Wedding Favor

My husband and I recently celebrated a combined wedding reception on the East Coast with my Father-in-Law and his new bride.  Joe asked me to design a coffee mug with our names and wedding dates to be given out as wedding favors.

At first I was hesitant, because I thought it would be silly to do hand calligraphy on something that could be done by computer much more quickly and uniformly.  Then Justin explained that I had creative license to design something between the names.  Interest piqued. 

I went with a Gothic Textura Quadrata hand with some cadel flourishes.  I was sorely tempted to doctor up the results in photoshop, as numbers are a particular weakness of mine, but I let them fly with all their glorious imperfections.  I then designed a fleur de lis within lined flourishes, and an infinity symbol featuring the word "Love."  The mugs turned out quite nice.

We're all sweaty after several hours of dancing (with crazy party favors!)

Laughing through the "posed" picture

Super sweet picture of my parents (notice the wedding favors on the table behind them!)

General Update

I try not to post too much here that is overly personal, mainly because that's what other pages are for.  You're here for the arts and junk, am I right?  I'm breaking that general rule now, but this is slightly related, so forgive me.

I was slated to finish the Kirk tunic this week, in time for Field of the Clothe of Gold.  I worked on it Saturday and felt confident that with Sunday to work on it, and Tuesday to finish it (being a local State holiday), I'd be set to finish both the tunic and make a scroll.  It was not to be.

Sunday morning we ran errands and when I went to the basement at about 2:00 pm to get working, I discovered that the entire basement was flooded.  The carpets in both Sven's office (from which he works daily - a critical part of our livelihood), and my studio were saturated.  There was standing water in the storage closet and at the foot of the stairs, and some water/wetness pretty much everywhere else.

Sunday was therefore spent tracking down the landlords, and disconnecting/moving all electronics in addition to starting the investigation of where on earth the water came from.   The landlords left our home with no answer after looking at all pipes, indoor and out, running sinks,  etc., as well as inspecting ceilings and walls.  They had no answers. Monday was spent emptying the carpeted rooms of everything (no easy task, I assure you), so a carpet guy could come suck up water and start some fans to dry them out.  He couldn't find any answers either.  Add a professional plumber to the list of people who checked everything out to determine a cause. 

The carpets are now dry and tacked back down.  This is a mighty big blessing, as the smell of wet carpet pads and added humidity in the house were making life miserable.  The baseboards and paint job in my studio are in poor shape.  I'd care much more if it were my own home, but as it is, we're likely only to be here a few more months.

It's time to start moving things back in, but must do so in a careful manner, as the cause was never determined, and I worry it will happen again.  I did have some patterns ruined from the mess, but nothing critical or heart-wrenching.  I did have a moment of panic about my Moda a Firenze book though.  Luckily it was sitting on top of some cardboard which soaked up water before getting to the book. 

So anyway, have you ever had disaster strike your "creative zone?"  How did you cope?

The Kirk

A few months ago, Sven asked me to make him a Norse tunic inspired by Captain Kirk's gold uniform.  While not necessarily period, I'm making certain concessions because this is what my husband wants, it's fun and silly, and hopefully a few people will "get it," and it will make them smile.  In searching the wonderful web for images, I found two distinctly different uniforms.

The difference here is the gold bands around the wrists (congratulations, Captain Obvious).  Sven picked out a braided gold trim, and asked that we go with two bands instead of trying to do three as the top version has.  I'm glad for many reasons, not the least of which is that middle band appears to be broken/woven into the fabric or something.  Hooray for the easy way out!

The tunic is coming along nicely.  I am felling my seams by machine instead of by hand in order to finish this in time for him to wear to an event on July 28th (which I also have to finish a scroll by, on top of some other artistic endeavors with deadlines).  I am hand sewing and felling the underarm gussets, however.  This is because every time I try to do those by machine I bugger them up.

I also hand finished the neck facing.  Here's some poorly photographed evidence.  More photos will come after it's all finished.

Have you ever used modern things as inspiration for your historical dress?  If so, I'd love to hear about it!

Bookmarks

My husband is a scholar, and as such goes through quite a few bookmarks.  He likes to leave them in various books to reference later.  His favorite bookmarks are these woven rug bookmarks (also commonly found at Barnes and Noble and other local bookstores).

He likes the soft ones not just because they're beautiful, but they also never cause damage to the books from being too thick or having sharp edges.  He tends to go through a lot of them, however, and it can get expensive.

I got the idea in my head that I could use pieces of leftover trim that are too short to do anything with to make him some soft bookmarks.

It worked quite well.  I cut bookmark length pieces of scrap trim that I was hanging on to for some unknown reason (honestly, 18" of trim isn't enough to do much with!).  I then sealed the edges with a few drops of Dritz fray check.  This was especially important for the woven trim on top.  That one is a much more complicated weave and is a thicker trim.  Once the fray check dried, I had several nice, soft bookmarks for him, and felt accomplished to have found a use for that useless trim.

I thought I'd share this here because costumers and scribal artists tend to have a reference library, and this is much prettier than using torn pieces of paper to mark your pages; we're all about spreading the pretty!

In retrospect I should probably have pressed the trim first (they were wrapped around cardboard squares for storage), so now they like to curl a bit, but this isn't a problem when pressed inside a book, and you can learn from my mistake.  You're welcome.

Baronial Charter

Monday I went to a scribal scribble night at HE Bianca's home to help give pointers on calligraphy.  I was thrilled when Bianca pulled this out of her scroll collection.  It is the Baronial Charter that Bethany and I collaborated on back when Gryphon's Lair made the jump from Shire to Barony in 2005.  I'm amused that Thorvald and Bianca have still yet to sign it.

Calligraphy by me, Illumination by Bethany of Windermere.  Sorry for the poor quality picture - I took a photo with my sad phone.  We're hoping to take a nice high quality scan so we can share this piece of history on the Baronial website.

Find where Titivillus slapped me.  It's a fun game!

Pelican Promissory

Four days prior to Uprising War, I received a phone call asking me to do a peerage scroll for someone I've always admired.  Gwynnyth verch Morgan was my Seneschal during my exchequer years, and we've gone through quite a bit together.  Of course I was delighted, but knew the time frame was impossible, particularly since I hadn't finished Jane's Golden Maple Leaf quite yet.

Master Azir felt confident that it would mean the most coming from me, and insisted that I be the one to do the scroll despite the time frame problems.  I agreed to do a promissory note, and then to do a fully illuminated piece later.

Due to the rush I was in, I'm sad to say this is far from my best calligraphy.  It's done on a half sheet of pergamenata with Higgins Eternal ink.  Also, even though I treated the page with pounce prior to inking, there were quite a few places the ink refused to lay down.  I'm going to have to be more cautious about laying my arm on the page when wearing short sleeves.  I was wearing gloves, but forgot to put down a paper towel like I usually do.

I'm excited about doing her full manuscript page as she is as crazy about dragonflies as I am, so I can litter the piece with bugs.  This probably means I'll do a Flemish style page... We shall see!

Would you be interested in following said scroll in a project diary of sorts, seeing progress shots and the like?

Golden Maple Leaf

For those not Artemisian (or even not players in the SCA), The Order of the Golden Maple Leaf is an award given to those who have shown prowess in the arts and sciences of pre-17th Century. It bears an Award of Arms, if the recipient doesn't already carry one, and is held dear to my heart.

I have been watching Jane Fox grow as an artist since I met her a few short years ago, sporting an amazing Elizabethan made of delicious red silk damask.  She eagerly dove into the world of 16th Century costuming to great effect.  After she won the Novice seamstress category in the Artemisian Costuming Challenge, I knew their Majesties would surely see what I did and I submitted a letter of recommendation for her to receive admittance into the Order of the Golden Maple Leaf, and offered to do the scroll should they see fit to do so.

Clearly they are both wise and gracious.  This piece is done with gouache on pergamenata, based on the Hours of Bonaparte Ghislieri, Use of Rome c. 1500ish below:

I chose this piece because of the bright red which reminded me of that silk gown, and because of the jewels and pearls, and what appear to be auches which are often used to decorate late period dress.

I had to tape the bugger down to my art stand because the perg kept curling (anyone have tips on this annoyance?), but I use architects tape, which does not damage the paper and can be easily pealed off.  I do wish I'd had a little more time to fuss with this as I'd have liked to shade down the gold even more, but alas deadlines cannot be avoided.

Doing this piece also reminded me how much fun pearls are to paint.

Those who do not Craft, Shop.

Quest has come and gone, and was a most excellently fun event, despite the seriously craptastic weather.  Between wind and torrential rain, we were cold and wet all weekend.  But we had awesome company, great conversation, and a fire pit to ward off the chills a bit.

My goal was to get a photograph of Sven in his red and black tunic that I made last year (but yet to have a picture of), but alas it was not meant to happen.

I am partly done with one scroll that has been in my queue since April (shame).  It is to be given out at Uprising, so this weekend is slated to do a lot of painting.  Pictures will follow after it has been awarded.  This is my first experience working on pergamenata, and it has been interesting.  A full review to follow later.

I am super excited to share with you my latest shopping haul.

I have been massively in love with early Tudor styles for years, so The Queen's Servants was a must-have.  I expect it will take me quite some time to actually make something from it, but now I have the book in order to do so.

I'm so stoked about scoring a copy of Old Italian Patterns for Linen Embroidery.  This is a rare piece.  I struggle calling it a book since really it's a book shaped folder full of loose-leaf patterns that are tied into place. with this really cool bound envelope dealio.  Really, I should have taken photos of the inside...

I drooled upon Noelle's copy (and even made copies of a few of my favorite patterns, but they were destroyed in the craft studio flood a year and a half ago (the photocopies, not Noelle's original - I'd just die!).  It's a difficult "book" to find, and when you can find it, it's usually quite expensive.  That was my experience, anyway.  After a year or so of looking (and only finding it in the $100 + range), I found one for $30.  It took about 0.35 seconds to click BUY.  I believe there are a few more copies out there on Amazon if anyone's interested.

My Weakness

My weakness?  A fabric sale.  Admit it, costumers, fabric sales are wallet-slimming fiends! 

Fabrics-Store.com had a sale on their medium weight linen last week, so I demanded that Sven pick out a few colors for tunics.  He picked out the royal purple and autumn gold.  I'm told the autumn gold is for a "Kirk" inspired tunic *snerk*.  I picked up some black and white for the stash  That stuff is always handy to have around.

The darks are in the wash now, for pre-shrinkage.  I still hope to have a new undershirt done for Sven for Quest, but I haven't even started it and it's two weeks away.  Where has my time run away to?

I have sadly gotten in the very bad habit of sitting in front of the TV after work, and it is draining all my time away.  We're tempted to cancel our Netflix account to curb our potato-ing.  Tonight we have guests coming over, so I may not get started yet again.  But tomorrow, I have no excuse!  This weekend will be full of shenanigans at the Utah Renfest and other social obligations.  

In other, completely unrelated news, I have been playing with different braids/braiding techniques lately.  The hair is back down to my waist again, and it's been a ton of fun to play around.  Today's adventure is two dutch braids that are wound around each other to make a braided spiral in the back.  Excuse the poor photo - it's surprisingly difficult to take a picture of the back of your own head with a smart phone.  Also, it's nearing the end of a sort of crazy day, so I have loose wild hairs.

No Progress - Plenty of Plans!

With camping season upon me, my crafting priorities need to shift.  I did not complete some of my goals, but c'est la vie.  These items will remain "In the queue" and will eventually happen.

I have two scribal projects in the works, one with no real deadline, the other with a loose one.  More info on that as I have progress to share and/or they are complete and presented to their new owners.

With Quest for Atlantis around the corner, I need to make Sven a new norse undershirt, for he only has one!  For shame!  That's top on my list of priorities.  After that, I'd like to dig up my plans from last year for my Elizabethan Jacket. Yeah, I plan in the long-term, because I'm super slow at completion.  The exciting thing is I have two awesome fabrics suitable for such jackets.  Remember this?  It wants to be another 'Bethan jacket.  I will be taking quite a bit of inspiration from Drea Leed's jacket.

I've also procured some new fabrics for more Norse tunics for Sven.  Autumn Gold and Royal Purple linen.  I think he wants one for Quest, but I'm not sure I can make that happen. <---SLOW SEAMSTRESS!!

We have some friends who may come to Quest with us, and who may need help garbing for the event.  I have some older items which may work, if cinched in and so forth.  I hope to know soon, so we can figure things out.  We also need to dig out all our camping gear, take inventory, and figure out what we need.  Bleh.

And since no blog shall be left picture-less, here's a sweet miniature of Bess of Hardwick wearing a super cute 'Bethan jacket.