October 2023: Comfort in Tradition
Not having definitive goals for this month has felt odd, to say the least.
During Morning Court at Coronation. Photo credit Thomas de Winter.
The first week of this month was spent on a mad dash to finish my sleeves for the Black Saya before Coronation. I honestly love how this outfit turned out. It was incredibly comfortable to wear all day, despite the fact that it is indeed a little large, and the sleeves did what I needed them to do. There is definitely an opportunity for taking this garment in in the future that I hope to explore. It was not supportive enough on its own- I did have to wear a bra underneath it- and that’s not something I want to encourage in my garb. However, the dress was really breathable and comfortable to wear on a day with wildly varying weather conditions.
I did also use Coronation as a time to test wear the Blue Gonete for the first time. On one hand- it was stupid cute. The silhouette did precisely what I needed it to, the sleeves draped the way I wanted, and the cut mirrored what I had hoped to achieve. On the other hand- it was definitely too tight to wear over another non-camisa garment. Particularly, the armscyes were really uncomfortable. I only wore it for a short period of time for Evening Court, but that went on for about 2+ hours, so it gave me plenty of time to think about how to fix it. I do think letting the garment out about an inch or so will make a big difference. I think I’m going to do this the lazy way and add a rectangular strip to either side seam, but that is to be confirmed.
Both projects present a great opportunity to work on a skill I do not do much of- alterations. I try really hard to make my garb work for me the first time, and am very privileged in that my size doesn’t fluctuate dramatically. All this means is that I don’t really get the opportunity to practice working on existing garments very often and I am glad for the opportunity to improve myself.
The next big thing I worked on was actually here on my website! I wanted to re-record my Nola class and was able to do so and get it pretty well set up. Then Squarespace launched the new Courses' feature right as I was planning on finding places to host this class so I had to give that a whirl. My plan is to record as many of my classes as I can (not all of them can be recorded- like the undergarments class for example, which has images in it that are not public from the Met) and I think Courses is going to be a great place to do that. The link to that new page can be found here. Having a script made this recording go much more smoothly than my classes usually do, and I think I could probably expand on the spice trade research I’ve done a little bit the next time I give this class live.
Lastly for SCA projects this month, I spent a good amount of time on the commonplace book. I’m chipping away at that still, going section by section, and it’s really coming together. I love how the book actually does look like some of the exemplars I’ve collected for my documentation. In my brain, I know that was always the goal but kind of like seeing a new tattoo for the first time after you wash it, there’s something very special in the actually seeing of the item. I’m confident that I can finish both this and the next (and final) version of the gonete by the end of the year so I can spend January and February on the vasquina and the chopines.
Evan and Kiki working on the chuppah.
On the other hand, mundanely this month has been tumultuous. I don’t generally go into my mundane life a lot on this site, or on social media in general because I think it can be incredibly toxic, but this month I think I must.
I was always going to spend this month working on the crafting for my wedding. I am making my chuppah cover myself decorated with pieces of my mother’s wedding dress. My dad and uncle built the frame and it was my sister’s original design. It’s such a family affair to begin with. And then in early October, the world I know- the one in which I exist as a Jewish woman- fell apart. The feelings of loss, anger, and helplessness are indescribable. I physically cannot put words to how I have been existing this month, in a world at large where normally beheading babies makes you a monster until it’s Jewish babies. And somehow through all of that, and the massive spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes that ALWAYS (and I mean always) comes with incidents like this one, we still are expected to go on like we’re not absolutely drowning while the world demands we answer for our grief like it’s a crime.
I think, though, that it’s in that going on that I’ve found the most comfort. I learned of the loss of a friend on Friday afternoon and on Friday evening, like every Friday evening, we lit Shabbat candles. I did it crying, but I still did it. And then Evan and I worked on our chuppah together. The comfort we found in this act of art doesn’t fix anything, really, but it did fix that moment. That might honestly be the most true beauty of Judaism in the end- we may not be able to fix it, but the feelings of family, of connection and tradition, and for Evan and I of the beginning of our upcoming marriage, was enough. The world continues to fall apart, but in this I can find solace. In this, I find not just my biological family, but the family I have gained simply by being Jewish, and even moments of comfort with the unlikely and sometimes horrifying history that brought us as a Jewish family to where we are today.
And also we put the cat in pajamas.
