Another Viking experiment

I told myself after Pennsic that I needed to start going to more events (or, you know, any) outside of AE, so I started with an immersive Viking event, Bloodfeud in the Danelaw.

First there was a linen underdress. There were measurements, there were plans, there were so many calculations, and I still managed to make it four inches too big in the shoulders.

::sigh::

It's just an underdress, I can put darts in the shoulders and nobody will know the better.

I used this knowledge to update the overdress pattern. Not great, not terrible. Very comfortable, at least.

The cool thing, though, was that I discovered this post the week before the event. A couple of years ago, my mother had given me a mink coat she didn't want anymore. I told her the only opportunity I would have to wear it would be to an SCA event. She was glad it would get used, regardless of the environment. It was perfect and cozy and the best Viking item I own. 

Ugh, Viking

I have wanted to get a decent Viking kit together for many, many years, and I just can never get it to be aesthetically pleasing. I am ruined by late period tailoring -___-

For starters, there is the coat I made October 2022 for Crown Tourney out of an army blanket and lined with linen.  Great in theory, less so in practice.  Somehow it still managed to not be warm enough and still let the wind through.

In December, I made a smocked apron dress (in the hotel the night before) for Hael Investiture.  Great party, not so great potato sack.

Later that month, I finished making a Hedby bag that I could "use for going to classes" and carry all of my notebooks and printouts.  It is functional, but it felt oversized in practice.  I might remake it, or not.  Again, it's functional.

Peer pressure cider

At AEthelmearc War Practice 2023, I was "gifted" a cider kit by the Brewer's Guild so that I could have something easy to make for Pennsic. Because of course I was moving for the fourth summer in a row (the weekend directly leading up to Pennsic). It was relatively simple to follow, and luckily fool proof. May 30th I bought a 7 gallon bucket, and June 3rd I threw it all together per the instructions. I skipped the flavor packet since I know many people that associate cherry with cough syrup.

It was only supposed to go for a month or so, but I didn't have the opportunity to get back to it until July 22nd, when I bottled two gallons of the cider and split the rest between two containers. The first I added mango nectar and the other a tropical guava concoction.

I gave it one more week before bottling the rest.  I used the tent ropes to keep the bottles from crashing around in the back of the truck.

Again, I was surprised with how well the ciders were received.  Nothing earth shattering, but the nectars were a good enhancement.

Peony water

 

 

In May, I watched a great video by Black Forager where she explained how to make rosewater on the stove.  This lined up with these gorgeous peonies flowering in front of my house and I just had to try it.

In a sauce pan, put a small bowl surrounded by your flower petals and some water.  Put a lid on top upsidedown filled with ice.  Turn the heat up enough to get a simmer and have the water barely begin to steam, collect on the iced lid, and drip into the bowl in the center.

This produces flower water in the bowl, and a flower tea in the pan.  Both are consumable and will have different profiles.  I brought both to AEthelmearc War Practice to the Brewer's Guild round table as a proof of concept.  The water worked significantly better than the tea, which was on the bitter side, but definitely needs a lot more work to get right.  I was gifted a cider kit for my troubles.

Cordial Stag Inn

I had a great time at Cordial Stag Inn last December. I threw two cordials together (coffee and blueberries) and had the opportunity to drag out all the remnants from the past several years.  Sometimes I am very confident that people are going to like what I made, and sometimes I am afraid I'm really phoning it in.  Things went well this time and I managed to get rid of the vast majority, so that's good. 

Bonus picture of me washing all of the corpses that came home from Pennsic.

Pennsic tamales

2016 / 2019 / 2022

I absolutely love making tamales at Pennsic.  Sometimes there is pre-planning, sometimes there is less so.  This year I had the bright idea to buy ingredients locally.  And failed.

 

But!  With some help form my friends, I was able to crowdsource a coffee can of bacon grease, some wonderful bougie nixtamal, Canadian chocolate jimmies, corn husks from the corner, and just enough peanut butter liberated from the poodle.  And because it is naturally gluten free, I got to share with even more friends!  A wonderful tradition that I am excited to continue for years to come.

Pandemic Coffee Bochet

What happens when you move to another state six months into a pandemic? You make five gallons of booze, apparently.  I took advantage of the one friend I had near by and learned to make bochet. Instead of being at Pennsic August 2, 2020, we caramelized two of those containers of honey.  Five pounds each?  It sure would be nice if I could find the notes we made >.>

 

 

Anyway.  Caramelized the honey, added a bunch of coffee I had coldbrewing in the fridge for three days, added the nutrients, and then left the bucket to ferment

September 24th I decanted into big pickle jars to transport from the first apartment to the second one. It was still very sweet, so I added more nutrients and started a second fermentation.

  

January 30th Ifinally let it settle so that I could decant and remove all the solids.

The second ferment ended up very dry and strong and I figured I could use it as the base to make krupnic. Late July I started to prep it for Pennsic and realized a simple backsweetening would suffice.  I caramelized another couple of honey containers to the same degree I had the first time to much success. I tried to add some cardamom, but it didn't show through much.

Blarg. I hope I can some day dig up the specifics, but I'm glad to have collected the pictures into a post, at least.

Belts

I seem to always need and/or want more belts and trims for different outfits.  In 2021, I decided I was fed up with my inkle loom from Pinebox Traders that I had gotten over a decade before and complained every time I warped it, but still threw on some crochet cotton so that I could make a new belt for Fall Crown Tourney at the end of August.  And, much to nobody's surprise, I don't have a good picture of me wearing it >.>

 

In my infinite wisdom, I saw a bolt of iron on interfacing and thought, hey, that is wonderfully sheer!  I wish I could find linen that was this transparent with a tighter weave than cheesecloth.  Hey, what if I iron off the plastic?

 

This led to me trying to blot it off with an iron and newspaper, having the yellow ink from said newspaper stain the cotton, having to meticulously peel off the now shredded paper from said iron stamp.  And then getting another brilliant idea to use a lint shaver to peel off all the plastic.

It took me a good couple of days to at least de-plasti-lint the middle half of the two 3-yard strips of interfacing.  But hey, it still looks fabulous!  I think it might have only been another couple of days to weave the belt.

 

Fast forward to the second apartment and the summer of 2022 when I finally "ordered a new loom for my birthday (of 2021)" from Eggil.  Somebody immediately helped me warp it.

 

 

I learned that I warped it very, very wrong. Somehow the tension on the warp was completely off, with the edge warps being a lot more tense than the center warps.  I don't know where I gave myself the idea that I could szhuszh it once I was done weaving, but that was, not how that works.  In the end, I still had a functional strap that I threw onto my Hedby bag.  It's functional.  It's a strap.

 

A month later, in July, I warped the second project.  I first decided to try string heddles on the box loom, which didn't particularly work well.  Then I got a rigid hedle for it and haven't liked that any better.  The cool thing was that I went to Tim and Gabrielle's for a fighter practice and got to re-warp the whole thing across their kitchen island.  It was a fantastic time.

This is still on the loom in the dunce's corner.

This year at FFF, I started another cardweaving belt that I hate, bought a third loom, and have been duteously weaving on that.  I did some really "interesting" justifications to flatten the rainbow spiral down into just two colors so that I could just practice turning the cards, solving problems (over facetime with Mahin) and just get something functional.

I have managed to mess up, resolve, change my mind, and forge ahead so many times.  But I've made progress!  And I think I only have about a foot left to weave (out of the 69" warp).

Pretty early on, I got the bright idea to attach fishing swivels to the warps, which still sucked because I'd have to chase the twist out of the teal cards and not the white cards through the whole loom.  So I left the white cards (balanced twist) on a continuous warp, untied the ten teal cards, and have them awkwardly hitched around a peg, where I chase out the twist every time I have to pull more warp around.

Meh, it works, and it is getting done, which is a lot more than I can say for at least half of my weaving projects >.>