July 2024: Pennsic Approaches (Well.. Approached)
July Goals
Garb:
Finish all garb projects for Pennsic. I’ll need to make:
2-3 camisas
1-2 calzas
1-2 clip-on tranzados
1-2 cofias.
Classes:
Create additional class materials and figure out handouts for Pennsic class
Re-record my Persona Pentathlon class.
Naturally, I forgot to hit post on this before leaving for Pennsic.
July started off strong with me completing both camisas before the 15th. Those were the biggest, most important addition to my closet and I’m really glad I got them done. I tried a slightly different method on them, closer to a T-tunic to reduce overall weight and trapped hot air next to my skin. This went relatively well but not perfectly. I miscalculated the amount of ease necessary but in the end, I have two very wearable camisas that will be super helpful. This puts me very well stocked on body linens, so I’m not likely to make many of them for a while except to go with specific outfits.
After I finished the camisas, I started on the super easy projects- the cofias and tranzados that I could get out of the way quickly. All in all, by the 15th I had compelted:
2 camisas
3 cofias
1 clip-on tranzado
The repair of some jewelry
3 tube Romans for HE Gracie, HE Hrefna, and Sof’ia
My new pin-on tranzado
I realized as well that the extra calzas were more of a want than a need. I have mundane bike shorts that’ll do the trick and while I’m happy to have the camisas I made this month, I do strongly prefer to be able to take my time to actually make my garb by hand and not have to rush through it. All of my existing stash of calzas has been repaired and I’ll have enough to get me through my time at Pennsic.
None of this is super exciting on paper, but I honestly spent this month so excited. I have wanted to go to Pennsic basically since I started in the SCA and this will be my very first year. I made myself a whole spreadsheet of things I wanted to see and do, places to check out, and more. I have a bunch of classes, several events, and a couple things I want to accomplish on my list and I know that no matter how those shake out, I’m going to have a memorable experience. Naturally, there is a spreadsheet to go with it but that’s part of the fun too.
I did have to spend some time working on my Nola class materials this month. I was able to complete the ingredient analysis I wanted from Jews, Food, and Spain last month and added that information to my handout. After much deliberation the trade routes information also ended up going in there. The biggest lift on this work item was honestly the Catholic food info. I had a little bit of that information already in the class in the form of a count of fast vs meat days, but other than that, my knowledge was pretty high level. The handout itself got a big face lift this month. I added a bunch of pictures and some more organizational structure. It’s a beautiful document now and I’m excited to see it keep growing.
The other thing for the Nola class is the size of the files- I have absolutely no clue what level of interest it’ll generate and the handout is now pushing 30 pages. So instead, I made QR access codes for both the handout, slide deck, and relevant links and will bring my business cards with me to the class for anyone who may want to access these materials at a later date.
My other big lift for the month was evaluating my display for Known World A&S Display at Pennsic. My big goal was to grow from the feedback I got at KASF particularly on the display and documentation. I did sign up for the Laurel Consultation to get some time to discuss some of the goals that I was trying to address:
Finding a way to make the gonete outfit survey accessible. It’s a huge volume of information and in a format that is not ideal for most SCA uses.
Solution: print out one critically important chart for the display table, add a dashboard of less critical charts to the gonete survey, and bring my tablet with me to discuss other options.Finding a way to make the content of the commonplace book more interactive and accessible.
Solution: pick out several favorite entries from as many categories as possible and transcribe them into a separate book in English so people can see some examples. Bringing my tablet with me to discuss other options.Expand on the almodrote documentation to include a “pie in the sky” version of the recipe as close as possible to the recipe as written.
Solution: I did just this. I have to test out the recipe itself as written someday, but I am very confident in its success.Presenting progress photos better.
Solution: currently I don’t have a great solution for these. I made QR codes to add to the display and am bringing the tablet to discuss in my consultation as well.
Juana “the Mad” (1473-1555) by Juan de Flandes held here.
I also finally got around to organizing my honeymoon photos and submitting the museum albums to The Oak and launching a new category called Atlantians Abroad that I’m very excited about. Those albums can all be found on the new category page here. There’s 11 albums of my travels covering Edinburgh Castle, National Scottish Museum, National Galleries of Scotland, Stirling Castle, Blenheim Palace, Brighton Pavilion, Shakespeare's Globe, and the Tower of London.
My next long term project is starting with an attempt to do the same garment analysis on a saya verdugado and sobresaya that I did on the gonete, and then to create garments based on a specific portrait of Juana la Loca to the left. My goal is to recreate her camisa, the black saya underneath it as a verdugado, the white overdress (sobresaya), and the white sleeves with them.
I want to start with the camisa for practicality and ease of starting over if it doesn’t go fantastically while I complete the analysis on the other pieces and before buying some very special fabric to make the other items. I haven’t committed to that head dressing yet, because I’m really unsure what that looks like from execution, but it’s an interesting exploration.
My Pennsic project is starting on the embroidery pattern for Juana’s camisa in my current long term project. I’m trying something new this time by using Canva to copy the pattern in such a way that it can then be transferred to fabric for me to embroider over. I blew the pattern up and zoomed in on her neckline at 300% magnification and then used a stylus to trace over the visible embroidery pattern on the facing. If it goes well in execution, I’ll use the same technique for her sobresaya embroidery pattern. I then used this to copy the design over to paper so that it could be traced onto some linen to create a facing for the neckline. I am interpreting the black on the edges of the facing as a decorative blanket stitch to secure the facing in place, so those will be a later addition.
Camisa tracing via Canva.
This camisa is also a great opportunity to try to improve the changes I made to the camisa designs for Pennsic that went ok-ish but not perfectly. The front doesn’t seem to indicate any gathering under the flat embroidered facing but the sleeves are incredibly full at the top. They may just be pulled up to approximate fullness under some more fitted sleeves, but I’ll have to play around with that to see how I want it done ultimately. The pattern itself is not super regular- either it’s not clear enough to be regular in the painting, or the artist just took some license when painting it. I’ve “distilled” it down to a fairly regularly repeating motif that I’m able to use. I ended up pulling most of me elements from the lower left corner, which has some very pleasing density of pattern without being overwhelming.
I have a feeling this is going to be a good first draft facing- my gut is telling me it needs to be condensed and sized down just a little bit. But no matter what, it’ll be a good proof of concept and this project as a whole does not have a target completion date, so I’m going to take it as it comes and enjoy it.
August Goals
Garb:
Work on the facing embroidery for Juana’s camisa
Work on the garment analysis of Juana’s outfit
Classes:
Re-record my Persona Pentathlon class.
Prep my new Fall University class on commonplace books.
