lorelei01

Parasol Handout

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 22:38:22 GMT

Well, I'm sitting here hitting refresh on my friends' list hoping that something new and exciting will distract me for a few moments... so I figured I'm probably not the only one having this issue right now and I should share something of my own. ;)

For those that would like to journey down the long and winding path I took over the last year or two researching the history and construction of parasols, I finally got around to putting my thoughts together into an article along with a lot of my pictures. I taught a class on it at our last Kingdom Collegium, and am doing a hands on workshop this weekend for two of the three methods if anyone is in the Phoenix area and interested in making one.

I make no claims to be the be all end all on this topic, and it was really hard to research at times. A lot of fun, but not the easiest accessory to find! So if you have more information, or know that I got something wrong, please don't hesitate to give me a shout out. I tried to cover the history of parasols, construction techniques, and my own modern tweaks to make it more camping friendly. Like collapsing down into a carry-on suitcase. ;) I also included a rough cost guide at the bottom for the various methods so you know ahead of time how much it will set you back. Really it's not much; the cheapest one was about 11USD plus fabric, and the most expensive one was 20-25USD plus fabric. Since it only takes about a yard each of canopy and lining, I was able to use what I had in my stash for most of them.

http://www.screentanning.com/Parasol_Handout.pdf

Happy browsing.. it's a long and a little wordy (though if you've followed my blog for a while this should be no big surprise ;), but it also has lots of pictures. I promise I won't be offended if you just skim the pictures! LOL

Pliqué a Jour Seahorse

Sun, 22 May 2011 03:54:38 GMT

I just finished up my pliqué a jour class. I was intrigued by this technique ever since I read about it in my enameling book. I had read about this cool bowl in Cellini's treatises on goldsmithing that sounded like some sort of combo of goldsmithing and stained glass, but until I saw pictures of the technique in my enameling book I didn't know what it was called.

Once I had a term to search, I started trying to see how far back pliqué a jour went. So far the earliest example I can find is the Mérode Cup from the 15th century. If you have any other examples of pre-16th century pliqué a jour, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see them! I know it was rare during this time and only possessed by the ridiculously wealthy, but it certainly existed.

There seem to be two types of pliqué a jour. The first one, and probably easiest is piercing your design into copper, gold, or fine silver and then filling the holes with enamel. (This is very simplified, but in a nutshell...) You take dry enamel, wash it with distilled water, mix in some klyr fire, then you take a spatula with some wet enamel on it and touch it to the side of a hole while dragging it across. This fills up the space using capillary action. Let it completely dry (can be sped along by placing on top of or near a kiln), and then put in a kiln and fire to the orange peel stage (just before the glass completely melts the grains will start to merge and it looks like the skin of an orange). This makes kind of a webbing that you can build on top of. Repeat until all of the holes are completely filled to a little above full. Then fire it completely so that the glass melts completely and goes clear. Take an alundum stone and grind the top of the piece under some running water till the glass is flush with the rest of the piece. Work it with wet sandpaper of finer and finer grits till you've attained the finish that you want. Fire one final time to re-melt the enamel and give it a glossy finish. If using copper, you'll have to pickle between each firing. I use citric acid pickle for enamel as it doesn't seem to affect the colors of the enamels.

The second technique, that I haven't gotten a chance to try yet, looks to be closer to the early examples (Mérode cup and Cellini's bowl description) that I have found. It sounds like you basically do cloisonné on top of mica, or another substance that can be mostly peeled off the back, and then remove the mica by scrubbing or etching with acid. Would love to try this technique, but guess I can't till I manage to buy an enameling kiln. Le sigh. ;)

For my first piece, I decided to go with the piercing method as it seemed a little less likely to all fall apart. I'm still trying to improve my technique with cloisonné on metal, I wasn't feeling brave enough to try it without any yet! Above is a hi-res picture of my seahorse, and the small one is closer to actual size. It's really pretty tiny; right around 1.5". I was grabbing some enameling supplies in Lonnie's and saw this little die cut on my way out. I thought it would be cute if I pierced some scales along its back, gave it some defined fins, and a little tummy. I'm quite happy with it as a first attempt at this new technique.

LocksSmiths busy at work again

Mon, 16 May 2011 02:48:08 GMT

I think I'm just going to officially call my and ezabella's hair endeavors "The LocksSmiths". Since she already posted her awesome button hair-do on her journal from Coronation weekend, I figured I'd post shots of all of the hair taping I did. Dame Angele contacted me before coronation and asked me if I'd help her then Highness with her hair on the day of coronation. She wanted a long braid down her back and some softness around her face.

After she came over to my house for a consultation with me and ezabella and to show us the fake hair she had purchased for the long braid, she decided on the two part twist for the softness around the face coming down and working into a four part braid for the large braid down the back. I showed her some of my hair jewelry (those modern ones that look like little springs with jewels on top), and offered that I could sew ribbon to match her coronation dress through the hair and put the jewelry in the braid. Sewing the ribbon through would also help to secure the fake hair to her real hair and ensure it wouldn't fall out during coronation... 'cause yeah.. that'd be a bad thing! O_o

I did the basic two part twist that I always do for hair taping by splitting the hair down a center part and then working it from her temples down to the nape. I tried to position it a little higher and thicker at her temples than normal too so that it would help cushion the crown. Once both sides were twisted, I simply fed each tail through the top of the fake hair braid and pinned it on the opposite side of the head after tucking the ends in. Then I sewed ribbon through the whole affair and put the lovely roses and rhinestone hair jewelry she'd found in the alternating hair parts of the braid. The four part braid turned out really nice as it's a good wide flat braid and has kind of a rope effect in the center as you always end up crossing the middle in the same direction. Here you can see it with ezabella 's lovely coronet on for sizing before second court.

After coronation, while hanging out in the bar (I love this event site... lol) people were getting rather toasty (both heat wise and other) as the air conditioner can't quite handle the amount of people that show up for coronation. I had several people ask me about how I did her Majesty's hair and I went ahead and demo'd while putting up several people's hair to help cool them off.

Gifts for new mommies

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 06:46:27 GMT

Hey all :) I know I haven't been around for a loooong while. I have a lot of catch up posts to make. Weee! Thought I'd start with this weekend's projects.

I have one friend that just had a baby, and another that is about to have a baby. I made one of these for a previous friend and she really enjoyed it and had lots of people ask about it.. so thought I'd make some more. It's a baby wipe case masquerading as a clutch.

I altered the design a little since the last one so that the band closes with velcro to help keep it closed and the wipes fresh, and open up so that you can still use the wipe pull opening.

They're pretty easy to make if you want to make some of your own. It's some fancy 4" wide ribbon (the roses), 2" wide or so satin ribbon, rhinestone buckles, and a Huggies baby wipe case. Just add some hot glue, rhinestones, tiny butterflies.. your choice. :)

Images are links to larger pictures...

A Beautifully Sentimental Piece

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 18:05:17 GMT

A while back my friend asked me to take a piece of sea glass and make it into a piece of jewelry for his wife. They had taken their honeymoon in Nantucket, and run across this piece of sea glass while strolling on the beach one day. It looks almost delft-like in it's design, so I decided to do a very organic looking design around it. There was also a large empty space on the back, so I made the design extend onto the piece itself to balance the whitespace and provide a little bit more insurance that it wouldn't fall out. ;)

It took me an embarrassingly long time to finish this piece. The metal shrunk a lot more than I anticipated in the casting process. I ended up modifying the design so that it has the open space you see on the side there so that I could get the sea glass in and accommodate for the shrinkage. Which required me to solder some pieces that I had previously cut back on... and that was the crux of the problem. I tried and tried and tried to get it to solder back on but it just wouldn't go. I started feeling like a complete failure and that I'd forgotten everything, but it just seemed like I couldn't get enough heat into the piece.

One day I go to try again, and I can't remember what I'd done with my torch. In a fluster of frustration and determination to finish the piece, I go to the jewelry supply store to buy another torch. Turns out... I was right. The piece of poop torch I was using wasn't getting enough heat into the piece. I came home with the new torch and had the pieces soldered back on and was setting the sea glass within 10 minutes. I think I cried I was so relieved to finally get it back together. I felt like I was starting at humpty dumpty and had run out of duck tape. But, it all ended well and I actually rather like the empty space and it's still really firmly in there.

Phoenix is Funny

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 07:00:38 GMT

Today I decided to prune the foliage in our front yard. Silly me. I forgot to put on plate mail. I was wearing long sleeve denim jacket and jeans. My arms are covered in scratches from fingertip to elbow. It's like a few dozen papercuts. It itches and burns. And I didn't even finish the tree that I was working on... I ran out of space in my garbage can. Though if you're in the area and would like some fresh mesquite to chop up for whatever, just let me know. It's yours for the taking! Then I can use my trashcan again ;D I also might be hitting up one of my fighter friends to borrow their armor when I decide to finish the job! O_o Ouch!

I'm also amused because tonight I watched the news after the olympics, and one of the headline stories was about a rainbow. Yes, a rainbow. Not an unusual rainbow or anything. It just sprinkled a tad today and there was a rainbow. :) It tickled my fancy and was way better than hearing about some horrible murder or kidnapping or other negative thing that is on news programs. Yay rainbows!

Along those lines, here's an amusing game to waste a few minutes on.. because you know secretly you've always longed to be a robot unicorn ;D
http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html

And if you would like to see the music video that the sound track is from, it's worth a good giggle too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSMeUPFjQHc

Project Sidestep

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:33:53 GMT

A last minute Estrella project popped up yesterday. My friend, Baroness Ann Busshenell, needed a message board of sorts to put in front of the period demo center. We brainstormed for a bit as to what we could do.. then I had to go and stick my hand in the air! O_o This is probably how I ended up being one of her deputies in the first place. ;D Poor Ann was loading bricks for her famous ovens into her truck and had no time for any further projects. I had the idea that we could make a chalkboard. They sell chalkboard paint in the store and I've always been somewhat curious to try it out. I also wanted to put a layer of magnetic paint below the chalkboard paint, but the chalkboard paint was $15 for a little can and the magnetic paint was $30 for a little can. So, just chalkboard this year. :)

Anyhow, as I'm sure you've guessed by now, I volunteered to make a chalkboard for the Period Demo Center. I thought a plain board would be pretty dull, so I'm making a triptych. Here it is all cut out and assembled from this afternoon. Since then I've put wood putty in all the seams, sanded it as best I can, primed it twice, and am about to go put my second coat of chalkboard paint on it. It's been a busy day! According to the can it says that after 3 days you can prep the surface and use it... but it doesn't say *how* you are supposed to prep the surface. Silly me figured you could just grab some chalk when it was all dry and go to town. So, I guess I'm off to google appropriate "prepping" methods for chalkboard paint. Hopefully I'll find something that will make it ok to use sooner than three days out... as well... that's over half way into the war. At least this time it wasn't because I procrastinated! Lol ^_^

Along those lines, I don't think the cancer dress is happening. I am wrapping up Mike's sleeves though, so he should definitely have something new to wear this year. Yay!

I made a hat :)

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:16:27 GMT

So I find myself strangely apathetic about finishing anything for Estrella. I suppose it's kind of nice. :) If I finish and have new things to wear, great! If not.. meh. I like my current stuff. I did finish a polar fleece hoodie for myself, which is really the important thing as I *freeze* every year. I'm also endeavoring to finish something for Mike so he has a new outfit, or at least partial outfit, to wear. He does *not* have anything really to wear. He has one outfit that still fits and it's like 8 years old. O_o So, focusing on him first. Along those lines, here's his hat! I finished the awesome feather thing last night and stitched it on today. Tada! I did stuff! ^_^ I'm celebrating the small victories.

It's in a lovely silver cotton velvet that is *so* soft. I was going for the Italian bonnet with the cartridge pleated crown. It ended up a little bunchier in the front than what I was going for, but I still think it's a pretty spiffy hat. The band is a cool metal and fake pearl trim that ezabella gave me. The place she gets her fabric jewelry from sends free "thank you" gifts sometimes and she had no use for this. Works great on a hat though! The cartridge pleats are reinforced with this really hideous wool we found that is a bright acid yellow and ochre tie dye. I got it for inter-lining a cloak as I would certainly never want to use it as an outer and would therefore not talk myself out of putting it inside the cloak where it wouldn't be seen ;D

16th Century for Manly Men

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:38:08 GMT

So I've been trying to be productive. There's an event coming up this weekend called Boar's Den, and it's kinda loosely themed around Venetian courteseans... kind of like Dangerous Beauty. Or at least that's my understanding of it. Anyways, my kind of theme! ^_^ My husband hasn't had anything new in a while. I started thinking about the last time I made something for him.. and ::ahem::.. it's been eight years. In my defense, after a large bit of drama in a previous kingdom, he decided to stop playing for a while. Then he went to grad school and was much too busy to do any eventing. But, he's interested in playing again because I said how nice everyone was here, but he has nothing to wear. He also couldn't seem to figure out what he wanted, so I'm making him match me timeline wise till he figures out what he wants. Plus I'm already well researched in this time period! Bonus!

So, I'm not sure about you, but I often have guys say that they won't do "late period" because it's not manly. Well I have a great big :-P for you! It can too be manly!

The base of this outfit is similar to this fresco in the Villa Barbaro Maser done by Veronese in 1560-61. I have to say, having done some painting, it is astounding that he managed to finish the sheer amount of paintings that he did in this villa in a one year time frame. O_o I wish I were half as productive.

Mike's doublet is out of a shot sage green silk that I have done trapunto and slashing on. I slashed on the bias for minimal fraying. ::crosses fingers:: It's interlined and lined with a brown silk that shows through the slashings a bit as you move the fabric. It has a small peascod belly (don't tell him... let's see if he notices), and I'm going to do the buttons out of large pearls as I don't have the time to do the cool thread wrapped ones. Though they might get replaced at a later date.

The pants are out of a dark gray cotton velvet and I've edged the knee and side slit in a silver silk. I don't have access to a scanner at the moment, but you'll have to take my word that in addition to this picture where the pants button up the front, they also have side fastenings sometimes. His are going to fasten on the sides with three large buttons. The hat will be out of the same dark gray cotton velvet, and if I have time (LOL) I'll make him a half circle cloak out of the same lined with gold silk.

I was thinking of slashing the silk lining the cloak too, to make little bursts. Um, lemme see if I can recreate it in ASCII:

\ / \ / \ / \ /
/ \ / \ / \ / \

Yeah, like that. Though picture them at 45 degree angles. I ordered some cloth of gold and cloth of silver silk for really cheap. Which sounded awesome. I have other silk/metal weaves and love them. These two though... ended up looking like silk lamè. Esza, Aurelia, and I have renamed it the lame lamè. But, it would be great to interline a cloak with and peek through the slashing. Add a little bit of sparkle without the overwhelming urge to vomit. I think I'll use the silver one in his cloak and the gold one in mine (mine is kind of a caramel cotton velvet with a raspberry lining).

I have some amazing silk brocade in tan and sage green with a very 16th century looking pomegrante motif. It's really a rather manly brocade. I'm going to make a jerkin out of that... though there's no way it's going to be finished for this weekend. I've come to terms with that. It's ok. I even found some sage and gold shot silk to line it in. It'll be so awesome when it's done. Maybe by Estrella. ::shrugs:: I'll have to have him come stand next to my display for the Artisan's Showcase ;D lol

Here's the doublet in progress. I'll try to get pictures of the pants posted later this week.

We're coming to eat your SOUL!!!

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 06:46:57 GMT

So... I'm going to live in imaginary land where 2009 never happened. Here's Mike's second birthday cake for our party with friends back in Phoenix!

It's based off of the original NES Super Mario Bros world. The castle is one of the early level castles. It's red velvet with caramel icing and little caramel battlements. The "grout" is pocky sticks, and the dirt is brown sugar.

The Goombas (mushrooms) are spice cake mini-cup cakes with M&M dots. Didn't get a chance to do angry eyebrows or little fangs. The special ability cupcakes are also spice cake mini-cupcakes with cream cheese frosting covered in colored sugar and M&M dots.

I thought about laying out the whole first level... but... yeah... ran out of time. So I decided that an army of mushrooms surrounding the castle would be sufficeint and still funny :)

Hubby's Birthday

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:07:32 GMT

This year my wonderful hubby's big 30th birthday fell on Thanksgiving. For those that didn't know, I love love love doing birthday cakes. So, today he is getting a turkey b-day cake :) I went with a more stylized cartoony turkey as it'd be easier to implement. Due to time constraints, I did not get to sculpt the body portion and make it as proportional as I would have liked. But I still think it's pretty darn cute! When we get back to Phoenix we're going to have a birthday party with friends and I'll be doing a Mario Brother's themed cake extravaganza. I'm really looking forward to that one.

The head and feet are sculpted out of aluminum foil and then covered in white and dark chocolate. The white chocolate was then "painted" using the food coloring gel. The wings are painted white chocolate, and the tail is dark chocolate with sugar sprinkled along the top of the tail feathers to try and accomplish the little tail feather tips. The white chocolate wasn't cooperating with me by this point and I had no powdered sugar available. To get the turkey feather body texture, I dusted the cake with cinnamon and then used the icing knife to make the little scale pattern. This created kind of a feather effect with the tips being reddish.

Originally I was going to do the cake out of red velvet so it'd be funnier when you cut into it... 'cause I'm just twisted that way. But in the end I couldn't decide on what icing to put between the layers so I went with chocolate cake with toffee bits. It was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to do the cute little tiny mushroom cupcakes for part of the Mario cake. ^_^

A BIG favor with French translation

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:58:57 GMT

I feel kind of bad asking this, but I do not speak modern day French, much less 16th century French. My good friend, ladyaurelia, helped me translate it enough to know that this is the paragraph that I need, but I would be very grateful if someone who was fluent in French could provide me a more precise translation just to confirm. This is for my research on my 16th century Italian parasol project.

It's an excerpt from a book written by Henri Estienne in 1579. He is talking about these objects that Spanish and Italian people carry around not to protect themselves from the flies so much as the sun. He then goes on to say how they can be folded up to occupy very little room, but when opened will cover 3-4 people. Now why anyone would use an umbrella to keep flies off is quite beyond me, but I swear that's the best we could come up with. Did that word mean something different then? Also, in the first paragraph it seems to be describing it's shape. That it looks like a house? A pavilion like you would go camping with makes more sense in my head though. So that's the best I've managed to come up with. If anyone out there has a few minutes to help me with this paragraph, I would be so very grateful!

On l'estime ainsi. Mais ce Conopeum estoit grand, et faict en forme de pavillon. Aucuns disent que c'estoit comme une courtine autour d'un lict. Et á propos de pavillon, avez-vous jamais veu ce que portent ou font porter par les champs quelques seigneurs en Hespagne et en Italie, pour se defendre non pas tant des mousches, que due soleil? Cela est soustenu d'un baston, et tellement faict qu'estant ployé et tenant bien peu de place, quant ce vient qu'on en a besoin, on l'a incontinent ouvert et estendu en rond, jusques á pouvoir courvrir trois ou quatre personnes.

Color choice part deux

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:53:57 GMT

Whew! It's been a whirlwind vacation... and I'm still going. But, I managed to snag a minute to upload the picture of the cloak with the other fabric that I finished dying just hours before my plane ride out. I used Brazilwood and got a really fun dark purply pink! It's not the red I was hoping for, but I think I might like it even better than the cochineal one. What do you guys think? I put both silks in the picture. Will likely need to cut one of them out tomorrow night.

How badly did I want red again?

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:31 GMT

Ok, I'll admit it. I'm a big sucker for pink (see parasol). Especially purply ones. So I boiled the silly silk for two hours with continual stirring, and it never did get that lovely dark red that the cochineal gives the wool in the pictures that I've seen. I won't go into the various mordanting things I considered and the modifiers. Maybe later ;) It did however do an awesome mauve type pink. It seems to have hit max color absorption somewhere around 1 hour, though it really isn't a huge difference between 15 minutes and one hour. Perhaps not worth the stirring time involved ;D

My fabric came out looking almost exactly the color of Eleanor of Toledo's dress here. I saved the cochineal bath, I think I'll try to dye the rest this color when I'm done. I have 8 yards left that aren't dyed. I'll need three of them to try a new dye with, but that leaves 5 that I can do the cochineal with. I can get a dress out of 4 yards, so I'm confident I'll have enough. It dyed remarkably even. I was thinking that it'd be a bit spotty, but I guess my fear that it would do so and continual stirring prevented that. lol

I have some brazilwood soaking right now. I think I'll try to dye some silk tonight/early tomorrow before my flight leaves. I decided that the lightfastness of the brazilwood isn't that relevant for me. As long as it doesn't bleed on my clothes, I'm not really concerned. It's the lining of a cloak that will almost never be washed, and since it's the lining it won't really be exposed to the sun all that much. So I'll take those three yards and give brazilwood a shot.

However, I'm now contemplating just how much I really wanted a strong red afterall. I have a picture of a man's cloak in pretty much this exact shade for the external main part of the cloak, so I don't think it's a far stretch to make it a lining. Now I'll have a dilemma on my hands. I tweaked around with this picture in photoshop till I got the colors as close as I could to the actual colors. They just would *not* play nice and photograph even close to accurately.

Dyeing of Curiosity

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:25:56 GMT

Well, I'm venturing into my first dyeing experience ever. Wish me luck! I want a nice dark red... like a cranberry or crimson. I have silk satin to dye, madder roots, cochineal, and brazilwood. All are appropriate for the period of the garment. I'm kind of leaning towards the cochineal as I'm hoping that will provide a nice rich red and it seems to lean a bit towards the purple side of red. I think. Madder seems to give more of an orange red, and I'm not hugely interested in that for this outfit. The brazilwood looks really promising too though. I'm a bit torn. Has anyone out there used these three on silk? Which one do you think will give me what I'm looking for? The silk is washing right now and I'm going to let it soak in the bathtub with some filtered water and alum to mordant it overnight.

On a related note, some of the recipes from period are disgusting. I mean, one of them was describing this fermented bran method and the person that typed up the redaction described the process as being done when it smelled like vomit! Ew! I don't know that any color is worth me having to create something that smells like vomit and then heat it up and stir it for hours. Same goes for urine... aside from the fact that I'm highly sensitive to ammonia.

UPDATE:
There is a book I *must* have now: http://www.amazon.com/Silk-Industry-Renaissance-Venice/dp/0801861896/ref=reg_hu-wl_item-added
It has this whole facsinating section about kermes, madder root, and brazilwood. Looks like brazilwood has not so awesome colorfastness while kermes (will be using cochineal instead... almost the same) was like the cadillac of red dyes. They had all these fun regulations about what color the selvage had to be depending upon what it was dyed with and that you couldn't mix them by dyeing with one then overdyeing with another (shame on you Jen! lol). Sometimes the selvage had to have a gold thread running through it (I think if it was dyed with kermes alone to prove it's purity or something). I wonder if this is the origin of why our velvets usually have that gold thread running through the selvage?...

Trying to find funny...

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:41:14 GMT

So, I've been really quiet lately. I guess I subscribe to the "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all" theory. In a nutshell, we will likely be moving as soon as possible. We haven't been paid for almost a quarter. So, I think we're officially throwing the towel in and trying to find a job elsewhere. Which sucks. I've really enjoyed living here and all of the wonderful people we've met. In an effort to not dwell on the suck-fest, here's a funny thought that occurred to me.

Where is the strangest place you've ever been hit on?

For me, I would have to say the catacombs of Paris. I really wanted to go, but my friend Anna was really creeped out by the idea. So she went somewhere else while I did the tour of the catacombs. I bought my ticket and they directed me to an elevator. I took it down and when it opened, it put me in this small very clinical entirely white room with a door. No signs. Thought I was in some weird movie where everyone is screaming, "Don't go through the door!!!" So I went through the door. This took me into a very narrow stone spiral staircase. So I went down... and down... and down... and thought about turning around. But then it dumped me out at a corner of two narrow hallways. Now I'm not hugely Closter phobic, but I was starting to get a little weirded out. There was a sign this time. But it was in French and there were no arrows. Felt a bit like I was in a real life D&D session and had been separated from the party, and very badly wished I'd put a skill point or two into French. So I went left. Always go left. ;)

Right as I'm starting to wonder if I'd chosen the wrong poorly light hallway, it opens up into a nice spacious room that's sort of domed. I pause for a bit and notice there's a guy sitting on a folding chair. I must have looked really confused because the guy stood up and started talking to me in French. Which earned him a momentarily puzzled look and a stammered "Parlez-vous anglais?" Thankfully he did and I asked him if I was in the right place. He was very animated and happy and I guess so surprised to see a girl down there that was actually interested in the catacombs. So he took me over to the entrance with the first skull art and started telling me the story about the design. He shined his flashlight on it and I said, "Oh! Could you shine it just there at that angle so I can take a picture?!" He did and I took a picture then showed him the picture. He thought it was so great and rushed over to the next one to say I should take a picture of that, and so on. He loved trying the flashlight at different angles and seeing how it effected the pictures.

So then I got a private guided tour through the whole catacombs, and really cool eerie lighting pics because of the flashlight help. :D Then when we get to the end, he tells me to hide my camera before I go back up because you're not supposed to take pictures down there! LOL!! He also said that he'd get off in 30 minutes and was wondering if I'd tried some certain restaurant or type of food and would like to grab a coffee with him and go to that restaurant. It was very surreal. I'm thinking, "Am I really being hit on how many hundreds of feet below Paris surrounded by centuries old human remains arranged into art?" He was a very sweet guy though. So I told him that I'm sorry but I was married. He said he wouldn't tell if I wouldn't! O_o What's with guys? Why do they always say that? That is the third time (that I recall) that I've had that line since being married. Anyways... so, help me find happy and share the weirdest place/situation that you've been hit on.

New additions to our home

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:38:02 GMT

I recently purchased a betta fish and a really cool large vase for him. Today I got a bamboo plant and a sucker fish. Mike and I were discussing names for the newly acquired sucker fish and he came up with Monica. Lol! No, not the one from friends. Yes, I know it's wrong. ;-) It was too funny though and I decided that I had to keep the name. I'd been trying to think of what to name my betta fish. I wanted it to be something majestic 'cause he's just so pretty. With Monica the sucker fish in place I decided that I had to go with either Richard for Richard the Lionheart, or William for William the Conqueror. Because... well... the nicknames for Richard and William are just too funny with the whole Monica thing. In the end I went with William since you not only get the Willie nickname, but Bill is a nickname for William and the "conqueror" part is quite amusing too. Hehe! Yep, I've got the tank of wrong!

The Locks Smith results are in!

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:06:29 GMT

Sorry for the delay in my second Estrella post. I felt myself getting sick towards the end of Estrella, and afterwards I got full blown Estrella plague. ...again. I will reiterate, why oh why do we have it this time of year? Does anyone out there actually get President's Day off? I don't think I got that holiday off even when I worked for the government. Anyhow, I got tonsillitis which turned into a sinus infection and then moved up to my eyes to give me an eye infection and my first case ever of pink eye. Yeah. Anyhow... sorry for the gross. On to hair!

The Locks Smith was pretty slow this year, but it's understandable due to all of the crazy stuff that happened. Originally the Locks Smith was supposed to be Wednesday and Thursday at 11am. Yeah... that didn't happen. First the weather was unbelievably horrible and we were unable to get the tent for Locks Smith setup till Thursday morning just after 11am. Naturally I was not able to start *at* 11am since there was some considerable setup time involved once we were able to get into the tent. Sadly I had a pretty fair number of people come by while we were setting up that said they'd come back but were unable to in the end. :( Bummer. We also decided to open it up on Saturday since it was just far too much setup for one day; especially since that one day got a late start.

Also, I got my pomegranate martini fountain working!!! It was awesome! ... and then... it got cold. But... that comes in a later post. I have to get the fountain components unpacked and take some video. It's pretty sweet, and now that I know the gotchas I have hopes that next year's will work for the entirity of war and not just the first day. ;-)

While the tent was going up on Wednesday night, I ran my uber long 75' extension cord to the tent. It wasn't long enough! So we bought another short one and were good to go. For the full day spa experience, I had brought all of my medieval CDs and a CD player to stash under the table. In the end, we mostly just listened to the Medaeval Baebes. Who, btw, are going to be at the renaissance fair this weekend (http://royalfaires.com/arizona/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=91:mediaevil-baebes&catid=10:thefestival). I also needed electricity for my curling iron. I tried to find a crimper because it's closer to what your hair looks like when it's been braided, but it's like they're out of style or something! I couldn't find one anywhere! Must keep an eye out on ebay this year and try to find someone that's cleaning out their 80s goods. ;)

Day one went pretty slowly and yet it was a blur. We kept having to turn people away while we were setting up, but once we finished we got to talk about makeup with a few people and do one fun 14th century hairdo involving buttons and a 1580s Italian hairstyle. Sadly the documentation for the cool button hairstyle is in on a boat somewhere on the Atlantic... we think ;) I took pictures of everyone, but promised to blur out or otherwise obscure their faces. So, on all of the front facing ones I photoshopped on a 16th century portrait face (bonus points to whoever guesses the portrait! I'll give you a hint, it's Venetian! I know, shocker!). To those photographed, if you want me to do something about the side shots please message me privately and I'll take them down till I come up with another clever mechanism.

Here's a fun 14th century hair style that EzaBella did on a wonderful lady that had some longish hair but had never worn veils before. In the illumination you see little metal looking spots on the braids, and EzaBella found that sewing buttons into the braids approximated the look quite perfectly. You can really only see them on the one side in this picture, but I promise they were there on the other as well. And I think we may have convinced her that veils were pretty easy and she'll wear them now and again in the future. YEAH!

*EDIT* EzaBella just told me that the neat braided hairstyle with buttons didn't have veils with it in the illuminations that she saw. She was going to send this lady on her way and I said, "But she doesn't have a veil!" So EzaBella put a veil on her. I just thought that the reason that the lady was going to go out was because she had previously stated that she didn't like veils and I thought we just didn't want to push her into it. So, misunderstanding on my part! Oops! ;-D So, when envisioning the style below, try to mentally photoshop out the veil. But I still think it's awesome that we maybe converted someone into veils. ^_^

The second lady that stopped by to have her hair worked on had a persona from the 1580s and some seriously layered modern hair. Eep! Below is the inspiration portrait that I photographed at the Louvre. It was really high up on the wall, so it was impossible to remove the glare. It's called "The Death of Adonis" and was by a Venetian artist at the end of the 16th century. Yeah, I wish it were more specific too ;)




To acheive this hairstyle, we put in some clip in hair extensions that she owned which gave me some more length to work with, but also introduced yet another layer. I sectioned her hair off and took all of the crown of her hair and put it out of the way. Then I did a twist braid going down the sides and twisting all the way down into two braids. I do this by starting with two strands of hair that I twist towards their face. I pull the back strand to the front by going underneath the frontmost section. Add some hair, twist, bring the back section forward underneath the front section, rinse wash repeat. Because the two individual sections are twisting towards the face and the sections are twisting against each other in the opposite direction, they hold the twist without merging into one another. Here's a pretty good tutorial: http://www.dreamweaverbraiding.com/braids/Twist.htm. The ends of the twists got crossed at the base of her neck and a pearl strand twisted into them. I wrapped one into a bun and then coiled the other around it to make the pearled bun you see in the back. Next I took the much shorter layers that were left on her crown and braided them into four braids that I coiled around to give an effect similar to what you see in the portrait. I put her brooch in her hair, centering it to drop slightly onto her forehead adn then used her large pearl dangle to cover up the edge of the clip in extensions that I couldn't get to cooperate with me. While not hugely visible in the portraits above, there are some hairstyles from this time where you can see little tendrils where the bangs would be modernly. So, we saved a smidge of her bangs and gave her some softening tendrils. I also did some hair taping the next day but completely forgot to take pictures. Doh!

Day two I had two more ladies drop by to get their hair done and one very pleasant surprise when kdmorin</lj> stopped by to say "Hi". One lady had shoulder length hair and wasn't sure what she could do with it other than hide it under a veil or wrap of some sort. After a quick consultation with EzaBella (she had a huge migrain that day and I was on my own, so I phoned her for some help), we decided to try this incredibly fun "frizzy" hairstyle from the 14th century to go with her lovely 14th century gown. Below is a bust in the V&A from the 14th century showing this hairstyle:



I love how you can see where they just took the cute side braids from a hairstyle similar to the one above with the buttons and unbraided it to make the fun kinky frizz, folded it up and tucked it in. Since our lady had shorter hair to start with, with those nice face framing front layers that we like to do modernly, it wasn't necessary to fold her hair under. Here's where I wished I'd had a hair crimper. But, you do what you can. So, I used the narrowest barrel curling iron that I had and made lots of ringlets. To make her braid look longer than it would be if I did it the same way as you see in the bust above, I decided to do a french braid.



Next up was a really interesting 15th century Byzantine hairstyle. I'm sure anonymity is difficult because there are only so many people that do that particular time and place, but I'm not saying all the same ;-p She showed me a picture she had on her of a Byzantine hairstyle and even gave me a copy. But, well, I still haven't gotten all of our stuff from Estrella out of the garage yet! What can I say, I'm sick!! So, I tried to find similar hairstyles online. All I could find were earlier hairstyles, but they're pretty close. The main difference is that they have large barrel curls on the top poofy portion and the one she showed me looked smoother on the poofy portion, and we couldn't really see hair hanging down in the back like you can in the pictures below.

Her haristyle started out much like the late Italian hairstyle from the day before. I put all of her hair from the crown of her head up out of the way and did a twist braid down the sides ending in two tails. The tails were crossed over and then wrapped back up towards the front of the head and the ends folded back and tucked into the coils below since they weren't quite long enough to cross over the front entirely. Then came the tricky part: obtaining a tallish smooth poof on top without the use of a rat or ratting her lovely hair. I decided to try making my own rats by braiding some of her hair into four separate smaller braids and coiling them around to give me a lift to pull the smoothing layer over. Sorry, it's hard to explain. Then I pulled over the final smoothing layer over the coils, gave it a little twist and then pushed it up a bit to give it some added poof. I then twisted the ends completely and made a little bun. Since we didn't have any wide decorative ribbon and a brooch or jewel, I took some of the hair taping twill tape and wrapped that around. I sewed a little Atenveldt sun button onto it in place of a jewel and voile!



Finally, it slowed down some and I decided to try out this fun whacky 1560s Venetian hairstyle on myself.

I sectioned off my hair into two main sections. I did two simple braids in the very back that I coiled around each other to make a braided bun. Then I did five braids with the top portion of hair. I took each braid and ran a bobby pin through the very end of it and used that as a sturdy base to curl the rest of the braid around. I then anchored each little clump down with bobby pins to make the bumps. I put a pearl drop in each of the outer bumps, and tried really hard to center one of my brooches in the center bump. But, it was a little too far back and too small for the brooch that I had. Oh well, I still think it looked neat. I took a long fake pearl necklace and wove it around the bumps then wrapped the excess around the bun in the back, and placed a final pearl drop in the center of the back bun. Finally, I wanted to try for the softer curls feel of the first portrait, so I opted for curling my front hair rather than the braid. I'm thinking next time I'll probably do the braid as I don't have "bangs" and the hair was too long to really do the cute fluffy curls with the curling iron.  I'll definitely have to play around with the bumps some more. I'm not sure if the method I tried was the best way to achieve them or not. Only time and tweaking will tell! ;-)



In addition to playing with people's hair and talking about makeup, throughout the war lots of people came by to admire Dame Angele's hats, and we even had a handful of people that tried them on to see how they'd look in that style. I had a lot of fun doing the Locks Smith, and I am looking forward to doing it again next year. I have high hopes that next year it will be much busier. The first time something happens it's often slow. Even with our changed start times and the announcement not ending up in the gate book as planned, we still had some turn out. So, crossing my fingers that next year will bring better things and more people to help me play with hair!

So... Tired...

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:55:15 GMT

I just got back from Estrella and TOOK A SHOWER... with *HOT* water! ;-D Funny the little things you miss. I'll write a better blog on all of the cool things that happened at Estrella this year, including pictures of the hairdos we did in the Locks Smith. But the neatest thing that happened, happened at Atenveldt court tonight. My friend, and event carpool buddy, Amy Marie was asked to join the Order of the Laurel! Eee! I'm so happy for her! Ok, that is all. I'm off to bed. No rest for the wicked... I have to go to work tomorrow. Will deal with carful of stuff after work. Bleck. And then probably not be entirely unpacked till after Crown Tournament! Lol! Yeah, I procrastinate ;-p

Good News/Bad News with War and Weather

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:25:46 GMT

So... it was a miserable night last night. We were supposed to go to site last night, but then decided against it. I'm sure glad we did! Seriously, can someone tell me again why Estrella is this time of year? This is my third one now and the weather is consistently miserable. I know it gets stifling hot later, but man is it cold this time of year! ...and when it's wet... you end up with enough clay to make a pot attached to your shoe! Bleck! Anyhow, sorry for the rambling...

Due to the weather being so miserable, the Burgundian that the Locks Smith is going to be in has not been put up yet. That means no Locks Smith today. As a result, we decided to reschedule that day to Saturday. Besides, we had a couple of people that were disappointed it was too early in the war. The new days are tomorrow (Thursday) and Saturday. So please come on by! I did manage to get my pomegrante martini fountain working! Yeah! Finally got to incorporate fun period fountain mechanism in a sotelty! :-D

Visit the Locks Smith and other fun venues

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:36:09 GMT

Hi all! I thought I'd post about all of the exciting new changes to the period demo center at Estrella this year, and a fun project I've come up with that is my baby. Or at least I think it's fun ;-) As some of you know, I am the period demo center deputy in charge of artisan demos for the period demo center this year. Wow... that's a whole lot of words to say: I make/find/schedule the demos. ;-D The economy this year has taken it's toll everywhere; Estrella included. Several artisans that have been fixtures in the period demo center are going to be unable to make it for one reason or another. Most are planning to come back next year. So, I had to do some creative thinking and sort of restructure how demos in the period demo center will work this year. Together with Baroness Ann Busshenell, we reworked period demo, and I think it's gonna be great. Though I will admit that I'm a little biased! There will still be some familiar fixtures in the demo center like the ovens (available all through war, just sign up for a time slot) and the Iron Chef like cooking competition, but this post is about the new stuff. ;-)

Hang Out
So the first big change, is that I thought there should be a place for artisans to hang out between classes so that they don't have to schlep all the way back to camp only to turn around and come back. This year there will be a 20'X30' pavilion in period demo center specifically for artisans to "hang out" and chat with other artisans. I believe there are already a couple of guilds that are going to have informal meetings sometime during war. This is something that I felt has been missing from war for a while, so I'm really excited to see this change happening.

Artisan's Alley
We also worked closely with Dame Jennifer Trethewy (::DRINK!::) to create the Artisan's Alley. Humorously enough, an idea along these lines was conceived by both Dame Jennifer and myself separately, then some wires were crossed in posting to the planning list where it looked like we had coordinated already but hadn't. I thought Ann had spoken with her and Ann thought that I had spoken with her. Much hilarity ensued. ;-D But, in the end, the Artisan's Alley (credit for the awesome name goes to Dame Jennifer) was created. As a side note, I love the cross pollination that is starting to happen between the A&S tent and the period demo center. It's great to see one central A&S area forming. The Artisan's Alley will be available for those that would like to showcase their skills without having to commit to a class time. You can do it between taking classes, all day long, or whatever you feel like. Just bring your project along and grab some space in the Artisan's Alley to do your thing. Be prepared to speak with the public and other artisans about what you're doing. Time in the Artisan's Alley counts towards volunteer hours. Sadly there's no volunteer hours for the hang out zone. ;-)

Suit Up!
We'll also have a Tailor's Workshop going all through war for people to stop by and ask questions about specific projects or just sewing in general. Open Q&A available at any time, specific topics on learning basic rectangular construction, stockings and chousses, and Thorsberg trousers. Lord Voron Gegor'ev syn Tsetseneviskii gets all of the credit for conceiving this brilliant plan and will be the head tailor available.

Take in a Show
Commedia dell Arte will be performing in period demo on Friday between 10am and 2pm during the school tours. They will be alternating the Beowulf Puppet Show with The Pied Piper of Hamlin. They will also be performing The Mumble Show (more adult humor, but tastefully woven in so that children can still watch it as those jokes will be over their heads) after Twin Moons' baronial court on Thursday evening and at Queen's Tea (though I'm not sure what time... I'm just counting on Mistress Melisande tracking me down!). There will also be some performances in merchant's row, though again, I'm woefully unprepared with times.

The Locks Smith
Finally there's my baby project. My dear friend ezabella and I have had a class in mind for several years that is finally coming to fruition. I'm very excited that she will be able to attend Estrella this year and has agreed to help me out as much as she is able. As you may have noticed from my pictures and entries, I'm rather fond of accessories and the finishing details of an outfit. One of the things that I think goes a long way to making an outfit look "finished" is appropriate head gear. Comtesse EzaBella has taught fabulous hands on classes in Drachenwald on pre-14th century headgear, so it's fortunate that we found each other as I'm a pretty fair hand at 15th-16th century but have spotty knowledge on anything earlier. She also does amazing 12th century outfits/headgear that you don't see many people wearing. Anyhow, we think that some people are perhaps intimidated by period hats and hairstyles and we think that if people had a place to come to learn how to make their hair do what it's doing in the picture or how exactly to wear the veil and get it to stay on properly, that it will take some of the mystery out of it all and get more people excited/interested in finishing off their look with a head treatment of some sort. We also decided to give some tips and tricks for how to achieve a period look with modern makeup. We're calling it a Medieval Makeover.

Along those lines, this year we decided to implement our idea and have a sort of day spa experience at Estrella. Clever title credit for The Locks Smith goes to my lord husband as he's brilliant with wordplay. I'm sure my hopes of the full day spa experience are grander than what the reality will be given the time constraints and my energy levels, but I still think it will be a lot of fun even if I don't get my awesome period fountain sotelty with refreshing beverage implemented! ;-) I've had several brilliant people loan me hats from all over the periods that the SCA covers, like Dame Angele (there are others as well, but they aren't firm so I won't mention their names as I don't want them to feel obligated or pressured into loaning them if they've since changed their minds), and several tentative volunteers to help me out with playing with people's hair. For now, with the volunteers that I have, the knowledge base is primarily European. I'm somewhat hopeful that one of our fabulous middle eastern gentles will stop by and want to represent, but hopefully next year I'll be able to have someone firmly lined up. I also need some representation for the Eastern European block (Russian etc)... again, maybe next year.

So please, come by the Locks Smith and get your Medieval Makeover, try on some hats, or let us play with your hair! The Locks Smith will be open 11am-4pm on Wednesday and Thursday of war. We wanted it earlier in the week so you'd have time to keep an eye out on merchants row or take a class you might not otherwise take if you see a hat/hairstyle you like. I've already purchased salon grade disinfectant stuff for the combs that we have, lots of hair rubber bands, boxes of bobby pins, and 250yds worth of hair taping supplies. (Donations for hairstyles where you're walking out with stuff in your hair greatly appreciated... a dollar or something would be great... just you know... I can't really do a class fee sort of thing as it's come and go.) We have all sorts of fun and fantastic hats and hair dos to try, including a 14th century one with buttons! Yes, buttons! It's a ton of fun. ;-D As a disclaimer, we do not claim to be "the experts" in all things headgear. Some things we have researched to pieces, other things are still conjecture, but I think it's more important to get the desire out there and get other people to start playing around with it too as the experimentation is half of the fun! If you have a hairstyle that you're curious about, feel free to bring in a picture and we'll see what we can do. I've even managed to pull off some Botticelli hairstyles in the past. ;-D

Nerd meme going around again... no real change ;-)

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:17:17 GMT

I never thought I'd be this excited about socks!

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:14:12 GMT

There's a tiny quest that I've been on for the last several years. I keep my eye out for silk stockings. Not silk hose or tights. Silk stockings. I desperately want a pair of knitted ones *just like* Eleonora's... but I don't knit. :( So today I decided to hop over to the site that I go to to purchase my stockings (see pic to right). It's an 18th century site, but they have 100% cotton knee high white stockings with black clocking (http://jas-townsend.com/product_info.php?cPath=5&products_id=887). They still rock my socks off... well, if I don't put on my garters (j/k... they really stay up quite nicely even without garters)... but they aren't silk. I'm kind of at that place where I could use some more socks with war coming up so I hopped on over there to buy some more.

*and then*...

THEY HAVE SILK STOCKINGS!!!! OMG!!! :-D SQUEEE!!!! Not only do they have regular silk stockings(http://jas-townsend.com/product_info.php?cPath=43&products_id=950... says mens, bigger than their normal? Whatever, I can take the toe in)... but... they also have clocked silk stockings!!! http://jas-townsend.com/product_info.php?cPath=5&products_id=1005 and http://jas-townsend.com/product_info.php?cPath=5&products_id=1004 I wish I had more money and I'd buy enough to wear every day of war! Anyhow, it's really had to find good stockings for cheap (especially for boys) and really really hard to find silk ones and really really really hard to find silk ones with period detailing appropriate to the 16th century! So, I thought I'd share the love. They've got a lot of other stuff that works for some of the other SCA time periods as well (beeswax and candlemaking supplies, pottery, etc), I highly recommend them. Happy Shopping! :-D

What Style of Steampunk are you?

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:07:32 GMT

Stole this from jenthompson , it looked fun. Wow. What a surprise... I want to be the pretty peacock ;-) After reading the description, I'd have to say I agree. I love historical accuracy, but the challenge for me would not be meeting 100% accuracy but making the anachronisms look plausible and appropriate. Now if only I had somewhere to *play* steampunk...

Your result for The Steampunk Style Test...

The Aristocrat

79% Elegant, 66% Technological, 53% Historical, 20% Adventurous and 3% Playful!

You are the Aristocrat, the embodiment of steampunk elegance and poise. For you, dressing steampunk is first and foremost about simply looking good, with accessories and details to follow. However, this does not mean that you ignore the demands of creating a “steampunk look.” Your outfits weave together a balance between technology and style, and between period accuracy and beautiful anachronism. While your fashion inspiration may come from anywhere across the Victorian social spectrum, you always find a way to make your outfit beautiful. You will probably be found in the clothes of the steam age elite simply because of the greater elegance available to them. Chances are you dress this way because you like it, and you would still dress in this manner even if steampunk was not a popular interest.

Try our other Steampunk test here.

Take The Steampunk Style Test at HelloQuizzy

A Crafty Challenge

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 04:18:47 GMT

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year.
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well. We all can make stuff!