February 2023: A&S Is a Journey, Not a Destination
My February goals were:
Finish punching holes in my belt and possibly begin sewing in the cord.
Play around with ink thicknesses
Cut and baste Gracie and Jon’s first draft of patterns and get them a first fitting.
Finalize KASF display details.
Research of the Month: finish reading Jews, Food, and Spain by Hélène Jawhara Piñer.
The Oak team is getting off the ground and I’m really excited for how that’s coming together. I think we’ll have a robust cohort of editors to help take on that aspect of The Oak, which will free up a good amount of time for me to focus on things like recruiting a Social Media officer and getting a badge created for us to use. The goal of having a solid team that can support each other and prevent burnout for any one person is my highest priority. I’m very happy with the team we’ve put together and I think we’re going to have an excellent production when things start moving.
University was great- however, I spent 8 out of the 10 sessions either teaching or TA’ing and it definitely impacted my ability to take notes. I did take some, but not enough for a coherent separate post. I was really happy with how my online version of my Exploring Late Iberian Cuisine went! I think the flow worked well and there was a lot of information I was able to provide in this format that I think was missing from the first run through of this class in person. I’ll be teaching it again for Ponte Alto in March.
My writing A&S set up after quite a bit of frustrations and also almost spilling gum arabic all over my carpet.
I did a day of messing around with various inks with my period writing tools again. I honestly think that I am struggling too much with them to actually complete the commonplace book in any reasonable time and that I should go back to the fude nib pen to get the project done. I did do some stuff with the gum Arabic and the quill, but I noticed two large cracks in my quill that was trapping ink. Unfortunately, they go down most of the length of the spine so that quill is toast. I might make a project of exploring cutting my own at a later date. I’ve gotten a better hang of the directionality of each of these tools, but I still cannot get a hold of the pooling up of the ink. This project has definitely become a lesson in “finished is better than perfect,” and I’m trying hard not to lose the forest (my awesome commonplace book) for the trees (the tool with which it was written). I started in on the actual writing but we’re having some issues with the proprietary ink brand of my two fountain pens. I think over the year or so I’ve owned them, the ink has precipitated out and the pigment settling out. Thankfully, both still work great as dip pens, so I’ll be able to make some real progress on that soon. My plan to keep things organized is to start at the top of my organization list and go author by author for each section of the book so I can stop in a reasonable place to fill but not overfill the book. I did, after much deliberation, manage to get a page done! I think I’m going to need to do this as multiple volumes, but I’m pretty ok with that.
A pre-baked golem, with a very amused Sof’ia in the background.
Prepping for Ymir took up most of the first part of my month. The first item I knew I needed to get ready was a gift for Meisterin Kolfinna’s elevation. I’ve wanted to come up with a good go-to gift idea for these situations for a little while and the inspiration struck. With a little patience and some Sculpey, I’ve settled on a golem for all my friends getting elevated or stepping into big positions like baronage etc. Each golem is given a word, and that word is what gives them their life and their mission. For Kolfinna, because she was being elevated to the order of the Laurel, I chose “emet” which means truth. The order strives for truth, accuracy, and honesty in all of its pursuits of the arts, so it feels fitting. It also felt fitting that the “off position” (to turn the golem off, you erase the first letter of the word) is “met,” a word for death and Kolfinna’s elevation theme was danse macabre. Now that I have proof of concept, I’m going to acquire some specialized tools to make this easier and this will be my thing going forward.
I got Gracie and John’s muslins cut and basted the weekend before Ymir. They were mostly rectangular pieces with chalk marks so I could fold down the armscyes and necklines but not cut them in case we need to move things. I also added a ridiculous amount of ease to the garments so they will for sure fit and we can adjust them as we see necessary. Schedules didn’t line up to get them fitted though, so I’ve made some adjustments for a more directed fitting hopefully at KASF. Ymir prep also saw me ripping the sleeves off of the Pink Gonete and I don’t regret that for a second. I pinned on the long sleeves, and the weather of the day absolutely needed it. It also greatly improved the comfort of the fit.
Speaking of Ymir, it turns out that actually going to events is the motivation necessary to help me continue to go projects and that 3 months off from events is bad for my productivity. Imagine that. Anyhow, I came home from Ymir with a renewed sense of excitement for A&S that helped me get through the chaos in my mundane life rather well. I did a boat load of KASF prep for my own display and my own purposes, including finally adding the length I’ve been thinking of to the Tan Saya. It feels a lot more middle class, which it was always intended to be, now than it did before. To cover the seams, I added some of the left over wide ribbon from the Green Saya, and for balance, two of the thing ribbons around the neck. Evan's vest thingy that matches is pants is now complete so he does have his own set of garb too!
In doing some of the above KASF prep, I pulled out my paternosters because I’d like to display them in person for the first time this go around. I noticed that I had a lot of remaining supplies from those projects, so I decided to flesh out that display a little bit more. I made two new pieces, both of which I’m really happy with.
My third paternoster, made of jet, moss agate, costume pearls, and gold colored accents
The first is a much longer circular piece. It has alternating jet and agate beads with small gold accents. I love the little pumpkin shaped gold beads from the entirely jet paternoster so I used those as the gauds and added some of the remaining bead caps from the entirely agate piece. I used red cotton thread for this one instead of the silk I had previously used, and so far I’m more impressed with how much sturdier and secure it feels. The terminal is the one remaining ouch I used for the pearl choker for the Green Saya outfit and I think this piece would actually go very well with that. The three pearls dangling off of it came from a brooch that I impulse bought during the pandemic and never wore, not even once, and never saw myself wearing it. It was too obviously the wrong fit for what I am doing. I do still have several other pieces in the same style, but they’re closer to what I would consider SCA acceptable than that one is.
The second piece I made was a revisiting of a ring terminal piece. This one is uses the moss agate for the decade beads, with the same pumpkin beads above for to differentiate the two terminal ends. I had enough of my small gold spacers to use them here and I think they add just enough space that each of the decade beads can easily be handled and counted. The ring is a bronze ring that I was gifted as a token for a previous display, and it has glued onto it a very make shift cabochon setting with a aventurine round cabochon. At the other end is another aventurine cabochon, this one as a left over from the Green Saya headpiece. I still have one more of these settings, and four more of these stones that need homes, so I guess my jewelry making days are not over yet. The same costume pearl beads as above were also added here for a little flare.
All in all, I am very happy with the addition of these two pieces. It finally feels like these make up a coherent collection of jewelry with my other existing choices. It’s a lot of green, but then again, my favorite color is green so I can live with it. Ideally, in the future I will try to explore a few other options in a wider array of colors. Green wasn’t a super popular choice in my time period, though we do see instances of it. Red, blue, and pearl generally are the more popular, and the data on the paternosters does bear that out. I’m not one for wearing a lot of jewelry, usually because I have work to do and jewelry gets in the way of that, but I think it rounds out a persona well to have the accessories that fit it. Mariana is fundamentally upper-middle class and I don’t want to ignore that facet of her life simply because it’s an inconvenience. A well developed, well researched collection that I can either wear or display makes the most sense in this situation I think.
The belt got some great progress this month too! I did most of the hole punching at University weekend, and finished it at sewing day later in the month. The actual sewing in of the cords is slower, but is great entertainment on my bus rides to and from work. I’ve been enjoying the project so far though I think I do want to revisit some alternative choices in a thinner belt at a later date.
The KASF site prompted some interesting adaptations to my display plans. The site has no WiFi, so while I still wanted to include my QR codes, I did also do hard copy documentation for what I could. This meant finally collecting all the blog posts on the Green Saya into one place as formal documentation with this disclaimer that it was never intended to be formally documented. It’s nice to have that all in one place though, especially since someday I’m going to revisit it with the sari as originally intended. Unfortunately, the commonplace book is not thoroughly documented enough for me to print things out and the spreadsheet is unwieldy, so I ultimately decided that would stay as a QR code and if people want to see it they can. I did end up printing out a copy of the belt inspiration image as well.
Photo credit: Thomas Beebe,
I specifically held off on making this post until after KASF this month. First, because there are some incredible pictures floating around now that I cannot wait to grab and save. This first one is from Thomas Beebe, who was so incredibly kind enough to photograph all four of my paternosters in a lightbox as well as the Green Saya. I can’t wait to see more photos of both my and everyone else’s stuff, because this year the artisans of Atlantia truly pulled out all the stops! There was a kayak. A whole, ass, hand-made Greenland style 15 foot kayak.
Also at KASF, Their Majesties honored me with my Pearl. I’m breathless over all the love and support my chosen family has given me over the years and KASF was no exception. They pulled together so we could make the day special for Bea, who got a court baronage that she has so well deserved and earned over the years and then towards the end of court, called me in. To say I was astonished at the scroll is an understatement. It’s in Hebrew, designed around an extant Jewish text, AND they put my kitties in it! Bea gave me her Pearl medallion, which is monumentally special for me. I love legacy regalia, as it helps me carry a piece of my family with me wherever I go, and is a reminder of the people I strive to emulate in both my life and SCA career. I can only hope to do honor to the order that I have been deemed worthy of joining. Most of the images in the gallery below belong to Thomas de Winter, whose work capturing events is second to none.
My projects for the month of March are pretty straight forward:
Complete Gracie and John’s Coronation clothing for Coronation on April 1. I have the lining pieces ready to go, and will use those to pattern the outer fabrics that then need to be stamped, assembled and finished.
Finish my Cultura Atlantia display of spices and their origin stories.
Start the design work for the next gonete. Thankfully this lines up with some needs for the saya verdugado I also want to make, in that I need to start with the body pattern first and foremost.
Begin the design research for the saya verdugado.
Research of the month: maybe this is the month I finally finish reading Jews, Food, and Spain?
