My goals for November are:

• Complete the commonplace book sheet, the translations, and begin setting up the book itself.

• Get the gonete mostly constructed.

• Begin research and shopping for the chopines and quiver.

• Finally finish my Persona Challenge belt.

• Research of the Month: The Rise of Note-Taking in Early Modern Europe by Ann Blair, 2010.

Novembers are exhausting but productive.

Sewing day for Crown Tournament was exactly what I needed. It gave me A&S time, feedback, and a time to find some joy. I did the first test run of my new Pentathlon recipe and it turned out stupendously. I know it’s a bit of a potshot from flavor perspectives (primary ingredients are cheese, duck fat, bread, and garlic) but man this recipe is a winner. It’s medieval comfort food, I am 100% convinced of it. I have some notes for proceeding, but I think this is going to be the right fit for Pentathlon. Heating it up will be interesting but also heavily dependent on where KASF ends up.

I worked on my gonete as well and focused on fit initially. The spreadsheet is completed and I was able to get the lining muslin knocked out early in the month. The pink wool I chose for it is absolutely gorgeous. It’s plush and squishy and lovely to work with. I think I’m really going to love this garment. I’ve powered through most of the actual construction this month, which is very reassuring. I’m keeping up with my time sheet as well, and I’m thinking I’ll add that to my documentation as an appendix and part of my process documentation. I did do some digging and consideration for how I’m going to close it. It’s fairly fitted, in an attempt to approximate the smooth looks of the example images but my worry with using hooks and eyes is that that creates gapping. I’m going to sew in lacing rings which will lace it closed and take the actual tension of closing the garment, and then add hooks and eyes to make the front closure smooth. One thing I wish I had done differently so far is weighing down the hem. Making it a) a little longer than I did and b) added some padding to it, would help it hold its shape better.

I had an attack of the sleevils (tiny evil spirits that inhabit sleeves and make them awful to sew) and despite multiple measurements, the first set I cut were too short. Alas, I had to recut them. But! The original set I cut turned out to be the exact correct size to cut out a set of sewn mittens. Considering I’m now going to be outdoors more than usual during February, warm wool mittens seemed to be the right call. They look a tiny bit like lobster claws, but I’m not too fussed. I did them fairly simply by just sewing the front and back sides together, encasing the bottom in some fabric, and then adding some trim for just a little simple bling.

The plus side is that even with recutting the gonete sleeves, I have a good amount of the pink fabric left over, and I think I’m going to make a set of longer sleeves out of it. I don’t really have any good warm sleeves. The tan ones work but I don’t love the design choices I made with them. This pink fabric will allow for even more warmth. One thing I have noticed is that I don’t care for the original attachment system I put on the Tan Saya. I attached points to both the saya and the sleeves, but they’re not super secure. I think I’m going to pull them off and add eyelets to both to thread points through instead. Pinning works ok with the lighter weight set I have from the striped green fabric but I don’t think would be as effective for the pink wool.

The commonplace book work this month was very focused around pens and writing implements. Over the last year or so, I’ve amassed a small collection. I have two modern pens (a fine nib and a fude nib), a pheasant quill with a modern metal nib glued onto it, and a goose feather quill. Finding the correct implement for the job has proven challenging. The fude nib is the easiest to approximate what I want to accomplish with this. The goose feather quill is the most accurate, but is also the most challenging to write with. It needed some adjustments to the shape of the tip before I could use it and I’m going in fairly blind on those. I’ve been working on samples with all of those implements this month to try to choose one before Evan and I go to Michigan for Christmas. Thankfully, all four work beautifully with the walnut ink I found. I may get myself a reed pen too, just to compare with the others, as I know that reed pens were available due to Islamic influences in Spain.

For the chopines and quiver, most of my research this month was collecting articles to review more in-depth later. I have a general idea of how I want to approach making both of these items, but I’m still struggling with some of the materials information. My quiver is largely informed by paintings instead of extant examples and that does post a challenge for determining leather weight and sewing techniques. The chopines, however, should be fairly reasonable once I acquire the materials. I’m still thinking about getting a leather stamp to decorate them with.

However, with everything going on both from a crafting perspective and in my mundane life (we’ve had some big personal news happen both positive and negative and a bunch of work stuff), I did not read that note-taking paper. I just did not have the spoons for it. I do have some travel to do in December for the holidays though, so I’m planning on printing it and bringing it with me then.

And now for a completely different topic. I have an insane amount of respect for those who make scrolls. It’s not a talent of mine, but I’m down to try anything new at least once. When Hakon’s Kraken was put on the calendar for Holiday Fair, Kolfinna knocked the scroll out of the park with Ishmael who wrote the words. It’s based on Hakon’s fighting helmet that he made himself and it’s just breath taking. The scroll itself is written in runes on metal and I wanted Hakon to have the English to go with it so I volunteered to give it a whirl. I’ve got more on that in a post on the subject here, but it was a new experience that definitely was worth the try and the cursing at the imperial system.

As I said last month, I ordered a new set of feast gear to go with my new feast gear box. It arrived this month and I love it. It’s from Rennag Teine’s new Spanish pattern line. Their exemplars for this shield pattern come from the 14th Century but I love how versatile it is in its simplicity. The set itself has a small plate that I ordered small on purpose because I was having trouble getting plates to fit into this box, a beaker, and a bowl. The real surprise for me here was the beaker. I got it (vs an S-sided mug) because of accuracy, but was not expecting to like how it felt to hold. I am incredibly pleasantly surprised at how much I love it and definitely need to consider getting another. I have dreams of getting some other pieces in the Monogram design as well and there are a couple of their Italian designs (namely the Faenza Lattice in green) that I am also very in love with. I do have to say, it feels really nice to see some progress happen on making my kit fit my persona better. I love having both the new knife and pricker (from Boots by Bohemond, in Wood) to go with it as well. I’m very excited to round the set out with a correct spoon sometime soon as well. My napkins are all a little hodgepodge and the silver cups are very obviously modern but I don’t mind those as much for now.

My kit had a few other new additions this month! The one I’m most excited about is an X-chair. I’ve wanted a period chair for absolutely ages but they are pricey and can be hard to find. Bea was cleaning out her storage locker and happened to have one she no longer used, and so I decided to buy it from her. I am thrilled with it. I love how it looks and feels to sit in. It needs some TLC in just a couple of places and I may even be brave enough to try painting my device on it some day. It does need a pillow for the seat. I have a couple, but I want to make one that doesn’t look obviously like it’s made of plastic fabric. Kiki also likes the chair and is pleased to have a throne worthy of her station finally. The other piece I need to get for this chair is a velcro strap to keep it from falling open too easily. In prep for Holiday Faire, I pulled out this and the little side tables to see how they’d all go together and it worked lovely. I may even regularly use the carpet I got for the tables as a cover for the chair itself.

The next addition happened at Holiday Fair. I like how my pretty green purse looks but it is deeply impractical. It’s bigger than it should be, to fit my mundane needs, and it hangs low off my belt to approximate paintings from period. These two issues, however, turn into one problem: it twists and spins and gets incredibly in my way. I had enough of it at Holiday Fair and purchased a kidney pouch that day. It’s not too fancy, but it fits my phone, keys, and wallet very successfully. The kidney pouch is historical for my time periods of interest (13th through 16th centuries) and is seen in Spain but was an item worn basically exclusively by men, not women, who in Spain would have work ring purses instead. I would love to get one someday but for now, this will very adequately suit my needs. I do want to find a smaller wallet if I can though.

In doing some reorganization of my SCA closet that prompted some re-reading of old projects I realized something that now seems glaringly obvious, but I’m also not 100% sure would have made my life any easier: the annoyingly pretty jeweled headband for the Green Saya outfit goes UNDER the just plain annoying veil. The next dumb realization I have about this is about the black ribbon that seems to appear out of nowhere on the front. I think it may be a variation on a tiraz or fillet band and THAT’s where the tension holding everything together might be coming from. Otherwise, all of this is holding on with spite and good posture and honestly, that is not viable from an actual use standpoint. I decided to test out the theory of the headband at the very least. I have some black wool that I was also able to cut a wide strip out of that works as my band. I wanted to use wool for a specific reason: using different fibers (the linen under the wool and the silk over it) allows for better grip, as the different friction factors provide more stability. I have added these notes to my future revisiting of this project, and hopefully will have a better time next time.

My December goals are:

• Start writing the documentation for the almodrote.

• Finish construction of the gonete.

• Begin compiling resources and materials for the chopines and quiver.

• Sew Evan a pair of SCA pants. If I have enough extra fabric, he’ll also get a sleeveless doublet.

• Research of the Month: The Rise of Note-Taking in Early Modern Europe by Ann Blair, 2010.