"Why?" you ask... Well, first a bit about me. I am a long time Alaskan (27.5 years and counting), a happily married wife of 17+ years, a Mom of three, a Girl/Boy scout leader, and a avid player in the Society for Creative Anachronism where I am known as Lady Margery Garret. The last bit is what brings me here. The Society for Creative Anachronism is a worldwide organization that, as it says on the website www.sca.org, "The SCA is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. Our "Known World" consists of 19 kingdoms, with over 30,000 members residing in countries around the world. Members, dressed in clothing of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, attend events which feature tournaments, royal courts, feasts, dancing, various classes & workshops, and more.” I started playing in the SCA at the ripe old age of 12 and stayed through till I turned 20 and was looking towards marriage and my first child. For some silly reason I left the SCA for about 13 years until I realized how much I missed it. By that time my youngest child was three, I was a stay-at-home-Mom and I needed an outlet SOMEWHERE. Rejoining the SCA as an adult was quite the eye-opener. As a kid, I was just interested in the dressing up part, the food, the singing, the dancing, and whatever cute guy I could flirt with. Now I realize just how much I was missing!
In the past seven years I have found an incredible depth of things to learn in embroidery, clothing making, lacemaking, and many other activities to numerous to list. I have since reveled in learning that cross-stitch is NOT the only embroidery around, and that all those "costumes" I used to wear are actually pretty amazing sets of clothes. It doesn't hurt that after my first year back, my Husband got to wondering what I was up too, followed me to an event one day and got sucked into a kitchen...and the rest was history (pun intended). He has always loved to cook, but to have such fun playing with old recipes and spices...he is in heaven! Two out of my three kids followed me in as well. Now I have a son that is doing his own research into medieval Japan, and a daughter who bugs me for French coathardies circa 13th century. With myself enjoying the aspects of the Early Tudor age and my Husband a frustrated Viking (I make the clothes...he wears a lot of English), it does give me quite the range to play with in all kinds of skills and activities to research and do.
Now to explain why I would bother with a blog at all. The SCA will be turning 50 in just a few years, and a challenge has been set for the Arts and Sciences of the SCA to do 50 things by the SCA's 50th birthday. This challenge is to get those of us participating to try and either expand the depth of our knowledge of a subject, expand the breadth of your knowledge by doing/trying 50 new things, or the persona challenge to try and learn/do 50 things that your persona would do. I have challenged myself officially with the depth challenge...I vowed to make 50 pieces of lace. This challenges me to expand my base of knowledge in bobbin lacemaking, as well as to learn more types of lace such as Punto in Aria, tatting, and even fillet crochet. This blog gives me an "out there" way of keeping track of what I have done. Mind you, I have produced about 15 pieces of lace this past year...but as I was silly enough to give it all away before I took pictures of it, I am not counting it. So, starting now we shall see just how far I can get.
One other area I am challenging myself on is in my clothing making. For the past four years, I have been trying to make my clothing more "period"...in other words, more correct for the way they would have been made in the early 1500's. I have, however, been a bit loathe to do anything "really fancy". I am not a small gal, and there is always that hope that "maybe I'll lose that bit of weight" but I now realize that if I ever want the pleasure of making the clothes that I want, I have to just buckle down and DO IT. So here goes... I have been in love with the dress of Mary Tudor in her wedding portrait to Charles Brandon.
I want to try and make a dress similar to that dress. I am not fond of velvet though, so I want to use a beautiful rose brocade that I have had in my closet for years. I do have the pretty stone ouches and glass pearls that I have been hording for both the embellishment on the dress, as well as a girdle belt to go with the dress. This will be a long term project with many different steps. I did complete step one this month before our Winter Coronet Tourney January 16th. I was able to get the Kirtle done. This is the underdress that is the foundation garment that the main dress will be over. I will save the details on how and what for tomorrow when I can get some pictures of it :)
Hopefully this blog will help keep me on track and will allow me a space to share the trials and tribulations as I try and teach myself all I need to know to do this right....Words of advice and encouragement will never go amiss :)
One last note for today...Why "A Stitch in Black, White, and Red"? First, they are my favorite colors in combination. Second, I belong to the Barony of Winter's Gate in the SCA and our colors are Black and White and as I am the current Baroness, that makes them my colors too.
My actual device/arms look like:
Gee...any similarity in color there? :) Nah... Oh well, enough blogging...back to stitching!
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