of chiffon to the back (like in the picture) and the front (not like in the picture). The look I ended up with was somewhat "Princess Jasmine" and was I think what led to a number of people commenting on how nice my "Middle Eastern garb" was but it was the look I was after so I don't really mind.

More details on construction: The bodiced petticoat I was hoping to use for other outfits so it is made out of linen, interlined in the front with cotton canvas. It closes at the front with hooks and eyes. It is machine sewn with hand finishing. The chemise is made out of shantung look satin and is a simple square necked Italian style chemise. Instead of being gathered to a band the neckline and arm holes are gathered into strips of blue braid. The corset is navy velveteen and boned with cable ties. The idea here wasn't for it to be really tight, just to make a smooth line over where all the skirts are fastened and I think it looked quite nice. The petticoats were all thrown together from various bits and pieces I had lying around (apart from the bottom layer blue petticoat, that is from one of my first outfits).

And now, the unveiling:

I will talk a little bit about Lachlahn's outfit as well because I also made that. I took the inspiration from a book Rosalind had. I actually took a picture of the relevant page for exactly this type of thing but my phone has run off and so I can't put the picture up here. Anyway, the images in the book were slightly later period (early 17th), in particular the skirts were a lot shorter. I chose to tweak the design slightly to be more like a German Waffenrock with much longer skirts, like the guy in the woodcut. In keeping with the "soldier" look I attempted to make a helmet out of cardboard as his mask (as the original inspiration picture had one) but I didn't have enough time to do it properly and botched it. Instead he has a quick-last-minute-rummage-through-discount-bin-at-Spotlight affair.

Basically he is wearing a Tudor shirt, hose, and a man-dress. The man dress is square necked, made out of (significantly un-period) white brocade with handsewn gold braid trim. The skirts and skirt lining are not attached to each other, instead just hemmed individually as I was worried attaching them might affect the drape of the skirts. The outer skirt is bound with bias binding and the lining is zig zag stitched.

Finally, I was really proud of how the St Basil kids really took to the theme and had a go themselves. We went through pictures together and figured out what common elements of the outfits were (mostly layered skirts, drapy fabric, sashes) and a heap of people went away and designed their own costumes. I think St Basil made up at least half of the people who attempted "fantastical masque" outfits so I was super proud. Not to mention Alana won the Golden Rose Bardic Competition, making her the Anealan Bard for the next year (with a song she wrote herself and sang while playing the psaltery she made herself), Aoife came runner up in the same competition, and Edmund won the Best Male Garb competition. Also, 7 St Basil people were involved in the play that was performed *is very very proud*

Back Row, L-R: Adamo of St Lazarus in home decorated mask, Elizabeth of St Basil as a fairy, me, Renonys of St Basil as a Sun, Edmund Lyon of Sterling in his new Tudor court garb, Annelyne and Lavaeolus

Front Row, L-R: Alanna Galliwood as a dryad, Aoife with awesome ribbon sleeves as an unthemed masquer, and Aimee as the ocean.

Finally, for more photos of this really cool event, Alianore put an album up on her facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13357&id=1685283854&page=4#/album.php?aid=13357&id=1685283854&page=2