Bestriary

Elsa held an excellent class at our shire meeting today about Bestiaries and animals from a medieval perspective. Did you know that to escape wolfs all you have to do is strip naked and bang two stones together… Luckily we don’t have many wolfs in this part of Sweden.

Anyway, this got me thinking about how great it would be to make a bestiary. Calligraphy, illuminate and the bind it together in a book. To bad I don’t do either calligraphy or illuminations. Or maybe I just don’t need another project…

Another thing that happened at the meeting was that we started to take a bit about weaving. Eva brought her small loom for weaving ribbons and we talked a bit about having a tablet weaving workshop. It really inspired me to find my piece of tablet weaving that I abandoned months ago, maybe I’ll give it another go.

Remote fitting

I really like the design of the fitted dress from the late 14th century. It’s a fitted self supportive dress that gives just the right silhouette. The technique is a lot about draping and although I’ve made a few for some of the women in the shire I’ve always had a bit of a struggle to make them for myself.

Now, thanks to the wonderful Mistress Mathilde (www.mathildegirlgenius.com) I’m getting a pattern just for me. She’s working on perfecting the art of fitting by measurements only. I’m in total ave of her ability and I’m really looking forward to see how the pattern works. Lia (http://liadethornegge.livejournal.com/) has already received her pattern and the mock-up looks great!

This is really inspiring me to get started on my projects again – a smocked apron is number one on that list!

Cristina and Biorn at Double Wars 2006

I survived Civil War

Civil War is over for this year. It was a nonstop weekend and it’s nice to be able to do regular stuff without having a nagging thought about the event and things to do all the time.

Despite that our original event steward dropped out in the last minute (due to mundane stress and other things) the weekend went really well. I was in the kitchen the whole weekend but somehow I did find the time to spend a little time with friends and just relax (somewhat…). Lunch and feast went well, although we had a lot of leftovers. It’s seems like such a waste since most of it went in the trash, but at least it’s better than people having to go hungry. More about the food in another post.

A few reflections that I need to keep in mind for next year:

• for the last 5 years I’ve been either the event steward (1 time) or head cook (4 times) + we did Crowntorney last year and I shared head cook responsibilities with Fionnghuala. That means that I definitely need to take a break next year. Being in the kitchen is fun, I just don’t need the stress that comes with being head cook next year.
• moving the serving table outside of the kitchen worked like a charm. I made this huge drape to cover up the kitchen and serving table, might want to think about decorating it for next year.
• a snack for the serving staff was a great idé! No more cranky servers!

On a final note I got to give the Royal Artisan regalia to the queen since I won’t be able to make it to Kingdom University in November. I haven’t had any time to focus on the Royal Artisan stuff due to mundane stuff, which I really regret. At the same time it’s nice to give it to someone else and hope they will do a better job!

Biorn took a lot of pictures at Civil War, but we haven’t had the time to even start looking at them. Made later this weekend. 

/Cristina