Shared as an example of transformation, Christian writes:
“I had brought a small piece of this gorgeous silk in the Los Angeles fabric district some years ago. By the time I found it at the end of the day, I had only a little left in my budget, so could only afford to buy a small piece. I didn’t have a project for this, but I couldn’t not buy this beautiful fabric.
“I made a simple garment out of this piece but I was never very happy with it. Fast forward two years and I’m back in the LA Fabric District. And the same shop. And there is the same fabric. In a city of 4 million, in a metropolitan area of 14 million, commonly visited by other SCA folk and the film industry, my fabric had waited 2 years for me. I brought another piece and stashed that away for that future project.
“Last years Granada event proved the perfect event for me to finally create something with my fabric. The pomegranate, with which the fabric is embroidered, is the symbol of Granada, and red and gold were the colours we based the event decor upon. The previous garment presented some challenges for cutting the new, but i managed to make this work well for an early 16thC Portuguese gown, which was perfect for the event theme.”
EEEEC: Magdalena de Narbonne’s Viking Garb for winter
Completed in preparation for winter, Magdalena writes about the Viking garb she made for use at Yule/winter events
“An entire outfit sewn in wool (or wool-rich at the very least!) fabrics, to keep me cozy but mobile at the midwinter Yule event. These are all very simple garments, made for a typical sca style Viking-ish look rather than being an attempt at a historically accurate ensemble. The tunic is a basic long sleeved tunic with gores in the sides, and a keyhole neckline. The trousers are a very voluminous style with Eid legs cut straight and then gathered to a waistband with a drawstring, and small bands for the cuffs to help corral said volume – the legs were each cut the full width of the fabric, so the only fabric waste from this is the little crotch-seam curves, and I could fit it all in a single handful! The cloak is simply a rectangle of wool hemmed along the cut edges. And that’s that! Simple, easy, and I just add a belt and my embroidered hood (separated entry), boots and I’m good to go 🙂 “
Sometimes I don’t like to take my whole setup to a camping event. Or my usual rugs are just too unwieldy to pack for a bunkroom. To that end I purchased a light and inexpensive fabric rug. However, despite having a lovely pseudo-fleur de lys design, it was rather obnoxiously black and white. This stark contrast needed to be corrected.
I started by painting the background green (to echo my heraldry), then adding the gold details (also to match my heraldry) before reassessing the situation and adding the brown to mute the overall look (and cunningly avoid any white areas that would be a nuisance to keep clean).
The paint used was cheap acrylic, to which I added product designed to make it better suited for use on fabric. I also added a tiny drop of water to further thin it out and improve paint adhesion.
EEEEC: Joana de Bairros’ Capon with Oranges and Lemons
An entry for collaboration and degustation, with just a hint of particpation
“This recipe is from Thomas Dawson’s The Gudwife’s Jewel from 1597 and was made by Isabel Maria and Joana for Monday night dinner at Canterbury Faire. It is a particular favourite as it is fairly straightforward, cooks well as a one pot dish when camping and is delicious.
“Redaction to serve 6 adults
“Ingredients
1.2kg boned chicken thighs
4 oranges
2 lemons
3 whole cloves
1 cube chicken stock
¼ c prunes
¼ c currants
¼ c dates
1 t pepper
1 t salt
1 c white wine
1 t rose water
1 t sugar
“Method
Dice the chicken and cut your oranges and lemons into wedges
Put chicken in a pot with 1t oil and brown
Add in oranges, lemons, dried fruit and cloves and start to cook with chicken
If using Massels stock make up 2 cups of stock using one cube and add to the pot.
Reduce down stock and cook the chicken and fruit down
When it starts to reduce in liquid add in the wine and remaining spices and salt with rose water and sugar and cook down further
“When it is ready, serve on top of slices of bread. We chose to serve it with a green salad with slices of orange. “
EDITED TO ADD: “To quote the old Amberherthe website: “We do not eat to live. As far as we are concerned, eating and food is an important part of the whole medieval experience. Therefore time and attention is given to eating and food preparation.” In this way, working together to prepare communal food for the household is to participate in an age old (and oft repeated) ritual that helps maintain the bonds of friendship and family.
EEEEC: Astrid Sudeying’s Scuola and Mariegola for the Gildenwick Society of Infusers, Distillers, Brewers, Quaffers, and Other Professional Drinking Persons.
Entered in Imitation, Preparation, Participation, Exploration, Collaboration and Inspiration, this multi-faceted entry is ably described by Astrid:
“The Gildenwick Mead Society came about from the need for a group salutation after a tipsy missive was sent to one of our lovely Baronesses. A year later (at Canterbury Faire 2023) and we had started making up silly rules for our society. After a delicate nudge/inspiration from Her Excellency katherine kerr, I began exploring the possibility of using our ragtag bunch to create an informal, yet cohesive group based on the guild scuolas of Italy, around the mid 1500’s. The idea being that we would, like the various guilds that made up each scuola in period, include the mead makers, tea infusers, distillers, poisoners, alchemists or any other liquid arte that the members of Gildenwick were experimenting with. The long-suffering members of Gildenwick participated in and put up with many votes and discussions on what we did and didn’t want to be and how we would govern ourselves as a functioning scuola.
“By this time our Mistress had become Quene katherine, and so I used choice phrases from a letter to Queen Elizabeth on the subject to write her a letter of request for permission to start a scuola. My goal had originally been to have our scuola prepared for next Canterbury Faire, but the timeframe moved up so that we might be given permission for existence from “Our Quene”. She responded with a parchment decree, handwritten and sealed by both their Majesties.
“One of the key artifacts of any good Scuola is it’s Mariegola. A book within which is held all the rules, regulations, punishments, patrons, and participants of the Scuola. I decided that the book itself would be made to Imitate one from the mid 1500’s Italy, and so I consulted “The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding” to make sure I was constructing it correctly. I found rather quickly that the rag paper I could get was not useful for handwriting, only printing, so I had to compromise and use a good quality paper instead. I half sewed the book, with the extra pages that would be used in future, and then tacit collated (with cord, not parchment) the front pages, so that the book could be brought to Faire ’24 and presented for ratifying to the new Queen, while still being able to be deconstructed so I can illuminate it in future.
“I chose Rotunda style hand to learn for the writing as this was the style I could find being used within Mariegola from the time period and place especially the Mariegola della Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista. As I am new at the scribal arts, and I had what felt like a very short amount of time to get comfortable with writing and the specific hand, I am aware of many mistakes within the Mariegola, (and the original letters to the Quene) but am glad the bulk of the writing was done in time. It will have to suffice – warts and all. Eventually I will finish the formal part of the writing and illumination of the book and leave the rest of it to be filled with recipes, new members, mead tastings and miscellanea of the scuola.
“In collaboration with: Mistress Katherine Kerr, Master Bartholomew Baskin, Lady Ailith Ward, Lady Eryl the Beehyrde, Lord Emrys Grenelef, Lord Baldwin the Wanderer, Lord Zoltan di Magnifico, Lord Kevin Ost, Benet Vernon, Harold Brewster, Oberon, Louise, Rosemary, Levi and Helena of Gildenwick.”
These heraldic standards are entered in personalisation and described thus:
“For use at Crown tourney and other formal occasions … A pair of heraldic standards completed in the typical sca style for myself and my Consort to utilise as heraldic display for introduction to the Crown at autumn Crown Tourney as58. We each have the lochac populace badge by the hoist, followed by personal heraldic elements down the rest of the length we each have three charges (Thorbjorn has his golden rampant polar bear from his badge, and I have the three argent bees from my arms), with bands of text containing our personal mottoes in between the charges. These banners fit the Southron Gard ‘Barons girth’ as well.”
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.
“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)”
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.”
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.”
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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