Eva's journal

Spring Crown was held at Rockelstad castle. The oldest parts of the castle are from the 17th century and it has a beautiful park by a lake. On their web page you can read about the history of the place and see more photos.

Me posing before the castle after breakfast, which was in the old brewing house by the lake. The yellow house is the old bowling alley.



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I didn't take many photos. And actually Valeria took all the photos of me :)
But if you want more, which you certainly do, have a look at Jessica Granath's photo album on facebook. She took lots of photos both of the tourney and from inside the castle. The family still lives in it, but it was open for visitors one hour. I didn't get to see it then, because I was busy judging A&S comeptition entries, but I hope that we will have events there again.

In a facebook post some days ago I said that it's only when you start trying to make a bra pattern that you realize how enormous your boobs are. Well they are, but I think the Lengberg bra -dress will work, with a smocked shirt and a dress over it.  Since visual sources from the period seem to favour boobs close to the armpits I tried to at least not press them together. But making a good bra from these finds is rather complicated when you have both large boobs and a ribcage which is much wider at teh lowest rib than o both under and over the bust.
But, as I said, I think it will work to get the right silhouette.

The Ashmolean museum has a fine collection of printed cotton textiles from the 13th centuries onward. These are the 16th century ones, which unfortunately are fewer than the ones from the previous centuries. The are all found in Egypt.

I remade an old a-line tunic of hers, made from heavy wool, to a shorter overdress for her gothic fitted dress:



( And her saxon court dress now only lacks sleeves and brustfleck: )

The dress has been finished since Tuesday last week, but since Vendela has been at her dad's place it is not until now that I could take a photo. A very informal one, without doing anything with her hair or any other styling.



I think a silk girdle with a small purse hanging from it, her fringe pinned back and braids looped up on her head would look very nice.

An hour ago or something a fellow PhD-student, who's also employed at the Varberg museum, called and asked if I could come down to Varberg (ca 100km from here) this afternoon since they were going to investigate and discuss new radiocarbon dating of the Bocksten Bog man's costume and he wanted to hear my opinions while they were doing it. Unfortunately I couldn't go today, since I have to finish a chapter before friday and then a woman from Nylöse will come over tonight to fit a 15th century italian dress. And I really can't do things spontaneously like that, I need more planning time with a baby and everything. So we decided that the next time the archaeologist who was going to look at him comes there I would come down. Then I would have time to prepare before, studying images from the relevant time period etc.

I tried on a blue gothic fitted dress/cotehardie that I made 1 1/2 years ago but never have had the opportunity to wear yesterday. One thing we can be sure of is that I am smaller than I was then, because I could get into it without loosening the lacing in the back. So of course it did nothing to keep my bust where it should be etc. This is actually a good thing because apart from the fact that it's a good thing that I'm loosing weight I never was really happy with the way that dress looked. I tried a new (for me) method with shaping in the front seam and not only at the sides and it gave my bust the oddest shape. But now there is space enough to make the curve over the bust less pronounced while taking in the dress at the sides in the waist so it might actually fit better. I hope so, because the colour, a greenish blue looks really good on me (the colour analysis thing popping up again). Of course the dress is wholly lined and in the way where lining and top fabric are treated as one, so it is quite a lot of job to change the dress, but I'm not going to wear it anytime soon so that's not a problem.

I've taken pictures of the finished sleeve and pilgrim's bag. If you look at the sleeve you can see that my skin is visible through the buttonholes. I don't like that, but it's caused by the shanks of the cloth buttons being much bigger than metal shanks and I don't know what to do about that. Probably just another thing I'll have to accept. And it will be the skin that is visible, because the sleeve is too tight to wear a shift under the buttoned part. At least the lower part, so I will have to push up the sleeve of my shift a little and wear the wool directly on my skin. It will itch, since this is rather itchy wool, but I have stockings from this wool so I know I will get used to it.

I managed to hem the maroon dress, (or is it more eggplant-coloured? I hate names for colours, especially in foreign languages) yesterday. What I have left to do is the neck opening and the sleeves, including hand sewn buttonholes and cloth buttons made like the finds from 14th c London, like these. (The dress on the picture is new at "Historiska varldar" and made by my talented friend Julia. You can see it here My wool is very thin so I will have to fill the buttons with wool scraps, with heavier wool you don't need that.
I also tried on a linen tunic I made for Maja. It will fit, at least the coming weeks, but I will make bigger tunics for Visby. Because we are going!! We will have to dig into some money I got as a scholarship to finish my dissertation, but I don't care, because we're going! I know it will be fun, especially since this is the first time since 1998 that our camp and the SCA camp will be in the same place. Since I used to be in the SCA before the split in 1995 I still have friends there and I've really missed living next to them. The last years I've had to rely on running into them in town, which is a bit chancy.

It's raining and very grey outside. It makes me feel sleepy.