Month: January 2020

2020 Plans

A look ahead…

Sewing

I plan to keep working on my over-the-top appliqueed and embroidered Norse smokkr. At some point, I’d like to work out a new serk (underdress) pattern and start the green serk for the same outfit. I already have the coat patterned, so I will hopefully get to start on that this year as well. Other than that outfit, my main sewing plan for this year is a lot of fixing and finishing. I have several mostly-finished projects that need a few details. I’m not currently planning to attend any major events this year that I have to have new garb for, so I’d like to get what I have in better order.

Dance

I finished arranging the music for Il Ballo D’Eleanor and we premiered it at the Red Mountain Mead Hall event in Isenfir. I will be teaching it at our Kingdom University in February and we will be sending a video for the Dance Showcase and Kingdom A&S in March. I will be posting the directions, music and more information on the dance in the next couple of months leading up to those events.

I want to really focus on getting the dance pages on this site in order. There are a lot of dances I have reconstructed and don’t have up. I also want to sit down and actually write up all my specific research on the dances in the Nuremburg Letter – currently it is in notes in lots of different places.

Food

Over the years I’ve been sucked more and more into helping my husband and his buddies with planning the feast they cook for our local March event. This year, Jasper and I ended up pretty much planning the menu after I suggested the theme. It all started with the thought process “Italian food before tomatoes”. We test cooked it recently and I’m pretty excited about the food.  It’s all themed around the Battle of Pavia (1525) between the forces of Charles V of Spain/HRE and King Francis I of France over control of Lombardy. I’ll be baking bread for it, of course.

Blog

I managed to post more last year, at least until about July. This year I’d like to keep building on that and post at least once a month without giving up when the new school year starts in August.

2019 Sewing Reflections

Spent all of 2019 trying to catch up on the million things I sewed in 2018… (At least still 2 more 2018 dress diary posts I need to get up but I don’t have all the pictures I need for them yet.) What about what I sewed in 2019?

I didn’t sew nearly as many things in 2019. No wedding, no Pennsic, no dance competition that I randomly decided I needed a new outfit for… I also took on a couple of major projects that take a while.

In the beginning of 2019 I was helping plan the menu for the feast for Defending the Gate in March. I spent a bunch of time helping Jasper with recipe testing, as well as baking. I baked all the rye bread for one of the removes of that feast. I did also start a sewing project I was hoping to have ready for the event – a new smokkr in the style of the köstrup find. I almost had it sewn in time to wear to the event, except that I was so worn out from baking that I couldn’t make the pleats work and gave up.

I did come back to that project in the fall. I was able to figure out the pleats (I used 3 gather strings and basically made cartridge pleats) and the smokkr is now wearable. However,  that is only the first piece of the project. The smokkr is going to be the middle layer of a new outfit. I’ve got a nice green linen for the serk and a nice tan wool for a coat. The plan is to make a ridiculous heraldic Norse outfit (mostly because I can) with appliqueed hippocampi on the smokkr and coat. I’ve got the first hippocampus on the smokkr and am working on embroidering it. This is going to take a while.

The other major sewing project that took on in 2019 was of course entering the 9th Italian Renaissance Costume Competition. I already posted about that – if you haven’t, you can look at my detailed dress diary notes (link) and the competition results (link). I didn’t win any of the categories, but I finished my outfit in time and I am darn proud of it. I also did my first ever fancy photoshoot of one of my outfits. Need to do more of those!