On the drive to and from Celtic Revolt in May, we listened to Christopher Moore's book Sacre Bleu in the car.  While I won't spoil the story for anyone (go read it!) it focuses on the Impressionist painters of the early 20th century and their use of ultramarine blue paint, which turns out to be sort of magical and important.  As an homage to that, my husband bought me four yards of lovely ultramarine linen for a new bliaut.  I decided to try something a little different than what I've done before to go along with my research on bliauts and the influence of narrow-width silk brocades that were starting to come back to Europe with the crusaders.  I read an article, which I need to dig out again, that suggested perhaps the decorative bands at sleeve hem, waist, and skirt hem on bliauts were actually the embellished edges of a single long piece of material.  This blog post has some really fantastic information about the textiles used on bliauts (and bliauts in general).  

Anyway!  Having helped make a bliaut with a gathered skirt for coronation, I felt a little more confident about the construction.  I figured out the most thrifty cutting diagram I could use for the sleeves, including the maunches, and basically used every last bit of the rest of the fabric for the skirt.  Inspired by this image from Boethus, I decided to pleat my skirt on to my waist band.  Most bliauts I've seen have gathered skirts, but this image looks kind of like box pleating to me.  With such stylized art it can be hard to tell, which gives you room to experiment.

I just divided the front and back of my bodice into fourths and then pleated the skirt in evenly, which is quite possibly the easiest pleating I've ever done.  Since I used two full fabric widths with selvedge edges intact and hemmed the top of the skirt before pleating, there is no seam finishing needed.  The sleeves are lined with gold linen, so no finishing needed there either, and rolled hems at the sides for the lacing cords.   The trim is some ecclesiastical style trim from Pastiche at Uprising War, and I bought six and a half yards of it, which was everything she had.  Almost all of it got used up. 

I started this dress on Monday the 22nd of June and finished the construction sewing by Wednesday the 24th.  The rest of the sewing (hemming on bottom seams and side openings, attachment of lacing cords, turning under and sewing down trim ends) was all done by hand in the car on the way to Avacal coronation.  More on that in a future entry.  Here's a photo of the finished product.   I definitely want to use hand-made lacing on my next dress, and will keep tweaking the design.  The neckline's a bit off, but I haven't decided if it's enough to make me take off all that trim and redo it.  hmm...

​Photo: Hastings Sanderson

Phew!  We survived Uprising War, our Kingdom's largest event of the year.  There were about 800 people in attendance and lots of fun activities.  Let me see if I can sum everything up.  The site opened on Tuesday, June 17, but we didn't arrive until Wednesday, June 18, since nothing much really starts happening until Wednesday anyway.  My husband and I camped in the Royal encampment, along with a good chunk of our household and the royal retinue.  We also got to play host to Their Majesties of Atenveldt and their attendants, who were simply fantastic.  We were very lucky to have fantastic camp cooks for the event, who kept us (all 50 or so) well fed, including lots of dietary restrictions.  On Wednesday we got our camp set up, including the kingdom pavilion and pavilions for our guests from Atenveldt.  

Most of my morning on Thursday was taken up with attending Her Majesty, including one of my favorite activities, fixing her hair!  I have always loved braiding and styling hair, and it's a fun girly way to get to know Her Majesty better.  In fact, one of my first real conversations with her happened when I braided her hair for her when another person didn't have time to do it, at Uprising 2014.  Thursday was also the Princess's tea, co-hosted by Her Highness Esther and the Princess Royal (the queen's daughter).  The ladies in waiting helped prepare and arrange food, decorate the kingdom pavilion, and generally keep everything running smoothly.  As with many events, the special parts of this day were simply the parts spent hanging out and catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, and enjoying a break from the modern world.  Thank goodness nobody snapped a picture of me at the incredibly crazy Thorsday night party hosted by the Barony of Loch Salaan.  It was Hawaiian themed, and the garb was truly... memorable.

Friday was the Arts and Sciences display, and I had fun sharing my fiber arts with everyone.  I didn't have anything particular that I wanted to showcase, so I showed a pair of socks I knitted, some hand spun fiber samples, different tools I use, some of them handmade, and a tape weaving project I'm working on.  I wanted to make my display more about the process I enjoy rather than the finished objects.  Here's a photo of me discussing my display.

​Photo: Illora of the West Lea

Friday afternoon I managed to get in half of a class on smocking, which was fasinating, but I wasn't able to finish my sampler.  Someday soon, I hope.  Friday was also the equestrian tournament (which ended up getting delayed due to injuries, but we got to go watch a bit), and this is the only photo I managed to get hold of that shows the new wool viking apron dress I made.  I will get some more photos soon and do a separate post, but you can see me in the middle from the back.  Gold linen underdress and hair in a braided bun, with a bag over my shoulder.  This is the challenge of being busy.  Very few photos get taken, and even less with me in them!  You can see my husband in the brown tunic and straw hat, my little sister in the red, and His Majesty of Atenveldt just to my right.

​Photo: Bethanne Todd

Friday night court was the court where the three premier masters of defense for Artemisia were put on vigil.  The court was surprisingly moving and exciting.  The rapier community pooled their funds to purchase a beautiful rapier, called Queen's Grace, to be the counterpart to King's Justice, the broadsword His Majesty carries to represent the heavy fighting community and his role in defending the realm.  Each of the three vigils was very different. and this night was probably the low point of my Uprising experience.  I worked too hard, had too much drama, and just let people get to me.  In a true show of her awesomeness, the queen sat with me and listened to me vent, which is 100% not the job of a queen, but is 100% the job of a friend.  I'm so glad I've gotten to be friends with her over the past months, and it's been an honor for a relative newbie like me to get to spend so much time in the thick of things thanks to Her Majesty.

Saturday is the big day at Uprising, and I had the brand new experience of attending Their Majesties on the melee field.  Having never fought myself or looked after a fighter at all before, it was something very different and interesting.  I was glad I brought my lucet and a bit of cord I'd been working on.  It's really just a toy to keep me from being bored, but that cord has come in handy many times.  This time, I had just enough made that when Her Majesty needed something to tie up a loose pauldron I was able to do the trick in time to get her out into battle with her crossbow.  It was fun to watch the fighting more closely, and I had the good fortune to be there when Their Majesties put a very deserving fighter on vigil to be knighted that evening.  Congratulations, Sir Killian.  Here's a great photo of us all laughing, taken by my husband.  I have no idea what the King just said, but it was clearly pretty good.  Thanks to Sir Fernando for the shade of his shield.  It's rare to get an outdoor photo in June where I'm not squinting.

Photo: Arlen Donald

Saturday night's court was amazing and moving.  I don't have any photos to share, as I was far too busy being in the dream.  I have to say, one of the most special parts of it was watching my friend, who I have watched on this journey since the first court I stood with her after her husband won crown in October, grow into such a strong and amazing queen.  She really shone as the patroness of the rapier community.  Watching her issue challenges to each of the three Masters, place the collars around their necks, and dub them with Queen's Grace was one of the most amazing things I've experienced in a long time.  I was so proud of Queen Clare in that moment, and so thrilled and moved to see this new order recognized.

It was really tough to go back to reality on Sunday, and even tougher to go back to work on Monday, but the dream has always been an ephemeral thing for those of us who love the SCA.

Hi friends!  I have another fun project to share.  Those of us who are not fighters but who are members of the Cavalry of the Sword and Horse decided we needed heraldic sideless surcotes to show our enthusiasm for this wonderfully silly group of people.  

The pattern is really very simple.  The fabric, red mediumweight linen, was folded in quarters (so there is a fold where the shoulder seam would be, and a fold down the middle of the front'/back.  We used an existing sideless surcote as a starting pattern and then used our bust, waist, and hip measurements as a guide, then cutting a front and back piece out with the extra material for side gores.  here's a (very rough) cutting diagram.  It took about 2 1/2 yards of 60" wide fabric to make mine.

In the interest of saving time, the surcote was sewed with a serger to finish the edges.

In hindsight, lining the torso, or using interfacing, would have given this better structure, and I may still go back and add some, along with some more embellishments.

Then we used a projector to size up the image from our badge to run roughly from hip to hem, and traced the images first onto paper, then white linen fabric. Wonder-under iron on adhesive was used to apply the fabric pieces to the skirt, and then a very narrow zigzag stitch in black thread was done all around the edges.  If I had the chance to do this again, it would be fun to hand sew the applique, and I still plan to go into the horse and add an eye, contours, etc.  I would also angle the sword next time, since it appears slanted when worn due to the way the skirt hangs (though it kind of makes it look like I'm holding it in the photo below).  All said, though, it's a great, comfy, and cool dress to wear, and I get lots of compliments when I wear it.   

Photo: Arlen Donald

I think I've posted here before about my husband the brewer, and my occasional efforts with making cordials.  Back at the end of May I decided it was high time to try brewing out for myself.  It will be a little while before I can tell for sure how successful this has been, but here's a little write-up for now.

I had been wanting to try making something with elderflower for a long time.  I know they were used in food and drink in period, though I need to nail down more concrete sources before I ever do this as an A&S project, but for an experiment I wasn't too concerned.  I had initially planned to do an elderflower wine, but since my other half doesn't drink wine, and I didn't know if I could motor through five gallons of anything on my own, I opted for an elderflower cider, inspired by the Angry Orchard elderflower, which I love.

I picked a bunch of elder flowers in the mountains north of Boise, about enough to fill a plastic grocery bag.  It was hard to capture the color correctly, but here's a photo.  The scent was really intense, and they were really full of pollen.  I sneezed my head off all the way back to Boise, but I'm hoping the brew won't have the same effect.

I added them to five gallons of commercial apple juice (100% juice), careful to get the kind without added vitamin C, which can give a funny taste.  I decided to be brave and experiment a bit, since I wanted a sweeter and more low-alcohol cider, and just added bread yeast to the juice.  It doesn't add a lot of esters to the brew and has a neutral taste, and I thought that would help the elderflower taste/scent come through.  Due to a tragic incident with the brew pot, I didn't even heat the cider before adding the yeast.  Since it was commercial pasteurized juice and my equipment had all been sanitized with star-san, I just put the juice, yeast, and flowers into the brew bucket and stuck it in the closet where the brewing projects live.  I had only planned on a week or so in primary. but life got busy and I didn't get around to racking it off into secondary until almost two weeks later.  Here's a look at the (still quite cloudy) cider after we opened it up.  Aren't the flowers floating in it lovely?  

Despite the prettiness of the tiny flowers, it was really hard to get all the cider off of the lees (the yeast/sediment at the bottom) without sucking half of them up into the carboy I'm using for secondary.  Next time I'll use a net bag for the flowers, I think.  I added another half gallon of fresh juice when I put it into secondary to help with the flavor, which is still very young and slightly sulfrous, typical for cider.  I'll check back in a few weeks when I get ready to bottle it and let you know how it's getting on!

Well!  First off, I will say that though my site gets visitors, it apparently doesn't get the sort who will answer a one-question poll.  The question remains a mystery for now.

On to my next update.  

The Cavalry attended its initatory event near Spokane, Washington at the Kingdom of An Tir's Celtic Revolt over Memorial Day weekend in the Barony of Wealdsmere.  Several of our members attended last year, and our fearless leader has been going for nigh on twenty years now.  We had a truly wonderful time at this event, which was well-run and organized, but lighthearted and fun.  The site was beautiful, and I will definitely be back next year.  Here are a few photos of the event with blurbs.  I didn't take any photos of the beeswax candlemaking class I took from Sir Brynjolfr, but I really enjoyed it, and learned so much I didn't know about dipping candles.  There was a wonderful bardic, a series of great parties around the fires, a rousing round of spear the beer (with spear the sparkling water for the kids), and lots of great fighting.  here's hoping the friendship with Artemisia and An Tir continues.

Continuing in my SCA catch-up blogging... First thing on my list to write about is a brand new household formed in the Kingdom of Artemisia.  Known as the Cavalry of the Sword and Horse, it is primarily a 16th-century Western Europe focused rapier/riding company, with a few hangers-on who do heavy fighting, or no fighting at all (like myself, at least so far...).  The company is intentionally silly and lighthearted, focusing on drinking, rabble rousing, and not causing too much trouble, but really it includes some fantastically talented members of our kingdom, including the current monarchs, one of the premiers of the Order of Defense, and, some up and coming new players.  We are officially an arm of Clan MacThoy, a fantastically silly group that started in the Pacific Northwest but has since spread across the U.S.  I feel really honored that my husband and I were asked to join the Cavalry, and our experiences with them so far have proven that our acceptance was the right choice.  These are wonderful people who don't take themselves or the SCA too seriously, but who still do some great things.

Secondly, a poll.  I'm getting a fair bit of traffic to this site, but I have no idea how y'all are finding me, and as I don't get many comments or contacts on the blog, I thought I'd see how you found me!  Aas always, please drop me a line if you have questions, feedback, dumb jokes, stuff you'd like to see, or anything else to share.