Holiday yummies!

Tonight is the annual Yule party for our local barony and Boen and I have been up for hours working on our contribution to the potluck feast. We are making an absolutely enormous meat pie with beef, almonds, raisins, apricots, apples, bread crumbs, eggs, milk, coriander, cumin, tumerick, onions, garlic, lemon zest and juice, bay leaves, salt and pepper...all baked up in pastry with a topping of egg custard.

It smells as yummy as it sounds!

For those of you who don't recognize this dish from the list of ingredients (which I wouldn't have until earlier this week) this filling is one of the many variations of a South African classic: Bobotie. We used this recipe for the ingredients but changed the technique a bit. Basically we precooked the meat (as did several other recipes) and added a crust.

I love that it is completely possible/plausible/believable in the context of a medieval kitchen, yet I've had Bobotie pie at a restaurant and found the recipe in a gazillion places on-line.

I hope it tastes as good as it looks(and smells)...

Is it a butterfly yet?

You remember my lacis piece that wanted to be a bag? Well, my project has changed form several times, but it's coming along well!

I started out thinking it just wanted to be a sweet bag...but then it got more detailed...and wanted accessories...and now I seem to be working on a sewing kit/chatelaine much inspired by this example.

I've worked and attached finger loop braid for the edging and tassel/strap loops, made tassels and am currently working on binding the thread loops and making more finger loop braids for the various straps which will be necessary to attach all the pieces together as a chatelaine.

Since I lined the original bag with silk organza and it is going to be possible to see any objects it contains, I want to stick with my current off-white color scheme. I'm thinking I need a needle case, pin cushion (with pins), scissors with case and maybe some thread winders or lace-making supplies (bobbins or gauges?) or something.

I'm going to have to do some research on how period chatelaines were made and worn but I really excited to add such a useful item to my kit!

Progress thus far...

New thoughts...

Do your projects ever speak to you?

I've been getting some increasingly clear messages from my second piece of lacis.

It doesn't feel like a fan. It doesn't want to be a fan!

It wants to be...

a bag!

Hmm.....

DONE!

The second lacis piece is all stitched up at last. I'm still pondering my fall-back treatment for the stick...maybe carved and painted?

Anyway, I expect the lacis partlet to be a long term project. Just making the netting is gonna take a while so it will probably be a while before you see more lacis from me (after this fan is done, of course.)

Not to worry, I have lots of other projects to work on!

Just another case of belated cleverness

So today I finally got to the store and bought the thread I need to finish my 2nd lacis fan (and the proposed lacis partlet too, btw) and while I was there I bought sculpty in several colors to try making an 'ivory' fan.

Mixing canes of various colors was looking pretty good for the ivory so I took out my 3/8" dowel, cut in some grooves for the fan's wire frame to run in, and started covering it with the plastic clay...only to discover that it was going to turn out way too thick. OK, plan 2! I took out my 1/8" dowel and started covering *it* with the plastic clay...looking pretty good...I only have to sculpt and bake it....

Oh...wait minute...

I have to bake it...in the oven...rats!

I've tested it out and there is no way a 3' length of dowel is going to fit in my current oven. (Sigh, I really miss my fancy stove which is back in New York state.) I've decided to keep the 'ivory' and try it out a fan with a shorter handle so it's back to the drawing board for the stick treatment for this fan. I guess it's good that I still have some stitching left to do!

I've run out of thread

for my second fan so I'm stalled on that project until I can get to the store. (Sigh. So close too!)

The good part of that situation is that I now have time to wander around on the internet looking at cool stuff. I've found plenty of info on ways to make faux ivory out of fimo or other similar materials so my current plan is to make the stick for this fan out of a wooden dowel (it's a bigger fan so I think I will go for a full 3' length in the stick) covered and sculpted in faux ivory.

They say I should bake the fimo stuff on a wooden or even cardboard surface so I don't think baking the dowel will be a problem. I hope it works because I already have ideas about an 'ivory' wax tablet...I guess we'll see!

The possibly bad part of wandering around on the net is that I learn about other new a different cool stuff. Like the Scroll Blank Challenge which is going on in the Midrealm (aka my new Kingdom.) I have been thinking about trying my hand at the scribal arts and now could be the time. I have until early February to make a donation so I'm sure I will at least be able to make a scroll case for the concurrently running Scroll Case Challenge.

Scribal Arts..what fun!

Ideas about the Palo/Lotto partlet

The lovely big picture of this partlet at Web Gallery of Art pretty much makes it possible to count the threads so I have been counting, and pondering, and doing some on-line investigating and have come up with a theory regarding it's possible construction.

I think it may be a double weave (which basically means to weave two layers of fabric at once) which is joined together at the curvy diamond shapes (the lighter threads at the back layer brought forward to make the pattern) the flowers (the warp of the back layer pulled forward and held around a dowel to form loops) and the knots. (I'm calling them knots for lack of a better term but I think they are actually more loops which have been woven in again after several rows.)

I think I could get the loops at the edges just by leaving some extra thread at the edge at each pass--possibly held by another dowel for consistency of size and tension.

Mind you, I haven't actually woven a thing since high school, and even then it was never this complicated, but I think the theory is sound and worth trying. I guess my next step would be to investigate looms...