College Thursday Shenanigans Part 4

This Thursday we had our AGM. We *elected* a new Seneschal, Reeve, Marshal, A&S Officer (Me!), re-elected the existing Herald, 2 new Fresher Reps, and created the positions of Web Minister and Chronicler and elected people to those. We also talked about upcoming events and finalising things like getting the armour finished and some new rapier helms etc.

During training there was rapier and heavy training, and Ellen and Erin did some dramaz with me and went through my lines for the play at Festival. So far I have learned the first 10 lines of my monologue and now understand all the flowery language (thanks to Ellen and Erin who do this kind of thing a lot) and know how to emotify it all :D

During the evening A&S session:
Morgaine made a particoloured T-tunic (aside from hems) - YAY another successful tunic I have been involved in the making of :P
Edmund started a coif
Elizabeth and Cara worked on corsets
Lee, Arryn and Ariel looked at books and researched
Renonys started making a new doublet
Keg and Alana worked on padding the College armour
James, Ariel, John and Rowan began work on their swords (thanks Gabriel!)

And for once, I wasn't the last person to leave! Yay! Times are changing, I get to be home before 11 like the nanna I am :P Not many photos this week as I was busy helping and stuff

I'm a bit sad about missing Autumn Gathering because all these new people are so excited and its always a great event - wish the original plan had gone ahead and Gathering had been over ANZAC so that I could go to both but oh well, I just have to realise that Festival is going to be so much better, and I'll get to hang out with the new peeps (and maybe even more new peeps) at Pencampwr :P

I havent made much progress on my Festival garb this week, mostly due to being super tired and wanting to nap all day every day. The new khaki kirtle is at the stage of having its skirt put on. I will have some time to sew tomorrow at WAMA faire and on Sunday so hopefully I'll get back on top of things. Aah less than 2 weeks!

College A&S Night Number 3

Summary:

Beginning with training: up to about 15 people doing basic swordwork
Nancy taught about 3 or 4 dances - Amoroso, Petit Vriens, Official Bransle...maybe some more?

Afterwards
Renonys sewed her chemise for the Newcomer's Feast
Cara started embroidering a wolf on her cushion
Alanna made a silly drinking hat
James continued taping his sword
Morgaine and Baroness Branwen made a cotehardie for Morgaine
Rowan began a cool grey tunic
John came very close to finishing an awesome red tunic
Elinor sewed her skirt to the bodice of her petticoat and made ties for her coif
I think Arryn and Ariel were doing music things? I can't remember. Maybe they were looking at books
Elizabeth did some work on her corset
James taught Morgaine how to iron
Keg, Lachlahn and Gilbert were very supportive and threw lollies at people.

Picturesplosion!

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.

The end of an Era

Last night at the St Basil the Great Newcomer's feast we decided to do a symbolic office handover for the St Basil the Great Seneschal. Normally we don't do these things at events for Colleges because the Guild requires we elect by vote but it had already been decided that Alanna Galliwood would take over from me and I wanted to give her a really meaningful beginning to her term as Seneschal, so I spoke to the B&B and we did it in court (and only slightly tearily).

There is no regalia (yet) but as a token I passed on a tower belt mount to Alanna, that had been given to me by Jonathon Makeblise (a long time friend of the College) only a few weeks after I joined St Basil the Great.

It has been a very good 2 years. From having the "Seneschal's basket" unceremoniously dumped in front of me with the exclamation "It's not my problem anymore!" from the previous Seneschal, to racking my brains as to why we couldn't enthuse the 2008 bunch as they all dropped off one by one, to the absolute joy that was Pencampwr last year with so many excited new faces, running out of College tabards to give people at our fundraising lunch, patterning endless dresses and working through all the various problems, to completely failing at ever putting in a budget (except perhaps once), having actual College heavies in armour for the College Challenge, actually seeing College people over the summer holidays for the first time ever, all of the guys who were brave enough to wear the College loaner leather pants, and just so many other things that really make me proud of the people I know.

I am still intending to play a big role in the Thursday night A&S sessions with the College, but it will be very different. I wont have to feel responsible for the shape of the room afterwards, or being back from dinner in time to welcome guests who didnt join us for dinner, and will be able to pack up and leave whenever I need to (only just watch how often that happens :P) I'm also intending to be Alanna's biggest source of support as she learns all of the ins and outs of being a College Seneschal, all the frustrations and worries and joys and fun.

For now I guess I'm happy with where I am, as I am focusing on study this year and don't want to overcommit myself. But who knows, I will probably end up in a Baronial or Canton position quicker than I expect thanks to helium hand.

There are some photos of the Newcomer's Feast on Alianore of Essewell's facebook here

More blog posts soon on festival sewing and College A&S night (I found my camera!) once we are no longer in danger of having our internet shaped :P

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

Fabric Splurge

So, I knew I needed silk for various things that I am making soon (sleeves, linings of stuff, doublets etc). So when a friend posted on Facebook that Fabulous Fabrics had an epic silk dupion sale table ($4 a metre) I kind of braved the 42 degree heat and furnace!car to get out there. The damage:

4m silver
4m rust
4m dark salmony pink
4m brown shot with purple
2m blue shot with reddy pink
1.5m indescribable purply pink colour

Hopefully that should keep me going for a while!

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.

College of St Lazarus Oday

So today began the Oday season with the College of St Lazarus (Murdoch). They only formed last year so today was really important for them, so naturally St Basil the Great was there in force to help out.

The space available wasn't as good as UWA - at UWA we get a big stall area on the oval, here we just got room for a table under a verandah so we couldn't set up a pavilion, banners or a list field. Instead we just loaded the table with books, bits of armour, A&S creations, flyers etc. Nancy brought her inkle loom and sat weaving which was awesome, and we did a few parades around the square and managed to recruit half the Kendo club :P

All in all we handed out over 100 flyers, signed about 30 people up to the email list (including some very bouncily enthusiastic ones) so this year looks like a good one for St Laz.

Brick Stitched Panel

I started making this as a cushion cover with a deadline but quickly realised that there was no way it was going to be finished in time. A whole year later (almost to the day) I finally finished it. I have decided that it will instead of a cushion be the brustfleck for a Cranach gown I am working on.

The design came from here: http://www.wymarc.com/asoot/asoot.php?show=germanPatterns and it is Pattern 4, except I changed the colours. It is stitched in cotton thread on 32 count linen fabric. The type of stitching is called German Brick Stitch and consists of long stitches of varying length - spanning either 2, 4 or 6 threads. Other extant examples of this kind of stitch are on cushion covers and bags.

One thing I like about this pattern is that the extant example wasn't made into anything, simply a rectangular panel. My imagination likes to think it might have been used the same way as I'm planning to use it - as decoration on a German gown. I may add a pearl or some other bead to the centres of the crosses to bling it up a bit.

The Emergence of Plan B

So the Wednesday before Midsummer I decided I hated the overdress I was working on. Idk what the problem was, the colour, the fit, the fabric weight. I think I'd either just been staring at it for too long, or I realised that I wasn't going to have enough time to finish it as well as I'd have liked to and didn't want to waste time trying.

I spent Thursday finishing the underdress, including sleeves, handsewn buttonholes on said sleeves and rabbit poo buttons. *Note to self, never ever allow rabbit poo buttons to hang out with each other, especially when you have left a tail on each one for easy attachment...though it looked cool, knotted buttonball of doom (tm) was decidedly frustrating.

This underdress is of course the sort of underdress you can't possibly wear without an overdress so I had to come up with a plan B if I didn't want to feel like all the sewing I had done was going to waste. And so the quickie sideless surcote was born.

I used some very light weight and rather nice I must say "redwood" coloured linen from www.fabric-store.com. Technically it was Lachlahn's Christmas present to be made into something for him but hey he doesn't mind, the extra I bought covers it and it is rather nice I must say. I think this weight would make excellent shirts. The sides and neckline are bound with some scrap cotton linen leftover from a doublet and the hem is bound with a wide band of cotton drill. Everything is machine sewn but hand finished - seams are flat felled and the binding is slip stitched down, except on the hem which is all machine - it was getting rather close to the event. I would like to get some more linen to replace the bottom guard, or at least unpick the visible machine stitching and re-do it by hand.

To take a step back and talk about the pattern...basically I just laid my cotehardie bodice block on the folded fabric, marked out to the hem flaring it a bit and cut it out. I then used the leftover scraps that came from the bodice end of the fabric to make gores, 2 each side. The whole dress only used about 1.5 metres of fabric, as I was able to use the width as my shoulder to floor. Once I had sewn the shoulders and gores together, I threw it on and eyeballed (with help) how wide I wanted my gates of hell. While doing this I accidentally mucked up the neckline, which was solved by a patch conveniently hidden by a bit of a design in chain stitch (which you can kind of see in the pictures if you squint). Unfortunately I had to do this twice - the first time I did it I was all chuffed about having patched it and finished the embroidery only to realise that it was, patch, embroidery and all, on the wrong side. Unpicking embroidery is extremely demoralising.

But it was all done, just in time, threw on some accessories and wore my hot off the sewing machine new outfit to a feast themed "Oh, this old thing" *headdesk* How like me to interpret the theme in a way that means I still get to make new garb :P The linen was lovely and cool in the heat and I very much enjoyed wearing it.

It is nice to have another sideless surcoat as my other one, while lovely, has a considerable train and can be a bit cumbersome. Its also nice to have something so quick and easy to wear with the underdress which had a lot of work go into it until I regain my motivation to finish the "unspeakable green saggy baggy frumpy thing"

On the underdress itself - a few months ago Ysmay de la Mor came over and did a patterning workshop, which I attended. We used the instructions from La Cotte Simple and got some good results. I made mine up using some white linen which at first seemed rather heavy and scratchy but with handling became lovely and soft. It is a four panel dress with four gores that start sort of hip level ish. I used hinge sleeves to get the tightness but am still not quite happy with the way they fit. It laces up the front. The most important thing about this dress (well, I think anyway) is that it is 100% hand sewn, yay. I used backstitch then flat felled the seams using slip stitch. The seams are incredibly strong. I used a facing around the neckline which finished and strengthened the edge and provided support for the eyelets. It laces up with a round fingerloop braid which I wrapped with thread on the end for easy threading.


Finally a shot with Aimee whose cute Italian was also new for this event ^^

Cotehardie: Part 1

Method for Making a Cotehardie

Step 1: Get mostly naked in front of a pile of SCA people for pattern fitting. Get dizzy and have to sit down several times because ran out of time for breakfast.

Step 2: Put off cutting out the thing for a week in fear of messing up the linen. Remember about mockups. Make a mockup. Get excited because mockup worked

Step 3: Wash and cut out linen. Sew first seam of lining. Realise that in the weeks you spent plucking up the courage, you forgot how you were lining it and did it wrong.

Step 4: Unpick first seam. Do it again, properly this time. Get really busy and fail to make any more progress for a whole week.

Step 5: Realise that you didn't wash enough linen to make the gores. Wash more linen.

Step 6: Complete most of the project. Remember about blogs. Remember about taking photos. Kick self. Take photos.















Step 7: Realise you didn't wash enough fabric for the sleeves. Wash more fabric.

And that's where I'm up to now.

It has some interesting back wrinkles which I'm not so sure about but hopefully when the overdress goes on they will be less apparent. The underdress still needs its sleeves and a hem but then it is finished, the overdress will hopefully be started tomorrow. Hoping to also make a pair of hose and a hairnet to wear with this outfit, will see how I go timewise whether or not I get them done for Midsummer.

Budget Cookery

The annual College Challenge Tournament traditionally consists of three parts: the rapier tourney, the armoured tourney and the cookery competition. This year's cookery competition was themed "Cooking on a Budget" (in true College student style) and entrants were constricted to a budget of $15. I made two dishes.

Fish Pie

(from http://www.godecookery.com/nboke/nboke60.html)

NOTES

I used herring fillets, pine nuts, almonds, dates and sultanas for the filling. Instead of cloves I used mixed spice but the other spices are the same. In true spirit of the recipe I did not make the pastry myself but got my pastry-cook (i.e. Rosie) make extra from the dish she was making. Probably this just means I need to practice making pastry. It is a simple pastry with flour, butter, eggs, water and salt.

Also for decoration a fish shape has been crafted out of pastry as the lid to warn eaters that though it looks like a fruit pie, sea creatures lurk within.

COSTING

Herring fillets $4.40, dates: $1.73, almonds & Pine Nuts $3.76, sultanas, oil, sugar, spices $0.00 (already had some), flour $1.25, butter $1.75, eggs $1.59

Total $14.48

Though weird in principle to be eating fish and fruit in one mouthful, it was surprisingly tasty. The filling ended up quite dry and crumbly however.

Mortreus de Chare

(from http://www.godecookery.com/nboke/nboke79.html)

NOTES

As I could not find any pork mince I ended up buying pork sausages and de-skinning them. I found this worked quite well as the sausage meat was ground quite a lot finer than mince usually is, this would have helped with the setting of the meatloaf.

I made the breadcrumbs myself by toasting bread in the oven and crumbling it. I also added an extra egg yolk because it looked like it needed it.

The tower decoration was made out of pastry scraps from my other dish.

COSTING

Pork Sausages $5.30, ale $3.70, bread crumbs, spices $0.00, eggs $1.59

Total $10.59

This was really tasty - the pork was tender and juicy.

To my surprise the Fish Pie won, and the pork loaf came second *embarrassed* But I was very proud considering I don't consider myself a cook of any great skill and often go the Baker's Delight route for potlucks. Definitely going to do more cooking for potlucks from now on.

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

A New SCAdventure

Yes, I know, its cheesy. I blame Nancy.

Anyway, this is where I am going to be putting all of my projects and photos and ramblings about the stuff I do in the SCA. I'm not expecting a lot of people to be reading this but if you happen to be comments are appreciated so I know when I'm being stalked :D

So, I'm Sophie, known at the moment as Lady Gillian Attwood in the SCA. I say currently because I'd like to change that sometime to another name I like more but in an effort to not confuse people more should it be rejected I am waiting til its registered to officially tell people its changed.

I live in Aneala in the Canton of Aachenfeld and am a member of the College of St Basil the Great. I have been Seneschal of the College for the last two years but will be passing that office on in March. My interests in the SCA include garb-making, (anything and everything, pretty much but I do a lot of English Tudor) embroidery, cooking, singing, dancing, brewing (though my few attempts have been rather faily), archery, rapier, heavy combat, and nothing else really springs to mind right now but I'm sure there's lots of other stuff I do.

So I'm going to start here by writing up projects I've done in the last six months or so scattered in with musings and current projects and etc.

To finish off, here is Gillian looking rather Tudor and rather industrious with some embroidery (and also rather scandalous, GASP bare forearms) at a camping weekend.