Shutterbug

April / Danielle (depending on if we're speaking mundanely) has uploaded photos from Christmas Revel! Including this one of the brown kirtle in action. Well, posed at this particular moment ...


Plug: Really, click the link at the beginning of the post and browse through the galleries. She manages to capture a good representative cross-section of SCAdian culture, from the heat of battle to the pageantry of court, beautiful crafted items from the society's artisans, and friends kicking back and having an all-around good time.

Holiday wind-down

Christmas Revel this past weekend was fabulous - Bacon Bit won both the youth heavy and rapier tournaments, Morgana antler-bombed no less than a quarter of the populace in attendance, and our newest Pelican, Mistress Barbara Sterling was elevated to her peerage, surrounded by old and new friends who cherish this wonderful lady and her decades of service to the Society and our young Kingdom.

April took a few full-body shots of me in my brown kirtle, off-white apron (I don't think I told you about that one), and gold Monmouth cap. I'll get that posted asap.

Alas, I am unable to deliver a project-completion update, as my mundane job got in the way, and I was asked to fill in at a store roughly an hour's drive from home. I can offer you a teaser photo of my grey-brown wool hood in progress, though.



Since taking that shot I've attached the center-back gore and sewn the seam up the back of the head to the liripipe attachment. That leaves the liripipe seam, the buttons and buttonholes, and some seam finishing.

There are no more events this month, and all of January's are too far away for me to consider attending. The next feasible event, Candlemas, will be held near Memphis at the beginning of February. After pulling a five-hour drive from the Gulf coast this past Sunday, the two-and-a-half hours to Memphis seems like a breeze, and I can crash with my sister the nights before and after the event, work schedule permitting. After that, a month-long research and prep fest for Gulf Wars XXI! That's right! Gulf Wars will be old enough to go to the Known World Party. I'm going to do my very best to get three or four days off for War, which means working things out with my boss many, many weeks in advance.

I know I'll need a wool gown for the inevitable chilly nights, and a cloak with a clasp or pin would be really useful. A red-and-black parti-colored gown would be nice to have available during muster and at the Gleann Abhann court, but party clothes come after wardrobe staples on the priorities list.

So, to my three official followers and everyone else who stumbles across this blog for whatever reason, I wish you and your loved ones health and serenity this holiday season, and an optimistic outlook for the new year.

- Mathilde de Metteneye

Stress test

Usually I prefer to wash garb by hand in the bathtub. This is because I'm a tad paranoid about all my hand stitching deciding to fail simultaneously. Silly? Yes, but I still play along with my brain.

Anyhoo, I deviated from my usual methods the other day and sent the brown kirtle through a machine wash. Mostly because it's become quite cold and I have no interest in stooping over a tub and swishing my hands around in cold water. Granted, the machine was on the delicate cycle and the lowest spin speed, and the kirtle was the only garment in the load. It did not disintegrate, nor did the seams explode. As I was hanging it up to dry (using the ribbon loops I stitched to the waist), I did find one weak point at a strap attachment. I have plenty of the same silk thread used in the garment's construction, so with a quick repair it'll be ready to play at Revel this Saturday.

Remnant-wool hood is also coming along nicely. I did a couple of test buttons and a test buttonhole. Haven't quite nailed down the spacing for the buttons, or whether I want to do even spacing or grouped pairs for a little added interest. Gotta get back to work to ensure the hood is wearable for Revel. It's supposed to get stupid cold outdoors once the sun sets. Photo post tomorrow night, perhaps?

Hey, look! December!

Got together with some of the crafty critters from Tor an Riogh earlier today for a little workshop on making and using natural dyes. Lots of good questions, a little show-and-tell, and a healthy amount of enthusiasm about experimenting with backyard dye materials.

Christmas Revel is in a week. I had a bit of garb-making burnout after Crown List, but yesterday I pulled some khaki-grey wool from the remnants stash and got to work on a London hood. The gore points above the shoulders result in a little pleat, which messes with the neck circumference a bit, so I'm going to need another (slightly deeper) gore at the center back of the cape. I also decided to line the face opening and button plackets with leftover dark brown linen from *ahem* that last project.

Assuming I don't waste too much of my day-off-work tidying the house, doing laundry, or reviewing my dye presentation (it's slated for addition to the Shire website), I can at least have the gores inserted, the liripipe sewn in, and some fabric squares cut out for buttons. Oh, and I also need to wash some garb and air out my wool blanket.