A&S Century Challenge (Days 1-20)

Baroness Ameline of Rowany (Lochac) issued a challenge to do at least 10 minutes of A&S every day for 100 days. If a day is missed, the count must restart. Here is the link to the original challenge if you are interested in more details:  http://artsandsciences.lochac.sca.org/2017/04/100-days-challenge/

Here are my entries for days 1-20 (from Facebook):

Day 1 – Friday, May 12, 2017.
Grey linen viking undertunic. A must since my old one had a blow out at Fools War (luckily in the arm not the butt lol) and I wanted to wear viking to Lusty. Sorry for the wrinkles. I pulled it out of the hamper to photograph.

Day 2, Saturday, May 13, 2017.
Classes in painting and calligraphy all day at Lusty Month of May.

Day 3, Sunday, May 14, 2017.
Started a sideless surcoat. Mostly together but unfinished.

Day 4, Monday, May 15, 2017.
Figured out (mostly) putting together a viking hood. Book research, no actual sewing.

Day 5, Tuesday, May 16, 2017.
Researched making a new apron dress and decided on fabric (scarlet linen).

Day 6, Wednesday, May 17, 2017.
14th century Italian cooking class at Mariana’ s making quattro formaggio gnocchi, mushroom tart and cuminade of chicken. Delish!

Day 7, Thursday, May 18, 2017.
Started figuring out guard placement on the fruitseller gown I made a couple of weeks ago. Yes, I know I should have done it prior to constructing, but I couldn’t find anything I liked.

Day 8, Friday, May 19th, 2017.
Internet research on Roman clothing including variations of chiton construction and styling.

Forgot to post these. I don’t remember which day… maybe day 1 or 3? Anyway, I refit one of the arms on my 14th century underdress and overdress (cotehardies). A side effect of being a breast cancer survivor is swelling in my left arm. So I couldn’t wear this anymore. I ripped out the armpit, cut the sleeve and inserted a strip of fabric to give me more room in the left sleeve. Now I can wear these again!

Day 9, Saturday, May 20, 2017.
Finished sideless surcoat except hem.

Day 10, Sunday, May 21, 2017.
Viking hood for my husband. Color is a bit off. It is a bright royal blue.

I tried color correcting this. Didn’t realize how much it changed the wall color. It is actually off white!

Day 11, Monday, May 22, 2017.
Internet research on how to make turnshoes. This is definitely going to be a thing at some point. I’ve already bought some leather tools!

Day 12, Tuesday, May 23, 2017.
Worked out the measurements for a viking apron and did some internet research on Jorvik hoods.

Day 13, Wednesday, May 24, 2017.
Made viking apron from scarlet linen. Finished except for shoulder straps.

Day 14, Thursday, May 25, 2017.
Finished the two small front straps for apron dress.

Day 15, Friday, May 26, 2017.
Working on apron straps.

Day 16, Saturday, May 27, 2017.
Worked a little more on straps.

Day 17, Sunday, May 28, 2017.
Assisted/observed the List Mistress at crown list. Learned a lot! Also, once I was back home, finished the apron straps.

Day 18, Monday, May 29, 2017.
Hemmed sideless surcoat.

Day 19, Tuesday, May 30, 2017.
Sorted through bead collection for new festoon planning.

Day 20, Wednesday, May 31, 2017.
Discussed making of cotehardies/GFD/kirtle with Veronica at meeting and internet research to find images to illustrate what I was talking about.

Garb extravaganza

My husband and I are attending Knowne World Dance and Music Symposium. This event lasts 4 days and has classes all day and a ball each night. I realized that I just didn’t have enough garb so I have been garbing my brains out every minute possible.

These are not A&S competition pieces. These are holy-shit-I-don’t-want-to-be-naked quick but serviceable pieces. All machine sewn. Hand finishing on some.

So here’s what I have managed so far:

Grey linen viking underdress (please excuse the wrinkles, I took it out of the hamper to get a picture)

Red linen viking apron dress

[image to be added]

Pale green linen fruit seller’s dress (this photo was taken while trying to figure out guarding)

Blue linen viking hood

Brown sideless surcoat (unfinished)

In addition, I altered the left sleeve of my GFD under and over dress (cotehardie). I made these several years ago, but I have lymphedema in my left arm so it was just too tight to be comfortable. I cut along the underside of the sleeve and added a strip. Now I can wear them with ease!

Swete bag update

I put the swete bag on hold. I’ve put a lot of work into it… a year including the research, design and acquisition of materials. But I realized that I was either going to have to half-ass the rest to hurry things up in time for Stella Nova or take my time and finish it the right way for a future A&S faire. I chose the latter.

Here are some updated pictures:

This is after embroidering all of the flowers.

This was taken after doing the gold work and just started couching down the silver thread for the background.

Normally, the goldwork would have been done in an Elizabethan braid stitch, but as this is my first embroidery project ever, it was a bit beyond my skills. I chose to do the chain stitch as this is a period stitch, provided the texture desired and it was used on swete bags to form the smaller stems. I used three chains together to make it have more visual impact.

Here is one side finished. The oval in the middle will be filled in with green silk in a tent stitch once I finished the couched silver. That is where the fold will be and will be the bottom of the bag giving the illusion of a mound of green to ground the gold flower stems.

The camera doesn’t do justice to how sparkly the silver really is!

I’ve put this project on hold temporarily in order to concentrate on badly needed garb for June. But once that is past, this will come back to the forefront.

Exciting news!

I am really excited to announce that I have taken a green belt and have been apprenticed to Mistress Porcia Secunda. Now to do my best to make her proud!

Has it really been so long?

I’ve been a very bad blogger and have neglected updating for too long! I promise that I have not been idle and will make a huge effort to be better at posting. I’ll dedicate some time today to getting things up to date, but I’ll do that individually so that later things don’t get muddy when looking for something specific. To make up for being so shoddy, please enjoy this picture of a man riding a chicken!

I made a shirt!

Our local group held an event this weekend. The weather this time of year is unpredictable and can be comfortable or as hot as Hades. I don’t have that much garb for the SCA period left as I gave most of it away a few years ago. My one nice outfit includes a wool hood. I really didn’t want to wear that in sweltering heat. And, as I was working the tournament list, I was going to be outside all day.

So I came up with the idea of doing an Italian fruitseller style outfit (the theme was italian). I didn’t have much time and the gown didn’t get finished. I only managed to finish the muslin. However, I did get the camicia/smock done. I wore it under an old Italian gown from many years ago. As it turned out, the weather was gorgeous and cool so I could have worn the wool hood but I was super comfortable in the loose sleeves so it all worked out in the end.

Here is the camicia. Please excuse the wrinkles. The event was yesterday so it was smushed under my bodice all day. If I find a good picture of me taken yesterday wearing it, I’ll add it.

Swete Bag Update

Life has been a bit crazy lately with a minor health problem of my own which has interfered with my ability to comfortably embroider and a major health problem with one of my dogs.  The poor baby:

But she is on the mend now and I am better and able to continue on the project. I wanted to post an update of the progress.

So much to do! Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking! LOL But I know I’ll love it once it is done.

Swete Bag

Recently I was speaking to one of the heads of my household, Mistress Porcia, about the difficulty I was having reconnecting to my art and the SCA in general. She immediately issued me a challenge. Our Kingdom hosts an arts and science competition called Stella Nova and this year it will be held at our Barony’s Midwinter Arts and Sciences event. To participate, you must be new to entering arts and science competitions and be sponsored by a Laurel. She told me that she would sponsor me… and the rest is history, as they say.

I’m more of a costumer than embroiderer but I love the way embroidery looks. And I’ve always wanted a swete bag so a project was born! I already knew a bit about them, but began researching to fill in the gaps. I wanted to make sure I started it right rather than trying to back document what I did. I’m doing a very common type of embroidered bag with common motifs. The design is original and hand drawn by me using extant bags for inspiration.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures of the early process, but I haven’t gotten too far into it yet. I’ve transferred the design to the linen and outlined it. Only a few things have been filled in so far.

The oval in the center will be where it is folded and will look like a mound of green at the bottom of the bag from which the vine sprouts. In period, the two sides were usually the same design, but stitched separately (not a counted stitch) which meant that there were small differences. I already see some slight differences between the two sides. Hey, I’m just being period, y’all!  😉

The base fabric is unbleached linen and will not be seen at all in the finished product. The flowers and mound at the bottom will be done in silk using tent stitch. The vines will be done in a period type of braid in gilt passing thread and the background will be done in a ground stitch with silver passing thread. Both passing threads are metal over a silk thread core which is as close as I can reasonably get to period. I think it is going to be very shiny!

For those who don’t already know, swete bags were not generally carried as a purse. They were sometimes used to hold gifts such as money or used as sweet smelling sachets by putting sweet powder or herbs in them and placing them in the wardrobe. What a shame to have such beautiful items hidden from view. But people must have still cherished them because so many of them exist to this day.

And so it begins…

At dinner the other night, I was discussing projects and such with our Baron, Lorenzo. He suggested that I start a blog to track them. Great idea! I had a livejournal for many years but haven’t logged in for over a year. It used to be a great place full of historic costumers but it became a wasteland. This journal will be a fresh start with new projects. I love clothing from all time periods but lately most of my garb has been 14th century. I am ready to convert my husband and I to the Tudor period so many projects may reflect that.

A little about myself. In the SCA, I am known as Lady Juliane de Vivonne. My husband, Lord Lucien d’Artois, and I have been away from the SCA for over a decade. We kept ourselves busy doing things from the 18th and 19th centuries and, of course, the 21st century. 😉 We are excited to be active in the SCA again.