Consorts, books and crosses

I decided to make Ynigo a favor as he was fighting for me. He loves the cross, which is a cross of Santiago, I think. I made the tiny book out of elephant poo paper. I have tried to make paper, but I have been largely unsuccessful.  It is a pretty tough process and the only real medieval mention is a bamboo type from China.

I cut small sheets of the poo paper into pages, and bound 8 or so together at a time. I made several packets and then cut a leather cover. I tooled the cover and painted the cross in gold acrylic paint.  I then dyed the cover. After it all dried a few days, I softened it using Huberd's Shoe Grease.  I let that sit for a few more days until it was all absorbed. In the meantime, I finger braided a cord so he could wear it on his belt.  It doesn't show in the picture, but I used a tiny coprolite (dinosaur poo) bead as a button closure. I made a loop by using a length of silk to make a loop and I button hole stitched around that.

I put the whole thing together by sewing the packets into the leather cover.  Yay for my first book.

One day, my Laurel and I went to Santa Cruz. We are nutso hippies and like to clean up the beach.  So, we cleaned the beach and went to find a spot to wash our hands.  Then this happened: 

One of the nice things about living in a vineyard in Napa Valley is that you get to make wine from gleaning the grapes.  

 Fall mornings are either foggy and cold, or extremely hot. After the first frost, the leaves start turning the most gorgeous colors of red and gold. Seasons do change here and the fall colors are magnificent.

 The winery allowed us to go in and gather a few grapes last year.  I used my family's old prune boxes to measure out how many lugs we would need to put together a small batch for the carboys.




I have a small press I bought so we can press pears and apples.  I love the thing and it is great for all sorts of lovely food products.  Grape fermentation isn't really a bodily fluid of any sort, so this really doesn't apply to me in any way, except that wine really goes with cheese!

My friend Fritz and I decided to make wine a few years ago, and these are the pictures.  I got out the press, but we found one of the locks was missing for the transmission. Crapity craps!  Mr Fritz and I decided we could work around that. He said two old Italians should be able to get around it.  I didn't want to use our feet.

 Fritz has massive hands. He decides to crush the grapes with his hands.  Fritz is bad ass.  Here is some juice! It took a while.  He works faster if you talk about people he needs to kill.

Here he is, thinking about people he wants dead.  He does not like to be interrupted when he is squishing the heads of people he wants dead.  I like it.

We squished about 70 pounds of grapes and got almost a carboy full. I would not do this by hand again because you can see how much we lost.  I also was really disappointed in the way the wine turned out. It continued a slow fermentation because we didn't use sulfides to kill off the yeast when the wine was perfect.  I did like our labels!! 

Pill Box Hats.

My very first 12th Night, I wore a small, white pillbox hat. The hat was perched on top of my head, as I had seen it in an illumination.  I had made a veil to go under it, and a very fancy green and tapestry dress with angel type sleeves.  I was very proud of my outfit, as I had spent hours on it and had sewn it with a broken hand.

I was asked constantly about the hat.  Many people were sweet and receptive.  However, there were a few who were insistent that the pillbox hat was not a medieval hat.  I was surprised at those who denied the hat styles' existence.  There are dozens of examples of the pill box hat.  It seems to have been used by both men and women, depending on the time period. It is a nice hat for cooler weather. I think it functioned similar to a beanie hat would today. It was warm, and close fitting. It did not fly off in high winds. The hat does not shield a person from the sun or snow glare.

Here is an example of a hat from the Groninger Museum. It was one of the two hats found at Leens. The other has a cute bill on it.  This hat is made of straight and whip stitches and decorated with an interlacing stitch similar to the herringbone stitch. It appears that fancy stitching was a common feature of these hats. The piece has a split top, as many of the pillbox hats seem to have. If they do not have a top seam, they seem to have a false seam at the top. I think this was probably a decorative element, though I tend to make my hats out of scraps so I find it an easy hat style to piece together. If you are a beginner at sewing, hats are a fun way to start. 

I have recently decided to recreate this hat to the best of my ability.  I did an earlier hat from the collection taken by Poul Nørlund and listed as Museum No. D10610.  I made it to exactly the dimensions that were in Else Østergård's book, Woven Into the Earth; Textiles from Norse Greenland. Unfortunately, I did not have a proper twill so I used a commercial wool and washed it in hot water until it had the appearance of boiled wool.

I expected the hat to be a very small size, because I have grown up with the idea that medieval people are somehow very small in comparison to modern humans. I finished the hat and realized it was precisely the right size for my friend Greg.  He has a small noggin, and I thought it would fit him.  I have since measured him for other clothing. It was a good reminder for me that they were not that different in size.  Greg's skull was about the same size as the skull of one of the men found in Herjolfsnes.  Greg benefits from a good diet that is higher in protein and edible fats, so he probably has a greater muscle mass and we might infer Greg is taller. His counterpart lived a subsistence lifestyle, but it is likely he had good nutrition in his early years.  This has been reflected in my earlier paleobotany research on the diets of similar people in York and Gottland. I hope to update that information and republish it in the blog at a later date.  It is a good reminder for me to curb my assumptions.

The next reproduction I decided to work on was the Leems hat.  I felt the Groninger Museum hat was well covered by The Journal of Archeology of the Low Countries in its article Chrystel R. Brandenburgh's excellent article,  Early medieval textile remains from settlements in the Netherlands. An evaluation of textile production. The information she presented was incredibly clear.
 I was unprepared to accurately recreate the original hat, because I did not have a diamond twill and I am not a weaver. I could practice the construction of the cap, and that is what I decided to do. I cut the pattern and whip stitched the cap together. I turned under and a blanket stitched the edges in place. I then ran a simple running stitch in a coordinating thread around the bottom. I have been practicing the interlocking herringbone around the top.  My stitch work is poor, but the hat is spiffy and fun. It is a wonderful style and I look forward to adding it to my wardrobe.

The hats seem to be found more in male identified graves than in female, though there are a lot of examples of pillbox type hats in illuminations. I plan on doing more pillbox hats in the future.

How long as has been since I posted?  More than 5 years!  I am bad about blogging. I have decided to put up several posts with a progression of projects.  I am constantly busy making things, so it is not surprising I have had little time to update the blog.

I have been studying cheeses as part of my bodily fluids research. I have a small herd of dairy goats.  They have been a constant source of amusement and excitement. I have five does at this time. I am going to start with baby pictures of the kids.

This is my handsome billy goat Donatello. He is our herd sire. He was chosen because he is well mannered and large.  I do keep the horns on my goats. This is because we live in an area that is impacted heavily by aggressive coyotes.  The goats need to be able to defend themselves.