Research Dumping Grounds

Viking Whipcord

2008-08-11T16:46:30Z

Interlocking or Making a Viking Whip-cord
http://genvieve.net/sca/whipcording-howto.html

Viking Leg Wraps

2008-02-21T03:33:17Z

http://users.bigpond.net.au/quarfwa/miklagard/Articles/legwraps3.htm

Fishing Weirs

2007-01-12T19:37:43Z

Primative British fishweirs
http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/cbaresrep/pdf/074/07411001.pdf

Basket weir
http://www.le.ac.uk/ulas/annualreports/ar99-00/hemington/hemington.html

Fish weirs on the Tâf, Towy and Gwendraeth estuaries, Carmarthenshire.
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~rapanui/Fish_weirs/fish_weirs.htm

2007-01-08T06:28:15Z

At 12th night this last weekend I scored ~9 yards of light grey wool. It's destined for the Kampfrau dress. I'm psyched to start on it.

Keeping time

2006-11-15T20:31:06Z

Picture taken by Arganteiline at Mists Fall Investiture, Nov 2006

Necklace fob that's a watch face. Very nice for keeping time discretely. And if you wear it on a black string.. it can take the place of the ubiquitous black string seen on late period german and italian garb.

http://artbeads.com/watch-55s.html

2006-11-08T23:40:32Z

Woot! Lower sleeves went together very quickly. These have straight "hedgehogs"** unlike the upper sleeves where the top "hedgehogs" followed the curve of the armcye.

]]> All said I think it took 2-3 hours to do both sleeves and to re-do the gold part that goes over my hands. I just need to hand-finish the flat-felled seam and tidy up the seam on the yellow and these will be done.

The more I think about this project the more fiddly things I find that need to be done. *sigh*

Left to do:

Attach fake chemise sleeve to the bottom of the upper sleeve and the top of the lower sleeve.
Add laces between top and bottom of sleeves
Attach the last of the lacing rings. I think I have 3 left.
Try on dress and see if I need to add additional hook/eye to the top of the brustfleck.
Make hats
Finish the last raw seams on the inside of the dress. Bind the arm seams, finish the others (may not happen until after Mists Investiture)

Between Mists Investiture and 12th night:

Finish appliqueing the guards and eliminate the butt-ugly topstitching
Dye socks into red/white vertical stripes
More decoration on the brustfleck
Finish beading the caul
Possibly embroider on the guards (mmmm black embroider on gold guards)
Make a super-thin silk dickie that goes all the way up to my neck.

** Mari taught a class and used three terms to refer to fancy things we do to our sleeves. I'm pretty certain her terms are personal rather than documentable :) Hedgehogs are the little bumps on the sleeves.

2006-11-06T23:38:59Z

It's not going as quickly now that there's not an immediate looming deadline.. but it is going. The bodice it now completely attached to the skirt. The part across the front where there is no bodice is attached to a piece of wool and then attached to the bottom of the white placket.

]]> I'm still toying with the idea of leaving the placket out.. but I'm not ready to do that by this next weekend. I've added a hook-and-eye to the top of the skirt and have trimmed the skirt (had to remove about 6 inches with the move from pipe-organ pleats to cartridge pleats). This opening is now pinned. I've also pinned the upper part of the sleeves into the bodice.

Still to do:

Sew the skirt closed with a french seam(leave it open for the last 3-4 inches)
Turn and finish the edges around the skirt closure(the last 3-4 inches).
Sew on the upper sleeves
bind the seams of the sleeves on the inside (may happen after Mists Investiture)
Make the bottom half of the sleeves
Make a hat

It's looking pretty good that this will all get done by this weekend.

Peri-oid looking cooler

2006-11-01T21:19:10Z

Paper mache over a cooler to get a cooler cooler (that looks like a leather trunck).

http://kelly.dwarfworks.com/sca/cooler/

Siege Cooking Competition at A&S Trouney July 2006

2006-10-30T20:43:42Z

Here was the layout and rules for the Siege Cooking Competition at the A&S Tourney on July 21-23.

]]> Feudalism is built upon a relationship of obligation and mutual service between vassals and lords. A vassal holds his land, or fief, as a grant from a lord. As part of his service, a vassal is obliged to feed and house the lord and his company when they travelled across his land. This obligation could be an onerous one. William the Conqueror travelled with a very large household, and if they extended their stay it could nearly bankrupt the lord hosting them.

You and your team cook for a country vassal. The king and his entourage have decended upon you. Luckily they say they will leaving tomorrow.. but your lord is determined to do his best to impress the king (even though he actually has meager goods). Prepare a meal to impress a king.

At a minimum you will be given:

5 lbs. of meat
1 lb. of fruit
2 lb. of vegetables
1/2 lb. of rice or legumes of some type,
1 lb. flour
3 eggs
nuts
sweetener
fat
1 mystery bonus item

You may provide:
Water,
Salt
3 fresh herbs/spices (unlimited)
3 dried herbs &/or spices (limited to 1/2 ounce each)
One fresh fruit OR above-ground vegetable - limit 1
lb.
One root vegetable - limit 2 lbs.

You may substitute one dozen eggs for either the fruit/vegi or root vegi that the team is allowed.
You may substitute 1/2 bottle vinegar or wine for 2 herbs/spices.

No more than 6 people on a team, 6 teams max.
$20 entry fee per team.

The current plan is to give ingredients to groups at a staggered start time (so we can have a staggered end time). For example, the first group will receive their ingredients at 12:40 and the judges will arrive at 5:40. The next group would go from 1:00-6:00.

The points will be awarded on presentation, taste and plausibility. Your team will receive more points if your dishes come from a single geographic and temporal location. Period-ish ingredients/preparation methods will garner greater points.

Internal use only below this line

Possible mystery items:
Cheese,
milk
loaf of bread
dried fruits (thinking prunes)
dried mushrooms

Staggered ending times. 20 mins between each judging. 3-5 judges total.
12:40 - 5:40
1:00 - 6:00
1:20 - 6:20
1:40 - 6:40
2:00 - 7:00
2:20 - 7:20

Need judges
Need to make up judging sheet
presentation
taste
documentability

Market Basket Challenge

2006-10-30T20:33:23Z

You're given a basket of food, to make dinner for yourself and 5 other people, including the religious leader in your community. (If your community doesn't have a religious leader, you can substitute the mayor or some other important person.)
You get: 1/2 chicken, 1 cup lentils, 2 carrots, 2 turnips, 1 leek, 3 Strawberries, 1 bunch herbs (your choice, but only one herb), 1/2 cup wheat flour, 1 pat
butter (1 tablespoon), 2 apples, 1 egg, 1/2 loaf day old bread, a little salt and
a little pepper.
Your own pantry is bare, so what you get is what all you'll have.

2006-10-18T23:37:38Z

On Sunday Ysabella had Mari come and teach a class on German's. Nice class. Lots of pictures. Mostly confimations of things I'd come to understand. The class gave me time to finish with attaching the gold trim. It's all nice and flat.

]]>
On Monday night I ironed and then attached a 100% cotton gingam strip to the top of my skirt. This will be used as a guide for getting the stitches for the cartridge pleats set.

Last night, on the way to Ysabella's, I stopped at JoAnne's and got some dark brown button twist thread. I cut a piece about 120" long and then doubled it up and used it to make the cartridge pleats. The pleats are 2.5" deep which may end up being too deep.. won't know until it's attached. Oh well. If necessary I'll remove the skirt and reattach it again.

I will end up with about 1" per pleat (though only 5/8" of that will actually be attached to the bodice... the pleat bulk takes up about 3/8" between each pleat). I think I'll start attaching this tonight. Hmmm, maybe not. I should probably work on the sleeves before I attach the skirt. *sigh*. Yes, it's easier to attach sleeves to a free bodice. OK.

The sleeves are in two parts. The top of the sleeve is too long. I think the gold trim needs to be removed and shortened drastically. The bottom part of the sleeve is too plain. Because of time constraints I made it without any frills. That said, it's the right length. I'll need to completely disassemble this and add new wool (with frills) to it. I also didn't like the way the flair over the wrists worked out. I'll need to redo that.

Vertically Striped German Gowns 1500s

2006-10-17T17:23:57Z

Starting a collection of vertically striped german gowns. Annoyed at the poor quality of the pictures. Amused at the idea of a documentable vertically striped skirt.

]]>
from: http://www.hartmut-bock.de/Ketten/K__Bilder/k__bilder.html

from: http://www.gabrius.com/artindex/picture.asp?srcimg=http://www.gabriusdatabank.com/pictures/accorpa/2165/21650429.000.jpg&IDPIC=1007095

2006-10-10T23:36:40Z

Last night I trimmed about 1.5"-1.75" off the bottom of the bodice all around and then finished that edge. Since I'm going to be attaching cartridge pleats I needed a finished edge. The plan for tonight is to re-attach the gold trim along the front edges of the bodice and to finish all the hand stitching on the trim on the front and the back.

2006-10-09T23:28:59Z

I started the weekend with a finished dress and finished the weekend with a couple of bags of pieces of dress. It's like a deconstructed german dress :)

I tried the dress on and both Edith and Sefa agreed that the bodice needed to be shortened about 2 inches all the way around. I took the dress off and then removed the skirt and sleeves, undid the pleats in the skirt, and removed the guarding from the front of the bodice.

Ideally I'll have the dress all back together by Mists Investiture (November 11). Brion and Ysabella are stepping up as Prince and Princess of the Mists and they will be wearing Germans.

Current plan:

Attach red/black gingam (that Sefa gave me, thanks Sefa) to the top of the skirt. Fold that over and used the gingam as a guide to make the cartidge pleats.
Shorten the bodice by 1.25-1.5 inches all the way around(follow marks but leave enough fabric to put a finished edge at the bottom of the bodice as the marks)
Finish the bottom edge of the bodice
Re-attach gold trim along the front edge of the bodice so it shows on both the front and the back next to the rings.(prevent the flipping)
Futz with bones as necessary
Attach skirt to bodice

MATH
I have 238" of finished skirt.
The bottom of the bodice is about 49" around.
I want the tops of each cartridge pleat to be at about 2 squares on the gingam which ends up at about 5/8". When this is attached to the bottom of the bodice I'll need to add another 1/8" to that to account for the bulk between the tops of each pleat. This give me a total of about 3/4" for each pleat (5/8"+1/8").

This gives me around 65-66 pleats (49 divided by 3/4" ) around the bottom of the bodice.

Which means that each pleat needs to be around 3.60" each (238 divided by 66).

Rounding this, I'll be using 11 blocks in the gingam as my guide. (each block is around 5/16. 5/16 x 11 = 3.4375 which is as close as I can come in whole blocks to 3.60)

Greed

2006-10-04T01:00:44Z

We're talking a deep Id type "me want" response. Sigh. Lack of money sucks. Me still want though.

Kiln
http://www.artglass1.com/glass-bead-kiln-cal.htm

Table & benches in a box
- Pic: http://scademo.com/images.demo/Picture50.jpg
- Plans: http://www.smoke-fire.com/camp-furniture-patterns-1.asp

Bronze Cauldron
http://www.thadenarmory.com/sell/cookware/cookware.htm

]]> ~~Seal-a-meal vacuum sealers. Cook food, seal in bag, vacuum out air. Reheat meal by floating bag in boiling water.~~ Mom & Dad gave me one of these for my Birthday.

~~Mini Scroll Frame http://herrschners.com/products/product.aspx?sku=320501~~
Bianca (from Alaska) came to stay with us for a couple days and she gave me one of these. I'm uber-psyched! Now I just need to figure out what to embroider.