liadethornegge | Entries tagged with aros

Yesterday, the shire of Aros had a potluck get together. We started at 1 pm with crafts and then we ate potluck dinner together. I brought the red petticoat and stitched all the godets onto the big pieces. I also discovered that one part of a hem had some jagged cutouts, which I disguised with another small piecing.

I opted to wear my ancient Roman garb for the day, because it's an easy outfit to wear, and I rarely pull it out. I remembered a set of earrings and other jewelry pieces from Pennsic.

At the potluck I also took delivery of my new handmade shoes! I wanted a pair of shoes to fit my 14th/15th Century wardrobe and I had previously commissioned a pair in exchange for medieval pillowcase fabric. I finished the yardage in February 2024 and finally, at the beginning of this year, the person admitted they would not be able to finish a pair of shoes for me. At that point I asked Erik Dalekarl if he had space to make me shoes in exchange for some handweaving and he said he did.

They fit me, and they are an appropriate style. I am super happy with the exchange.

Check out the insta-post with pics

Today I continued on the skirt for my petticoat, stitching the panels together along the side seams. As I was finishing the first one I realized I had forgotten to add pockets. I did not rip out my stitching, instead I marked out the other side seam for a pocket there. So, I will only have one pocket on this kirtle, just like the first red petticoat.

The skirt now has two panels in the back and one panel in the front, I have not yet stitched the centre back seam because I can't make up my mind what to do.

I could turn the skirt around - put the seam in the centre front. Holding it up around me makes this a very tempting option.
I could attach the skirt as is, stitching up the back seam and cutting a slit at centre front so I can lace it on.
Both of these options means that I have to attach the skirt on fully flat - because I do not have enough width in the waist to add any pleats.

The third option is to add in a rectangular panel in the centre back seam - because I have a small piece of cloth left. In order to fill in the centre panel I would have to cut that remnant which is basically 70 x 50 cm in half and make one long skinny piece 25 x 140 cm which would expand the waistline by those 25-ish cm.

I'm not sure how to proceed, so I've laid it down again to ponder the issue.

At sewing circle this past weekend I dug through my binder of patterns and cut out a new bodice from my self-made and dyed fabric.

Me and Helwig also helped our new member, Anna, to start her own similar project. We drafted a bodice pattern and did a quick first fitting of it, so she could take it home and start cutting out her red wool.

On Sunday I proceeded with the new red petticoat project, cutting out interlining and stitching some lines for light boning and padstitching in the front bodice, and it was lovely to do some hand sewing.

I'm paused to figure out how I want to do my front closing. I think I will try to do something similar to what I did on my original red petticoat, which is lace through the interlining and let the outer fabric overlap and pin it closed. The red petticoat does have hooks and eyes, but my little black dress I use pins on and I love the way it looks, so I think I'll aim for that. Which means I need something else to cover the front edge of the interlining, which currently is just the selvedge of the green and white checked fabric I wove for the Pisa kirtle.

Instagram post with pictures of this process

Yesterday was Aros sewing circle, and I was planning on doing embroidery - but in my bag from last time I discovered the mittens I had cut out following the Lödöse-mitten pattern I bought at Lucia in December. So I worked on those instead.
I managed to put together the first mitten, hand sewing with wool. It was lovely to work with wool again.

The fabric is the very gorgeous cochenile dyed wool my apprentice Cristina gave to me when she accepted my belt. She gave me a yard of wool, and woolen and silk thread all dyed in cochenile to match. She is a dyer. I made a hood out of it last year and had only scraps left over, which I managed to patch together for these mittens.

I had to piece a couple of the pattern pieces, and the front/back of the mittens that are one piece in the pattern I had to cut out as two separate pieces. I used a backstitch to join the pieces, using the 20/2 wool yarn Cristina also dyed to match the fabric.

The mittens are roomy, and I think I will be able to use this exact pattern to make a pair of fur-lined mittens out of my ray cloth. The cochenile wool is fairly thick and lovely, whereas my ray cloth is much thinner. The fur will be a black fake-fur that I have already used to line the aforementioned hood.

So last post was about what we're trying to do now to keep the SCA going in the time of Pandemic.

What do I think we can do, with minimum effort, to let self-starting potential new members find us? Well, I worked on that for a while, by making sure that our Shire's website was up to date, easy to find, and regularly updated with information that let interested potential new members know what we can offer them.

The plan for Aros was to write short articles and publish every month. It also included marketing the updates where our members already are, this does a few things:

* opportunity to educate existing (and new) members. Like for example "What is Heavy Fighting in the SCA?" "How to bake Biscotti Milanese"
* opportunity to engage the imagination. Like for example prose accounts of past events
* regular new uldates shows the page is alive and there is an active local group
* opportunity to involve people even if they don't make it to events, or live far from the local centre
* adds to search engine optimization in your local language. If we have several articles that use the

The best way to describe it is that publishing articles produces passive content on the website for active and self-starting possible new recruits to find. If someone interested in medieval food does a google search - an SCA page should be in the top five hits. Ideally if somebody searches for medieval and your local town your Shire webpage should be the TOP hit.

Some simple Search Engine Organization is easy to do even if you have no deeply technical skills.

The experiment I ran for Aros produced 36 articles, and we still get quite a bit of traffic.
https://aros.nordmark.org/artiklelarkiv/

So now that long-distance travels, and large-scale events are going to be halted, due to Covid-19, how about focussing on more local, small-scale events.

In our Shire we started the whole "lock-down" in Sweden by doing our Yearly Meeting online, and a couple of our business meetings, which usually are at a café in town. I have an unlimited zoom account, and people were getting a little desperate to see and talk to other people, so basically we had weekly sewing circle for a little bit as well.

Now the travel restrictions are lifted a little bit, we tried a small-scale outdoors-only one-day event in the form of our traditional walk along Eriksleden from the Cathedral in Uppsala out to Old Uppsala as an ice-breaker.

I set it up and got people interested, but on the day I ended up having to stay home just to be alone and quiet for a few hours. Thankfully the handfull of people who went on the walk and the subsequent fika all had a good time, and I got to say hello to a few when Edricus was dropped off back at home.

The next happening for the Shire will be monthly meeting in person again, outside on picnic blankets in the sun.

I think we can create a good atmosphere and energy locally to keep the SCA going. Thankfully, summer is the best time of year to make outdoor activities possible.

I will be finished with my gown by then. I will, I will, I will.

Actually, I don't have too terribly much left. I managed to stitch in the skirt entirely this week, as well as finish off the front closure with hooks and eyes over the lacing.

Still left to do, at sewing circle tomorrow, is evening up the hem, and hemming. Cutting out and making up a pair of huge sleeves and applying miles of black satin trim. The hem will go quickly, the trim will be dull but go quickly, the making of sleeves will be a pain in the behind.

So the plan for tomorrows sewing circle is

put on the dress to have the hem measured out evenly

invent and draft sleeve pattern

For extra credit, make up toile sleeve in cotton (unsure if I'm going for extra credit)

cut out actual sleeves and start making them.

I think that I will have to do boring hemming and trim application at home, during the week.

I also have some scribal things to finish for Spring Crown, special commission work. I'm writing up invitations for an invitational HF tourney at Double Wars. They've been fun to do, although doing ten identical ones is a little tedious.

At Spring Crown, when the dress will be finished, I will come turned out in an all new outfit. New red knitted stockings, new red knitted half-gloves, new black wool gown and new oxblood red leather shoes. It's going to be awesome, and I can't wait! It will be my first time in Polderslot (The Netherlands).

Preparations for tomorrow's sewing circle. I bought some sturdy cotton to make a toile or two out of. I am so excited! Yay!

Sewing circle this past Saturday was the first after Kingdom University and I had no idea what to do.

I had a think and decided it might be time to finish some of the projects that are almost finished. For example the hemp corded corset I have so far done all by hand and only lacks edging, and for another the blue brocade GFD which I cut out and started up in Frostheim quite some time ago now.

I brought both of these to the sewing circle, and come half way along the top of the corset, or stays after Queen Elizabeth's effigy. The last time I tried it on it didn't fit me properly and I got mad at it. Maybe it won't fit me properly now either, but if I at least finish it, I can tick that box and if needed throw it out. I am hoping to be able to build a wardrobe on top of it though, as it was more comfortable than my old pair of stays.

As for the blue brocade GFD I was much farther along on it than I had guessed. Basically I only had to do eyelets, close up a little more of the front seam, then fit sleeves and hem. So I started on the eyelets while we watched The Borgias. Pushing the awl through the entirely plastic (polyester) brocade and the fairly sturdy linen lining was not much fun, and I ended up with a bruise on my solar plexus as I used it to anchor the awl while I pulled the fabric towards me to open up the eyelets. Ouch.

I finished the eyelets on Sunday at home, and maybe I'll try it on today to see how it fits.

Blowing off some cobwebs and updating my website! There's lots of stuff I just haven't gotten around to posting there. Shameful. Anyway I am well on the way to finishing the A&S 50 Depth challenge I set myself. Also, there's a dress diary for my black velvet gown... and some links.

So check it out, eh

Will be posting a new monthly article on the shire website on Saturday as well. Unfortunately they're only going to be in Swedish. But I know I have some Swedish readers here as well who might be interested :)

I didn't mention before the additional project I meant to finish for my vigil - but it is one from the list of started ones: A wool applique banner. I bought green, black and white wool, half a metre each (or was it one?) to make a banner for myself .... and I don't even remember when, where or from whom I got the fabric. It might have been at Double Wars?

In any case, I had made the pattern and cut out the fields way back, and made a pattern for the seeblätter but not cut those out. My original plan was to use intarsia embroidery to fit the seeblätter into the fields, but when I picked up the project yesterday I abandoned that and decided to applique them instead. I used blanket stitch in white to attach the white seeblätter, and blanket stitch in black for the black one. I used a simple backstitch with about 5 mm seam allowance to attach the field pieces together, felled those seams to either side and topstitched them from the outside to keep it all flat and streamlined.

The only thing left now is to line it and manufacture suspension options. Pictures will come tomorrow.

While finishing the applique I changed it up a little and finished the sewing table that arrived at my door yesterday. I needed some finishing touches on the centre bolt that attaches the tabletop to the leg. It was left unfinished by my father by my request so I could make it into a pincushion like my inspiration-images showed. So first I glued down a piece of foam mat my father sent with the table, then I cut out ten or so layers of wool circles in full size, a couple about half size and a couple even smaller circles, plus a large circle to put on top. The bolt was prepared for a thickness of fabric to be folded over to the underside, so I applied glue here and pulled the large circle down over all the layers of mat and wool, just like upholstering a chair seat. I pleated down the excess, and stitched the pleats down with silk, cut off some of the excess and then covered the side with a cotton ribbon and a satin ribbon to make it neat and decorative. All in white. I can now keep my sewing needles pinned in the centre of my table, threads, off-cuts, scissors and lots of other stuff fits in the tabletop, and the quite massive leg keeps it all even-keeled without the risk of falling over.

Tomorrow, when my camera batteries have recharged I will be posting photos of this new wonder as well.

Tonight, to change the topic entirely, I attended the monthly Shire meeting. There were five of us, and we decided on a new Yearly Meeting on October 1. Hopefully we'll have new statutes to club through then, and afterwards we'll go out for a pint.

Tomorrow, I'm hosting scribal night here at home, hopefully I'll finish a couple of nagging items then. We'll see who else shows up. My littlest apprentice sister Isabetta said she might show up :) Again, if I finish anything, I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Tomorrow, tomorrow...