The Funny Thing About Giving Yourself Permission...

NOT to do something, is that it sometimes has the opposite result!

After spending last night working on the design for the back roof of my pavilion, I got up this morning and promptly started to work on the second section of the motto. Go figure.

Giving myself leave to do something else seems to have put it back on the 'fun' side of the scale and I am already halfway finished with the ribbon-work part of the task. I'm not promising this rate will continue but to go from 2 1/2 letters finished to 15 finished and several others started feels great!

Maybe there will even have to be pictures soon...

The Roof at Last!

As I predicted, the--apparently endless--stitching on the mottoe has gotten be be a bit more like drudgery than I can handle, so I am commencing work on the dragon applique for the roof sections of the pavillion. (And can I just say, WooHoo!)

I'm hoping the first panel will be comparitively simple--since there is not much more actual applique than there was on one of the door panels--but you know how I am...

Anyway, here is

A close up of the pattern for the front roof


I'm thinking I will adapt it to make the back roof. Maybe something like this:

Proposed back roof panel


I think it's not quie busy enough--maybe she should be holding foliage to feed the dragons? (OK apparently they are wyverns, but close enough for me!) Still a work in progress, obviously.

Wish me luck!

On Authenticity...and the art of shopping

I've been thinking a lot about 'authenticity' in the SCA context lately.

On the one hand it seems like a kinda silly concern, I mean, we've got personas from all corners of the globe, walks of life, and hundreds to thousands of years of human history all thrown together in a little itty bitty space carved out from the surrounding 'real world.' Even if said world wasn't encroaching on every side, our play space is a great deal more like Riverworld than Medieval Europe! So why bother?

On another hand, following my medieval interests/passions to the fullest extent I can (or care to) manage at any given time is one of the things that interests me about the SCA. I hand sew my garb and laboriously stitch my way through endless eyelets because I *like* it. Both the process, and knowing that I have done my best to make something both beautiful and as 'in-period' and inoffensive as I possibly can.

So, yet another hand! When I consider the probable 'authenticity' of my gear - projects - whatever, inoffensiveness is something I strive for. By which I mean that I work to reduce the likelihood of my person/encampment knocking someone *else* out of the dream. I am very concerned with trying to present plausibly 'in-period' manifestations of the material goods I need to make my SCA play comfortable for modern me, while keeping in mind another couple of concerns (more hands).

Hand 4: Can I afford it (in terms of money)?

Hand 5: Is this a sound decision for me in relation to the modern world I live in? AKA, can the earth afford it? This one is tricksy for me. I will often, but not always go for the product or material which seems the most ecologically sound, or safest, or most renewable even if it is the farthest thing from what my persona would have had, 'in-period.' Provided that it still looks and feels right to me.

And the list of hands just keeps on going...

I have my reasons for all of my decisions. The interesting thing to me is that those decisions vary from "I just don't really care about this item, at least not yet" (which would explain my choice of blankets for my encampment) thru "I chose to use this *totally* non period item because it presents a period appearance and fulfills some other need I have" (in example, my gowns made out of beautifully woven but largely synthetic upholstery fabric and my in-tent chandeliers with electric candles) to "I want to try to replicate the shape, use, method, style and feel of this authentic article which my persona could well have owned, and I'm going to do my very best to do it in a way which would seem within the bounds of reason for a person of her time" (witness my lovely folding table 'with it's chains' which will appear in the blog at some point in the future.)

It's all about balance and I find the process of considering and actively *choosing* the right item to fill a place in my list of necessary gear very interesting in and of itself.

Which brings me to the shopping...

My darling gave me a 2 burner Coleman stove for Christmas this year. Which was a perfect gift since it meant we *didn't* have to worry about either watching over a campfire, or starving to death at Pennsic. But I keep finding myself interested in having a second option sometimes for convenience--like a solar oven I could just put things into before I head out of camp for the day--and sometimes for pretty--which is how I wandered into these...

Couscoussier * Brazier * Cazuela

I keep thinking how nice it would be to have a neat little charcoal fire, make a little stew, do a little barbecue right over the coals...and the pots can be used on a gas burner too...hmmm.

I could order it all on line, all it would take is $$ and it's all perfectly plausible--and largely documentable--for late period Italy!

Believe it or not, only a small part of the point of this post is to show off the cool stuff I found (although it is cool!) Mostly I am struck by how a relatively small change in items can dramatically increase the authenticity and inoffensiveness of my encampment. I just switch out the cheap aluminum "camping" pans I was planning to buy for a couple of cazuelas and voila! Instantly improved authenticity of cooking experience and the look on the table. Someday I may decide to go with a fire instead of the Coleman stove and Voila! Completely inoffensive cooking. All without doing any kind of research into period cookware because, honestly, I'm just not there yet.

Which I guess is my point.

I think we have to give ourselves permission to be 'not there yet.'

Furthermore, I like to think that if we do that, and make our subsequent choices as inoffensive as we reasonably can, the 'authenticity' of our individual and collective journeying in these later middle ages will be much improved, quite painlessly!

More on the Mottoe

I have been overcome by the coolness of the way black outlining makes everything seem crisper, and somehow clearer, and so I have completely neglected moving forward on the second section of the mottoe while I outline each letter of the first section.

Black outlining in progress

I'm finding that it works really well for me to have the cord on a tapestry needle and the sewing thread on another hand sewing needle. I knot the cord on the back of the work, bring it to the front using the tapestry needle, stitch it down with the sewing thread/needle, bring the cord to the back of the work again and out at the next section. If there is a lot of space between sections I knot the cord on the back at the beginning and end for security but it is still much tidier than when I used to start each letter with a new segment of cord. Works for me!

Hmmm.....

The Plan















So I'd been thinking it would be nice to upload my sketchup version of the Pavilion so that people can see where I am going...of course it was at home and I was at work but I uploaded a draft version (too tall, not wide enough, etc) so that I could see if I can get it to work...

and...

Ooo! Success!

Then I went home and figured out how to capture an image of the project, as well as uploading the real deal into Google sketchup 3d. if you follow the link by clicking on the picture you can download my plan and tinker with it to your hearts content--though I warn you that I am still learing how to use sketchup and I tend to just keep adding planes until the thing looks right when I've gotten things a bit...off.

Better...Stronger...FASTER

It seems I wildly overestimated the time it would take to complete step two. (Especially if I ended up stuck at home with the stomach flu!)

The first 9' section of mottoe applique is finished. That piece is the section which will go over the front doorway just above the AIR and FIRE panels. After some elaborate calculations I have figured out where the text will fall on the 9' section over the back door, marked out the text, and started the applique work there too.

I hope to have both doorways finished by the end of this weekend, if all goes well.

The finished section of Mottoe






The second section















To give a better idea of the scale/construction of the Pavilion here is a photo of: the roof, mottoe and doorway panels laid out as they will be assembled

















and finally, a picture of the source design for the dragon on the front roof of the pavilion

Here be Dragons!...

OK, now couching down the black cord on the door panels goes really fast but the gold lettering on the mottoe? Not so much.

As you may remember, I am looking at about 29 feet of lettering. At my current pace of 2' on a weekend day and about 6" on a weeknight that would be....a long long time. About 2 months of a long lllllooooonnnnnggggg time.

My hands hurt just thinking about it.

...but... Oooooh!, SHINY!!!

So I will persevere. If I am a very lucky girl I will get better (stronger, faster) with this process also. I sure do hope so.

To keep myself entertained in the meanwhile, I have been pondering my approach to the top most part of the center section of the Pavilion. I know it is going to be 3'x9' with the upper 1' covered with a band of the same glorious blue-green fabric I have been using throughout. I also know that I am going to be appliqueing on a period motif of a man capturing dragons (on the front of the pavilion) and my adapted version of a woman capturing (luring) them (on the back of the pavilion). I've been putting it off because I wanted to be sure that I have cut all the large continuous pieces I will need from the applique fabric before I start on the little bitsies that make up the dragon motifs.

Since I'm going to need a break from all that mottoe stitching, I guess the time is near at hand.