Genevieve's Journeys

This was actually over a week ago now, so my post is a bit late.

We'd booked early for this year's kingdom university, taking advantage of the lovely Buckden Towers in Cambridgeshire. This proved to be a Catholic centre with an associated charity to support the restoration of the space, and a very handsome space it was. See pics on the (somewhat dated) charity website.

Booking early we scored an 'apartment': a private room with adjoining bath and tiny self-catering kitchen. If I were spending a week on retreat there I'd be very happy to ensconce myself in it. The building is clearly 16th c or earlier, with wonky walls and angled doorways where the doors don't fit, but it was very cozy, and I was very, very glad of a hot shower and a real bed after a full day.

We were blessed with a glorious sunny early-winter day: warm in the sun, which shone all day, cool in the shade, bright and crisp. It was mild enough to take our midday meal in the Tudor-style knot garden and enjoy her highness' court, where jahanarabanu was made kingdom artisan for the coming year. HE aryanhwy, Lord Raconzy and HG Fiona were all there to welcome her, as previous winners.

My highlights were taking part in fencing authorisations, where we had 3 fencers (1 from Thamesreach and 2 from F'heath) successfully authorised in single sword.

This process brought home to me that expectations of authorisation varies across the principality: this process was different again from the previous authorisations I've witnessed.

The scriptorium had classes all day. nusbacher had 2 keen students, and Katherine's illumination class had at least 6 people in it, though they ran short of time to actually finish their pieces (Kat says: 3 hours minimum, anything less doesn't work). But wow: 6 people learning to outline, ink, gild and paint in one afternoon. Awesome.

My own class was small but perfectly formed, and provided just the range of experiences and opinions on how to scribe that I'd hoped for.  Artists are so opinionated!

I laughed out loud watching each of us demonstrate our preferred way to draw straight lines: of 3 scribes you got 4 opinions on how to use a ruler...

I got only a glimpse of the bestiary themed arts and sciences display, but apparently badgersandjam and I managed a 3rd place as a populace-choice item in the display: pretty good for some plain calligraphy that isn't yet illuminated!

I had included a plain text (eg. printed) version so folks could read it without having to struggle with early Gothic hand.

Robert had a rapt audience for 3 hours in the afternoon, puttering with his pewtering moulds. He'd successfully arranged for his moulds, tools and gas burner to reach the venue (OMG heavy!) without actually being hauled by us on the train(!) which meant he could demonstrate and work using his actual tools, not borrowing or jury-rigging some substitute.

This class was not for raw beginners but for people who were familiar with the carving and casting process and I think the people who attended were just right.

It included J, aryanhwy's other half who has taken to pewtering like he was born to it, as well as Yann who had done some other metal casting (he's since posted his first piece based on what he learned!), and G, a Thamesreach newcomer, who is an experienced maker-of-things and loves the technical business of 'how do you do that?'.

I wandered into Robert's class late in the afternoon to find a great sprawl of moulds and tools across every flat table surface, and every one of the attendees were still there, still absorbed in the work.

I was amused to find the 3 of the Dutch attendees in his class. Polderslot has 2 of the most active pewterers in the kingdom in it. I'd thought they would have had their fill of pewter. We'd done casting just the month before at the event.

When I mentioned this, Snorr said, 'Simeon can demonstrate, but he's not a teacher', which I thought was typically honest, and a compliment to Robert. His teaching skills just keep getting better.

While HG Sir Jonathan had won the Holly Monarch tournament, he and his family weren't staying for feast so he passed his monarchial duties (handing out gifts) to Lord Walter, a gent recently returned to Drachenwald from a stay in Atlantia, who worked hard to distribute the many many gifts.

I was charmed when he approached me, said 'I'm not supposed to ask, so I hope you'll just accept this gift', and I found written on it 'for a young lady'. Very sweet! My gift was a very long string of glass beads.

I'm now contemplating how to change them so I'll be more likely to wear them - they'd make a nice string of 3, but I may tweak the bead choices.

The feast by Lady Auriana and Lord Gyles was very impressive, particularly her efforts to ensure everyone with food sensitivities got something to eat.

The ball itself ran long: HE Margaret even said she was surprised folks were still dancing, and was taking requests as her dance list was run out. I had a splendid time, and we even danced one of my all time favourites Rostibolli 'for those who know it', and nz_bookwyrm managed to fake his way through!

The other treat, aside from the classes, feast, venue, apartment and great company? was getting home midafternoon on Sunday with enough time to recover for work.

Scroll part 2( still more photos )

Scriptorium on saturday in Oxford: very fine,  small but perfectly formed attendance. Mixed results on teaching quill cutting, splendid class by nusbacher on writing in textura quadrata - enough so that I want to try it again.

badgersandjam was her usual thorough self and ensured it ran smoothly. With the small crowd we wrapped up early-ish, though still managed to miss a train by about 3 minutes and had to wait 25 mins for the next one.

Travelled back w/ her highness and HE Siobhan her lady in waiting, and it was very convivial.

Sunday we were visited and visiting: first by a NZ mate R who dropped off some packing cases; second by Nicholas who is preparing a fine Yule ball and happily walked off with about 12m of lovely linen for banners; third we threw ourselves out the door to meet aryanhwy and J and Gwennie at Paddington station for a pint and dinner, which worked very well.

G has grown, of course, and her 3 and 4 word sentences are perfectly understandable even to non-parents, which is pretty awesome. The whole process of watching someone learn a new language must be absorbing.

Robert and Joel spent the better part of an hour chewing over stone moulds for pewter-casting, and their foibles, and we rounded out the meal by fondling Ary's glorious new coronet and admiring the beautiful work by Baroness Estrid. Gwen explained it goes on Mommy's head (or was possibly asking if she was going to wear it), but Ary declined to model it in the pub.

We left them at Baker St on the Bakerloo line, where they both remarked on how helpful Londoners are with buggies...at least on weekdays. Less so on weekends.

Robert suggested that regular commuters both sympathised with people trying to negotiate the tube with a buggy, AND would also be well motivated to keep people moving, to reach their own trains. So they are self-interestedly helpful.

We've both stepped in to lift one end of a buggy up and down stairs and escalators, to save some perplexed parent the awkward decision of whether to take the kid or the luggage first up a flight of stairs.

On the weekend, you're just stuck with tourists who are trying to manage a trip themselves; they don't have the same urgent priority to keep moving to get to/from work.

Today Robert hauled many of our broken down cardboard boxes from the attic, and assembled them. He even filled two with one shelf-full of paperbacks.

The move is really happening - though I'm not committing the address to memory til I have a contract in hand.

Even with the move, however, Monday the Gaming Night continues at least this week, and it looks like will continue at our new digs - at least once we have chairs and a table to sit around.

Haggis has been a determined lap hunter today; seeking a lap and gazing up at me expectantly for loves. Either she really missed me on Sat or she can feel the change in the air.

Highlights were: a great feed at Vitus and Isabel's house on Boxing day (including their family, Ozbeg and Katherine, and Paul and Anne), a visit with Sir Nasr and Countess Ellie on the weekend, and not doing very much at all for a few days.

Neither of us feel up to much: I'd hoped to get a handle on a backlog but the lure of the sofa overwhelmed me. Closest I came was some bookmarks for the giftbasket and a single work for Coronation. Happy with those, fairly, but bummed at low volume.

The cleverest thing I did was fine-nib pen trials. I can now reliably trim my quills to about 1 mm width, which is small but not very small. I spent some time trying to get a smaller nib from my current pens, and decided that it will take more practice, and I shouldn't try to trim nibs when under a (self-imposed) deadline.

So: setting aside the quills, I went back to my boxes of nibs and tried out a whole range of fine pointy nibs, a mix of old ones and ones I'd bought and never used.

Managed to get quite surprising results from them - ones that look like sharp points actually generating serifs like a 'round' hand nib, albeit tiny ones.

Since I did this in one long sitting, I could feel the difference between nibs: some were soft and springy some were hard and thin. Still don't know why you might choose a soft nib over a hard one, but at least I could feel the difference.

Am hoping to scribble some more with pens alone in the next few days.

One comfort: the cosmetic smellies that Lady Ynes left with us got good reviews at Christmas. At our gift exchange I gave out bags of 'red damask powder', left with us by Ynes. I also made 'Spanish leather' following S Pointer's recipe in her book - a sort of scented paste that you rub into soft leather to serve as a small flat pomander. It's rich and earthy and dense smelling, very different from a modern perfume.

We also still have 'nightcap powder', which I think has changed a bit since Ynes left it with us, but stll is delightful and I made new bags for our linens to tuck into our pillows.

I like all these scented items, but perfume is so individual it's hard to predict who will like what, so I didn't oblige anyone to take anything in our gift exchange.

Over the break, I found myself stressed by not getting things done that I'd promised myself over the holiday: no cards, no decorating, a lot less crafting. Just don't have the energy.

However, if tomorrow at work is like today, I can sit and write post-Christmas cards practically all day. Assuming a gale doesn't blow me over on my way to work. This has to be the gustiest and rainiest Christmas I've seen in England.

Also: disappointed with the Doctor. The 50th anniversary was brilliant, and this was a strained anticlimax in comparison.

Marcus of Stormarn's GoA,

a fun Hedgepig day scroll, Now with new pictures! courtesy lord Nicholas

and a Fox

now on Dragon Scribes.

Photos from a historian's study of Croatian business documents - Flickr

Story written up in April.

Cheers dr_zrfq! I posted it to Dragonscribes too.



Cats and scribing, what's not to like? Beats work any day.

Last weekend Robert and I made our way to the Vitus-haus to enjoy an afternoon of folding canvas pavilions, restashing the medieval-camping trailer and sword work on the pell. (Ok, we don't get out much.)

So we did all these things - us, Ozbeg and Katherine, Earl Paul and Lady Anne, Isabel and Vitus, and alternately helped and held up by assorted children.

It was a beautiful afternoon, so a fine time to be out of our own house and in someone's garden and you never go hungry in this crowd. The BBQ groaned under the weight of sausages, marinated chicken parts and chicken livers (way better than I expected), and Saturday is ice-cream day for the kids.

And I had a fine intro to two-hand sword with Paul, who is quite knowledgeable in matters two-handed-sword related, particularly the distinction between German and English styles. He's got all the fancy names for positions down pat, and can explain why you move from one position to the next in a very clear way with his usual cheery enthusiasm.

I was talking over illumination and gilding with Katherine (who is starting illumination, and was trying out different mixes).

Vitus over heard me talking about what gesso is made of. 'Oh', he says, 'you should use Gesso di Bologna for the filler, like I did when I was priming this box with gesso and bone glue'.

(It stank, said Isabel, even from the garage you could smell it...)

'Sure' says I, whenever you have a load of gesso di bologna, let me know. It's very expensive and you get huge quantities, when you only need tiny amounts. (Cornelissen's smallest quantity is 1kg, when I might need a teaspoon's worth at a time.)

He stares at me, then reaches down (he's standing in the garage as we're reloading the trailer) and picks up a 5kg bag of gesso di Bologna.

Apparently when you're Vitus, you buy it on the Internet from a German source in industrial quantities. Why am I not surprised?

So now, on top of every other esoteric ingredient for gilding, I have a lifetime supply of gesso di Bologna...and so does Katherine. I helped myself to some Ziplocs and we each made off with about a cupful, earnestly hoping neither of us got stopped by the cops carrying a bag of white powder.

SO: does anyone have a recipe for gesso that uses this stuff? how is it different from plaster of Paris, or is it suspiciously similar? Anyone got any success stories?

Since Ozbeg doesn't travel w/out his iPad, I was able to point Katherine to the recipe's of Mistress Yvianne's, which are almost identical to Mistress Oriane's. Both these call for slaked plaster vs the Bologna powder; Oriane uses coffee sugar rather than honey (less control over what goes into honey), but otherwise quantities are very similar.

This isn't directly related to my 30-day challenge, but it's part of the Great Gilding Project which may yet take off again.

pity my birthday isn't for months yet.

Tod's Stuff - pen knife

I'm cutting more quills and finding my scalpels aren't quite right anymore. Drool...

Having a brain again means I'm actually paying attention at work and doing work, not surfin'.
So fewer posts.

Annoying trip into deepest East End London to pick up a package from FedEx; it's amazing how a company dedicated to convenience is so crap at being convenient.

Excellent scribing on the weekend, looking forward to doing more callig, and some gilding, for delivery this week.

Also spent an afternoon with the splendid Teddy, working with his smocking device.

He and his beloved have a wonderful house in W'don, tailored to them, stuffed to the gills with their treasures of reenactment, Far Isles, and cons of every flavour, reflecting their love of fine clothes in every setting.

They also share the house with a mature gentleman cat named Edward. Sigh.

On the smocking we had mixed success, broke a lot of needles, but the end result (sometime next month) will make my sweetie the belle of the ball...eventually! Hopefully in time for Crown.

I'm counting this as a day, since it makes a big difference.

At the shire meeting, Mistress Oriane asked about my progress, and I complained about my dry non-sticky gesso.

She said she'd been working on a batch herself, and had had to double the sugar(!) to get it to a sticky state - something in the conditions here are different, that require a different mix. 

Relief! and I said so, as I'd thought it was just me.

'It probably is just you' said nusbacher helpfully. What are friends for?

SO: I go home with intent to either add a teeeeeeny amount of sugar to the current gesso (I was thinking dissolving some sugar into the water, then letting a new gesso button soak in it)...I'm not quite up to knocking out a new batch of gesso, not without at least trying to salvage what I have.

But hurrah - if Oriane has to change her old-faithful gesso recipe to work in southern England, I feel much better.