May 2024: The Wandering Wayward Apprentice
May Goals
Finish the decorative touches on the 14th Century Saya.
Finish the 14th Century Saya’s camisa.
Stretch goal: Start my next dress project, the Ocean Saya.
Most of this month was spent prepping for, going on, and reentering real life after my honeymoon. I’m planning on putting some galleries up for The Oak, but I’ve got some favorite sneak peek pictures below.
My original plan was to take the camisa for the 14th C saya traveling with me as we went on our honeymoon for two weeks and ultimately, I decided that wasn’t going to work. So instead, I brought a LOT of research for travel days. While most of these are not directly related to my upcoming project work, they are related to a class I want to eventually teach on Jews, conversos, and Judaism in Spain in my period so I’m trying to do some good, wide-ranging research.
Jews, Food, and Spain: I started reading this a while back and never got around to finishing it and I’m incredibly happy I did. Seeing some of the patterns laid out in front of me showed me something incredibly interesting about my current Nola explorations- that somehow, with no additional knowledge but what I like to eat, I have managed to pick foods from Nola that are largely tie-able to Jewish food practices on the Iberian peninsula. The book itself was fascinating and I will be incorporating it into my Nola class before Pennsic for sure. It’s inspired a mini-data project to do that, which will be to do a quick ingredient survey in Nola to catalog how many recipes include these ingredients and cooking techniques.
Profile of the Mercantile Oligarchy in the Mid-Range Jewish Communities in the Kingdom of Aragon: The Avincacez Family from Barbastro (Huesca) in the 14th and 15th Centuries: Wow, that’s a doozy of a title. This was a nice quick read but it was interesting to see how this paper approached demographic information and presented interesting facts about Jewish society as a whole through the profile of a few members of a prominent Jewish family.
Social Networks in a Castilian Jewish Aljama and the Court Jews in the 15th Century: A Preliminary Survey (Mardi4 1140-1475): This paper was a bit convoluted to keep track of, but it paints a vivid pictures that are not dissimilar to Jewish life today of deeply interconnected communities that both work and depend on each other to survive, grow, and flourish.
When we got home, reentry into sewing took me about a week or so to really have the energy for. I did meet the goals I’d set for May, which was great. All the decorating work got done and the 14th Century saya was officially wrapped up. In order to keep on schedule, I started the camisa that same day and did all the construction seams on my sewing machine. I’m glad I did though. I was able to get both aspects of these outfits completed before the end of the month, which means I am one solid step closer to being as prepared as I want to for Pennsic! I’m really pleased with how this outfit turned out. I did do a blog post on it and that can be found here.
While the camisa for the 14th Century saya was hanging, I got started on the fabric prep for my next saya. That project is getting a little bit of a re-vamp. One of my souvenirs to myself from our trip was a stop at a fabric store (naturally). I couldn’t justify the suitcase room to bring fabric home, but I did come home with two gorgeous trims. One of these trims (the gold) is destined now for the overdress for the 14th Century outfit, but the other is now destined to be part of the green saya that I’ve so far been calling the Ocean Saya. It looks so gorgeous with the rich green I chose and I can’t wait to see them together. I may still use the blue linen as originally intended to protect the trim. I love the pattern on both of them and I think they’ll make really pretty additions to my SCA garb.
Because of how the camisa had to be cut, I ended up with a bunch of scrap that could be used for smaller projects. I managed to get the lining for the Ocean Saya out of it and I cut myself the bases for a new cofia and a handkerchief or two that I hope to bring places to embroider while at events or traveling. I love a good tiny travel project and I haven’t had one prepped since I finished mine at Bloodbath so I’m hoping these will tide me over for a while!
June Goals
Research:
The Measure of Woman: This one is definitely a departure from my norm. It’s major topic is the experience of women in the legal system of the Crown of Aragon. I had brought this on my trip but decided not to start it because I wanted to take notes as I go through it so it’ll be June’s reading.
Classes:
Completing the Jewish food trends data project for updating the Nola class.
Re-record my Persona Pentathlon class
Record and post my persona development class (Summer University)
Garb:
Finish (?, this is probably a stretch goal) the Ocean Saya.
