Posts

The Tournament of the Golden Swan

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I have just returned from the Tournament of the Golden Swan, and I'm happy to announce it was a success!  Golden Swan is a female persona development challenge (a challenger does not need to identify as female to enter). There are several categories: Persona Creation, Everyday Life, Habitat, Food, Textiles, Costume, Correspondence, Games/Pasttimes, Performance, and Survival. Most are mandatory, but the last three on the list you can select two out of three. Full information on the Tournament of the Golden Swan can be found here, including the full evaluation rubric: https://www.goldenswan.org/  I visited the event with an SCA friend of mine in 2022, and we travelled with two other people who soon became friends as well. We rolled into Cawston at something like 3:30 am and walked into a dark, quiet, welcoming building that smelled of apples. It was the first time I experienced "hall camping". The whole weekend was amazing. I was so moved by the entire experienc
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Everyone needs a little red dress

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More swan prep... To complete the outfit, Adelheid needs an overgown. I found an inspiration piece in someone else's work for a loose, unfitted over gown where the shaping comes from the apron. I had some red wool (or wool blend) fabric donated to me, but I didn't have very much. The inspiration piece is fabric conservative, lower to middle class German, and is easy to put on. Perfect for a middle aged widow to travel in. Essentially, it's wide rectangular panels gathered into a neck band. I've never made a dress like this so I made a mock-up. See, I do learn. It seemed successful so I moved on to step two. I called a friend, Wulfwyn, to help me figure it all out. First, we burned a piece of the fabric to see what it was. There was some melting but overall it smelled like singed hair. Wool blend! We folded the fabric to get the rectangular panels, maximizing the piece of cloth and minimizing seams. There she is, showing off her cool seam ruler, to cut off a
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Embroidered Collar for the linen hemd

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To decorate the collar of the linen hemd, I'm going to do a little counted stitch embroidery from the modelbuch. How cute is that! The design is documented to 1529, and likely in use earlier. I first tried another design but it was too large for the space on the collar which is quite narrow. It was quickly apparent in the test I did, seen below. I cut a piece of linen very similar in size to the lining and then did a blackwork "Holbein" stitch, counting 10 holes as a stitch length. I love blackwork for the way it makes the same design on both sides. So tidy, so satisfying! Here's a picture of me counting my threads. I would run in between the threads of the linen, using the top of my needle to count two threads at a time. I used cotton embroidery thread, 2 strands. I would have preferred to use silk but I was eager to get on with the project as time is ticking by more quickly than I'd like. Cotton is a period fiber... Technicall
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