February 2024: Packed and Ready to Roll
My goals for February were:
Finish the chapines
Finish Pentathlon documentation.
Both kittens wanted to come to KASF too.
Much like January, February started off in the middle of a very rough patch with the chapines. This project was always going to be the hardest one of my Pentathlon set, but man, did it really have to go this hard? (Yes, it did). I was able to pivot and keep them moving forward but to say that the final result does not look the way I expected it to is certainly the case. But I did finish them. And with them, a complete and (in my opinion) successful Persona Pentathlon entry.
It’s a little surreal to have this project effectively done and wrapped up. It’s been so long coming that I honestly don’t know what to do with myself now that it’s done. I’ve spent hundreds of hours (literally. I clocked over 200 hours just on the construction of the gonetes, vasquiña, and chapines alone, and did not do a timesheet for the commonplace book, almodrote, or the research hours) over the last two years. To have it wrapped up and complete was such a far away goal for so long that I’m almost waiting to realize I’ve missed something.
I spent the early days of this month finishing up the chapines during University, as well as making a back up batch of bread of the almodrote. This way, if something went wrong closer to the actual day of presentation, I still had a batch of good bread ready to go and won’t have to worry nearly as much about the pressure of making some. I did still make a fresh batch for the weekend to be assembled the night before, but having a safety net on that is really nice. I also worked on finishing the documentation, taking nice photos of a couple of the items (or rather hovering while Evan did), designing my table displays, the official hosting page for this entry on my site, and some new SCA business cards.
Curating this table display has been an interesting exercise too. There’s a lot to consider:
For the garb pieces (the gonete and vasquiña) seeing how they fit a body is important. It’s one of my strengths (I think) but also speaks to the intended end user. At their core, pieces of clothing are meant to be worn. However, my dress form kicked the bucket last month. The only body I have to display these on for fit is my own and unfortunately, it’s one that poses a challenge for standard dress forms and adjustable ones. I think there’d be a lot lost in just laying them out on the table. However, this has a few draw backs as well. First, judges may not be comfortable judging them with the entrant present. Second, while I’m wearing them it’s much harder for judges to evaluate the sewing and construction. Lastly, if I show up planning to wear them and am told I’m not allowed to, having a backup plan is a real challenge. I’ve packed two outfits just in case. In the end, space constraints were the biggest factor in this decision. When I was doing test set ups for the display, I marked out the space possibilities- either 6 feet or 3 feet. And ultimately, displaying these two pieces on the table didn’t work for either of those set ups. There was just not enough space to make things look neat, uncrowded, and not risking getting almodrote samples on things.
Knowing that I plan to wear the vasquiña on the day of but not the chapines presents a problem of footwear. I made the vasquiña floor length to get adequate drape, but that means flat footwear is not acceptable for wearing with it when I intend to walk around. I needed to acquire some sort of raised footwear since the chapines will be on the table for display. I ended up ordering a set of wood pattens from Boots by Bohemond to give myself just a little bit of extra lift. I’ll wear them with the servillas and can fairly easily slip in and out of them in case a demonstration of walking in the chapines is necessary. I did also have to grab some non-slip shoe pads so I wasn’t sliding all over the hard floors indoors on the wood.
There is a lot of signage necessary. Having a quick item summary for each item for casual viewers is something I wanted to try for this display so people can learn about the item without having to read the 77 cumulative pages of documentation. I also need signs showing the allergen information for the almodrote samples I’ll be giving out, a sign for the plated almodrote display making sure no one eats it for food safety purposes, my usual QR codes to documentation for those who may want to read later, and images of my two major outfit inspiration pictures. My Canva project for all this signage has 14 individual elements.
I want the documentation to be able to be presented nicely. To this end, I made special bound copies of the documentation at UPS. I also printed a few extra copies of a printer friendly format (read: no pictures) just so multiple people can read the same piece of documentation at once. I plan to have my laptop present in case anyone wants to see the detailed spreadsheets and samples the day of or any of the progress picture albums.
For food safety concerns, the almodrote must be kept hot. For this, I need some sort of chafing dish that I can heat the food up in first thing that morning, transport an hour from our Airbnb to site reasonably hot/insulated, then keep hot throughout the day. Most of the disposable/cheaper chafing dishes are much larger than I need for this and also come in sets of multiples which I don’t have room to store at home so finding a chafing dish that worked was more effort than I anticipated. I settled on a non-disposable one that is the right size and was honestly close to the same price as the sets of disposables.
I need to be able to serve samples of the almodrote. For this, I have a small stash of sample cups and spoons but I don’t quite have enough so I needed to get some more. I have a good stash of serving spoons etc. too but I’m only making one batch of this for serving that day so I don’t think I’ll need much more than a large soup spoon for samples.
Inspiration image for the tubular veil below.
Last month I mentioned wanting to try recreating my own version of the tubular black veil depicted to the right. This month I realized I don’t really have a good piece of headwear for the Persona Pentathlon outfit. I have a nice cofia or two, but nothing I tried on felt quite right for these pieces. I ended up deciding to make the veil earlier than originally anticipated. I like that it’s understated and elegant. My first concern was design for the trim area. While I don’t think it looks like that particularly, I can see how the gold trim on the front could be mistaken for a pointed coronet- which I do not have the right to wear in the SCA (reserved for baronage, both landed and court baronage). I found a beautiful scallop shaped trim at Joann’s that did the trick and didn’t overly look like a coronet so I was happy. I added some additional bling to give it some structure but otherwise, it’s really just a tube with a hook and eye at the base of my neck and some modern wig clips hidden inside to hold it in place.
For wearing it, I need to tape my hair up or pin it up as if it were taped to give it some lift at the front and keep it from getting overly tangled inside the veil. That said, I’m really happy with how it fits and can’t wait to wear this outfit as a whole at Kingdom Arts and Sciences. I think if I’ve reviewed my Spanish garb terms document correctly, I once again don’t have a great term for this particular item. The language surrounding veils is a bit vague but I think the most proper term might just be velo, or veil. Other references to velos indicate potentially a thin sheer veil, but my research so far has been inconclusive on that.
Mid-month, Marguerite and Bea came over for a final Pentathlon prep day for both Marguerite and I. I used it as an opportunity to test run my display layout with all my various pieces and I’m glad I did. When I signed up for space, I requested a 6 foot table (roughly my dining room table for scale) but said that I could squeeze into half if I have to (my 4 foot folding table with a piece of tape marking off 3 feet). I ended up trying to set up both layouts but learned pretty quickly that 3 feet was just not going to work. I messed around with the set up through out the day until I was happy with it on my 5 foot dining table and took pictures so I know what I’m going to be doing when I arrive on site. Evan also helped me get really fantastic final shots of the chapines and the commonplace book and Bea got me photos of my whole complete outfit that I’m thrilled with.
The finished trim and beadwork on my tubular black veil. I love how even the fold looks like it does in the inspiration image above.
Not having a project to work through was weird for the whole couple of days it lasted. I don’t really do well not having something to work on, so while I had down time, I started planning out my pre-Pennsic sewing. I ordered some fabric samples, scoured the internet for packing lists to come up with my make list, and updated all my garb closet spreadsheets, so that was fun. I think I have a pretty solid grasp of what I want to move forward with for the summer. Once Pentathlon is wrapped up, I’ll get started on those projects. I got very lucky and Fabrics-store had a big sale on white linen this month that should be good for a variety of body linens. I have about 10 yards coming and need a variety of calzas, medias calzas, and camisas and will try to get several out of that length.
I also planned out and bought fabric for the two sayas I’d like to make:
The first is a honey gold with black trim that’s meant to call out Jewish traditions of dressing in 15th Century Spain. This piece in particular will be part of a project I’ve thought about a while focusing on a look book of various women’s wear throughout Spain in the 15th century. I may also steal the fantastic alternating triangles on the black skirt above and just do them black on gold instead of gold on black.
The other saya is going to be a gorgeous deep blue closer to a cotehardie and more appropriate for 14th Century Spain. I may, also make an over dress for it with shorter sleeves too. If I do choose to do that and I have time, I will probably splurge and make that out of some nicer fabric than the linen in a color that will compliment the blue. This will require a different style of camisa than my usually full sleeved ones, so that’ll have to be a consideration as well. Alternatively, I may make it short sleeved so I don’t have to worry about what camisa I wear it with and make some pin on sleeves for it or a pellote style over dress.
The in-progress banner.
The other filler project I did was work towards completing a long abandoned project from the pandemic. I had started on a heraldic banner with my arms back during COVID and never got around to finishing it. This month, I cut out, embroidered, and appliqued on the rose in the center and the larger pieces of the ermine. Still left to do are:
So many ermine dots. I made a start on these but I have so many to go.
Add a backing to cover up the stitching and protect it.
Adding loops to attach it to a wood rod to hold it up.
Getting said rod and some finials for it.
Some sort of pretty cord or stand to hang it from.
I may or may not make it a stand at some point. It’s a low stress, low energy project that’s perfect for taking to events and working on during court.
I had a really interesting experience late in the month while packing for Ymir. I tried on the Domingo Ram gray saya and though “hmm I should fix the pleat attachments” because they were sitting weird. However, when I got into detaching the skirt and bodice, I noticed some critical structural tears that were probably a major contributing factor to that sitting weird. I also noticed some very novice construction choices that probably lead to those tears. It was amazing to see how far I’ve come as an artisan since making that outfit. Unfortunately, it did get completely cannibalized. Less unfortunately, most of the skirt fabric was still in good shape and COULD be cannibalized into other clothing. I think it might turn into a sayuelo attempt based off the gonete patterns- the major difference being the extension of the peplum into a longer covering and the addition of long sleeves. It’s not a high priority item though. It does make me feel a lot less bad about wanting to make two more dresses in the up coming months!
After Ymir, it was straight into final KASF prep. I did garb repairs including some darning on my knitted socks (a thing I am not neat at but am effective enough at) and some strategically spaced cooking prep so the almodrote is as fresh as possible the day of. The kitchen gods smiled on me this week. My lamb stock was beautifully rich and gelatinous. I found some fresh red currants and distracted myself from doing useful things by making red currant and orange blossom jam. My starter (The Yeastie Boys) was a happy camper and handled the extra feedings well. The bread was breading properly. I roasted an outrageous amount of garlic. Everything was staged and ready to go.
KASF materials are in the car ready to go this upcoming weekend. Persona Pentathlon 2024 here we come!
My goals for March:
Survive KASF.
Start on the body linens for Pennsic.
Possibly start on the Gold Saya.
