Going a-Viking with the Prince and Princess (post in progress)

In September a friend from the southern portion of my kingdom contacted me about commissioning a set of viking garb for himself and his lady for the East's big winter event Market Day at Birka.

He knows when to catch me in a moment of weakness and I agreed.

Crown Tournament seemed the best time to catch up and get measurements, but as he was competing I didn't want to get in his space beforehand so left it until after the fighting. We joked that this may become a royal commission if he won.

Joked. Ha ha. Hilarity ensues.

Then he won.

Queen Anna crowns Princess Honig

And there was no time to take measurements after the fact. So I met up with a very stunned Ioannes and an even more stunned Honig at a Dunkin Donuts in Maine to get measurements. We discussed a plan and I got to shopping.

I found the most GLORIOUS teal coat-weight wool at Sewfisticated in Framingham. They'd sold some to a local contestant on Project Runway but had enough for a caftan and Rus viking coat for me. Then I found for $2.99/yard ivory summer-weight wool for the hangerock/apron dress and used the Biking Red linen from Jo-ann's (thank you 60% off coupon).

Ophelia is my crack fabric-inspector

Now, let me just say here - none of this could have been accomplished without Lady Keziah Planchet. Keziah is a stitching STORM and did almost all the embroidery on Honig's coat and hangerock. She is amazing. Sagas should be written in her honor. BUT before she can embroidery anything - I have to pattern it out and sew it. Her blog is here.

For Honig I made three pieces and sourced a fourth:

1. Long red linen underdress - using the pattern from my Viking handout here
2. Ivory wool hangerock/apron dress - using the Vigdis pattern from my Viking handout here
3. Teal wool caftan with peacock embroidery - using a modified version of the Viking underdress from above and shaping the front opening to have a long V neck. 
4. A beautiful white fox pelt from Maine that I didn't want to give up and instead wear about always.

For Ioannes I made three pieces as well:

1. Red linen tunic with contrast ivory yoke with blue "runestone" Tygers
2. Brown linen viking pants
3. Teal Viking Rus-style coat with gold silk trim

I had never done split stitch embroidery before - so I learned something new

Images of the finished garments:

The court at Market Day at Birka
Photo by Jeff Morton

Her Highness in her full outfit (minus the fox)
Photo by Jenn L Miller

Fortune Favors A Three-Hour Chiton

Good day to you gentle reader!

Me at SCA 50 Year in Danville, IN

 

Today we're going to talk about one of my crazy garb creation projects. I'm known for, well, blitzkreig-ing projects and sewing new garb the night before an event on a whim. This is the most recent sewing adventure was making Greek/Roman hot weather garb.

What I'm making is a very loose interpretation of a Greek chiton, or Roman peplos. Considered a feminine garment Aphrodite was often depicted in a chiton. It's really just a big fabric tube with the excess pulled up over the belt and "bloused". Over my head and around my shoulders I wear a palla. These would have been either linen or silk and 3-6 yards long, but probably not as sheer as my pallas are.

So, after Coronation I bought myself a present from the Met: Roman replica earrings of Nike (Winged Victory).

Roman copy of Nike Earrings

And the night before Kings & Queen's Archery/Thrown Weapons Champions in my Shire I thought to myself - Gee, I really want to wear those tomorrow but I've lent my green chiton to a LARPing friend. LET'S MAKE A NEW ONE!

My raw supplies at 1am

The supplies: 4 yards of purple rayon (this fits my size 24 frame), 2.5 yards of red silk, a belt, and a bracelet from Charming Charlie. (and a Starbucks Double Shot Energy)
 

The bracelet broken apart

I originally intended to steal a Morgan Donner trick at paint the stones with nailpolish, but decided I liked them

First, let me not advise you to do these things at 1am. You end up watching really bad cartoons on Qubo like "Class of the Titans". Well really, since most of this project is hand sewing, you are listening to Class of the Titans, which, unsurprisingly, does not improve by just hearing the audio.

 

Choose better, gentle reader, choose Netflix.

 

Second, halt your throwdown over rayon. Cease. Do not tell me "But Fortune it's a man-made ATROCITY! How could you?!?!" Look. I need drape. Modern linen without a LOT of TLC isn't going to give me that drape and wool iritates my delicate skin so rayon is a great alternative. It's made from wood fiber, so not as evil as polyester, and doesn't grow and warp as linen will in heat and humidity.

 

Anyway... So I have fabric, I have a butchered bracelet, and I have thread. Where do we go from here?

 

The first step is draping. This is not scary Project Runway-style draping that involves narrow black tape tape and bias and black magic. This is easy - belt and safety pin draping. You'll need twice as many safety pins as you have fasteners.

 

Pin the tube of rayon (your chiton) together at one edge, mark the halfway point on each side with chalk. Pin about 7 inches on each side of the center mark of one side of the tube, and maybe five on each side of the center mark on the other. This is your for your head. The more generous draping is in the front, the other across your shoulders. This helps the chiton staying draped in the front and not slipping back on your neck. Pin each side of the tube together and put it on with your belt. Now fiddle with those marks until you get a drape you like.

 

TAKE YOUR TIME. This fitting process may take over a half hour. That's ok. It should. The attention you spend here is what takes this from a potato sack to a gown.

 

Please make sure you are wearing a belt for this. The blousing may change how you like the drape.

 

Me at the draping stage.

 

Once you have the neck all figured out, mark out your arm holes. Adjust how much room  you want at your forearm to be comfortable. Go through the rythmns of daily life. Fold laundry. Pack the rest of your stuff for the event. Make sure that the openings aren't too narrow for you to move appropriately nor too wide so that you feel a draft.

 

Next measure between the wrist and the shoulder pins and divide up at will. I like 3-4 findings on each arm. It's about your comfort. Look at various statuary from the period for guidance

 

Hygieia Goddess of Health and Hypnos at the MFA Boston

Roman Provincial Imperial Period, Antonine about A.D. 140–190

Accession 1974.131

Terracotta mask of woman to hips

Early Hellenistic probably late 4th–3rd century B.C.

 

Accession Number: 26.164.6

You can see the fasteners on the left hand side of the statue, they look like little round buttons.

 

 

 

Mark the placement of your fasteners on each side of the tube with a safety pin. You could use real pins, but they may fall our and ruin all your hard work. Prevent tears, use safety pins.

 

The two red marks are your center front. (you know you're jealous of my MS Paint skillz)

Chiton Pin Layout

 

Alright, now that you the placement down, before you take off the chiton decide how racy you want to be and mark on the side (with it bloused) where you want the slit to go to. I like, again unsurprisingly, a very high slit. It's personal preference.

 

 

Here comes the never-ending hemming. Hem all four sides of the length of fabric.

Seriously, if nothing else, hand hem the top edge. It really won't take that long and it will look MILES better than machine sewing it. Put on a podcast, or a movie you've seen many times before (so you aren't tempted to watch the screen) and go to town.

Green Chiton in progress.

The color is much more becoming in person.

 On my purple chiton I hand hemmed all edges but the bottom. On my green it's entirely hand sewn as is the pink chiton I made at SCA 50 Year because it was SO VERY HOT.

Now, you have a giant length of fabric, but not a tube, and I promised you a tube didn't I? Well, you also get more hand sewing! I know what you're thinking. You're thinking Fortune, why don't I just run this through the machine? No one needs to know.

Because the advantage to how the garment will sit on the open side is worth it. Really. In a lot of period garment construction each individual piece is lined and then all the parts are whip-stitched together. This means they lay almost perfectly flat. And that's what you want for that side seam, so it doesn't bunch weirdly and have bulk whip-stitch the two ends together starting at the top hem and heading towards where you marked the top of your slit. Make sure you reinforce the top of the stit by doing a bit of satin stitch, basically looping the thread through several times. There will be stress here and you don't want it to fail as you majestically traipse about your encampment or the event.

Now, match up your two sides and add your fasteners/findings. You're done!

Me in the fniished chiton with a lovely necklace also from Charming Charlie.

Well, almost. You could just use your palla and hope it stays on your head and protects the back of your delicate, swan-like neck, but in reality, especially silk is going to misbehave. I pircked up a pack of 6 plastic combs at Wal-mart very similar to these:

Oh so very not period, but you can find ones in metal at craft supply stores.

I draped the palla around myself: over the right shoulder, over the head and back across in front and over the right shoulder. Then marked about where it hit on the back of my head, and attached a comb on the right side of the fabric at the selvedge. So the comb can flip towards my head and stick in without being seen. It's five minutes and so much more elegant than fiddling with a veil all day.
Ding! Dress is done! So go forth gentle reader and be free and breezy in your new garb!

Some other options for findings that I entertained:

These are from Jo-Ann's, but the reast are all from the jewelry secton at Burlington Coat Factory

 

Also, because my usual drawers did not work well under these dresses I tried out men's boxer briefs. How transgressive! Worked ok, not my favorite option, but I'm not sure anything could have survived the terrible heat at SCA 50 Year.

Further reading on Roman Garb:

Anna's Rome: https://annasrome.com/roman-garb-basics/

Mistress Giata's blog La Bella Donna: https://fleurtyherald.wordpress.com/2016/06/14/roman-clothing/

I'm Lady Fortune, and I'm a hugger!

So, as we reviewed in this post, the Birka Queen's Challenge for 2016 is PIXAR.

My garb will be based off the following character from Toy Story 3:



Lotso Huggin' Bear!

He smells like strawberries!

You see, I've had the length of fuchsia damask in my stash for a couple years and I keep passing it when sewing other projects and I realized when this was announced this is what that fabric was waiting for.

If you haven't seen Toy Story 3, it's wonderful. If you're in your late twenties early thirties you might want to watch it with a box of tissues. I saw it at the Leicester Drive-in with friends, and we all got teary. Just a minivan full of weepy late 20-somethings. Move along...

And if you HAVE seen Toy Story 3 you know the secret: Lotso is the villain. The strawberry-scented evil overlord of Sunnyside Daycare Center.

That's more like the real Lotso.

The dress style I have come to favor are the extremely low necked dresses of the Venetian region from 1515-1530 or so. Which is perfect with his white belly, it's the the low scoop front of one of those gown.




Portrait of a Married Couple - Lorenzo Lotto
c. 1523-24
The Hermiage, St Petersburg





The Seduction - Giovanni Cariani
c. 1515-1516
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Three Courtesans and Four Gentleman - Giovanni Cariani
c 1515
Private Collection

The dress in white here is what I'm basing my preliminary sketch on for the most part. See here for the finished product!



I'm unsure if I'll do the mallet right yet...

I've also created a strawberry shaped pouch to wear that I'm beading in tiny gold seed beads and embroidering the green leaves.

I based the pattern off of a the Strawberry Treat Box on Oh Happy Day!



It's so cute!



The pattern

I patterned out the pouch on red wool, left over from Viking Sailor Moon. A total of 5 panels.


The strawberry takes shape!

 The felt is all one piece, I just did a small whip stitch on the edges of the panels to give it some shape and body. This way the panels know where to fold when the top drawstring is closed.


The leaves!

 The leaves were drafted by trial and error. I liked the layered look of the different leaves.



What a finished panel will look like.

As we all know, I get impatient and have to see how things will look when done. I'm not 100% sold on the gold blanket stitching, but it does give some definition to the leaves.

I'm very excited for this challenge.

Tho and the dinosaur- a tale of joy and serendipity

Our gracious and wise queen Caoilfhionn inghean Fhaolain (KEE-lin, it's gaelic, ignore the letters they added for posterity) has issued a garb challenge for Market Day at Birka for the East Kingdom.

Lady Syele von Heidelberg announced the challenge on the East Kingdom Facebook on October 5th:

"Greetings, people of the East! Her most royal Majesty Caoilfhionn has issued a Garb Challenge to the good gentles attending the Market Day at Birka. She desires to see the skill with needle and thread of the populace in interpreting the theme, "Characters of Pixar."

If you must, turn yourselves Inside Out in order to find the perfect Toy, Story book, or other accessory to adequately display your Incredible interpretation of the challenge. Even if it seems you might hit a creative Wall-e, or you are afraid Monsters, Inc-luding laurels, squire brothers, and apprentice siblings may scorn you, you must be Brave, keep your chin Up, and stay strong by eating nourishing Ratatouille.

Although it is a Bug's Life out there for those artisans who think taking on challenges is like Finding Nemo, those wounds inflicted by pins, needles, and shears will soon turn to sCars of pride and victory!"

Full disclosure: House Strangewayes, my household, runs the fashion show at Birka and we're stupidly fond of puns.

Most of us are choosing to go with characters from Toy Story:

Myself as 1530's Italian Lotso Huggin' Bear (I'll make a separate post)
Syele as Saxon Jessie
Jeremy (Mr. Syele) as Polish Buzz Lightyear
Elvira as Crannach Sid
Bianca as 1560s Italian Bo Peep
Erdene as Mongolian Slink
and
Thothreker as Viking Rex

In this post I'm going to talk about Thothreker Ogaefa, or as we call him Tho. Tho is our resident viking. He's a simple guy who chose his persona by the strict criteria of what era would allow him to wear pants.

He doesn't sew, I'm making him an outfit fit for a King... well, a Rex.


Rex the lovable T-Rex from Toy Story


Now how do you interpret this into an outfit without it looking super-cheesy?


That's a lot of look.

Well, he needs a caftan, and a new tunic and probably some nice matching pants. Maybe, if we're ahead of shedule I'll make him a hat too.



Sketch for Tho's Birka outfit. 

The key here is going to be finding the right fabric that says "Dinosaur" without saying "GREEN AS ALL GET OUT".

So I went fabric shopping at my favorite store the Auburn Fabric Outlet where everything is $2.99 a yard!

I scored some amazing olive and tan wool, some green matelasse* and some lighter yellow rayon for the under tunic.

*Matelasse is a term for quilted upholstery fabric, not really suited for anything other than doublets or the occasional surcoat. It is usually quite stiff. A friend once made the mistake of ordering 8 yards from a home decor fabric website because she had never heard the term and thought it was a brand name of a designer.

The green diamond matelasse, yellow rayon and olive and tan wool diamond weave

This is another lesson in colors in pictures vs natural light. The first bolt is much brighter, the rayon more yellowy and the diamond weave looks brown here but is a distinctly olive green color in person.

Same fabric, different lighting.

I'm not sure which for the caftan I'll use, I'm going to let Tho look at them. I determined Rex's stomach is really a light yellow, not a green by looking at several screenshots.

Speaking of screenshots. Through my extensive Google Image Search research I discovered:



A Pixar short where Rex the dinosaur dresses like a viking!!!!!

How much more perfect could that get?!?!?!

We're trying to convince Iulia Agricola that we need R-E-X glass beads or maybe T-H-O glass beads. I did some research on period viking men's jewelry and found that they did not do the swags of beads, but occasionally grave finds would have 1-3 beads on a cord! Iulia is still needing some convincing but here's hoping.

Stay tuned for progress on Partysaurus Tho!

The Quintavia Defender Cloaks

I live in a Shire.

Specifically the Shire of Quintavia in the Central Region of the East Kingdom in the Society for Creative Anachronism.

We're a freakin' huge Shire. We have over 175 paid members within our borders. We cover the entire center of Massachusetts, and we are surrounded by baronies. 

The Shire of Quintavia, SCA East Kingdom

But we are not a barony. We don't have the Baron and Baroness to have Champions but our people are no less worthy of tournaments and accolates for their skill, so it was decided in 2014 we would have Defenders. So we had a little tourney event in July and I volunteered to make the regalia. 

And because I can't do things small I made half circle cloaks in thirds with the chevrons in green and white like our heraldry with appliqued on in gold wool felt crossed symbols of that aspect of Defense.

Quintavia's Heraldry

Which was all well and good but we were doing five: one each for Archery, Arts and Sciences, Fencing, Heavy List, and Thrown Weapons.

I got the outer skins done by the event but not the lining for the event, showed off the half progress and got swept up into the summer event season. Then in late August 2014 we had a fencing competition so I finished out the fencing one (after Pennsic in the midst of moving to at that time I didn't know where too...) and then the person who won left before it could be presented.

So I packed them up in a box and put them in storage. Then this year I took them out for the small task of lining and adding cords and realized somehow they had gotten damp and the white was hopelessly mildewed and the felt applique were ruined as well....

There are no tears in sewing!

So two weeks before the event I got to basically remake them. I am very proud that all my points line up. That is a skill I learned from my dear departed Great Aunt Mary and quilting.

Unfortunately this year the event was opposite Palio di Stonemarche and I had obligations to Contrada Ferrari so I couldn't go to the much bigger now St Jean Baptiste Tourney and day event.

So I finished up the new outer skins, embroidered the symbols and packed them off to my friend Rachel's house to be lined and have ties put in. I've never actually seen the finished ones. But here are the pictures I took of them in progress:




The Archery Quintavia Defender Half Cloak

 



The Arts and Sciences Defender Half Cloak

The Heavy List Quintavia Defender Half Cloak

The Thrown Weapons Quintavia Half Cloak

I am very proud of the design and hope to someday win back the right to wear the Arts and Sciences cloak. We shall see...





More Pelicans! A Hood for his most excellent Excellency Xavier

This time I created a hood for Master Juan Lazaro Ramirez Xavier- former Baron of Stonemarche and my SCA big brother.

Xavier, as he's known, with his beautiful wife Maria were brought before the king at Great Northeastern War and given writs to contemplate joining the Order of the Pelican.

I would not be in the SCA without Xavier.

My household, House Strangewayes, would not exist without Xavier.

It was Xavier and Maria's wedding that a young Mistress Iulia Agricola (formerly Elinor Strangewayes) attended which hooked her, then her childhood friend Simona, and then Simona's work friend me on the SCA. And it's been encouragement and support for us and a legion of other newcomers that he and Maria undertook during their decade as Baron and Baroness Stonemarche.

You know those posts I have about Palio? Palio is his idea. His baby. They also established the newcomer tour at Birka. They first introduced me to Sir Kyppen's YouTube videos on being a chatelaine by holding a class about these videos at Harper's Retreat.

So needless to say we wanted to give back. Stonemarche is the home of our hearts, and a huge reason for that is Xavier and Maria's work as Baron and Baronessa.

So on to the project! He wanted a hood, as he overheats easily, instead of a full cloak and cap of maintenance. We also had a two week window due to Pennsic. So I sent him a sketch of what I was thinking:

Red linen hood, with gold silk lining and red jewels and embroidered pelicans.


A simple hood with red cabochons for the blood drops around the hem and two embroidered pelican roundels



We made a few modifications, he was worried that the red jewels would not stand out against the red linen so he suggested gold balls behind the jewels as gold balls are part of his heraldry.

AND BECAUSE I LOVE MY FRIEND I AGREED TO APPLIQUE CIRCLES

 

 

Pennsic gave me a chance to shop for materials. The gold silk which was too heavy to line the hood was perfect for the gold silk Pelican giornea which Lady Simona bat Leon was making for Maria from the lovely new fabric and notions vendor in Poison Pen Press's old spot. Booth 63 I believe. Instead I got the silk at home at Sewfisticated and Xavier ordered the red linen from fabric-store.com.

 

The things that make this hood are the jewels, which I got at Cabochons on Bow Street #19. Run by the amazing (Mistress, Countess, all around awesomeness) Arastorm the Golden and her daughters Willow and Kat. They had not just teardrop jewels, but I could pick from red faceted jewels or red cabochons! They came with the fittings and Willow gave me a crash course in sewing them on. Plus, they are from Stonemarche!

Layout

I copied a hood that he already had which was made based on Cynthia Virtue's hood pattern. The one he had the buttons were sewn on the very edge and the buttonholes handsewn through both layers.

I basically cut the same shapes for the outside as the lining. On the lining squared off the back of the hood instead of making a tail. The only thing that wasn't fully lined was the liripipe (the long tail) which we measured at 41" long on him, to give just the right amount of drape when the tail is tucked into his belt. So I cut a 4 1/2 inch wide by 42" strip for the liripipe. More on the liripipe later.

The hardest part of this were the appliques. The thing that made the hood though, were the appliques.

I first cut out a template out of a folder for the heavier paper weight the finished size of my circles. I then cut out ten circles with a quarter of an inch seam allowance around the edges. I then proceeded to use ALL THE STEAM! I wet down the circle, placed the template in the center and folded up the steam allowance carefully and ironed it down around the edges. (Pictures forthcoming) I take this technique from quilting circles.

The first one I serged around in red, but there were two difficulties in that. First, serging tiny circles is a maddening task, and second, the serging didn't do what I wanted it to, which was give me an even guide to hand sew against. Instead, it betrayed me and showed in an ugly manner around the ironed edge. So I banished that circle and cut a new one.



The finished ironed silk circles

Then I added the findings, snussled the jewels into them, and played around more with placement.

More spaced out. Less work. I felt it didn't look right.

More circles! This is the right look!

Then I got to hand sew around the wee little balls.

 

Here are the mistakes I made doing this:

1. I should have sewed the gores in first, but I was intimidated to do that, so I procrastinated.
2. I didn't use silk pins so I then had the smooth out the silk from the fat quilter's pins I used.
3. I agreed to applique circles in the first place.

 

Finished sewing on the circle! Now to embellish

How it looked from the back... at first.

The finished applique

 

After the stitching around it, I did a back stitch in gold and whipped around it in white.

Due to the different fabrics they sort of "puffed" when I finished them. So I put a circle of red wool felt (left over from Viking Sailor Moon) behind it to keep the convex shape and give more of a "ball" look to the appliques.

A note on the motivational cocktail:

It's a motivational cocktail! A Fortune must while sewing!

Syele von Heidelberg made me an awesome boozy milkshake from vanilla ice cream, cocoa and cookie butter from Trader Joe's and vodka! And it had a cool straw!

I sew (on a deadline) better when a little buzzed, it gets me over some of my hesitations and have Brilliant Ideas (tm)! (I once came back tipsy from a Halloween party, drafted and made a Venetian gown and wore it to Crown Tourney the next morning. I looked FABULOUS)

In this case I had a Brilliant Idea (tm) about the liripipe. Xavier, for all his noble qualities also has a great sense of fun and whimsy. So I was determined to hid the squeaker from a squeaky toy in the tip of the liripipe.

Which of course meant I got to go to Wal-Mart and look like a lunatic squeaking various items in the pet toy aisle to find the right pitch of squeak.

Turns out - squeaky toys are harder to open than you'd think.

The way my mother's 8 lbs Malte-Poo goes through them I figured no problem, this thing will give up it's squeaker easy. NOPE. I had to eventually stab it to death.



Squeaky squeaky murder

Back to assembly!

I have done these hoods before - but every time I get intimidated by the gores, look up Alysaundre's Perfectly Pointed Gore Technique and wonder why I get intimidated by the gores. They came out perfectly, no having to rip out and try again on any of the four gores.

I stitched the long liripipe strip to the outer hood, folded everything and ironed it, sketched a half moon shape at the tip and stitched up the liripipe and down the center back.

I stitched the tip of the back of the hood together, left a generous 6 inch space and then stitched down the back of the neck as well. I then matched them both up and stitcked around the edge of the hood and around the cape edge. This uses a lot of pins, but worked out really well. Then I pulled it right side out through the slit and sewed that up by hand. Now it's more ironing, because linen NEEDS to be ironed and silk takes so beautifully to an iron.

It came to the night before and I sewed on the buttons which I'd found at a local Jo-Ann's which looked like period metal buttons. The young lady at the checkout also let me use every coupon they had going so it cost me about $5 for $20 worth of buttons. I stitched them to the edge of the fabric about every inch, tightening to ever 3/4 of an inch around the curve of the neck.

The intention was to do handsewn buttonholes through the fabric. But... that looked terrible and I was doing it on site the date of the event. For some reason the silk and linen did not want to cooperate and it looked like a small rodent had chewed a hold through the garb.

So I changed tactics. I had three hours, and I had seen a technique for turkish garb making thick thread loops and doing a buttonhole stitch around it. This site calls it the buttonhole bar stitch.

From rocksea.org Sarah's Hand Embroidery Tutorials

Instead of doing it here in the middle of the fabric I did it on the very edge with red embroidery floss and when done correctly the loops don't even twist!

I was able to get the loops done in plenty of time for court and they looked fabulous!

The below photos are from Lady Estefania del Bosque who did a magnificent job photographing the day.



Her Majesty places the hood around his shoulders



Xavier, His Majesty Omega, and Her Majesty Ethedreda



Xavier, Maria (and her gorgeous gold giornea), His Majesty Omega and her Majesty Etheldreda

 

Master Juan Lazaro Ramirez Xavier

Here you can see the one handbound buttonhole I managed to finish. The Pelican embroidery did not make it to the event, but will be added later.

I didn't tell him ahead of time about the squeaker. I told a couple other people, but not him. So after he was done with court some rapscallion squeaked him. It was huge hit.

More about the event:

It was a beautiful day at King's and Queen's Equestrian.

Inspired by Pennsic my cohort Lady Bianca Anguisola and I made a big effort to have as much of a period pavilion as possible.


Isn't she just lovely folks?

We borrowed the tent from a friend of Simona's and brought our wood tables, wood benches and period servingware. We served a simple but period lunch and had some great fellowship.

And aside from the vigils we were the place to be

It helps to have a war kitten!
Zeus (the cat) and Munchkin (the dog) were great entertainment

Lady Este offered to do a photoshoot with us so... we couldn't resist.

Some of House Strangewayes: Lady Lysken die Waeyer, Lady Cecily Wyndham, Lady Elvira Ballesteros, Myself- Lady Fortune St Keyne, and Lady Bianca Anguisola

Things quickly escalated...


Drama Queens



The Hills are Alliiiiiiiiiiive!!!!!!!!

 



As you can see, my household are a super serious bunch.

 

My dress is based off several portraits in the 1520s made for Pennsic out of some wonderfully soft lurex striped fabric from Jo-Ann's and the lower sleeves are out of velvet. The camicia is from my Birka dress for the Queen's Celestial Challenge - which reminds me I need to do a post on that dress. Bianca has a 1550s back side lace gown and her dramatic walking veil. Elvira is in a 1530s gown which is scandelously under dressed without sleeves (the hussy!). Cecilly is in a similar dress out of gold key because she wanted to be in on the Italian flavor of the day and Lysken, who has to be different, is in a Roman outfit, while technically still Italian from several hundred years in the past.

 

A wonderful day all the way around!