montjoye

I've written this up for a class I run occasionally on demystifying the art of testing for fibre types by burning. Keeping it simple, just dealing with the basics.


( rest under here )

reposting here for better findability.

I think it’s time. I’m going to have a bit of a holiday from the SCA. I have not been having a good time at standard SCA events with fighting+court+feast+lots of people(all of whom I’m supposed to know and interact with) or any combination of the above really. All of those things distress me in various ways. I’ve been feeling this way for quite some years but forcing myself to go to events because I think I ought, feeling like a fish out of water and not having a good time. So I’m going to try having a break before I burn out the remainder of my enthusiasm. I still love making things, knowing other people who make things, wonderfully crazy people, dressing up etc, but it’s hard to be involved in those things without large helpings of the rest.

I will still attend Polit university. A&S is cool, I’m booked, and anyway, I’m teaching. I will still make things, some of them might even be medjeeval. I think I will otherwise plan to stay away until Canty Faire (flights already booked). If I have a good time there I will likely come to festival. The very large events actually work better for me, I’m more able to find a safe corner and mostly avoid the things I’m not coping with. After that we will see.

Of course I might miss it and attend anyway, but I’d rather come when I’m not expected than feel I’m expected to go. We will see.

With my hips sore after a 2hr walking/shopping trip, I was motivated to get to the mattress enhancement project on my festival list. I have a rope bed, with a half thickness cotton futon and a feather topper. All home made, which is nice and all but this rig leaves me tossing and turning with sore hips after a night or so.

those two lumps of foam are latex mattress offcuts I got at Reverse Garbage a couple of years ago. Dr Nik helped me lug them and compress them so I could get them home in my suitcase. I had visions of making a mattress topper with the thick piece, but of course there is less of it than I had imagined. I could possibly achieve this anyway if I could manage to cut it in three pieces horizontally. Rather a job. Apparently electric carving knives are the best way to cut this stuff, and I don't have one. So... in the short term, I decided to make a small pad for the hip zone out of the thin topping strip.





I cut that in three and encased it in some left over cotton canvas, which some might recognise from an ill conceived attempt to cover the BBQ shelters at Tara.



I quilted it very coarsely by hand to prevent the pieces shifting, and sewed down the edges of the canvas on the machine. Voila! I hope this is a bit more comfy. I will find out rather soon. It could hardly be worse.



And yeeess. This is a single mattress. It fits better in my tent than a wide bed dammit.

I'm looking forward to wearing this one! It's too warm to put it on today though so you only get pics on a hanger. I've cut it on the baggy side for easier donning and comfy lounging about. I left out the centre godets to leave the stripes as uninterupted as possible. I would have been happier with the fabric if the stripe had been symmetrical so it matched with the inversion of the side pieces but striped wool isn't easy to find and I couldn't get the needed fullness without the inverted cut. The mismatch is less noticeable than I feared though. I'd have cut the tippets longer but I didn't want another piecing seam in the sleeve.





It's based on these sort of garments from the Taymouth Hours. I've made this sort of shaped overgown before, but look! it's short! and split! So practical for camping, packing and general outdoor wear.



All the pics have some sort of line or dotty border. I've gone with a simple prick stitch for subtle bling.

While slightly under the influence last Friday night, I volunteered to make beer for an event. Mrsbrown asked "what would make this event fun for you", or words to that effect. My first answer was "clothes that fit", closely followed by "making a brew for it". So... a few days later, I have done more reading, decided on a brew and ordered the grain.

I'm going to have a second try at what I was attempting for last festival. This time I will order the correct grain and not mix it up with a second recipe. This is the Irish Red recipe from Classic Styles, with a few small changes. I've halved the amount of roast barley because the type I can get is darker than the one the recipe calls for. I've swapped out a little of the pale malt for smoked malt. I'm going very cautious on the smoked, don't panic. A proper rauch beer recipe has 33% beech smoked malt. I'm only using 5%.

Nods to 16/17th century brewing:
-Low levels of specialty malts. The old recipe I'm looking at just says "malt". I've read some things that suggest early malts were all dark. Others think it was paler but likely mixed in with some bits that got too hot. Wood smoke was almost certainly involved.
-a smallish amount of low alpha acid English hops, added only at the start of the boil.

I'm not using historical mashing technique though. I'm not set up for gravity mashing. So I'm aiming at a line somewhere between authenticity and a tested recipe. I also don't want to serve anything much higher than 5% alcohol for safety/health/limiting intoxication reasons. The old recipe has twice the malt, which would mean something less than twice the alcohol (efficiency of sugar extraction drops with higher grain to water ratio). Later, when not under pressure as the only brew for an event, I'll have a go with these ratios and see what happens. I'd like to know better how to imitate the old malt though.

I'm still evolving my plan for the small beer. I think I'll keep it simple and not use either honey or spices. If it comes out a bit tasteless, I can steep the orange and spice and add it in later.

For 12th night, a scrap of wool fabric and some freezer bricks worked fairly well to keep my beer cool. But arranging the wool was awkward. So, though not exactly medieval, here is a more elegant and hopefully functional version. Two layers of dark navy wool gaberdine with wool batting between, quilted together by hand with silk, 'cause i could. All from stash.  It is sized to fit neatly inside my feast box. It takes up much of the box but is squishy so the ratio of beer to other stuff I can carry is fairly flexible.



( and in situ )