Category: Blog Post

EEEEC: Ginevra di Serafino Visconti’s Scented Experiments

EEEEC: Ginevra di Serafino Visconti’s Scented Soap, Perfume, and Lotion

Ginevra describes her entry into the luxuriation category:

“One of my more luxurious experiences at Faire was a cool shower after a long, hot day, and then going cleanly and quietly to rest. However, I thought it would be still better if I had deliciously scented soap and care products rather than the guaranteed non-reactive stuff I had packed, so when I came home, I tried to make some – it was painful to move, and I was overtired, so these experiments are all really easy, require no special equipment, and only used things I had in the house already.”One of my more luxurious experiences at Faire was a cool shower after a long, hot day, and then going cleanly and quietly to rest. However, I thought it would be still better if I had deliciously scented soap and care products rather than the guaranteed non-reactive stuff I had packed, so when I came home, I tried to make some – it was painful to move, and I was overtired, so these experiments are all really easy, require no special equipment, and only used things I had in the house already.

Perfume

“I love freshening up with rosewater, and when I found this recipe, I thought it would be an interesting variant because I also like the smell of cloves. https://segretipavone.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/two-rosewater-perfumes-1559/. I used rosewater from the Middle Eastern shop on Colombo St rather than making my own because I already had it, and while making rosewater is fairly easy, taking the lid off a bottle already in the house is even easier. I used cloves from the supermarket.

“Using an empty glass jar with a lid I soaked about 20 cloves in about 1/2 a bottle of rosewater and left the sealed jar near a window to soak up the sun for a couple of days to get the 25 hours of sunlight recommended. At the end of this time, I noticed that the colour had changed to a soft yellow, and that I was very happy with the resulting scent.

“Then I poured some of the mix into a small bottle from the craft store to be used to freshen up, and poured the rest into a pyrex jug for part 2…”

Soap

“For an earlier challenge, I tried a recipe from 1559 at https://segretipavone.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/sapone-con-rosa-or-soap-with-roses-circa-1555/ which was easy enough to follow, and which had mostly worked well for me, but.. I wanted something new if I was going to enter it in this challenge, and I thought trying the perfume from part 1 instead of plain rosewater would be interesting. I decided to leave out the rose petals, because in my previous experiment the gorgeous ribena-red colour I had gained from the turned to a golden beige brown as soon as they came into contact with the soap, and I still haven’t found out why. In addition to this I had no rose petals in my house, and wanted to start the experiment.

“I had some pre-grated Castile soap among my craft supplies, which I chose to use in place of cutting soap into chunks as the recipe says to, as it was easier on my wrists and the result would be fairly similar. Although soap type is not mentioned in the original recipe, I thought Castile soap would be good for this experiment, because it was considered a luxury soap for rich humans at the time, and the recipe is mostly unchanged today. I poured some of the grated soap into the pyrex jug mentioned above, and left and stirred them round a few times before leaving them to soak for an hour or so. Because the rose scent had faded quickly in the last experiment, I further deviated from the instructions and added some rose oil designed for adding to soaps at this stage.

“After that, it was a simple matter of scooping out approximately equal amounts, moulding them into balls (if you use wet hands, the soap will not stick to you), and putting them on a plate, again in the sun, to dry out a little.

“The soap does not lather very much, or smell very strongly, but I’m still happy with the experiment, and would do it again.

Hand lotion

“In the same blog as before I found another recipe (https://segretipavone.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/almond-hand-cream-from-the-english-housewife-1615/) that though slightly later than the others promised good results, was simple enough to be plausibly used earlier – and would work nicely with the other experiments scentwise.

“I chose to use commercial almond oil because I had some in my fridge, and I did not have almonds, or the wrists to extract oil from them even if I had some. I put 5 cloves and some almond oil in a small clear glass bottle with a cork lid, and left them on the windowsill for a week.

“At the end of the experiment the oil smells slightly of cloves, works really well, and absorbs quickly. (Cloves have not yet been removed from oil in the photo)”

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EEEEC: Christian Baier’s Lucky Dress

EEEEC: Christian Baier’s Lucky Dress

A submission for the categories of personification and transformation. In Christian’s words:

“I had a small amount of black velvet left over from my M&M dress, and two different pieces of trim in stash that I had been gifted, and some little pearls… so the logical thing to do was transform the scraps and horde items into a gown. “I had a small amount of black velvet left over from my M&M dress, and two different pieces of trim in stash that I had been gifted, and some little pearls… so the logical thing to do was transform the scraps and horde items into a gown.

“The trim that is used for the wide guides on the bodice bore some resemblance to the 1539 portrait of Felicitas Von Wallbrunn by Hans Abel the Younger (below), so it seemed the ideal project.”

Portrait of Felicitas von Wallbrunn via wikimedia
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EEEEC: Astrid Sudreying’s Mini Mask-Making Workshop

EEEEC: Astrid Sudreying’s Mini-Mask-Making Workshop

A paper mache mini mask and it’s negative

Entered under education. Astrid says:

“For Canterbury Faire this year, I wanted to try to teach mask making again. Being that full sized masks take too long, I decided to teach the skills making mini masks, hoping to get through the basic skills within the week.

“The classes were set out in two sessions, that were two hours each. My hope was for the classes to follow the outlines of:

First class:

  • short history of the venetian mask & paper mache
  • sculpting in clay
  • making a negative mould in plaster.

Second class:

  • paper macheing the mask
  • painting techniques

“The first class went well and we finished with a little time to spare. The second class, did not go quite according to plan however. We only managed to finish our paper mache, and everyone agreed to finish a bit early as the heat was too much for us to continue. I gave a very quick painting explanation to those left before we all dispersed for cooler environs,”The first class went well and we finished with a little time to spare. The second class, did not go quite according to plan however. We only managed to finish our paper mache, and everyone agreed to finish a bit early as the heat was too much for us to continue. I gave a very quick painting explanation to those left before we all dispersed for cooler environs,

“Although I didn’t get to deliver all the information I was hoping to, I was happy with the turnout for both classes, and impressed with the perseverance of the second day class.”

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EEEEC: Frock Doctors’ Garb Class

EEEEC: Frock Doctors’

Falling under education and collaboration.

At Golden Flight (last November) the ladies of Hous Amberherthe (Christian, Isabel Maria, and Joana) collaborated as the “Frock Doctors” to teach a class on how to go about selecting clothing and accessories for your persona and interests.

Meistern Christian directed the enthusiastic discussion to cover everything from headwear to footwear, how to stay warm, how to carry things, layers to consider and more.

On top of sharing their experiences and showing a range of garments and accessories they had made for various periods and locations, they each brought along a selection of their favourite books relevant to the subject.

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EEEEC: Joana de Bairros’ Swabian Ensemble

EEEEC: Joana de Bairros’ Outfit in the Style of 1480-90s Swabia

Entry for Inspiration:

I was inspired by Meisterin Christian’s beautiful red and gold Swabian dress she made for Canterbury Faire 2023.  I particularly loved the elegance of this style and it looked cool and comfortable to wear.  I did some further research on Swabain dress from this period and fell particularly in love with this image: 5,1 The Babenberger Genealogie This panel painting, dated 1489-1492s,.jpg

I chose to use brocade rather than the velvet that the inspiration image seems to be made from.  There are however a number of Swabian dresses from a similar period, as well as some on the same panel as the inspiration image, made from brocade so it did not feel incongruous. I had lovely dark pink brocade in my stash which I thought would be perfect for this project.  As we cannot see the front of the bodice I chose to make it front lacing like Meisterin Christian’s as I felt that would work best for my shape and comfort.  The figure to the left of my inspiration image had the lacing across the bodice opening that I wanted to use so I went with that along with some hook and eyes at the bottom of the bodice for closure.

While I loved the pearled neckline of the inspiratiion dress I felt that I did not have the time for this.  I instead had found a beautiful gold and black trim on a trip to London and used that to trim the neckline.  I pearled the trim slightly to allude to the pearls on the inspiration image.  I found some narrow gimp trim in gold and the same pink of the fabric and used this to trim the sleeves like the inspiration image.

I chose to do slightly different ties on the sleeves as I wanted the dress to be easy to get in to and felt that having individual ties would help with this. I used velvet ribbon as ties as it stays tied better than satin ribbon.  I had some gold aglets in my stash I used to finish off the ties.  Another Babenburg dress had the three lacing rings with cross-lacing at the wrist so I chose to incorporate design into mine.  

I made a chemise with a 3/4 sleeve to go with the dress and a gefrens made from gold fringe to go with the outfit.

I absolutely love this style and feel it works well for my body shape. It is also far more comfortable than any fancy garb I have made in the past. I have plans to make several more! 

 

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EEEEC: Ginevra di Serafino Visconti’s Educational Efforts

EEEEC: Ginevra di Serafino Visconti’s Articles and Classes

Entered into the challenge in the category of education.

I have written articles for FTT on ‘How to make a Roman tunica‘, ‘Handsewing‘ (previously entered), ‘Media recommendations’ and taught classes at Gildenwick collegium on various subjects, including goldwork and black work, (which made it to the timetable, and thus are memorable) a class on knitting (same event), a class on Candlemaking at Fiery Knights and.. assorted other subjects, including handsewing and drawn thread work at Fibre guild.

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EEEEC: Christian Baier’s Apple & Raisin Pies

EEEEC: Chrstian Baier’s Apple and Raisin Pies

Entered under degustation and personification: apple and raisin pies for Fiery Knights.

Snacks for events are always a good idea.  I looked through my German cookbooks and settled first on making some cherry pies.  And then I decided the cherry filling / garb stain potential was a little too high at an outdoor event, and I had some apples that were at the ready for pie-making stage.

To make them a little more interesting, I chose a recipe that included apples, raisins, and spices.  I made these for a tourney that was then sadly rained out, so decided to experiment with freezing these for a later event.  If they defrosted and remained whole, tasty and crispy without any further heating, I could stash away a supply of snack pies in the freezer for future events when I had time for baking, without adding extra stress to event preparation.  

They were perfect in texture and were delicious.  

I later realised I’d made the same pies for a previous challenge, which is not surprising given they are made using staple pantry items: PGC A&S Challenge

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EEEEC: Ginevra di Serafino Visconti’s Food

EEEEC: Ginevra di Serafino Visconti’s Food

Entered under degustation (and possibly also collaboration), Ginevra describes her entries:

“I made lunch at Goldenflight (with others, but so maybe this is Collaboration as well- though I did the testing myself) We had – Norse handpies (Recipie from:  http://www.godecookery.com/friends/frec129.html) bread rolls and butter, Castlevero’s green salad (-onions, because of allergies), carrot sticks, and oranges sprinkled with rosewater.  Sadly, I did not take photos at the event, so this entry looks very boring.

“For Day of Dance I made 3 dishes 2 of which can be found in La Singolare dottrina di M. Domenico Romoli.(though I personally found the recipes in ‘A Spring Feast’ by Shannon Wanty).  The dishes were Pollastri al Catelana (below) and Zuccarini (above).  I had made neither of these before, and was mostly happy with how they turned out, but more practice was required to make the zuccarini regularly shaped.

“I also made Shrewsbury cakes, (http://www.godecookery.com/alabama/alabam01.html#shrews) which I haven’t made since I moved to this house, but recalled liking.”

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EEEEC: Emrys Grenelef’s Knife Sheath

EEEEC: Emrys Grenelef’s Knife Sheath

This is an entry for exploration and luxuriation.

I have had a knife sheath made from leather and had been meaning to fit some brass embellishments to it.

While working on another project, I came across a sheet of brass and decided that this would be suitable.

I got a picture of some viking knife sheaths from my wife and used this as a guide.

The brass was very tarnished so I buffed it before use.

I made some templates from paper and once satisfied I made the brass fittings.

I used a brass wire for the pins to hold the fittings on the leather sheath.

I gained some insight into working the brass and the next knife sheath that I have waiting shall look even better.

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EEEEC: Ailith Ward’s Collapsible Message Board

EEEEC: Ailith Ward’s Canterbury Faire Message Board

Entered in the category of inspiration.

This is a message board for our encampment I’ve been working on since CF23, inspired by the one at the bottom of the stairs. I still have some improvements to make, but I’m very pleased that it was ready to be used this CF.

This is made mostly out of materials saved from the skips at my husband and my work places, and has been pegged together, rather than screwed or nailed, allowing it to partially flat pack for easier transport.

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